New Addition to PJ Mode's "Persuasive Maps" Collection

1930 "Poland and the Baltic" postcard map, depicting a wolf trying to gobble up the Baltic States, which appears to have been based on the ethnographic map below. AK collection, donated to PJ Mode's amazing collection, online at: https://persuasivemaps.library.cornell.edu/

See how the shape of the wolf's head above, gobbling up the Baltic States, resembles the shape of the yellow-brown areas depicting the concentration of Poles in the map below, colored by Polish ethnographers intent on justifying their country's occupation of the Vilnius area.

1929 Inst. Kartograficzny, Warszawa: "Mapa rozsiedlenia ludności polskiej na terenie Republiki Litewskiej i na obszarach północnych Rzeczypospolitej Polskiej nazwa współczesna" (Map of distribution of Polish population in the area of the Republic of Lithuania and in northern areas of the Republic of Poland).

1929 Inst. Kartograficzny Warszawa: "Mapa rozsiedlenia ludności Litewskiej na terenie Republiki Litewskiej" (Map of distribution of Lithuanian population in the area of the Republic of Lithuania). www.mapywig.org

I looked at the statistics on the two maps -- the first showing Polish percentages, the second percentages of Lithuanians -- for my ancestral town: Žiežmariai ("Žyžmory" on the map, halfway between "Kowno" and "Wilno"). Poles supposedly comprise 10% - 20% of the population, Lithuanians 50% - 75%. According to these Polish-produced maps, Lithuanians and Poles accounted for 60% - 95% of the population.

Reality check: the 1923 Lithuanian census -- the only census in Inter-war Lithuania -- counted 2,198 residents in the Žiežmariai area, of whom 1,205 (55%) were Jews, based on Yiddish being the primary language spoken, a not uncommon percentage for Lithuanian rural towns in those days. (Ethnicity determined by primary language spoken follows the precedent of the 1897 Russian census.) The Polish Election Committee disputed such findings, saying Poles in all of Lithuania comprised 10% of the population and Lithuanians 76.4%. The basis for their claim: the 202,000 votes (representing about 9.5% - 10% of population) cast for Polish political candidates in Lithuania's 1923 elections. Or: "If you voted for a Pole, you must be Polish."

More on the falsified ethnographic maps that helped determine Lithuania's and Poland's eastern borders: https://www.lithuanianjournal.org/post/ethnic-maps-drove-lithuanian-polish-and-belarusian-post-wwi-boundaries