The Kileler uprising occurred in

Kileler Kileler ( el, Κιλελέρ, between 1919 and 1985: Κυψέλη - ''Kypseli''EETAA local ...

Thessaly Thessaly ( el, Θεσσαλία, translit=Thessalía, ; ancient Thessalian: , ) is a traditional geographic and modern administrative region of Greece, comprising most of the ancient region of the same name. Before the Greek Dark Ages, Thes ...

Kingdom of Greece The Kingdom of Greece ( grc, label=Greek, Βασίλειον τῆς Ἑλλάδος ) was established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constantinople, where ...

, in March 1910, when local farmers engaged in mass protests against the extended privileges of landowners and the limitation of their own rights. The protest was brutally suppressed by the local militia; more than four protesters were killed and many more were wounded.

Background

Even though the mainly agricultural province of

was transferred from the

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

to the Kingdom of Greece through the Convention of Constantinoupole in 1881, rural areas continued for many years to be regulated through the

Chiflik Chiflik, or chiftlik (Ottoman Turkish: ; al, çiflig; bg, чифлик, ''chiflik''; mk, чифлиг, ''čiflig''; el, τσιφλίκι, ''tsiflíki''; sr, читлук/''čitluk''), is a Turkish term for a system of land management in th ...

system, which derived from the Ottoman times. While the chiflik owners held a semi-feudal status and received a part of the agricultural output they were obliged to provide housing for their farmers and weren't allowed to apply forced labor. In 1881, another land workers' revolt occurred in nearby village Sklatina (current name Rizoma). As the living and working conditions of the farmers worsened, protests became more frequent especially after the assassination of figures like activist

Marinos Antypas Marinos Antypas (; 1872 – March 8, 1907) was a Greek lawyer and journalist, and one of the country's first socialists. He was born in the village Ferentinata, near Antypata Pylarou, in Kefalonia, the eldest son of Spyros Antypas and Angelina ...

. The promises of

Eleftherios Venizelos Eleftherios Kyriakou Venizelos ( el, Ελευθέριος Κυριάκου Βενιζέλος, translit=Elefthérios Kyriákou Venizélos, ; – 18 March 1936) was a Greek statesman and a prominent leader of the Greek national liberation movem ...

during his 1910 electoral campaign concerning agricultural reform further aggravated the farmers.

Main events

In March 1910, the farmers organized a mass protest in

Larissa Larissa (; el, Λάρισα, , ) is the capital and largest city of the Thessaly region in Greece. It is the fifth-most populous city in Greece with a population of 144,651 according to the 2011 census. It is also capital of the Larissa regiona ...

and villagers from many areas of the prefecture traveled to the city. The Kileler incident began when several hundred farmers tried to travel by train to Larissa without buying tickets. When their request was rejected, the farmers backed down, but a confrontation occurred between them and the station supervisor, who asked for the intervention of the local militia that attacked the farmers killing two of them and wounding many others. When the train reached the station of Tsoular (modern Melia), it didn't stop to pick up farmers, two of whom were shot dead by the militia located inside the train. As news of the killings spread in Larissa, clashes between the militia and the protesters became frequent.

Aftermath

Many of the farmers were tried for the events of the protests, but none were sentenced. Eventually the need of the central government to use farmers as recruits, and after 1922, the settlement of

refugees from Asia Minor Greek refugees is a collective term used to refer to the more than one million Greek Orthodox natives of Asia Minor, Thrace and the Black Sea areas who fled during the Greek genocide (1914-1923) and Greece's later defeat in the Greco-Turkish War ...

in Greece led to the implementation of a 1917 law regarding land redistribution.

Sources

{{Socialism in Greece Protests in Greece Modern history of Thessaly 1910 in Greece Conflicts in 1910 Agrarian politics Peasant revolts