Between occupation, exile and unification: sequestered and ‘abandoned’ properties in Serbia and Yugoslavia during and after the First World War

ABSTRACT

This article examines Serbia’s policies regarding the treatment of enemy subjects, and, in particular, enemy property during and after the Great War. It situates these policies in the context of the Balkan Wars of 1912–13, when tens of thousands of Muslims are estimated to have fled the Macedonia and Kosovo regions, leaving behind their property and belongings. After the subsequent world war, the newly created Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes struggled for international recognition, internal legal harmonization and the naturalization of former enemy subjects. These struggles often manifested themselves in Serbian policies towards issues of land redistribution, ownership rights and regional variations, as well as the legal status of the private and public property belonging to the former Habsburg and Ottoman Empires. These questions lingered right up until the late 1930s, when the Yugoslav state finally resolved these longstanding disputes with the successor states – Austria, Bulgaria and Turkey.

KEYWORDS:

• Serbia
• Balkan Wars 1912–13
• First World War
• abandoned properties
• sequester
• Kingdom of Serbs
• Croats and Slovenes
• legal harmonization

Acknowledgements

This research and the finalizing of the paper benefited from the institutional support of the Philosophical Faculty, University of Hradec Králové.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. See the thematic issue of the Journal of Modern European History, “Aliens and Internal Enemies during the First World War,” 4; see also Caglioti, “Property Rights and Economic Nationalism” and Lohr, Nationalizing the Russian Empire.

2. One of the recent and more valuable contributions to these new interpretations of place and the broader significance of the Balkan Wars 1912–13 is Boeckh and Rutar, eds., The Wars of Yesterday, in particular their Introduction (3–17).

3. Kemal Karpat explains this phenomenon by saying that ‘Muslims identified themselves with the authority of state, but not with its territory … they were bound to obey [a] Muslim ruler; and if the ruler lost the authority over a territory, Muslims would traditionally migrate to live in an area still under the rule of Islamic government.’ Following the example of their prophet who once fled from Mecca to Medina to evade persecution, Muslims from Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro and Greece did the same both individually and collectively; see Karpat, “The Muslim Minority in the Balkans,” 131–46, here 134.

4. According to Dündar, İttihat ve Terakki’nin Müslümanları İskan Politikası, 56, after the Balkan Wars, the number of refugees was 640,000. Dundar also mentions the number given by the director of the General Directorate of Tribes and Immigrants in 1918. According to him, after the second constitutional regime and Balkan wars, the number of refugees was 450,000 (Dündar, İttihat ve Terakki’nin Müslümanları İskan Politikası, 57). Talat Pasha’s notebook, published by Murat Bardakçı in 2008, mentions the figure 339,074 (Bardakçı, Talat Paşa’nın Evrak-ı Metrukes, 35–9). According to the Salonika and Kavala harbour records from November 1912 to March 1915, some 266,083 people from the Balkans sailed to Anatolia, 94,816 of whom were from Serbia: cited in Jagodić, Novi krajevi Srbije (1914–1915), 307. Iakovos Michailidis, in his paper “Cleansing the Nation: War-Related Demographic changes in Macedonia”, 333, presents a similar number of 243,807 refugees as having passed through Salonica between November 1912 and March 1914. Here I wish to thank my colleague Mehmet Polatel for translating quotations from the above-mentioned Turkish publications.

5. Jagodić, Novi krajevi Srbije (1914–1915), 306.

6. Ibid., 326–7. Out of 213 landlords, 156 lived in towns, while only 45 lived in villages (12 used to live abroad: 10 in Albania, 1 in Egypt and 1 in Constantinople).

7. Tsentralen derzhaven istoricheski arhiv (CDIA) fond 260 k, opis no. 4, arhivska edinitsa 148, Tablitsa n.3, za chiflishite imoti v’ Makedonska voenno-inspektsionna oblast. After the introduction of occupation regimes in Macedonia and parts of the Kosovo region, Bulgarians conducted different censuses driven by the plans to annexe these areas. According to one census, there were 3985 estates (3511 private, 458 abandoned, 9 state-owned and 7 belonging to religious and relief associations) owned by 3535 Muslim land owners, 357 Bulgarians and 93 of ‘other nationalities’). These estates held 1,876,400 hectares of land in total.

