Vilna Governorate

History

Following the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth in 1795, the former lands of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (themselves part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth) were annexed by the Russian Empire. The Russians established two administrative units: the Vilnius Governorate and the Slonim Governorate. On 12 December 1796, by order of Tsar Paul I, these were merged into a single administrative unit called the Lithuania Governorate, with its capital in Vilnius.

On 9 September 1801, Tsar Alexander I divided the Lithuanian Governorate into two: the Lithuania Vilnius Governorate and the Lithuania Grodno Governorate. Around 1840–1843, during the administrative reforms of Tsar Nicholas I, the word "Lithuania" was officially erased from both names and the Vilna Governorate and Grodno Governorate were established.

In 1843, another reform created the new Kovno Governorate out of seven western districts of the Vilna Governorate, including most of Samogitia. In exchange, the Vilna Governorate received the districts of Vileyka and Dzisna from the Minsk Governorate and Lida from the Grodno Governorate. Thereafter, the Vilna Governorate consisted of the districts of Vilnius, Trakai, Dzisna, Ashmyany, Lida, Vileyka and Švenčionys. This administrative structure remained in place until the outbreak of World War I, when the region came under German occupation as part of the Ober Ost military administration.

File:Lithuania-1795.svg|Vilna Governorate (light green), 1795–97, with modern Lithuania outlined File:Lithuania-1867-1914-EN.svg|Vilna Governorate (light green), 1843–1915, with modern Lithuania outlined File:Vilensk.jpg|Vilna Governorate in 1897

Demographics

Main article: Demographic history of the Vilnius region

Plater's statistics of 1825

Count Stanisław Plater was the first one in 1825 to publish approximate statistics on the ethnic makeup of the Vilnius Governorate, which then included most, but not all, of Lithuania. His work's purpose was to show the area's indicative ethnic composition. In the case of the Vilnius Governorate, before a major redrawing of the governorate's borders in 1843, he concluded that it was majority Lithuanian.

Due to the lack of systematic primary data on nationalities, Plater resorted to comparing the revision censuses and religious distribution statistics to provide the general statistics on the population's ethnic distribution. He referred to nobles and townspeople, with the exception of soldiers and Jews, as Poles, whereas he separated the peasants into Lithuanians, Ruthenians, or Russians (which refers to the Old Believers). Overall, the total number of Catholics in the Vilnius Governorate was 930,000, i.e. ¾ of the population.

Plater's ethnic and social classification of the population also reflected the contemporary thought among the elite classes, where in addition to a class difference, an ethnic dividing line was also drawn compared to the lower classes. Thus, Plater categorically renamed the Lithuanians of the traditional political Lithuanian nation as Poles, whereas the lower classes in his view were termed as Lithuanians. A similar attitude could be found elsewhere in Europe, for example, the Hungarian nobility called itself as Natio Hungarica, in contrast to the commoners they called Magyars.

In 1856, a clear example of the ethno-social alienation between a Polish-speaking Lithuanian noble and a Lithuanian-speaking peasant was documented when the poet and writer Władysław Syrokomla, who traditionally considered himself a Lithuanian, traveled through the Dūkštos parish. Somewhere between the Geišiškės and Europa estates, Syrokomla spoke to a villager in Polish, but the latter replied in Lithuanian that he did not understand him, upon which Syrokomla disappointedly exclaimed that: "A Lithuanian in a Lithuanian land could not speak to a Lithuanian".

Russian Empire Census

According to the Russian Empire census on , The Vilna Governorate had a population of 1,591,207, including 790,880 men and 800,327 women. According to the census, the majority of the population indicated Belarusian to be their mother tongue, which followed by a significant Lithuanian and Jewish speakers.

Subdivisions

The counties (uezd) of the Vilna Governorate in 1897 was composed of seven uezds as follows:

Ethnic composition

Russian authorities periodically performed censuses. However, they reported strikingly different numbers:

Governors

Notes

References

Sources

References

1. Kulakauskas, Antanas. (2002). "Gimtoji istorija. Nuo 7 iki 12 klasės". Elektroninės leidybos namai.
2. (1890–1906). "Литовская губерния".
3. (1970–1978). "Administration". Juozas Kapočius.
4. Hamm, Michael F.. (2014). "Kiev: A Portrait, 1800–1917". Princeton University Press.
5. Fortson IV, Benjamin W.. (2011). "Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction". John Wiley & Sons.
6. link
7. link
8. "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей.".
9. Nikolajew, Christina Juditha. (July 2018). "Zum Zusammenhang zwischen nationaler Identitätsbildung und Katholischer Kirche in Litauen". Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen.