Land reform in interwar Yugoslavia

The land reform in interwar Yugoslavia was a process of redistribution of agricultural land in the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929) carried out in the interwar period. The reform's proclaimed social ideal was that the land belongs to those who work it. An unrealistically idyllic image of Serbian villages in the region of Šumadija was touted as the model of national awareness and peasant liberty sought by the reform. The reform was aimed at dismantling remnants of serfdom and sharecropping in parts of the country, as well as at breaking up large agricultural estates.

Approximately two thirds of the land expropriated and distributed by the land reform was located on the territory of the present-day Bosnia and Herzegovina. All parts of the country were subject to the reform, except the territory of the former Principality of Serbia (corresponding to the northern part of pre-World War I Serbia). A total of 1,924,307 hectares (4,755,070 acres) of land was redistributed through the reform. More than 600,000 families received land plots through implementation of the reform.

Internal colonisation was a significant element of the land reform. It consisted of awarding the expropriated land to colonists—Royal Serbian Army volunteers, landless peasants resettled from poorer parts of the country, Yugoslav citizens moving to the country from neighbouring countries, and even those who usurped agricultural land on their own initiative and without any formal authorisation. Preference was given to the volunteers and supporters of the Yugoslav authorities. The colonisation process was used by the Yugoslav authorities as a means of ethnic engineering, seeking to increase proportion of South Slavic peoples (predominantly Serbs), especially in border regions such as Banat, Bačka and Baranja and present-day territories of Kosovo and North Macedonia. Most of the colonists arrived from Serbia.

Implementation of the land reform relied largely on the Interim Decree on the Preparation of the Agrarian Reform promulgated in 1919, supplemented by a number of ministerial-level orders and regulations. An act regulating the reform was enacted in 1931. The reform and colonisation were conducted against the backdrop of ethnic violence against Moslem population in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo, guerilla warfare waged by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation and civil unrest elsewhere. In Dalmatia, the reform was delayed by the question of unresolved border with the Kingdom of Italy and relations with the Italian minority and enjoyment of property rights of Italian citizens in Yugoslavia. The reform and colonisation contributed to ethnicisation of politics in Yugoslavia.

The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (subsequently renamed Yugoslavia) was established by proclamation of the Prince Regent Alexander of Serbia on 1 December 1918. The proclamation was made in response to a petition presented by a delegation of the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, thereby creating a unified South Slavic state composed of the short-lived State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia. Serbia had annexed the territories of Banat, Bačka and Baranja (also referred to as Vojvodina) and the Kingdom of Montenegro in the immediate aftermath of the World War I.^[1] Additions of Vojvodina and Montenegro followed annexation of Sandžak, and areas of present-day Kosovo and North Macedonia in the immediate aftermath of the 1912–1913 Balkan Wars. Those territories were organised as the province of South Serbia.^[2] The State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs was organised in areas of former Austria-Hungary inhabited by South Slavs, specifically in the Slovene Lands, Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Austro-Hungarian Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[3]

The provinces of Yugoslavia enjoyed different levels of development and had different legislation in place. The Slovene Lands were organised similarly to the Cisleithanian (Austrian) part of the former Austria-Hungary, while Croatia-Slavonia had been previously linked more closely to the Kingdom of Hungary. Ownership models resembling feudalism were widespread in Bosnia and Herzegovina, South Serbia, as well as in Dalmatia. Bosnia and Herzegovina as well as South Serbia drew on Ottoman heritage, but there were differences in various parts of those territories as well.^[4] Parts of Dalmatia were occupied by the Italian Army attempting to enforce the Italian territorial award made through the Treaty of London.^[5]

No ethnic group constituted the majority of population of Yugoslavia. The Serbs were the most numerous among them accounting for almost 39% of inhabitants of the country. Croats and Slovenes constituted nearly 24% and 9% of the population respectively. The first Yugoslav government considered the three groups three "tribes" of a single nation in line with the ideology of the integral Yugoslavism. In practice, Serbs dominated the government which became highly centralised.^[6] Parts of the country saw civil unrest, looting by armed groups, and revolutionary movements. In Croatia-Slavonia and in Vojvodina, those were largely associated with the Green Cadres or inspired by the Hungarian Soviet Republic. In South Serbia, Albanians resisted the new state in the Kachak Movement, and there was pro-Bulgarian, anti-Yugoslav struggle championed by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO). In Montenegro, civil war known as the Christmas Uprising broke out.^[7]

The land reform was one of the first steps taken by the authorities of the newly established Yugoslavia.^[8] On 24 December 1918, within four weeks following proclamation of Yugoslavia, Regent Alexander issued a declaration asking peasants to calmly wait for the state to settle the agrarian question and give them land that will be "only God's and theirs".^[9] Two weeks later, on 6 January 1919, the Regent Alexander published a manifesto declaring his wish for an urgent and just agrarian reform. The Regent Alexander's manifesto was in line with the declaration of the Serbian government made in February 1917, after the defeat in the World War I Serbian campaign, promising land to those voluntarily joining the Royal Serbian Army. The manifesto was also in line with the November 1918 declaration of the National Council of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs. Faced with the civil unrest associated with the Green Cadres, the National Council promised land to every peasant. New Yugoslav authorities feared unrest that might be caused by former soldiers returning to impoverished homes after the war, especially the former prisoners of war captured in the Russian Empire who saw the Bolshevik Revolution frist hand.^[10] The main objective of the land reform appeared to be forging a closer tie between peasantry and the monarchy, reducing the likelihood of a revolution.^[11]

According to historian Jozo Tomasevich, the most significant piece of legislation for the land reform in interwar Yugoslavia was the Interim Decree on the Preparation of the Agrarian Reform (Prethodne odredbe za pripremu agrarne reforme) of 25 February 1919. The decree determined that the land belongs to the one who tills it as the ideological basis for the reform. It also prescribed abolition of serfdom where it and similar relations existed. The decree also provided for expropriation of large estates and redistribution of land to those who had none, giving preference to the veterans.^[12] This led to about 70,000 people to request recognition of status of a volunteer army veteran after the war, even though there were up to 25,000 actual volunteers.^[13] It further prescribed that the former owners of the land would be compensated, except if they are related to the House of Habsburg. Initially, the reform was led by the Ministry of Social Affairs.^[12] Social affairs minister and co-author of the Interim Decree Vitomir Korać unsuccessfully argued against the compensations as "parliamentary and judicial nonsense".^[14] Two political parties having the most seats in the National Assembly supported the land reform, but had different approaches. The Democratic Party accepted more radical approach to the reform, while the People's Radical Party demanded full compensation for expropriated private property.^[15] In April 1919, the Ministry of Agrarian Reform was established and the Temporary National Representation (the interim legislative) endorsed the Interim Decree without any discussion. The ministry argued that the urgency of the matter did not allow for the regular procedure. Until 1931, the reform was based on ministerial decisions and decrees.^[12] That year, legislation was enacted concluding the land reform.^[16]

According to economist Mijo Mirković, the government committed "a range of revolutionary acts" and went against its principles as it feared unrest among the peasants or even a revolution.^[12] Conversely, economist Doreen Warriner deemed the reform in line with similar processes in the Eastern Europe at the time, marked by gradual development of agricultural relations rather than revolutionary change.^[17] The land reform was touted as the foundation of social concord, the source of power of the state and the source of prosperity of the people, critical for peace in the country. It became a “sacred question” in the politics. Scientific and economic justifications for the reform were made even though there were no scientific analyses. Critics arguing that small plots would not be economically viable or prosperous were discredited politically as anti-social, anti-cultural, and anti-national.^[18]

The Interim Decree exempted the territory of the former Principality of Serbia (the northern part of the pre-World War I Serbia) from the land reform. Instead, the territory was taken as the desired model of peasant land ownership. There, the feudal relations were abolished in 1833 and small free peasant-owned plots were created. That led to portrayals of the Serbian countryside as the "peasant paradise" defying the laws of capitalist economy and imparting national identity on the peasant landowners.^[19] The region of Šumadija was particularly glorified as the land of simple "illitierate peasants" where an idigenous land ownership model existed, unlike foreign-invented ones found elsewhere in the country.^[20] In reality, the Serbian agricultural sector was highly dependent on government aid and its production presented an obstacle to modernisation of Serbian society.^[21]

According to historian Srđan Milošević, the Šumadija countryside was not selected because it was a particularly successful role-model, but because it was customary to extend solutions previously applied in Serbia to Yugoslavia. This was a product of Serbia's political position in the process of creation of Yugoslavia regardless of opposition from the majority of non-Serbs.^[19] As Serbian politicians insisted on political continuity between pre-unification Serbia and Yugoslavia, Serbian institutions and practices, including the land ownership, were extended to the entire Yugoslavia.^[22] Contemporaries like Nikola Stojanović spoke of Serbia's destiny to give direction to the new state as its unifying power, comparing it to Piedmont, as the driving force in the unification of Italy.^[23] In a speech of 16 March 1919, the Regent Alexander asked for urgent land reform by application of the Serbian ownership model to other parts of Yugoslavia.^[24]

Strengthening of the "national element" was made an integral part of the land reform in interwar Yugoslavia. A strong proponent of this development was the interior minister Svetozar Pribićević who argued that colonisation is necessary for the reform to happen at all. The colonisation had a number of direct objectives. One was to increase proportion of South Slavic population in areas home to significant non-Slavic populations; it was to facilitate amalgamation of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by mixing their populations; and it was meant to reduce emigration from Yugoslavia by providing an opportunity people otherwise living in overpopulated areas where land was scarce. The colonisation process was to favour "nationally conscious", "reliable men",^[25] primarily referring to Serbs.^[26] The majority of the colonists, 76% of them, were drawn from Serbia and Montenegro. Further 11% came from Bosnia and Herzegovina. Authorities determined that the colonists were to be settled in specifically designated areas to avoid their dispersion in areas of their settlement.^[27] The restriction was imposed in pursuit of the objective of ethnic homogenisation of ethnically mixed areas in border regions.^[28]

In addition to the state-organised colonisation, in the early years of the land reform, there were cases of usurpation of land. Some sources refer to such population as the autokolonisti (autocolonists). Most such cases were observed in the north of the country (Vojvodina and Croatia-Slavonia),^[29] but also in the Neretva's delta in Dalmatia.^[30] Such cases were made legal by the order of the minister of agrarian reform, recognising such claims of land occupied by the end of 1923.^[29] Furthermore, Yugoslav citizens resettling from Hungary or Romania were recognised as the beneficiaries of the reform and awarded land.^[31]

The agrarian issue was raised in the politics of Bosnia and Herzegovina since the 19th century. The nature of the local land ownership and management system stemmed from the Ottoman heritage. Therefore, the Chiflik system was in place, where the landowners were largely Muslims, while the peasants working the land were largely Christians.^[32] Austro-Hungarian occupation and annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina did not bring about substantial changes in legislation or practice of land ownership.^[33] At the same time, Austro-Hungarian authorities made it possible for serfs to purchase land from landowners, offering them loans for the purpose. However, the scheme produced little since the funds made available were inadequate at least until 1910. A census of taken in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1895 recorded 88,970 serf families.^[34] By 1914, approximately 42,500 serf families purchased their own land.^[35]

Approximately two thirds of the land encompassed by the interwar land reform were located in Bosnia and Herzegovina.^[36] A total of 1,175,305 hectares (2,904,240 acres), representing 23% of the total territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was expropriated for redistribution. Overall, 1,286,227 hectares (3,178,340 acres) were distributed to 249,580 families.^[37] Implementation of the reform in Bosnia and Herzegovina was accompanied by widespread inter-ethnic violence as the Bosnian Serbs attacked Muslim farmers and landowners. By mid-1919, about 2,000 Muslims were killed, more than 4,000 families driven from their homes and 400,000 hectares (990,000 acres) of land seized. The Muslims were targeted not only as landowners, but also because of their ethnicity.^[36] The authorities recognised peasants forcefully usurping land as beneficiaries of the reform. Such policy also led to conflicts with the army as peasants usurped parts of military training grounds.^[38] There were numerous incursions from Montenegro into Herzegovina region where they killed Muslims and looted property. Yugoslav military deployed troops to curb such attacks,^[39] but killings continued into mid-1920s.^[36] The conflicts related to implementation of the land reform increasingly took on the character of an ethnic, anti-Muslim struggle. This was especially true for organisations such as the Association of Serbian Chetniks Petar Mrkonjić, the Organization of Yugoslav Nationalists, and the Serbian National Youth.^[40] Historian Ivo Banac attributed some of the violence to revenge against Muslim population for their wartime support of the Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia, or their participation in Austro-Hungarian auxiliary militia Schutzkorps.^[13]

Former landowners were promised compensation in the amount of 255 million dinars paid over a 40-year period along with 6% interest. The payments started only in 1936 and stopped in 1941 with the World War II invasion of Yugoslavia. Only 10% of the expected amount was paid.^[36] The interwar land reform weakened the existing political and intellectual elite of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Muslim population,^[41] while strengthening the position of the Christian population in the land.^[42] The land reform and the violence associated with it prompted a portion of Muslim popuation of Bosnia and Herzegovina to leave to Turkey.^[43]

Colonisation of Vojvodina, a territory that passed from Hungarian to Serbian (and subsequently Yugoslav) control following the 1918 Armistice of Belgrade, was a significant element of the interwar land reform in Yugoslavia.^[44] The region was predominantly inhabited by Hungarians and Danube Swabians (Germans) as well as the Serbs. Yugoslav authorities confiscated many Hungarian-owned farms and turned the land over to Serbs. The move left many homeless. At the same time, the authorities closed down all primary and secondary schools in Vojvodina teaching in Hungarian language.^[45] Civil unrest during 1919 and a Hungarian uprising in the city of Subotica on 21 April 1920,^[46] prompted the Yugoslav authorities to deploy 20,000 troops to the area to quell the area.^[47] There were proposals to make it possible for the Vojvodina's German population to receive land through the reform, but only in areas south of the Sava and the Danube. The scheme envisaged that the German population would be useful in promoting culture, technical and professional knowledge among the rest of the population.^[48] However, applications for award of plots through the land reform submitted by Hungarians and Germans were normally disregarded. Instead, by 1924, in the period when it was possible to opt to leave Yugoslavia and go to the "mother" country, about 30,000 German-speaking residents and approximately 45,000 Hungarians left Vojvodina.^[49]

In Vojvodina, estates exceeding 320 hectares (790 acres) were subject to expropriation and redistribution under the reform.^[4] This resulted in seizure of 222,707 hectares (550,320 acres) of land, distributed to 100,004 families.^[37] The process involved hiring of 16,000 additional (largely Serb) officials to manage the reform in Vojvodina and establishment of 130 new villages.^[44] The bureaucrats were replacement for the purged ethnic Hungarian and German officials.^[50] The reform also led to an increase of the proportion of Serbs in the total population of Vojvodina from 34% to 38% between 1910 and 1930.^[51] At the same time, Hungarians and Germans lost their privileged status in the region, while Serbs received privileges instead.^[42] According to historian Branko Petranović, the population exchange was encouraged and pursued by the Yugoslav government as a means of strengthening the government's control over Vojvodina and to lessen the influence of minorities. State secretary Slavko Šećerov claimed in 1930, that the main objective of the reform in Vojvodina was to ruin the wealthy non-Slavic landowners while other aspects were of secondary importance.^[49] In the process, Vojvodina's agricultural production declined. In the 1920s, the number of cattle and pigs in the region dropped by more than 40%.^[50]

