Bosnia and Herzegovina The agrarian issue had been part of 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. Austro-Hungarian occupation and
annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina did not bring about substantial changes in legislation or practice of land ownership. 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 accomplished little since available funds were inadequate, at least until 1910. A census taken in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1895 recorded 88,970 serf families. By 1914, approximately 42,500 serf families had purchased their own land. Approximately two thirds of the land affected by the interwar land reform was located in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A total of , representing 23% of the total territory of Bosnia and Herzegovina, was expropriated for redistribution. Overall, were distributed to 249,580 families. 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 had been killed, more than 4,000 families driven from their homes, and of land seized. The Muslims were targeted not only as landowners, but also because of their ethnicity. The authorities recognised peasants forcefully usurping land as legitimate beneficiaries of the reform. Such policy also led to conflicts with the army, as peasants usurped parts of military training grounds. There were numerous incursions from Montenegro into Herzegovina, where Montenegrins killed Muslims and looted property. The Yugoslav military deployed troops to curb such attacks, but killings continued into the mid-1920s. 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. Historian
Ivo Banac attributed some of the violence to revenge against the Muslim population for their wartime support of the
Austro-Hungarian occupation of Serbia, or their participation in the Austro-Hungarian auxiliary militia (
Schutzkorps). Former landowners were promised compensation in the amount of 255 million dinars paid over a 40-year period, along with 6% interest. The payments only started in 1936 and stopped in 1941 with the
World War II invasion of Yugoslavia. Only 10% of the expected amount was paid. The interwar land reform weakened the existing political and intellectual elite of Bosnia and Herzegovina's Muslim population, while strengthening the position of the Christian population. The land reform, and the violence associated with it, prompted a portion of Muslim population of Bosnia and Herzegovina to emigrate to
Turkey.
Vojvodina The 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. The region was predominantly inhabited by
Hungarians and
Danube Swabians (
Germans) as well as Serbs. Yugoslav authorities confiscated many Hungarian-owned farms and turned the land over to Serbs, which left many homeless. At the same time, the authorities closed down all primary and secondary schools in Vojvodina teaching in the
Hungarian language. Civil unrest during 1919, and a Hungarian uprising in the city of
Subotica on 21 April 1920, prompted the Yugoslav authorities to deploy 20,000 troops to pacify the area. There were proposals to make it possible for Vojvodina's German population to receive land through the reform, but only in areas south of the
Sava and
Danube rivers. The scheme envisaged that the German population would be useful in promoting culture and technical and professional knowledge among the rest of the population. However, applications for awards of plots 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. In Vojvodina, estates exceeding were subject to expropriation and redistribution under the reform. This resulted in the seizure of of land, which was distributed to 100,004 families. The process involved the hiring 16,000 additional (largely Serb) officials to manage the reform in Vojvodina and the establishment of 130 new villages. The new bureaucrats replaced purged ethnic Hungarian and German officials. 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. At the same time, Hungarians and Germans lost their privileged status in the region, while Serbs received privileges. According to historian
Branko Petranović, the
population exchange was encouraged by the Yugoslav government as a means of strengthening the government's control over Vojvodina and to lessen the influence of minorities. In 1930, state secretary Slavko Šećerov claimed that the main objective of the reform in Vojvodina was to ruin the wealthy non-Slavic landowners, while other aspects were of secondary importance. 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%.
South Serbia fighters in 1920s 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 that 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. Colonisation and redistribution resumed in South Serbia after World War I. During the course of the interwar land reform, were expropriated and distributed to 48,261 families. The area included 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, mostly ethnic Serbs and
Montenegrins. 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. 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. An additional aim of the land reform in the province was to compel Albanians to emigrate by leaving them plots of land too small to provide secure livelihoods. In mid-1930s, Yugoslavia was negotiating with
Turkey on the removal of 200,000 Albanians from Kosovo to Turkey. Between 1918 and 1921, the Albanian population in the territory of present-day Kosovo was nearly halved. About 10,000 armed Albanians resisted Yugoslav rule through the unsuccessful rebellion by 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. Land owned by peasants deemed outlaws was seized by the state. 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. By 1923, the IMRO had built a force of more than 9,000, relying on bases in the neighbouring
Pirin Macedonia region of Bulgaria. In Sandžak, there was also violence against the Muslim civilian population, such as the
Šahovići massacre in 1924.
Croatia-Slavonia During the interwar land reform, were expropriated and distributed to 99,908 families in Croatia-Slavonia. Agricultural estates exceeding and were subject to redistribution in
Central Croatia and
Slavonia, respectively. According to Croatian economist Ivan Mandić, approximately 40,000 colonists immigrated to Slavonia in that period. 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. Expropriation of the large estates contributed to the weakening of the political power of landowners. Approximately one half of the land was distributed to the local population, while the remainder was given to colonists arriving from Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the
Lika and
Kordun regions of Croatia-Slavonia, Dalmatia, and Montenegro. Some of the colonists were refugees from
Istria, and formerly expatriate South Slavs moving to the country from Hungary. In practice, preference in the distribution of land was given to supporters of the central government. The bulk of the interwar colonisation in Croatia-Slavonia took place between 1919 and 1924, against the backdrop of the Green Cadres violence and the
1920 Croatian Peasant Rebellion. Usurpation of privately owned land, especially forests, in expectation of the legalisation of possession taken by force, became common shortly after the announcement of the intended land reform. In late 1920s and in 1930s, a portion of the expropriated land was returned to the original landowners.
Dalmatia opposed ratification of the
Treaty of Nettuno, which provided an interim solution for extension of the land reform to Italian citizens in Yugoslavia. The
Austrian Empire had abolished serfdom in the mid-19th century, but it exempted Dalmatia from that 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. Following the royal manifesto of January 1919 and the Interim Decree, peasants largely stopped paying rent for the land, in breach of their contracts, believing they would become the owners. However, application of the Interim Decree was suspended in Dalmatia by the provincial government at the 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 under the Treaty of London, as an incentive to join the Allies. While the Italo-Yugoslav border was settled in 1920 under the
Treaty of Rapallo, the territory promised Dalmatia by the treaty was occupied by Italy until 1923. The 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. Conclusion of the
Treaty of Nettuno between Italy and Yugoslavia, of 20 July 1925, further complicated agrarian issues in Dalmatia. The treaty secured the rights of the Italian minority in Yugoslavia without providing for reciprocal rights of Croat and Slovene minorities in Italy, and the
Stjepan Radić-led
Croatian Peasant Party blocked treaty ratification until 1928. Through the treaty, Italy and Yugoslavia reached an interim agreement on the method of expropriation of Italian-owned land in Dalmatia encompassing approximately . The agreement stipulated that expropriation of Italian-owned land could only take place with the consent of the landowners until a further agreement could be 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. In Dalmatia, a total of of land was expropriated and distributed to 96,953 families through the land reform. 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 interest and taxes. Other recipients of land were required to pay a portion of the estimated value of the land immediately, and the rest over 10 years. ==Results==