Abstract
This paper examines the initial endeavors of Greece to grapple with the refugee problem by illuminating the ideological discourses in the lawmaking process of the Greek Parliament in 1906‒1907 on the land distribution among the Greek refugees from the Balkan states. Confronting Balkan nationalism that victimized age-long ethnic Greek communities outside its frontiers, the Greek state faced up to the reality of the setback of its irredentist policy. In the Parliament, serious and patriotic discussions were made in order to help those refugees effectively relocate and make new communities in Greek Thessaly by distributing land and furnishing financial aid. The deliberations in the Parliament, with a keen sense of the crisis of Hellenism, resulted in Law 3202, enacted on April 7, 1907.
The first state-sponsored legislative proceedings to settle refugees in Greek territory can be regarded as quite successful in that they offered a realistic solution to the refugee issue at that point in time. In addition, this legislative project concomitantly contributed to turning native Greek sharecroppers, who had suffered for long periods from the private large estate system, into smallholders. Referring to the legal arrangement for the refugees discussed in this paper, the Greek government was to wrestle with massive numbers of incoming Greek refugees from Asia Minor after the Greek forces were defeated by the Kemalist Turkish army in 1922.
