Sprovođenje agrarne reforme i djelovanje komitskih četa u Hercegovini nakon Prvog svjetskog rata
Realisation of Agrarian Reform and Actions of Brigand Units in Herzegovina after World War I

Summary/Abstract: For quite a while, the agrarian issue was the most complex and difficult social issue as well as the key political issue in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It reflected not only economic characteristics of rural Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also mutually intertwined relations, national and confessional in particular. Due to this reason, the Austro-Hungarian rule kept the Ottoman agrarian legislation in force until as late as 1912, i.e. until the adoption of the Law on Optional Buy-off of Surfs. Immediately after the establishment of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenians in 1918, there were open efforts of the ruling circles to implement agrarian reform. A number of laws and by-laws were adopted for that purpose, all aimed at elimination of “feudal relations” in rural areas and at making çift tax payers exempt of this tax and free to tend to the land they had worked on. Although the government had promised the most proper implementation of the law and full respect of human and ownership rights, this process was carried out as a ruthless campaign and merciless repression of Muslim landowners. In the region of Herzegovina, and particularly along the border with Montenegro, there were violent campaigns undertaken by the units of brigands who demonstrated an extreme form of chauvinism against the Muslim population aimed at forcible change of the structure of land ownership. In an attempt to bring some order into the state, the authorities made certain, albeit partially successful, efforts.

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