8. Uredba o naseljavanju u novooslobođenim i prisajedinjenim oblastima Kraljevine Srbije, Srpske novine, br. 44, 23. februar 1914.

9. Izmene i dopune Uredbe o naseljavanju u novooslobođenim i prisajedinjenim oblastima Kraljevine Srbije, Srpske novine, br 105, 11. maj 1914.

10. The basic cell of Serbian society throughout the nineteenth century was the extended family household. This saw at least three generations living together under one roof, cultivating their land as a single economic unit. Female members would leave the household at marriage, while some male members would occasionally leave it in pursuit of other careers, such as in the military, in education or in the clergy. In the Serbian language the household was traditionally referred to as zadruga. The main reason for this organization was to avoid the division of land. Instead of claiming their rightful share, sons would remain under their father’s roof and continue living together. However, it sometimes happened that married sons would claim their share and leave this community. The families that they created were classified as solitary families and by rule had to make their living on very small properties.

11. Jagodić, Novi krajevi Srbije (1914–1915), 317. By the end of the nineteenth century there were 102,620 rural households in Serbia with little or no land at all.

12. On this, see Jagodić, Novi krajevi Srbije (1914–1915); Jovanović, Jugoslovenska država i Južna Srbija 1918–1929 (Makedonija, Sandžak i Kosovo i Metohija u Kraljevini SHS); and Newman, Yugoslavia in the Shadow of War.

13. Uredba o naseljavanju u novooslobođenim i prisajedinjenim oblastima Kraljevine Srbije, Srpske novine, br 44, 23. februar 1914. Colonization came with several incentives. They included (apart from land itself): free railway transportation for families; equipment, tools, household items and cattle; free timber from state forests; tax exemptions in the first three years of settlement; exemptions from customs for imported goods and cattle for colonists coming from abroad. Colonists would also become full owners after 15 years of cultivation.

14. Jagodić, Novi krajevi Srbije (1914–1915), 310, 335.

15. Ibid., 312. No requests from abroad have been preserved.

16. Stojković, Balkanski ugovorni odnosi 1876–1996, 409–15.

17. Zakon o postupanju sa imovinom podanika država koje su u ratu sa Srbijom, 17. avgust 1915, Srpske novine, broj 233 od 24. avgusta 1915.

18. Pravilnik za izvršenje Zakona o imovini neprijateljskih podanika, 19. avgust 1915, Srpske novine, broj 233 od 24. avgusta 1915.

19. The precise number of dead has not been determined. It is estimated that from 400,000 infected, around 100,000 civilians and 35,000 soldiers died; see Mitrović, Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918, 111.

20. Following Serbian legal practice, which in case of debt guaranteed the sanctity of a house and its infield, this law envisaged that shops and workshops of enemy subjects that provided their owners with their sole source of income were exempt from the threat of sequestration.

21. Prethodni rezultati popisa stanovništva i domaće stoke u Kraljevini Srbiji 31. decembra 1910, knj. 5, Izdanje uprave državne statistike, Beograd 1911/Résultats préliminaires du dénombrement de la population et des animaux de fermes dans le Royaume de Serbie le 31 décembre 1910, Tome cinquième, Publié par la direction de la statistique d’etat: Belgrade 1911, 5.

22. Konačni rezultati popisa od 31 January 1921, Sarajevo 1932, 86–122, quoted in Jovanović, Jugoslovenska država i Južna Srbija 1918–1929, 45–6. Out of 1,476,747 inhabitants of ‘Old and South Serbia’ – the unofficial name of 16 counties in the newly associated regions of Sanjak, Macedonia and Kosovo and Metohija – 734,164 were males and 740,396 females. Some 59.5% were Serbs/Croats, 28.2% Albanians, 10% Turks, 0.6% Vlachs, 0.03% Slovenes, 0.01% Germans and so on. In terms of religion, 50% were Greek Orthodox and 48.2% were Muslims.

23. Građanski zakonik Kneževine Srbije (1844) sa kasnijim izmenama, Član 44. (Serbian civil code from 1844 with later amendments, Article 44) http://www.overa.rs/gradanski-zakonik-kraljevine-srbije-1844-god-sa-kasnijim-izmenama.html (accessed 27 July 2018).

24. For more on Serbia’s participation in the First World War, see Mitrović, Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918; see also Le Moal, La Serbie, du martyre à la victoire (1914–1918).

