Tuesday, March 06, 2007

Verigar : the first stamp of Slovenia

In Slovenia, the first stamp issued specially for this former yougoslavian country is the Verigar issue, representing a slave cutting his chains (they are told in veriga in slovenian).

The blue-green 15 heller.

Even before the end of World War One, the Austro-Hungarian Empire collapsed at the automn 1918. Many independantist parties took power and the independance of their dreamed countries. South Slavic parties began with the State of the Slovenes, Croats and Serbs (« Država SHS » on the stamp, the same in cyrillic at its top). The 1st December 1918, the State became a Kingdom under the reign of Peter, king of Serbia. Finally, in 1929, it changed name for Yugoslavia that it bears until the independences' wars at the beginning of the 1990's.

The Verigar issue is created loccaly in Ljubljana, main Slovenian town, at the end of 1918. The painter Ivan Vavpotič (1877-1943) drew it and two kinds are printed : small and vertical long. But, when issue came early 1919, the stamp had got an error since the country was no more the one printed on it.

Complementary link :
* un scan libre de droit du 15 heller.

Reminder :
About another first stamp of a country born at the end of the Great War, read article "The Prague Castle".

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