The population size of Lithuania (within contemporary borders) between 1897 and 1914

ABSTRACT

Historians and historical demographers strongly disagree about the size of the population of Lithuania within contemporary borders in 1914. According to Soviet era sources, it was 2,828,000, while contemporary publications provide a figure of 3,350,500. The main difficulty is incongruity between the limits of administrative units of the Russian empire and the eastern border of independent Lithuania and its many changes between 1918 and 1940. For the first time, we provide an annual time series of the population of Lithuania from 1897 to 1914. According to our estimate, the population increased from 2,668,914 on 28 January 1897 to 3,057,126 by 1 January 1914.

KEYWORDS:

• Lithuania
• historical demography
• population of Lithuania
• population of Klaipėda region
• Russian census 1897
• population survey in western provinces of Russia 1909

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The original is available at Russian State Archive of the Economy (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi arkhiv ėkonomiki (RGAE), f. 1562, op. 33, d. 2310, l. 1–250.

2. We thank one of anonymous reviewers for this term, the ‘compensation shortcut.’

3. For a discussion of the methodology and methods of historical demography and historical geography see, for example, Willigan and Lynch (1982) and Reher and Schofield (1993).

4. Using a selection of its findings, published in the contemporary press: Viltis nos. 90, 92, 94, and 96 (1909); Vilenskii vestnik nos. 90, 92, 94, and 96 (1909); Severo-zapadnii telegraf nos.177 and 183 (1909). We used publication of its findings in ‘Statistical materials on nine western governorates’ (‘Statisticheskie materialy po 9 zapadnym guberniyam’) preserved in the Russian State Historical Archive (Rossiiskii gosudarstvennyi istoricheskii arkhiv, RGIA), f. 1290, op. 4, d. 592. They were printed for internal use, but not marked as classified. Grimstead (1981) provides a survey of the archival collections of the Russian imperial local administration in Baltic states and Belarus.

5. From 1911, its title was changed to Statistical Annual of Russia (Statisticheskii ezhegodnik Rossii).

6. Russian sources make a distinction between the actual/present (nalichnoe) and the legal (postoyannnoe) populations. Only the city administration, however, tracked the movement of the population on a regular basis, providing both statistics while local rural authorities were unable to apply this distinction in practice, reporting mainly only the legal population. As a result, summary annual population data in the province surveys are usually a mix of data on the actual population for cities and the legal population for rural localities.

7. For the compilation of provincial data books, the collection of statistical data for them in particular, and the uses of governors’ reports in the administration of the Russian empire, see Dyatlova (1964), Litvak (1976), Minakov (2005), and Razdorskii (2011).

8. ‘Vsepoddanneishii otchet Suvalkskogo gubernatora za 1902 god,’ Archiwum Główne Akt Dawnych (hereafter – AGAD), f. 247, sign. 6478, p. 7; ‘Vsepoddanneishii otchet Suvalkskogo gubernatora za 1903,’ AGAD, f. 247, sign. 6478, p. 22; ‘Vsepoddanneishii otchet Suvalkskogo gubernatora za 1904,’ AGAD, f. 247, sign. 6478, p. 27; ‘Vsepoddanneishii otchet Suvalkskogo gubernatora za 1908,’ AGAD, f. 247, sign. 6478, p. 32; ‘Vsepoddanneishii otchet Suvalkskogo gubernatora za 1909,’ AGAD, f. 247, sign. 6478, p. 38.

Additional information

Funding

This project has received funding from the European Social Fund (Project Nr. 09.3.3-LMT-K-712-01-0006) under the grant agreement with the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT).

Notes on contributors

Zenonas Norkus

Zenonas Norkus is professor of comparative historical sociology at the Institute of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University. His recent book publication is “An Unproclaimed Empire: the Grand Duchy of Lithuania from the Viewpoint of Comparative Historical Sociology of Empires” (Routledge, 2018).

Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė

Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė is senior research fellow at Institute of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University. Her recent book publication (co-authored with Tatjana Voronič and Darius Žiemelis) is “Modernization of Vilnius, Kaunas and Grodno: Urban Development and Changes in Sanitary Infrastructure in 1870-1914” (Vilnius University Press, 2020).

Jurgita Markevičiūtė

Jurgita Markevičiūtė is research fellow at Institute of Sociology and Social Work, Faculty of Philosophy, Vilnius University. She is data analyst with background in mathematical statistics and econometrics.