This article about municipal post offices in the Kingdom of Serbia deals with their first, very limited and somewhat clumsy steps. It is based on the work of Trivun Tesli\u0107, scarce data from the publications of Eugen Derok and Vojislav Mi\u0107ovi\u0107 (according to the collection of Sini\u0161a Ostoji\u0107), official announcements in “Srpski novine” and philatelic material from the collection of Nikola Ljubi\u010di\u0107, which he kindly made available to me and I agreed with their by using.<\/p>\n
Although the Law on Post Offices from 1866 already recognized the need for municipal post offices and determined the possibility of their opening, the first steps in this direction were only taken on April 21, 1882, when the “Serbian Gazette” published the Notice to all Principalities and the Rules on Municipal Post Offices minister Gara\u0161anin Obr. 1552 from April 16, 1882.<\/p>\n
That first step was relatively shy. Municipal post offices were not established as a mandatory system, but were based on voluntariness. Namely, the Notice leaves municipalities to decide for themselves whether they want to introduce them and for the municipal courts to declare to the Ministry of the Interior:<\/p>\n
The Minister of the Interior has set an additional limitation in the Call for the establishment of municipal post offices: “for now, according to our circumstances and material means, these post offices can be opened immediately in those municipalities that lie along (the line of) the postal road”.<\/p>\n
Whether due to the conditions of being on an already existing postal route, the assessment that they do not need post offices, or the reluctance to accept new obligations and new expenditures, the response to the Call for Proposals was weak – according to Tesli\u0107, only 12 municipalities\/municipal courts responded. therefore, the first decision on the opening of the OP was made only on June 1, 1883 and published in SN no. 123\/1883.<\/p>\n