Thursday, 8 June 2017

Czech Republic

The Czech state was formed in the late 9th century as the Duchy of Bohemia under the Great Moravian Empire. In 1198 the duchy became the Kingdom of Bohemia. With the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806, the Bohemian Kingdom became part of the Austrian Empire. In the 19th century, the Czech lands became the industrial powerhouse of the monarchy and were subsequently the core of the Republic of Czechoslovakia, which was formed in 1918 following the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire after World War I.

The Czech part of Czechoslovakia was occupied by Germany in World War II, and was liberated in 1945 by the armies of the Soviet Union and the United States. The Communist Party of Czechoslovakia won the 1946 elections. Following the 1948 coup d'état, Czechoslovakia became a one-party communist state under Soviet influence. In 1968, increasing dissatisfaction with the regime culminated in a reform movement known as the Prague Spring, which ended in a Soviet-led invasion.

Czechoslovakia remained occupied until the 1989 Velvet Revolution, when the communist regime collapsed and a democracy and federalization was deepened. On 1 January 1993, Czechoslovakia peacefully dissolved, with its constituent states becoming the independent states of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic.

For the envelope I bought the latest Europa stamp from the Czech postal administration at the Briefmarken-Messe in Essen in May 2017 and left the envelope with them. Within a week it arrived at my home. The priority label was put there by someone in the Czech postal service.

The English part of the website of the philatelic service of Česká pošta: ceskaposta.cz/filatelie-a-postfila.
On some pages it is better to change to Czech and let the browser translate automatically. For instance the page with upcoming special postmarks is empty in the English version, while the Czech version shows many new postmarks.

Date sent: 11 May 2017
Date postmark: 15 May 2017
Date received: 17 May 2017
Number of days: 6
Envelope in collection: 70



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