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Vilna Governorate

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Vilna Governorate
Governorate
Coat of arms of Vilna Governorate
Coat of arms
Location in the Russian Empire
Location in the Russian Empire
CountryRussian Empire
KraiNorthwestern
Established1795
Abolished1918
CapitalVilnius
Area
 • Total
41,907.9 km2 (16,180.7 sq mi)
Highest elevation
(Aukštojas Hill)
293.84 m (964.0 ft)
Population
 (1897)
 • Total
1,591,207
 • Density37.9691/km2 (98.3396/sq mi)
 • Urban
12.44%
 • Rural
87.56%
Coat of arms of the Vilna Governorate used since 1845

The Vilna Governorate[a] was a province (guberniya) of the Northwestern Krai of the Russian Empire that existed from 1795 to 1918. Established after the Third Partition of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, it encompassed territories of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania and was one of the administrative divisions created by the Russian Empire to replace the institutions of the dissolved Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth.

In 1897, the governorate covered an area of 41,907.9 square kilometres (16,180.7 mi2) and had a population of 1,591,207 inhabitants. It bordered the following governorates: Minsk to the south, Grodno to the southwest, Suwałki to the west, Kovno and Courland to the north, and Vitebsk to the east. Its capital, Vilnius, also served as the seat of the Vilna Governorate-General, which existed until 1912.

History

[edit]

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.[1]

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.[2]

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.[3] 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.

Demographics

[edit]

Plater's statistics of 1825

[edit]

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.[4] His work's purpose was to show the area's indicative ethnic composition.[4] 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.[4][5]

Stanisław Plater's statistics in 1825[6][7][5]
Language People Percentage

of total

Lithuanian 780,000 65%
Yiddish 180,000 15%
Polish 100,000 8,3%
Russians 80,000 6,7%
Ruthenians 50,000 4,2%
Tatars 10,000 0,8%
Total 1,200,000 100%

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.[4] 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).[4] Overall, the total number of Catholics in the Vilnius Governorate was 930,000, i.e. ¾ of the population.[4][8]

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.[7] 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.[7][9] 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.[7]

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.[7] 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".[7]

Russian Empire Census

[edit]

According to the Russian Empire census on 28 January [O.S. 15 January] 1897, 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.[10]

Linguistic composition of the Vilna Governorate in 1897[10]
LanguageNative speakersPercentage
White Russian[b]891,90356.05
Lithuanian279,72017.58
Jewish202,37412.72
Polish130,0548.17
Great Russian[b]78,6234.94
German3,8730.24
Tatar1,9690.12
Little Russian[b]9190.06
Latvian4710.03
Gypsi1820.01
Others1,1190.07
Total1,591,207100.00
Religious composition of the Vilna Governorate in 1897[13]
FaithMaleFemaleBoth
NumberPercentage
Roman Catholic460,627475,222935,84958.81
Eastern Orthodox214,225201,070415,29526.10
Judaism98,193106,493204,68612.86
Old Believer12,68612,98725,6731.61
Lutheranism2,1722,2914,4630.28
Islam2,5721,8034,3750.27
Karaite2513255760.04
Reformed92851770.01
Armenian Catholic2225470.00
Armenian Apostolic93120.00
Mennonite2020.00
Anglican0220.00
Other Christian denomination1916350.00
Other non-Christian denomination104140.00
Total790,880800,3271,591,207100.00

Subdivisions

[edit]

The counties (uezd) of the Vilna Governorate in 1897 was composed of seven uezds as follows:[10]

CountyCapital and

the largest city

 Arms of capitalAreaPopulation
(1897 census)
Transliteration

name

 Russian Cyrillic 1897[14]
VileyskiyВилейскійVileyka 3.560
6,363.13 km2
(2,456.82 mi2)		208,013
VilenskiyВиленскійVilna 154.132
6,185.14 km2
(2,388.10 mi2)		363,313
DisnenskiyДисненскійDisna 6.756
5,779.30 km2
(2,231.40 mi2)		204,923
LidskiyЛидскійLida 9.323
5,606.20 km2
(2,164.57 mi2)		205,767
OshmyanskiyОшмянскійOshmyany 7.214
6,885.39 km2
(2,658.46 mi2)		233,559
SmorgonskiyСморгонскійSmorgon ---
5,979.20 km2
(2,308.58 mi2)		241,565
SventsyanskiyСвѣнцянскійSventsyany 6.025
5,228.03 km2
(2,018.55 mi2)		172,231
TrokskiyТрокскійTroki 3.240
5,862.27 km2
(2,263.44 mi2)		203,401

Ethnic composition

[edit]

Russian authorities periodically performed censuses. However, they reported strikingly different numbers:[15]

