Αγροτικές προσφυγικές εγκαταστάσεις στη Μακεδονία: 1923-1930

Abstract

Over a million refugees entered the Greek state, following the Asia Minor
Catastrophe (1922) and the compulsory exchange of populations between
Greece and Turkey, creating tremendous problems of settlement.
The principal object of the governments and the Refugee Settlement Commission
(RSC) — an organisation supervised by the League of Nations —
during the 1920s was the establishment of the refugees in rural settlements in 

the Northern part of Greece and particularly in the region of Macedonia. The
aim of this paper is to examine the reasons that formulated this settling strategy.
To this end I have drawn on material from archival and published sources
in an attempt to provide, a systematic account of certain factors that affected
the resettlement of refugees.
The priority given to the resettlement of refugees in Macedonia in order to
help them to become self-sufficient through agriculture depended on a complex
interplay of a number of practical, economic, and political considerations: the
demographic and topographic characteristics of the region in contrast with
other parts of Greece; available Muslim properties and large estates, which
could be expropriated; projects for the economic development of Macedonia
with emphasis on the improvement of the agrarian sector; particular considerations
of security and military requirements, especially in border areas coveted
by neighbouring states; policies aimed at the national homogeneity of the
population of Macedonia and the assimilation of slavophone Greeks. Finally,
with reference to internal politics, the resettlement of the great bulk of refugees
as smallholders in Macedonia was considered an effective way of eliminating
the danger of social unrest and problems associated with a pauperised, landless,
and therefore, radicalised peasantry as well as a means for the Venizelist
camp to remain in power, given the pro-venizelist electoral behaviour of the
refugees during this period.