The Ethnographic Atlas of the Western Russian Governorates and Neighboring Regions (; ) is a large-scale cartographic and statistical work published in Saint Petersburg in 1863 by Russian military statistician and ethnographer, General Staff Colonel Roderich von Erckert. It is one of the most important documents of official Russian ethnostatistics from the period of the January Uprising (1863âÂÂ1864), created with the aim of justifying the "Russian" character of the Northwestern Krai and Southwestern Krai of the Russian Empire.
In 1864, a companion book titled A Look at the History and Ethnography of the Western Governorates of Russia was published as a textual supplement and explanation for the atlas.
The publication of the atlas coincided with the January Uprising (1863âÂÂ1864), a period when the question of the national identity of the population in former PolandâÂÂLithuania sharply escalated in the Russian Empire. The Russian government and bureaucratic institutions had an urgent need for statistical data that would prove to both European and domestic audiences that the majority of the region's population was "Russian" rather than Polish.
Roderich von Erckert, a German by origin and an employee of the Imperial Russian Geographical Society, took on the task of classifying the local population. He relied on data from previous studies, including the parish lists of Peter von Köppen. The atlas was published in two versions: in Russian and in French. The French version was specifically intended for a European audience to refute Polish political claims to these territories.
The primary criterion for determining ethnic identity of Slavs in Erckert's atlas was religious affiliation. The author considered this approach to be "the most correct" and proposed that all Eastern Slavic populations practicing Orthodoxy should be counted as Russians, while all Catholics should be counted as Poles.
Erckert categorically denied the existence of a "Catholic Belarusian". In his study, he argued:
Thus, Erckert combined Great Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians ("Little Russians") into a single dominant group of "Russians", contrasting them with Poles and actual Lithuanians, whom he further divided into Lithuanian and Samogitians.
Despite merging them into a single Slavic tribe, Erckert attempted to identify distinct regional groups of Belarusians within it. In his works, he divided the ethnic territory of Belarusians into three parts and, correspondingly, three groups.
He categorized the first group as "True Belarusians", who inhabited the Vitebsk, Mogilev, the eastern and western parts of Minsk and Smolensk governorates, respectively.
The second group consisted of the "Black Russians", living in the western part of the Minsk Governorate and the northern part of the Grodno Governorate. However, Erckert noted that the population itself did not use this name, nor did they call themselves Belarusians, and that the local Polish szlachta (nobility) referred to them as Lithuanians.
The third groupâÂÂthe PodlasiansâÂÂinhabited the western part of the Grodno Governorate and were considered by the researcher to be the most Polonized segment of the Belarusians.
Relying on linguistic features, Erckert classified the population of the southern Grodno and Minsk governorates (Western Polesia) as "Ruthenians" (Rusins), perceiving them as a part of the Little Russians (Ukrainians).
Erckert's tendentious methodology and the artificial isolation of certain ethnic groups provoked harsh criticism even from contemporary Russian researchers. Pavel Bobrovsky, a General Staff officer and native of the Grodno region, pointed out the fallacy of equating all Catholics with Poles, arguing that the primary marker of nationality is one's native language. Researcher Semyon Sholkovich drew attention to the artificiality of the term "Black Russians", noting that such a tribe did not exist in reality and that the name was found exclusively in Polish historical literature.
Some claim that the atlas is characterized by obvious tendentiousness in determining the ethnic affiliation of Belarusians. Guided by ideological motives, Erckert artificially classified the local population exclusively based on religious confession, categorizing all Orthodox believers as "Russians" and all Catholic Belarusians as Poles, while categorically denying the very existence of a "Catholic Belarusian".
Despite this criticism, Erckert's atlas, alongside the works of Aleksandr Rittikh, firmly established the tradition of defining ethnicity through religious confession in Russian imperial statistics. This approach repeatedly led to the distortion of the actual ethno-demographic picture in Belarus and neighboring countries.