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Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s

Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s. Tracing the territorial changes in the Balkan Wars and WWI Map 1: Europe and the Balkans after the First Balkan War -1912 Map 2: Europe and the Balkans after the Second Balkan War – 1913

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Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s

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  1. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Tracing the territorial changes in the Balkan Wars and WWI • Map 1: Europe and the Balkans after the First Balkan War -1912 • Map 2: Europe and the Balkans after the Second Balkan War – 1913 • Europe and the Balkans at the end of WWI – 1920; Greece occupies Izmir and Eastern Thrace • Europe and the Balkans after the end of the Greek-Turkish War

  2. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Structural Changes and Exogenous Shocks to the Systems • Territorial Acquisitions – Different Administrative and Political Structures • Demographic Changes • Ethnic and Religious Heterogeneity (Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes) • Refugee Influx (Greece and Bulgaria) • Universal Male Suffrage • Would make the politics more fragmented and radicalized • The Economic Depression • Ideological Shifts in Europe • Power Politics in Europe • In addition they had their own internal drives for modernization, integration, and homogenization

  3. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Internal Drive Remains the Same: • Modernization • Political/Administrative • Economic • Social • Cultural • National Integration • Homogenization

  4. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • But their environment is very different • Structural Changes/Exogenous Shocks to the Systems • Territorial • How to incorporate different and pre-existing systems into the political systems? • Invariably applied the centralized administrative organization to the expanded and newly incorporated territories

  5. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Most serious problem in Yugoslavia and Romania • Transylvania, Besarabia and Bucovina voted to join Romania (the Regat) with explicit conditions to preserve regional autonomy and elected councils; Romania quickly dismissed these conditions (exception government of Iuliu Maniu and the National Peasant Party 1929- 1933) • Conflicts about the political structure of Yugoslavia were never resolved; fear of Italian designs pushed the other South Slavs into the Kingdom and accepting the centralized Serbian version of the state, and immediately challenged it; territorial organization was based on 33 new provinces; most of the policy dimensions were centralized, yet the legal code of the country was not harmonized until 1929; territorial reorganization in 1929 – seemingly neutral yet it assured Serb majority in 6 out of the 9 administrative units – the banovine

  6. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Bulgaria • Problems created by influx of refugees and the legacy of its own support for IMRO; the organization used the territory of southwest Bulgaria (Pirin Macedonia) as its base and refused to accept central authority – it was operating according to 18th century Ottoman traditions • Albania (similar problems to Montenegro) • It was a newly established state and it just faced for the first time the creation of a central administration; it had a history and tradition of local autonomy and insubordination to central authority; divisions between Ghegs and Tosks; Ahmed Zogolli/King Zog had to spend 50% of his budget just on the army and police in order to establish basic state authority and sovereignty (the Kanuni of Lekë Dukagjinit – Gjakmarrja) • Some autonomy for capitals (exception Belgrade)

  7. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Structural Changes/Exogenous Shocks to the Systems • Ethnic Profile • What to do with the ‘foreigners’ within • How to integrate the refugees

  8. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Constitutions from 19th century defined citizenship on the basis of Christianity (exception Montenegro) • All signatories of Minorities Treaties (1920 and 1924) (http://www.austlii.edu.au/au/other/dfat/treaties/) • Assimilation and Exclusion • Romania • Suppression of cultural activities on Hungarians; educational system centralized and establishment only of Romanian schools; university of Cluj nationalized; relaxation only under Iuliu Maniu • Germans and Jews did not make special demands; large group of Jews left without citizenship (80000 out of the 700000); demands for quota system in universities; Jews ‘overrepresented’ in professions and urban middle class-bred resentment into the population – the only genuine anti-Semitic movement on the Balkans together with Thessaloniki

  9. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Bulgaria • Preserved the millet system for the legal system – Muslim affairs were under the Ministry of Foreign Affairs; absence of special efforts for integration • Balkan wars saw the first concerted efforts for Christianization of the Pomak Population (and renaming respectively) • Alexander Stamboliiski’s government implemented the Treaty of Neuilly and state funding for Turkish schools; • Radical shift in 1934 – suppression of cultural and educational rights • Refugee Problem – the Macedonian Factor • Considered Bulgarian; their social status created more challenges for Bulgaria; settled first in Sofia and Pirin Macedonia; entrenched terrorism; created problems for the de-nationalization of foreign politics; provided a firm base for Communist parties; IMRO finally destroyed in 1934