The territories acquired by Serbia through the Balkan Wars (subsequently organised as the province of South Serbia) had a non-Serb majority. In 1912–1914, until the outbreak of the World War I, Serbian authorities repressed the non-Serb majority and embarked upon a campaign of Serbianisation which caused thousands of Macedonians to flee to Bulgaria. In 1914, Serbia embarked upon the organised colonisation of the territories corresponding to present-day Kosovo and North Macedonia.^[52]

Colonisation and redistribution resumed in South Serbia after the war.^[53] During the course of the interwar land reform, 231,099 hectares (571,060 acres) were expropriated and distributed to 48,261 families.^[37] The area comprised more than a third of the total agricultural land in the province. Half of the expropriated land was distributed to the local population, while the other half went to colonists,^[54] mostly ethnic Serbs and Montenegrins.^[55] The colonists were mainly drawn from Herzegovina, Montenegro and Lika. Most colonists had to build their own homes, but nearly 3,000 houses were built for them by the state or with state support. Substantial land was given to government agencies, the army, and the gendarmerie.^[56] At the same time, 200,000–300,000 Muslim Albanians and Turks emigrated from Sandžak and Kosovo to Albania and Turkey due to violence and persecution.^[55] An additional aim of the land reform in the province was to compel Albanians to emigrate by leaving the peasants small plots of land insufficient for secure livelihood. In mid-1930s, Yugoslavia was negotiating with Turkey on removal of 200,000 Albanians from Kosovo to Turkey.^[57] Between 1918 and 1921, the Albanian population in the territory of present-day Kosovo nearly halved.^[58]

About 10,000 armed Albanians resisted Yugoslav rule through the unsuccessful rebellion of the Kaçak Movement. In response, in January and February 1919, government troops killed more than 6,000 people and destroyed more than 3,800 houses in Kosovo.^[59] Land owned by peasants deemed outlaws was seized by the state.^[56] The Yugoslav government planned to settle 50,000 colonists in Vardar Macedonia, but only 4,200 colonist households were established in the region. The colonisation of Vardar Macedonia was opposed by the IMRO through guerrilla warfare. As a consequence, the province was garrisoned by about 50,000 Royal Yugoslav Army troops, gendarmes, military police, and armed members of the state-sponsored Association against Bulgarian Bandits.^[59] By 1923, the IMRO built a force of more than 9,000, relying on bases in the neighbouring Pirin Macedonia region of Bulgaria.^[60] In Sandžak, there was also violence against the Muslim civilian population, such as the Šahovići massacre in 1924.^[36]

During the interwar Yugoslav land reform, 110,577 hectares (273,240 acres) were expropriated and distributed to 99,908 families in Croatia-Slavonia.^[37] Agricultural estates exceeding 150 hectares (370 acres) and 200 hectares (490 acres) were subject to redistribution in the regions of Central Croatia and Slavonia respectively.^[4] According to Croatian economist Ivan Mandić, approximately 40,000 colonists arrived to Slavonia alone in the period.^[61] The reform meant expropriation of agricultural land granted by the former Austro-Hungarian authorities in perpetuity to churches, schools, hospitals, and libraries in Croatia depriving such institutions of independent income.^[62]

