Tuesday, January 22, 2019

The revenge of Yugoslavia on Bosnian stamps of 1906

I acquired a set of stamps from Bosnia Hercegovina which have a bunch of holes in them. The page where these stamps were placed had a little note


Here is what is said on this note


This is the famous pictorial set of Bosnia Herzegovina issued in 1906 when it was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was in Sarajevo, its capital, where the shot was fired by Gavrilo Princip which killed the Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand and his wife in 1914.  This shot is what started World War I and ended with the partition of the once proud Austro-Hungarian Empire.



The new country was formed in 1918 immediately after World War I as the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes by union of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs and the Kingdom of Serbia. It was commonly referred to at the time as the "Versailles state". Later, the government renamed the country leading to the first official use of Yugoslavia in 1929.

Bosnia Herzegovina became part of that new country in 1918 to which it was always tied racially. With freedom came revenge. So strong and fierce was their hatred for everything Austrian that the Bosnian destroyed and demolished everything left by their former rulers.

Nor have these stamps escapes the national wrath. These stamps were defaced by having holes punched through them and then were ordered to be sold as a symbol to remind the world how Yugoslavia has taken her revenge on the Austro-Hungarian Empire

Here is the set of stamps which have holes through them




Below you can see a bigger version of the 5 Kronen stamp with Franz Joseph







In 1918 these stamps were overprinted with Država SHS Bosna i Hergegovina (Country SHS, Bosnia and Hercegovina) as well as with Kraljestvo Srba, Hrvata i Slovenaca (Kingdom of Serb, Croats and Slovenes)

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