Context: On September 1, 2026, during events in Gdańsk commemorating the 87th anniversary of the start of World War II, Polish President Karol Nawrocki urged Germany to pay reparations to Poland. He suggested allocating the funds to the Polish military and the defense industry. In 2017, the Law and Justice Party (Prawo i Sprawiedliwość, PiS) launched a campaign to seek reparations, estimating the damage at 6 trillion zlotys. Sixteen days after Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Soviet troops invaded the country from the east. As a result, the territories of Western Belarus became part of the Byelorussian SSR.
On August 29, 2026, Vadzim Hihin, the historian and director general of the National Library of Belarus, appeared on the Azaryonok. Napryamuyu YouTube channel to discuss the economic backwardness of Western Belarus during its time under Polish rule. He cited population trends in cities as one indicator, noting that the population in Western Belarus was declining while the population in the BSSR’s cities was growing.
“With respect to the so-called flourishing of cities under Polish rule, let’s take a closer look at the specific figures. Take Soviet Belarus and see what happened between 1910 and 1939. Let’s simply compare Soviet Belarus, that is, the Byelorussian SSR, with Western Belarus. So, in Soviet Belarus, from 1910 to 1939, Minsk grew — I’ll round the figures — from 105,000 to nearly 239,000 people. Vitsebsk grew from 103,000 to 167,000. Homel, from 96,000 to 144,000. And so on. … Now, what was happening in Western Belarus? This also says something about the level of development, employment, and so on. In 1910 and 1931, the latter being the year of the census, Hrodna’s population fell from 65,500 to 40,000, well, to 50,000. From 65,000 to less than 50,000. Brest, from 57,000 to 48,000. Pinsk, which I visited recently, from 36,000 to 31,000,” Hihin said, listing the figures.
“There you have it. These are the numbers, these are the facts. No amount of fugitive propaganda can refute them,” host Ryhor Azaronak concluded.
This comparison is flawed. Hihin calculated the population growth of Minsk, Vitsebsk, and Homel over a 29-year period from 1910 to 1939. For Hrodna, Brest, and Pinsk, he used the 21 years from 1910 to the 1931 Polish census. But more importantly, Western Belarus only became part of Poland in 1921, yet Hihin started his calculations in 1910. In other words, these territories were not under Polish rule for the first 11 years of the period he selected. At that time, they were part of the Russian Empire. They were then occupied by German troops and came under the control of Polish and Soviet forces.
World War I swept through these lands. For over two years, the front line lay about 100 kilometers west of Minsk. The western region experienced major battles, bombings, and evacuations. German troops occupied Minsk and Homel briefly in 1918–1919. The severe destruction caused by the front line did not reach the eastern cities that Hihin compares with Western Belarus.
To assess population changes in Western Belarusian cities while they were part of Poland, the analysis must begin in 1921. In that case, however, the trend runs opposite to what Hihin described. According to Polish census data, the population of Hrodna grew by nearly 42% from 1921 to 1931 — from 35,148 to 49,818 people. Brest’s population increased by nearly 64%, growing from 29,553 to 48,435 people. Pinsk’s population increased by 36%, rising from 23,468 to 31,913 people.
There are no comparable statistics for Soviet cities covering the same ten-year period. The first Soviet census took place in 1926, and the next one occurred 13 years later. During this time, Homel’s growth rate was similar to Brest’s between 1921 and 1931. Minsk and Vitsebsk grew faster than the cities of Western Belarus. However, a direct comparison of these figures is only possible to a limited extent. In one case, the period is ten years; in the other, it is thirteen. Additionally, the censuses were conducted in different years.
