[1] Following the Nazi German and the Soviet invasion of Poland, the Voivodeship was occupied by both invading armies and divided according to Nazi-Soviet boundary treaty.

The Office could not start its work immediately and in the full scope of activities planned for it, because there was a lack of qualified officials; they were to arrive from Poland.

[4] An autonomous part of the Communist Party of Western Belorussia operated in the voivodeship from 1923, striving for an armed coup and separation of the Kresy from Poland.

[5] The beginning of the thirties was dominated by the political struggle between the Sanation camp and the opposition, as well as a deep economic crisis, the solution of which was beyond the reach of the voivodes.

[7] Following the tenure of Zyndram-Kościałkowski, General Janusz Głuchowski, commander of the X Corps District, received an offer to take up the office of Voivode of Białystok.

On July 3rd, 1934, president Mościcki signed the act of nomination, but the general did not accept it and did not come to Białystok and as a result Stefan Pasławski was chosen instead.

The voivodes of the region, obliged to act for the benefit of the state, sought to soothe disputes, justly punish perpetrators of incidents and exterminate manifestations of chauvinism.

The last pre-war voivode, Henryk Ostaszewski, in correspondence with the Ministry of Internal Affairs, postulated the strengthening of Polishness in the area under his administration, for example by supporting the economic activity of Poles.

The structures of political parties in the territories that became part of the Białystok Voivodeship began to emerge with the regaining of independence, and especially in connection with the preparations for the elections to the Legislative Sejm.

This was very important for the development of political life, although sometimes it led to bizarre situations, it happened that small villages or individual people submitted their own candidate lists.

High turnout was the result of enthusiasm for regaining independence, as well as propaganda campaigns in which the Catholic clergy played a major role.

For this reason, the opposition boycotted the elections in 1935 and 1938, although the actual scope of this boycott could have been even greater than indicated by the reported turnout, because the phenomenon of electoral abuses was spreading at that time, and some people deliberately cast invalid votes.

The star among the deputies elected in 1919 was undoubtedly Father Kazimierz Lutosławski, a close associate of Roman Dmowski, who came from Drozdowo near Łomża.

At that time, epidemics of infectious diseases were also dangerous, severely affecting the inhabitants of the province weakened by the effects of war.

The deepening economic crisis led to mass dismissals of workers, and those who managed to keep their jobs had their wages cut and were forced to work more hours.

[13] Agriculture in the Białystok Voivodeship entered the interwar period not only with the destruction of the war years, much greater than in the western or central provinces, but also with delays in development characteristic of the lands that had previously been part of the Russian Empire.

Unfortunately, the percentage of small farms (2-5 ha) increased to 29%, which was mainly a consequence of the lack of possibility of the outflow of labour from the countryside to the cities.

A special group among the Russians were the Old Believers, who lived almost exclusively in the Suwałki and Augustów counties, and their number in 1931 must be estimated at around 6-7 thousand.

According to Polish data from April 1939, the population of Białystok voivodship was divided as follows: 71,1% Poles, 13,5% Belarusians, 11,9% Jews, 2,2% Russians, 0,9% Lithuanians, 0,5% Germans.

[18] The results of the 1931 census (questions about mother tongue and about religion) are presented in the table below: Counties with Orthodox/Greek Catholic plurality are highlighted with yellow.