YearTotal Lithuanians Poles Belarusians Russians Jews Other
1862 838,464 418,88050% 154,38618% 146,43117% 14,9502% 76,8029% 27,0353%
1865 891,715 210,27324% 154,38617% 418,28947% 27,8453% 76,8029% 4,1200%
1883 1,192,000 417,20035% 281,31224% 239,59220% N/a 176,41615% 77,4807%
1897 1,561,713 274,41418% 126,7708% 880,94056% 75,8035% 197,92913% 5,8570%
1909 1,550,057 231,84815% 188,93112% 570,35137% 408,81726% 146,0669% 4,0940%

Governors

[edit]
NameIn office
Yakov Bulgarov1797–1799
Ivan Friesell1799–1801
Dmitry Lanskoy1802–1804
Ivan Rickman1804–1806
Prokopy Bogmevsky1806–1808
Nikolay Brusilov1808–1810
Aleksandr Lavinsky1811–1816
Friedrich Drutsky-Lyubetsky1816–1823
Pyotr Gorn1823–1830
Dmitry Obreskov1830–1832
Grigory Doppelmayr1832–1836
Dmitry Bantysh-Kamensky1836–1838
Yuri Dolgorukov1838–1840
Aleksey Semyonov1840–1844
Nikolay Zherebtsov1844–1846
Mikhail Begichev1846–1851
Arkady Rosset1851–1857
Mikhail Pokhvisnev1857–1863
Ivan Galler1863–1863
Stepan Panyutin1863–1868
Ivan Shestakov1868–1869
Yegor Steblin-Kamensky1869–1882
Aleksandr Zhemchuzhnikov1882–1885
Nikolay Grevenits1885–1895
Aleksandr Frese1895–1896
Ivan Cheplevsky1896–1899
Nikolai Gruzinsky1899–1901
Viktor Wahl1901–1902
Konstantin Palen1902–1905
Sergey Tatishchev1905–1906
Dmitry Lyubimov1906–1912
Pyotr Veryovkin1912–1916
Aleksandr Tolstoy1916–1917

See also

[edit]

Notes

[edit]
  1. ↑
  2. 1 2 3 Prior to 1918, the Imperial Russian Government classified Russians as the Great Russians, Ukrainians as the Little Russians, and Belarusians as the White Russians. After the creation of the Ukrainian People's Republic in 1918, the Little Russians identified themselves as "Ukrainian".[11] Also, the Belarusian Democratic Republic which the White Russians identified themselves as "Belarusian".[12]

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ Kulakauskas, Antanas (2002). "Administracinės reformos". Gimtoji istorija. Nuo 7 iki 12 klasės (in Lithuanian). Vilnius: Elektroninės leidybos namai.
  2. ↑ "Литовская губерния". Брокгауз и Ефрон (in Russian). 1890–1906.
  3. ↑ Simas Sužiedėlis, ed. (1970–1978). "Administration". Encyclopedia Lituanica. Vol. I. Boston, Massachusetts: Juozas Kapočius. pp. 17–21. LCCN 74-114275.
  4. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Merkys 2004, p. 24.
  5. 1 2 Merkys 2006, p. 41.
  6. ↑ Plater 1825, p. 206.
  7. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Merkys 2004, p. 25.
  8. ↑ Merkys 2006, p. 28.
  9. ↑ Merkys 2006, p. 42.
  10. 1 2 3 Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г. Распределение населения по родному языку и уездам 50 губерний Европейской России [The First General Census of the Russian Empire of 1897. Breakdown of population by mother tongue and districts in 50 Governorates of the European Russia]. www.demoscope.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2023-04-27.
  11. ↑ Hamm, Michael F. (2014). Kiev: A Portrait, 1800–1917. Princeton University Press. p. 83. ISBN 978-1-4008-5151-5.
  12. ↑ Fortson IV, Benjamin W. (2011). Indo-European Language and Culture: An Introduction. John Wiley & Sons. p. 429. ISBN 978-1-4443-5968-8.
  13. ↑ Первая всеобщая перепись населения Российской Империи 1897 г. Распределение населения по вероисповеданиям и регионам [The first general census of the population of the Russian Empire in 1897. Breakdown of population by religions and regions]. www.demoscope.ru (in Russian). Retrieved 2023-04-28.
  14. ↑ "Демоскоп Weekly - Приложение. Справочник статистических показателей". www.demoscope.ru. Retrieved 2024-10-10.
  15. ↑ Nikolajew, Christina Juditha (2005). Zum Zusammenhang zwischen nationaler Identitätsbildung und Katholischer Kirche in Litauen (PDF) (in German). Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen. p. 16.[permanent dead link]

Sources

[edit]

54°41′00″N 25°17′00″E / 54.6833°N 25.2833°E / 54.6833; 25.2833

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