Expropriation of the large estates contributed to the weakening of the political power of landowners.^[63] Approximately one half of the land was distributed to the local population, while the remainder was given to colonists arriving from Bosnia and Herzegovina, Lika and Kordun regions of Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Montenegro. Some of the colonists were refugees from Istria and expatriate South Slavs moving to the country from Hungary.^[64] In practice, preference in distribution of land to local population was given to supporters of the central government.^[63] The bulk of the interwar colonisation in Croatia-Slavonia took place between 1919 and 1924,^[64] against the backdrop of the Green Cadres violence and the 1920 Croatian Peasant Rebellion.^[62] Usurpation of privately-owned land, especially forests, in expectation of legalisation of the possession taken by force became common shortly after the announcement of the intended land reform.^[65] In late 1920s and in 1930s, a portion of the expropriated land was returned to the original landowners.^[64]

The Austrian Empire abolished serfdom in the mid-19th century, but it exempted Dalmatia from the reform. The practice of corvée was abolished in the province in 1878, but sharecropping and various other types of tenancy resembling feudal or pre-feudal systems remained in place. In early 1920s, more than 40% of arable land in Dalmatia was worked by landless peasants through application of such tenancy relations.^[66] Following the royal manifesto of January 1919 and the Interim Decree, peasants largely stopped paying any rent for the land in breach of their contracts, believing they would become the owners of the land. However, application of the Interim Decree was suspended in Dalmatia by the provincial government on request of the Allies of World War I. The reason for the suspension was the unresolved status of Dalmatia regarding the award promised to Italy through the Treaty of London as an incentive to join the Allies.^[67] While the Italo-Yugoslav border was settled in 1920 through the Treaty of Rapallo,^[68] the territory promised by the treaty was occupied by Italy until 1923.^[69] Difficult economic situation in Dalmatia caused more than 15,000 people to emigrate to the United States, Canada, South America, Australia, and New Zealand between 1920 and 1928.^[70]

Conclusion of the Treaty of Nettuno between Italy and Yugoslavia on 20 July 1925 further complicated agrarian issues in Dalmatia.^[71] The treaty secured the rights of the Italian minority in Yugoslavia without providing for reciprocal rights of Croat and Slovene minorities in Italy,^[72] and the Stjepan Radić-led Croatian Peasant Party blocked treaty ratification until 1928.^[73] Through the treaty, Italy and Yugoslavia reached an interim agreement on the method of expropriation of Italian-owned land in Dalmatia encompassing approximately 13,000 hectares (32,000 acres). The agreement stipulated that expropriation of Italian-owned land could only take place with consent of the landowners until a further agreement is finalised. That came about on 19 May 1939, providing that provisions of Yugoslav law applied equally to Italian citizens who owned land in Yugoslavia—except that they were exempt from taxation of compensation paid for the expropriated land and allowed to take the compensation out of the country either as securities or cash.^[74]

In Dalmatia, a total of 50,000 hectares (120,000 acres) of land was expropriated and distributed to 96,953 families through the land reform.^[37] The former landowners received compensation in different forms. Dalmatia-specific legislation enacted in 1930 and 1931 determined that the owners of large estates would be compensated in government bonds nominally worth 400 million dinars. The bonds were to be redeemed over 30 years and charged to the recipients of the land together with an interest and taxes. Other recipients of the land were required to pay a portion of the estimated value of the land immediately, and the rest over 10 years.^[75]

In the course of the Yugoslav interwar land reform, 1,924,307 hectares (4,755,070 acres) of land was expropriated and distributed to 614,603 families.^[37] The reform distributed the land previously managed as Muslim properties in Bosnia and Herzegovina, present-day Kosovo and North Macedonia, and in the region of Sandžak. It also parceled out the land previously owned by the Croatian nobility and other large estates in former Austro-Hungarian lands: Vojvodina, Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia and the Slovene Lands.^[76]

The accompanying process of colonisation was poorly organised and led to legal uncertainty regarding the colonists' rights and inability of the colonists to run productive farms due to lack of farming knowledge and experience or award of unsuitable land.^[77] The central role of the colonisation in the land reform was the result of Yugoslav government's desire to pursue ethnic politics through ethnic and cultural consolidation of national territory. Alignment of socio-economical issues with ethnic affiliations contributed to ethnicisation of Yugoslav politics.^[78]