The first census of the Republic of Poland of September 30, 1921

The Polish Census of 1921 was the first complete census in modern Polish history, conducted by the Central Statistical Office of the [Second] Republic of Poland and published in Warsaw in 1927. The Polish Republic or Rzeszpospolita (note the same word is used for the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) was a multi-ethnic land, and the term Second Polish Republic refers to the Polish state between 1918 and 1939, as the first republic refers to the golden age of the Polish-Lithuanian (and some would say Ruthenian) Commonwealth from 1569 to 1795, and the third republic is modern free Poland after the fall of communism in 1989 to the present day. In history, and at the time of this census, millions of Ruthenians, Rusyns, or otherwise Rus’ peoples called Poland home, and the Polish Republic included traditionally east slavic regions such as Lemkovyna, Red Ruthenia, Galicia, Volhynia, and some Belarusian lands, etc. It is noteworthy that in this census, the second largest ethnic group after Polish is listed as “rusińska” or “ruthenes” in French meaning Rusin/Rusyn [see page 56, 80 in the pdf]. While Russians and Belarusians are listed separately, no distinction is made between people who would now be called Carpatho-Rusyn, Lemko, Galician, or Ukrainian, as in the 1921 Census, all these peoples on the territory of the Second Polish Republic are evidently counted together as “Rusins”. In the 1921 Census there are 3,898,428 of these Rusins listed. This can be contrasted with the next Polish Census of 1931, when the ethnonym “Ukraiński” (Ukrainian) is now introduced, which around 3,221,975 people identify as, and Rusins, who are now listed in Polish as “Ruski” (le ruthene), are down to 1,219,647 people.