Cisleithania, Bohemian Lands, censuses, national disputes, national statistics, Czech-German-Polish relations

The paper compares the way in which different political and ideological regimes, Habsburg Cisleithania (1867-1918) and the First Czechoslovak Republic (1918-1938) approached the matter of the counting of ethnic categories in periodic censuses, as well as asks what was behind it. It describes how the state interest influenced the setting of the whole agenda of the ethnic/language statistics (by means of: the choice of the title and definition of the examined category, the technical way of the census implementation, the authorities of the census bodies, the verification and correction of the recorded data) and how the state interest could differ according to regional specifications. The outlook into the period after WWII demonstrated how the fundamental change of the ethnic situation (the expulsion of the Germans) and of the political atmosphere (the European integration) was imprinted (mirrored) in the way of the counting of ethnic categories.