Collection area

On June 15, 1940, the Red Army occupied the territory of Lithuania. As early as July 21, the government established by the Soviets under Antanas Sniečkus "asked" for admission to the USSR. The Supreme Soviet "complied" on August 3, 1940 and admitted Lithuania to the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics as the Socialist Republic of Lithuania (LTSR = Lietuvos Tarybų Socialistinė Respublika).

The 10 cent stamp (peace issue)

A set of stamps with the imprint "LTSR" appeared on August 21, 1940, although the 10-cent value with the Christian motif of the ploughing angel did not go on sale for ideological reasons.

Soviet stamps began to be issued from December 9, 1940. They circulated until June 1941 together with Lithuanian stamp issues of the 1930s, initially at a ratio of 1:1 between litas and rubles. From November 25, 1940, the litas was devalued at a ratio of 1 litas : 0.90 ruble. Lithuanian stamps officially lost their postal validity from the following day after the complete abolition of the litas currency on March 23, 1941.

However, this regulation was not fully implemented until the beginning of the occupation of Lithuania by German troops from June 22, 1941, so that Lithuanian-Soviet mixed frankings occur unclaimed. The illustration shows such a mixed currency franking, where the stamp was calculated at 30 Lithuanian cents at 27 kopecks and franked with 5 kopecks (rounded down) to form the 30-kopeck franking of a domestic letter.

From the end of August 1940, the Soviet postal administration began to introduce new bilingual postmarks with place names in Latin and Cyrillic letters. Unlike the Soviet-occupied republics of Estonia and Latvia, the Soviets introduced the new postmarks almost everywhere in Lithuania within ten months.

Newly made Latin Cyrillic postmark
MARIAMPOLĖ a - МАРНЯМПОЛЕ a dated 21.3.1941