Vilnius
From 25 august there is another second Lithuanian government period till the third Polish occupation by troops of
the Lithuanian-White-Russian front.
The Polish leader, Josef Pilsudski, had send the army to Lithuania. He regarded Vilnius as a part of the old -and now rised again- Poland,
but it was also his native region. At 9 oktober 1920 general Lucjan Zeligowski occupied the south-east of
Lithuania -aboud one-third of the country -with the capital Vilnius (for Poland: Wilna).
Poland couldn't approve official this occupation, but by way of a "coup d'état'' Zeligowski founded a new state. Officially Zeligowski was a 'rebel' for the Poles, but later he became even Minister of defence of Poland. This new state get the name Srodkowa Litwa (Central Lithuania) and has gone issue stamp itself.
When the Lithuanian period finished, the Lithuanians had no opportunity to take with them the supply of stamps. The Poles used this stamps for overprints, and even they were sold on the counter before the appearance of the first regular stamps of Central Lithuania. In the catalog of Pachonski from 1930 the overprints are numbered as 1-10 (Michel 4-13).
In the short time that this state existed, are stamp printed to the value of about 2 milliard Mark. So the most stamps were for sale to collectors
for to fill up the treasury of Central Lithuania. Really by mail are not used so much stamps.
At 20 oktober the postnet has been established, with post offices and the first stamps.
This was something for form's sake: Polish stamps were tolerated. Also Polish postal stationaries remained in use: the printed value indication was counted for franking, in conformity with a post-treaty with Warsaw.
In general these stamps are not really expensive, with the exception of the before mentioned overprints of Lithuanian stamps (Mi.4-13). The 10 Mk on 3 Auks had a printing of 283, and the 10 Mk 0n 5 Auks a printing of 360. These overprintings were thus worth the trouble to forge them.
By the war-circumstances it was indeed hard to get paper and ink and alsothe printing-facilities were not optimal. This led to a lot of varieties in paper and colors.
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As so many issues of Central Lithuania, the first stamps are been issued toothed and non-toothed.
These stamps show the arms of the new state with the Polish eagle and the Lithuanian rider. This picture and all pictures below on this page, if not mentioned otherwise: scanned about 300 dpi. Then set right and cut out - noted the actual print size-, resized 25 % of this image. |
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| Postage stamp, Resized 50%. Original print size of this image: 2,193 x 2,786 cm (is something more as the postal item) |  | Often topics of the stamps have relations with great past of the Polish-Lithuanian Empire, and also General Zeligowski is to find on a stamp, Mi. 19, (also resized 50 %): | 
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Part of a letter with stamps - Mi. 14-18- of Central Lithuania, postmark WILNO, original print size of this image: 19,466 x 5,927 cm (is something more as the postal item)
After the elections of 8 January 1922 the new parliament decide 20 February 1922 on joining Poland. At
16 April 1922 the whole area becomes Polish.
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Of course Lithuania did not recognize the annexation of the Vilnius-area. On Mi. 324-325 we see marked the Vilnius-area (resized 50 %): |
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In the Lithuanian constitution remains: "art.5 The capital of Lithuania is vilnius. By law she can removed provisional elsewhere". Also there was no postal traffic between Vilnius and Lithuania and regularly in the course of years there were skirmishes by the border. Only after a Polish ultimatum (17 Mrch 1938) and the threat of a great concentration of Polish troops near the border, the diplomatic representations in Kainas and Warsaw were opened. Also the railway-, post- and telegraph-communications were restored. The cover here is a nice cover - postmark of Saločiai and on the back of Rietavas-, but here we are more interested in the tekst on the cover: "Polish force in Vilnius must give way to Lithuanian right". |
Original print size of this image: 16,027 x 13,013 cm (is something more as the postal item) |
 | Letter with Polish stamps and postmark WILNA to New York (1922) This period in Poland the inflation begins really to rise. This letter is franked with 50 Mark. Letters up to 20 gramm to a foreign country had to be franked from 15 September 1921 with 25 Mark. From 1 May 1922 already 50 Mark was needed, 15 September 1922: 100 Mark, 15 December 1922: 200 Mark, 20 February 1923: 500 Mark, and finally 16 februari 1924 550.000 Mark. After the money-reform, 1 Mei 1924, the postal rate becomes 0,30 zl. (=30 groszy), registering 0,30 zl. and express 0,60 zl. Original print size of this image: 13,343 x 11,591 cm (is something more as the postal item) |
 | The postmark, resized 50 %. |
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Original print size of this image: 14,486 x 9,254 cm (is something more as the postal item) The postmark, resized 50 %:  |
 | The picture: as you can read -in polish- on the card: the cathedral.
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PICTURE Polish postcard from Vilnius -with a something unclear cancellation- to Dresden. The little round stamp is from the censorship in Warschau.
The Polish period endures to 19-22 september 1939, when Vilnius became occupied by Sowjet-troops.
 | Original print size of this image: 15,020 x 10,626 cm (is something more as the postal item) |
Druskininkai
 Original print size of this image: 14,334 x 9,279 cm (is something more as the postal item) |
The postmark, resized 50 %. In the postmark is indicated Druskieniki, the Polish name. This is the postmark with serial letter 'a'. There is one other postmark of Druskieniki: without serial letter. |
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On the other side of the card with a view on Druskininkai.
 
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Trakai
| The postmark of Troki, the Lithuanian Trakai, on Mi. 15b.
Resized 50 % Original print size of this image: 3,158 x 3,852 cm (is something more as the postal item) |
Detail of a Lithuanian Railway map -resized 40 %- about 1930 with Central Lithuania as 'Occupied by Poland'. There is no border between Lithuania and the Vilnius area, but a 'Demarcation line'.
| Legenda of the map: "Hauptstadt' ( capital) : Vilnius "Provisorische Hauptstadt"(provisional capital): Kaunas "Demarkationslinie zwischen dem unbesetzten und dem von Polen besetzten Litauen" (Demarcation-line between the not-occupied and the by Poland occupied Lithuania) "Staatsgrenze" (State-border): this border around the not-occupied and occupied Lithuania is something very spacious, inclusive the area around Gardinas (in Lithuanian Grodno). |
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