ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with the settlement of immigrants and subsequent land disputes in Yenişehir and İznik following the Russo–Ottoman War of 1877–1878. It analyzes the settlement process and ensuing land disputes through the experiences and perspectives of various actors involved in the process. Throughout the settlement processes, late Ottoman notions of “legitimacy” entailing the survival of independent, landed peasant households as the basic unit of economic production clashed with “the rule of law,” which entailed exclusive ownership rights on land as private property. In such a context, strict adherence to “the rule of law” with respect to legal guarantees on private ownership of land would have rendered Western Anatolia ungovernable, because of the massive influx of the Muslim refugees. As such, in Yenişehir and İznik, “the legitimate” claims of the immigrant communities prevailed over “the lawful” positions of the big landowners. The local political arena was decisive in this outcome, because it channeled the settlement toward extensive waqf lands under the possession of absentee landowners, with a view of protecting local interests from the immigrants’ encroachments.
