The 1897 Census in the Kingdom of Poland

Abstract

The aim of the article is to present the issues relating to the organisation, conduct and processing of the results of the first population census in the Kingdom of Poland in 1897 in a concise way. Although the text focuses on the lands of the Kingdom of Poland which were under the Russian rule the aforementioned issues have been discussed in a broader context of the activity of the central institutions in St. Petersburg. Polish historiography addresses these matters only to a limited extent and very few authors have dealt primarily with the notion of the completeness of census data. The provincial authorities and the Warsaw Statistical Committee played a major role in the preparation and conduct of the census in the Kingdom of Poland. It should be emphasised, however, that the greatest effort related to data collection rested with the lowest-level local government. At the stage of the central preparation of the census results, modern technologies, i.e. Hollerith’s calculating machines, were used. The data that was collected on forms containing 14 questions were coded on special perforated cards, which significantly improved the performance of the relevant calculations. The level at which the census was carried out and its final outcome are assessed relatively high. On the other hand, there are certain reservations as to the credibility of the census results relating to the Kingdom of Poland, the most serious of which concern the reporting of the age, the professional structure, as well as the religion and mother tongue of the respondents.