Kholm Governorate (Russian Empire)

Kholm Governorate Холмская губерния
Governorate of the Russian Empire
1913–1918
Coat of arms
Location in the Russian Empire
Capital	Kholm
Area
•	10,460 km2 (4,040 sq mi)
Population
•	896,316
History
• Creation of Kholm Governorate	8 September 1913
• Act of 5th November	1916
• Treaty of Brest-Litovsk	1918
• Second Treaty of Brest-Litovsk	1918
• Armistice of 11 November	11 November 1918
Political subdivisions	Governorates of the Russian Empire
Preceded by Succeeded by Siedlce Governorate Lublin Governorate Regency Kingdom of Poland Kholm Governorate
Today part of	Poland

Kholm Governorate^[a] was an administrative-territorial unit (guberniya) of the Russian Empire, with its capital in Kholm (Chełm).

It was created from the eastern parts of Siedlce Governorate and Lublin Governorate in 1912. It was separated from Privislinsky Krai and joined to Kiev General Governorate as "core Russian territory", as a precaution in case the territories of Privislinsky Krai should be taken from the Russian Empire in an upcoming war. Another reason for this administrative change was to facilitate Russification and conversion of the non-Eastern Orthodox Christians to Orthodoxy.^[1]

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 10,460 square kilometres (4,040 sq mi), 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.^[2] 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 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 Russian Empire 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.^[3]

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).