Ethnic-Demographic Changes in the Data of the Statistical Sources of the City of Vilnius (1920–1939)

Abstract

The article deals with the ethnic-demographic developments in the city of Vilnius in 1920–1939, the ‘Polish’ period, when Poles in 1920 occupied Vilnius by armed means and quickly incorporated it into Poland. Due to political, socio-economic and cultural factors (the ethnic policy undertaken by Poland, the importance of Vilnius as the political-economic, cultural-education centre, processes of intensive migration, etc), significant ethnic-demographic changes occurred in the city. It became an attractive object for the Polish population, the number of people of Polish nationality, mainly due to migration, increased steadily (from 70,000 in 1920, to about 130,000 in 1939). During the discussed period, Vilnius was a Polish-Jewish city, in which by 1939, Poles accounted for about 66 per cent, and Jews about 29 per cent of the city’s population.