  10. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Greece • Turkish minority had legally codified rights but was subject to neglect and abuse; schools were not supported and kept open; land of Turkish people expropriated for settling refugees; some relaxation 1930-1933 but then again repression during the regime of Ioannins Metaxas • Even worse for Slav Macedonians; no language or ethnicity right • Refugee problem was of larger magnitude than in Bulgaria – Greece received several packages of financial help from the League of Nations for resettling them; used as a tool of Hellenization of Macedonia and Western Thrace; poor and never really reimbursed; social dislocation; further exacerbated ideological splits in Greece; as in Bulgaria they proved to be good pool for recruitment for the Communist party;

  11. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Yugoslavia • Neither Assimilation, nor creation of common Yugoslav identity • Serbs dominant in State Administration and Army; unequal participation; since 1929 only Yugoslavia-wide parties allowed • No unified educational system; textbooks followed ‘ethnic’ histories in Serbia, Croatia and Slovenia; no reference to the common state; changed only after 1929 • Thorough assimilation and repession in Macedonia and Kosovo

  12. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Structural Changes and Exogenous Shocks to the Systems • Legacies of the War and Mass Conscription • Universal male suffrage • Political Sphere open to wider participation • Stage open for mass parties • Agrarian and Communist Parties • Party fragmentation and unstable governments • Romania – 26 cabinets; Albania-19; Bulgaria-9; Greece – 22; Yugoslavia-18 • Elections in the 1920s before the establishment of Royal dictatorships: Bulgaria-8; Romania -11; Greece – 7; Albania-2 • This fragmented political sphere in the end served for the consolidation of power of the central executive authority over the state • Unsurprisingly all of them slid into Royal Dictatorships in the 1930s (Albania in 1928; Yugoslavia in 1929; Bulgaria in 1935; Romania formally in 1938 but since 1933; Greece under General Ioannis Metaxas in 1936); weakened parties and precedent of pervasive control through Ministries of the Interior

  13. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Drive still to establish unified economic space and modernized economy • Structural Changes and Exogenous Shocks to the System • War Shocks and Economic Depression • Mass conscription – rising demands for land redistribution and solving the peasant problems • Land redistribution was implemented very quickly in all countries; had most significance in Romania and parts of Yugoslavia (Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina); served refugee settlement in Greece and Bulgaria; not accomplished in Albania – majority under 5 hectares –very small holdings

  14. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Land redistribution did not solve the problem of peasant poverty and agricultural boom • GDP per capita of the region was 20-30 percent of the British figure (Greece’s was 45); these countries are ranked at the bottom of 24 European countries ranked for 1929 • Economies still dominated by agriculture – 70-80% • Pre-war export levels of agricultural products recovered only in 1929 and then the Depression reversed that • General productivity was very low; American and Canadian grain products entered Western Europe during the war and stayed there; Balkan countries had to diversify out of grain production; investment into import of modern equipment was lacking (Bulgaria exception); establishment of cooperatives but mostly access to credit –Buulgarian Agricultural Bank

  15. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • Rising protection measures – both for agriculture and industry • But industry still remained very small -10%; Greece’s increased to 18%; Yugoslavia’s thanks to the incorporation of Croatia and Slovenia increased to 19% too; Romania’s industry was oil-based; employment in the public sector was still larger than in industry • Capital flows and investment were gravely missing; no state loans as in the pre-war period; investment by Britain was restricted to mining sector, where it dominated ownership; Albania’s capital flows dominated by Italy with political conditions • Monetary policy helped stability but as everywhere in Europe exchange rates were overvalued and this further hindered recovery, exports and growth

  16. Political and Economic Integration, 1920s and 1930s • National Management of the Economies • Central Agencies for Subsidizing Agricultural production and export (established precedent and organization for the future Communist regimes); led to further overproduction and deficits • Industry was growing faster; no state ownership but involvement through credit flows; the national banks assumed a larger role • Integration into the German economic zone

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