25. Mitrović, Ustaničke borbe u Srbiji 1916–1918, 34–40.

26. Ristović, “Occupation During and After the War (South East Europe).”

27. Scheer, “Forces and Force; Austria-Hungary’s Occupation Regime in Serbia during the First World War,” 161–79 (163). For more on Austro-Hungarian occupation regimes throughout Europe during the First World War, see Scheer, Zwischen Front und Heimat,

28. Mitrović, Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918, 237–9. By 1917, quantities of requisitioned goods transported to the Monarchy had reached 80,700 tons of grains, 170,000 cattle, 190,000 sheep and 50,000 pigs.

29. Ibid., 237. In total, 300 million Serbian Dinar banknotes in circulation were covered by 260 milion golden francs.

30. See note 26.

31. Ibid.

32. Trifunovic, “Prisoners of War and Internees (South East Europe).” According to post-war data presented by the government of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, 81,214 Serbian soldiers and 80,000 civilian internees died in captivity in Austria-Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria.

33. V’lkov, “B’lgarskoto voennoadministrativno upravlenie v Pomoravieto, Kosovo, i Vardarska Makedoniya,” 258.

34. Ibid., 263–7.

35. Zakon protiv t’rguvaneto s nepriyatelya i sekvestirane imotite na podanitsi, prinadlezhashti na nepriyatelski d’rzhavi i na litsa zhivushti v tiya d’rzhavi, D’rzhavna pechatnitsa, Sofiya 1917. Law passed on 17 April, and published in the Bulgarian State Gazette no. 86 on 24 April 1917, while the Rulebook was approved on 10 October and published in the State Gazette no. 241 on 29 October 1917. Both Law and the Rulebook were later published as separate issues.

36. Ibid.

37. On the Toplica Uprising and armed resistance in Serbia during the First World War, see Mitrović, Ustaničke borbe u Srbiji 1916–1918.

38. Mitrović, Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918, 161. Up until 15 February 1916, the Allies managed to save some 150,000 Serbian soldiers and around 20,000 civilians.

39. Harvard University – Collection Development Department, Widener Library, HCL/Economic Conference of the Allies. Text of the Paris economic pact, S.l.: s.n., 1916.

40. Zakon o uzimanju na znanje i odobrenje odluka Pariske ekonomske konferencije, 18. oktobar 1916, Srpske novine, broj 97, 18. novembar 1916.

41. ‘Business undertakings owned or operated by enemy subjects in the territories of the Allies will be sequestered or placed under control; measure will be taken for the purpose of winding up some of these undertakings and of realizing their assets, the proceeds of such realization remaining sequestered or under control’ – Economic Conference of the Allies. Text of the Paris Economic Pact, 5.

42. Ibid., 5.

43. Stanković, “Kako je Jugoslavija počela,” 232–46 (232–3, 236). The Serbian army alone suffered 371,000 dead and 114,000 wounded. South Slavs from Austria-Hungary suffered heavy casualties as well: 300,000 dead and 450,000 wounded. Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian retaliations caused the death of 40,000 citizens of Serbia while 81,214 Serbian soldiers and 80,000 civilian internees died in captivity in Austria-Hungary, Germany and Bulgaria, it is estimated that the overall casualties of South Slavs in the Great War reached the figure of 700,000 soldiers, 300,000 civilians and around 500,000 wounded. In total, casualty figures amounted to some 1.5 million of the most productive and demographically fertile components of the population.

44. On 7 December 1914, during a session in the Serbian war capital of Niš, parliament passed a short official declaration stating that the Serbian war aim was the liberation and unification of ‘all our brothers Serbs, Croats and Slovenes who are not free’: see Mitrović, Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918, 96. Later, in June 1917, during their stay in Corfu, the Serbian government passed a joint declaration with the Yugoslav Committee (a group of South Slav dissident politicians from Austria-Hungary) stating that any future state would be named the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes and that it would be a ‘constitutional, democratic and parliamentary monarchy’. See Mitrović, Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918, 293. The Niš and Corfu declarations represent two key documents that preceded Yugoslav unification.

45. The difference between these systems was mainly in the quantity of products serfs were obliged to give to their landlords, going from a tenth, an eleventh and a quarter, all the way up to half of an annual yield.

