Demographics

Currently Poland is 97% ethnically Polish, making it among the most ethnically homogenous in all of Europe (if not the most). However, while historical demographic changes are hard to assess, by many assessments Poland was at one point in its history one of the most ethnically diverse. One can glimpse this in the 1931 census in Poland, where the Polish population was less than 70%.

Polish Population 1931 Polish Population 1931 (Percentage of Total)

This census is controversial because it made its demographic categorizations by mother tongue and religion. Given the linguistic variety that existed in Poland at this time, and the fact that many people who identified as Poles were multilingual, I can’t think of a question more ill-fitted to make a demographic assessment for the country at this time than: “what is your mother tongue?”. Most Jews, for example, spoke at the least Polish and Yiddish, and many also spoke Hebrew. Deciding one’s mother tongue varied widely by community and by person. Many Jews considered Polish as their mother tongue. However, some sources claim that there were more Jews (i.e. those whose religion was Judaism) who considered themselves ethnically Polish than those that claimed Polish as their mother tongue (see Ezra Mendelson here).

There are several other quandaries pertaining to this census, all of which are fascinating from an ethnographic perspective. Another example is the distinction between the oft-lumped together Ruthenians and Ukrainians, the former of whom 96% identified as Roman Catholic while 46% of the latter claimed to be Orthodox. Suffice to say that this census was flawed in more ways than one. However, these demographic dilemmas underscore Poland’s diversity at the time, and reveal a country where ethnic and linguistic diversity was the norm.

And despite its flaws, the census still yields interesting statistical insights, especially in terms of faith (which was a clearer demographic indicator than language).

These graphs highlight the enormous presence of Jewish life in Poland right before WWII. Besides Ukrainian, Yiddish was the second most widely-spoken language after Polish, and those who identified their faith as Jewish comprised nearly 10% of the population.

Borders

Poland celebrates this year its 100th anniversary of its independence in 1918 (the same day we celebrate Veteran’s Day in the US, to celebrate the end of WWI). However, a map of Poland’s borders when it was resuscitated by Allied forces after WWI show that the country’s borders were vastly different than they are today.

Poland’s Changing Borders

Throughout its history, Poland’s geographic security (and its existence as an independent nation) was in limbo. Given the rise and wane of the Polish-Lithuanian empire, three partitions by foreign powers, and redrawn boundaries after both world wars, it is evident that changing borders is the norm. Nonetheless, the contemporary Polish borders are unique in one notable way when compared to all its most recent iterations: Poland hasn’t reached as far west as it does currently since the 11th century.

Poland’s shifting borders match its historical demographic changes. In a country whose borders were in a constant state of flux, it comes as new surprise that the country housed an ethnic mélange of Poles, Jews, Ukrainians, and Belarusians. As such, the growth and flourishing of shtetl life arose on lands much farther east than the borders of today’s Poland suggest. Today, Poles are keen to emphasize how Poland throughout its history was the most westward-looking nation in Eastern Europe, and underscore the nation’s historical bonds to Western allies (France, Britain, and of course the US). While this in many ways is true, Poland’s historical borders are not convenient for this narrative, and are often overlooked. The historical reality is that Poland was a nation of shifting borders, cultural and religious diversity, and – as I will point out next – ethnic tolerance.

Governance

Much ink has been spilled about the rise of the right in Poland, and what this means for EU cohesion, women’s rights and the state of democracy. In an eerie echo to Trump’s revisionist history, the rightist Polish government emphasizes its own vision of a religiously uniform and mono-ethnic country, while actively suppressing or eschewing its own historical reality. Earlier this year, Poland made it a crime to accuse the nation of complicity in Nazi war crimes, punishable by up to 3 years in jail. While this law was eventually repealed, it puts researchers like my girlfriend – whose research highlights exactly the unsavory parts of Polish history that these legislators are intent on covering up – on edge. My girlfriend recently told me an anecdote about a colleague who the entire department expected to receive a Fulbright scholarship. His application was rejected, and many in the department surmise that his research into Polish-Jewish ethnic tensions was unpalatable to the Polish Fulbright committee.

The anti-Semitic undertones that characterize the current government’s political rhetoric flies in the face of the Polish government’s historical ethnic tolerance. Starting with the Statute of Kalisz in 1264, Jewish life flourished in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth because of the rights that Polish leaders such as Kazimierz the Great granted them. By the 16th century, 80% of worldwide Jewry resided in Poland. Never before in Europe did Jews have the religious, legal, and economic freedoms that Polish rulers afforded them.

This state of affairs changed after the partitions of Poland. The Russian leadership restricted the Jewish economic freedoms as well as their freedom of movement, and forced Jews to relocate to the Pale of Settlement. Below, I create a map that plots shtetls on a map with Europe’s current borders. You will see that these shtetls sketch a rough outline of the borders of the Pale of Settlement.

This is not to say that anti-Semitism did not exist in early Poland. There were many notable pogroms in historical Poland as well as by Poles in more recent times. But the relative tolerance of the Polish government allowed Jewish life to exist and in this narrow existential space it thrived, first in the shtetls in pre-industrial times and then in bigger cities like Warsaw and Łodź in the 1920’s and 1930’s.