CHINA 2009 - World Stamp Exhibition in Luoyang (10-16 April 2009)

POSTAL HISTORY OF WEST MACEDONIA 

(1696-1939)

West Macedonia: A place that was always isolated and hardly approached. Its mountainous terrain has created natural borders, causing problems on development and communication. The long-lasting period of the Turkish rule in this region, in combination with the inaccessible landscape, has caused, concerning its contacts with the rest of the world, long-lasting difficulties. Do consider that up until the liberation of the region and a few years later (1913-14), its contact with the rest of the Greek territory and, therefore, with the rest of the world, was achieved through Aminteo (then Sorovich). Aminteo was a hub and a railway stop between Thessaloniki and Monastir. West Macedonia constitutes the western part of the wider area of Macedonia. Recently there is a dispute over the name between Greece and the part of the Ottoman Vilayet of Monastir, which aims at the international recognition of the newly formed country with the name Macedonia. During the post-Byzantine era, Macedonia - even before its total submission to the Ottomans - was annexed for about forty years to the Kingdom of the Serbians. Its Greek residents had always desired their liberation from the Ottoman rule, provoking continuous revolutions, succeeding their goal with a war on the first decade of the 20^th century. After the first Balkan war, West Macedonia devolved in the arms of the Mother Country. Nevertheless, during WWI West Macedonia became part of the East Front-line theater (Balkan Theater), along with the development of the French, Serbian, Russian and Italian powers in its territory. Therefore, modern West Macedonia, which nowadays includes the prefectures of Kozani, Florina, Kastoria and Grevena, administratively and geographically belonged (during the ottoman conquest) to the Vilayet of Monastir. After its liberation from the Turkish rule, West Macedonia was integrated to mainland Greece and entered officially to the organization of postal services of the New Countries. Its postal history,has to do with the existence of the Ottoman Post Offices, which worked at different places until the liberation in 1912, and the presence of the Greek Post Office, which has been working, since the liberation in 1912 until 1939. Other foreign post offices didn’t work in the territory, except from the period of the second half of the second decade of the 20^th century, when the French and the Italian military post offices offered their services to their troops in the same area for a limited period.

The project is as it follows:

fr.1 Prefranked period (1696)-Ottoman domination (1841-1912).

fr.2 Ottoman domination (1841-1912)-Liberation & annexation to mainland Greece (1912-1939).

fr.3 Liberation & annexation to mainland Greece (1912-1939).

fr.4 Liberation & annexation to mainland Greece (1912-1939).

fr.5 Greek military postal history (1912-1939)- L’ Armee d' Orient during WWI (1917-1918) -The 35^th

      Italian Division at the West-Macedonian front line(1917).