46. Ustav Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca [Vidovdanski ustav] from 28 June 1921, in Ustavi i vlade Kneževine Srbije, Kraljevine Srbije, Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata Slovenaca i Kraljevine Jugoslavije (1835–1941), 209–30.

47. Popis, sekvestar i likvidacija imovine neprijateljskih podanika, 30. april 1919, Službene novine Kraljevine Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca, broj 39, 3. maj 1919.

48. Uredba o imovini neprijateljskih podanika, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 149, 10. jul 1920.

49. Pravilnik o izvršenju uredbe o imovini neprijateljskih podanika, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 166, 31. jul 1920.

50. Virijević, Jugoslovensko, 46–50.

51. Uredba o Upravi za likvidaciju ratne štete, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 118, 31. maj 1922.

52. Zakon o prelazu celokupne imovine bivše Austrougarske monarhije u svojinu naše države, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 142, 30. jun 1922.

53. Zakon o proširenju važnosti svih zakona Kraljevine Srbije na oslobođene i prisajedinjene oblasti u toku Balkanskih ratova. Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 142, 30. jun 1922.

54. More on this, see Jagodić, Novi krajevi Srbije (1914–1915).

55. Zakon o postupanju sa imovinom podanika država koje su u ratu sa Srbijom, 17. avgust 1915, Srpske novine, broj 233 od 24. avgusta 1915; and Pravilnik za izvršenje Zakona o imovini neprijateljskih podanika, 19. avgust 1915, Srpske novine, broj 233 od 24. avgusta 1915.

56. Naređenje o imovini neprijateljskih podanika, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 74, 29. jul 1919.

57. Zakon o postupku prilikiom prijava i plaćanja suma koje naši podanici duguju neprijateljskim državljanima, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 12 I, 17. januar 1924. The state would issue receipts acknowledging its commitment to reimburse enemy subjects according to the stipulation of peace accords. If enemy subjects preferred to decline this kind of solution, they were free to initiate a private lawsuit.

58. Petranović, Istorija Jugoslavije 1918–1988, 51.

59. Mitrović, Serbia’s Great War 1914–1918, 285–6. On the trials in Bosnia and Herzegovina see also Ćorović, Crna knjiga.

60. Zakon glede ukinuća carske naredbe o zapljeni imovine zbog veleizdaje, 30. januar 1922, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 142, 30. jun 1922.

61. Zakon o prenosu dobara članova bivše carske porodice Habsburgovaca pod upravu Ministarstva finansija, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 12 I, 17. januar 1924.

62. The Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO) was founded during the 1890s as a secret and revolutionary organization whose main aim was the introduction of reforms in Ottoman Macedonia, and ultimately the granting of autonomy to the region. The history of the IMRO was marked by a strong reliance on the Bulgarian state, by extreme anti-Serbian and anti-Greek feelings and actions, and by internal strife. For more on the IMRO and the Macedonian question, see: Lange-Akhund, The Macedonian Question, 1893–1908, from Western Sources; Todorovski, Avtonomističkata VMRO na Todor Aleksandrov 1919–1924; Tyulekov, Obrecheno rodolyubie. VMRO v Pirinsko 1919–1934, http://www.promacedonia.org/dt/dt1_2.html (accessed on 31 May 2018).

63. The text of the Neuilly peace treaty was published as the ‘Provisional Law on Peace Treaty and Protocol Concluded in Neuilly-sur-Seine’ in the State Gazette of Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, no. 211a of 24 September 1920.

64. For more on post-Second World War Bulgaria, see: Daskalov, B’lgarskoto obshtestvo 1878–1939, Tom 1; Crampton, Bulgaria; and Bell, Peasants in Power.

65. CDIA fond 284 k, opis no. 2, arhivska edinitsa 204, Zaklyucheniyat protocol ot 23. 11.1923 za restitutsiya za predmetite i tsennostite otneti ot Srbiya po vreme na voinata.

66. CDIA fond 284 k, opis no. 2, arhivska edinitsa 204. Until some future time when both states would agree over dual citizenship, all refuges from Serbia who had sought refuge in Bulgaria after the signing of the 1913 Treaty of Bucharest (and who had not become Bulgarian civil servants and sworn allegiance to the Bulgarian state) were to be considered Yugoslav subjects. Those who had ended up in Bulgaria before the Treaty of Bucharest were regarded as Bulgarian subjects.

