Reclaiming a Marsh in the Late Ottoman Empire: From a Local Initiative to a Large-Scale Enterprise in Serres

The rise of the Eastern Mediterranean ports for international trade and the commercialization of agricultural production in the late Ottoman Empire made the land around the ports a profitable resource, prompting efforts to turn wetland regions into arable land. This article focuses on one such reclamation project in the empire’s Balkan territory of Serres, Thessalonica, along the River Karasu and Lake Tahyanos at the end of the nineteenth century. It narrates the development of the project from the initial efforts of the local administration into a full-fledged commercial enterprise. The reclamation process is shown to be highly contested as various actors and stakeholders, including the Public Debt Administration (PDA), international and domestic entrepreneurs, and peasants, struggled over the wetland region, and the central and local governments endeavoured to cope with the resulting difficulties.