Austria in transition: 1918 - 1921

Hluboka Provisionals, November 1918.

For over 300 years before 1918, the areas that were to become Czechos1ovakia, namely Slovakia and Bohemia and Moravia, had been ruled over by the Austro-Hungarian Empire. The beginnings of the new state came from an agreement between Masaryk, a Czech, and Stefanilk, a Slovak who inaugurated a movement for independence. A provisional government in exile was formed in September 1918 and Czech independence was declared in October. The Revolutionary Committee in Prague immediately authorised the overprinting of the then current postage issues of Austria as well as the printing of the first stamps of the new Republic. The overprinted stamps included the Hluboka provisionals; they were not recognised by the Central Post Authority in Prague, and their importance was probably political rather than postal.