Carpatho-Ukrainian issues
For centuries, the area of southwestern Ukraine known as Transcarpathia, Ruthenia, or Carpathian Ukraine was part of the Habsburg Empire rather than czarist Russia. Thus, prior to 1939, the stamps of Austria, Hungary, and then Czechoslovakia had been used in Transcarpathia. Russian or Ukrainian stamps were never employed.
From 1919 to 1939, Transcarpathia was the easternmost province of Czechoslovakia. Carpatho-Ukraine. The National Assembly Issue. It was also the smallest province (4,886 square miles) and had a population of 725,357 according to the 1930 census, 71 percent of which was Ukrainian. It was during this period that Ukrainian public schools were permitted for the first time. This and other factors contributed to the rise in Ukrainian nationalism, which culminated in the 15 March 1939 declaration of independence.
Hearkening back to 1918-19 when trident overprints were the norm on stamps of newly independent Ukraine, some citizens of the town of Yasinia decided to create their own version during the time of Carpatho-Ukraine’s short-lived independence. On 14 March 1939, 43 Czechoslovak stamp issues and two souvenir sheets were overprinted with a rubber handstamp showing a trident (Figure 5; designated Type I, it is rather similar to Odesa VIa or some of the Podillia trident overprints from Ukraine 20 years earlier). Still on that same day or on the following day, 39 Czechoslovak stamp varieties were overprinted with a distinctive Type II metal device that not only displayed a trident, but also the words “СЛАВА УКРАЇНІ!” (Glory to Ukraine!) in a half circle under the triden. Some postal cards were also overprinted with either the Type I or Type II tridents. All of the overprinting was carried out with black ink.
Exactly who produced the Yasinia overprints has not been determined. A likely source is members of the military organization Karpatska Sich, some of whose recruits were stationed in Yasinia at this time. The Yasinia stamps were not officially authorized issues by any means, despite the fact that some of the overprinted stamps are known seemingly used with a Yasinia circular date stamp of 14 March 1939. These “used” stamps were most likely created on a “canceled-to-order” or “handback” basis. The Yasinia local stamps were not prepared in any great quantities and are fairly difficult to track down. They thus provide quite a challenge for collectors of philatelic ephemera.