Kholm Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, with its capital in Kholm (

Chełm Chełm (; ; ) is a city in eastern Poland in the Lublin Voivodeship with 60,231 inhabitants as of December 2021. It is located to the south-east of Lublin, north of Zamość and south of Biała Podlaska, some from the border with Ukraine. The ...

). It was created from the eastern parts of

Siedlce Governorate Siedlce Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of Congress Poland of the Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the p ...

and

Lublin Governorate Lublin Governorate was an administrative-territorial unit ('' guberniya'') of Congress Poland of the Russian Empire. History The Lublin Governorate was created in 1837 from the Lublin Voivodeship, and had the same borders and capital (Lublin) a ...

in 1912. It was separated from

Privislinsky Krai Vistula Land, also known as Vistula Country (; ), was the name applied to the lands of Congress Poland from 1867, following the defeats of the November Uprising (1830–1831) and January Uprising (1863–1864) as it was increasingly stripped of ...

and joined to Kiev General Governorate as "core Russian territory", as a precaution in case the territories of

should be taken from the Russian Empire in an upcoming war. Another reason for this administrative change was to facilitate

Russification Russification (), Russianisation or Russianization, is a form of cultural assimilation in which non-Russians adopt Russian culture and Russian language either voluntarily or as a result of a deliberate state policy. Russification was at times ...

and

conversion Conversion or convert may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media * ''The Convert'', a 2023 film produced by Jump Film & Television and Brouhaha Entertainment * "Conversion" (''Doctor Who'' audio), an episode of the audio drama ''Cyberman'' * ...

of the non-

Eastern Orthodox Eastern Orthodoxy, otherwise known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity or Byzantine Christianity, is one of the three main Branches of Christianity, branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholic Church, Catholicism and Protestantism ...

Christians to Orthodoxy. Kholm Governorate was officially excluded from Privislinsky Krai by Tsar's decree of 4 April 1915. According to Russian statistical sources for 1914, while the area of the governorate was , it was inhabited by 896,316 inhabitants of whom 404,633 (45.1%) were Roman Catholics, 327,322 (36.5%) Orthodox Christians, 29,123 Protestants and 135,238 Jews. Russian data was questioned by Polish scholars, such as Włodzimierz Wakar, who argued that Poles made up a larger percent of the total population than according to official Russian sources. However, during the

Great Retreat The Great Retreat (), also known as the retreat from Mons, was the long withdrawal to the River Marne in August and September 1914 by the British Expeditionary Force (BEF) and the French Fifth Army. The Franco-British forces on the Western F ...

in the summer of 1915, the Russian command gave orders to evacuate the population of the governorate. Due to that policy, about 2/3 of the Ukrainian population was deported to the

in June–July 1915. The deported population reached a few hundred thousand people and thus significantly changed the national composition of the region. As of year 1918 the ethnic Polish population amounted already to around 70% of the region's total population.http://www.hist.msu.ru/Labs/UkrBel/sklarov.htm (in Russian)

Administrative Divisions

The Kholm governorate consisted of 8

Uyezd An uezd (also spelled uyezd or uiezd; rus, уе́зд ( pre-1918: уѣздъ), p=ʊˈjest), or povit in a Ukrainian context () was a type of administrative subdivision of the Grand Duchy of Moscow, the Tsardom of Russia, the Russian Empire, the R ...

s (note Russian spellings for administrative centres used):

Demographics

The entire population of the Kholm province, according to official Russian statistics, was 896,316 people of whom 45.1% were Roman Catholics, 36.5% Orthodox Christians, 3.2% Protestants and 15.1% Jews. This means that even according to official data the number of Catholics was larger than the number of the Orthodox. Polish historiography considers this official Russian data as falsified. The Orthodox accounted for more than half of the population only in Grubeshovsky district, as well as in some parts of the former Lubartovsk and Krasnostavsky districts. In parts of Tomashov and Kholm districts, as well as in the former Vlodavsky Uyezd, the number of the Orthodox exceeded the number of Catholics by about 5%. In remaining areas the number of Catholics exceeded the number of the Orthodox. Due to the 1905 Decree of Tolerance (also known as The Edict of Toleration) by Tsar Nicholas II many Orthodox people in what later became the Kholm Governorate started converting to Roman Catholicism, which caused the decline of the percentage of Orthodox population in the area during the following years. The share of Orthodox Christians further declined during the evacuation of the population as part of the

. According to the Russian census of 1897 the share of each religion in eight uyezds which later became the Kholm Governorate was 344,098 Roman Catholics (43.6%), 314,404 Orthodox Christians (39.8%), 107,238 Jews (13.6%), 22,766 Protestants (2.9%) and 1,424 people of other religions (0.2%). According to the Polish census of 1921 the share of each religion in eight counties which used to form the Kholm Governorate before, was 494,819 Roman Catholics (65.7%), 140,549 Orthodox Christians (18.7%), 104,667 Jews (13.9%), 10,057 Protestants (1.3%) and 2,956 people of other religions (0.4%). The total population of eight districts in 1897 was 789,930 and in 1921 it was 753,048. In the 1931 census data Konstantynów county is counted as part of Biała Podlaska county:

Notes

References

External links

*
The legal document of the Russian Duma that proclaims the creation of the Kholm Governorate.

Map of Kholm region
{{Coord missing, Russia Governorates of the Russian Empire States and territories established in 1912 Chełm 1912 establishments in the Russian Empire History of Lublin Voivodeship History of Masovian Voivodeship

Administrative Divisions

Demographics

See also

Notes

References

External links