67. CDIA fond 284, opis no. 2, arhivska edinitsa 205, Konvetsiya za isplashtane na rekvizitcionite i izzemvaniyata ot Yugoslaviya.

68. CDIA fond 284, opis no. 2, arhivska edinitsa 205.

69. Zakon o Konvenciji između Kraljevine Jugoslavije i Kraljevine Bugarske o likvidaciji dvovlasničkih imanja, potpisana 14. februara 1930, Službene novine Kraljevine Jugoslavije, broj 72, 29. mart 1930.

70. Zakon o dopuni konvencije između Kraljevine Jugoslavije i Kraljevine Bugarske o likvidaciji dvovlasničkih imanja, iz 1930, dopunjena i potpisana 3. juna 1933, Službene novine Kraljevine Jugoslavije, broj 298, 21. decembra 1933.

71. Uredba o sporazumu o konačnom uređenju pitanja dvovlasničkih imanja na granici između Kraljevine Jugoslavije i Kraljevine Bugarske, sa pravilnikom koji čini njegov sastavni deo. Službene novine Kraljevine Jugoslavije, broj 128, 7. Jun 1940.

72. Virijević, Jugoslovensko, 59–61.

73. Ibid., 61.

74. Ugovor o miru i prijateljstvu između Kraljevine SHS i Republike Turske, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 35, 16. februar 1926.

75. Zakon o Sporazumu o prijateljstvu, o nenapadanju, o sudskom raspravljanju, o arbitraži i koncilijaciji između Kraljevine Jugoslavije i Republike Turske, Službene novine Kraljevine Jugoslavije, broj 21, 28. januar 1935.

76. Zakon o Sporazumu o regulisanju uzajamnih reklamacija između Kraljevine Jugoslavije i Republike Turske, Službene novine Kraljevine Jugoslavije, broj 21, 28. januar 1935.

77. For more on this, see Akçam and Kurt, The Spirit of the Laws.

78. Ugovor o miru sa Austrijom (Sen Žermenski ugovor), in Niketić ed., Zbirka zakona, sv. 61, and Ugovor o miru sa Ugarskom (Trijanonski ugovor), in Niketić, ed., Zbirka zakona, sv. 64.

79. On Allied argumentation for imposing harsh economic measures onto vanquished Central Powers see Caglioti, “Property Rights in Time of War,” 539–40.

80. Privremeni zakon o Ugovoru o miru i protokolu zaključenim u Neji na Seni, Službene novine Kraljevine SHS, broj 211a, 24. septembar 1920.

81. Articles 279e and 279i of the Treaty of Versailles as quoted in Caglioti, “Property Rights in Time of War,” 539; Article 249i of the Saint Germaine Treaty – Ugovor o miru sa Austrijom (Sen Žermenski ugovor); Article 232 j of the Trianon Treaty – Ugovor o miru sa Ugarskom (Trijanonski ugovor); and Article 177i of the Neuilly Treaty – Privremeni zakon o Ugovoru o miru i protokolu zaključenim u Neji na Seni.

82. More on peace treaties and their consequences see: Gerwarth, The Vanquished, in particular, chapter 13 “Vae Victis,” 199–219.

Additional information

Funding

This research benefited from the grant funded by the Italian Ministero dell'Istruzione, dell'Universita e della Ricerca (PRIN-MIUR2015 - 945-2015FWW9H7) as part of the research project 'War and Citizenship: Redrawing Boundaries of Citizenship in the First World War and its Aftermath', as well as from the institutional support of the Philosophical Faculty, University of Hradec Králové.

Notes on contributors

Dmitar Tasić

Dr Dmitar Tasić is a Research Fellow in the Philosophical Faculty, University of Hradec Králové, Czechia. His primary research interests are related to the history of the Yugoslav armed forces, both in the inter-war and post-1945 periods, as well as in paramilitary organizations and paramilitary violence in the Balkans. From 2000 to 2014 he worked as a Research Fellow at the Military History Institute in Belgrade, Serbia. In 2014, he was awarded the Irish Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellowship; in 2016 he was a Research Fellow at the Center for Advanced Studies in Sofia, Bulgaria. In 2017–18, he participated in the ‘War and Citizenship: Redrawing the Boundaries of Citizenship in the First World War and Its Aftermath’ collaborative project in the Department of Humanities, University Frederic II, Naples, Italy.