Postai és Távközlési Múzeumi Alapítvány Évkönyve, 1995
Rövid tartalmi összefoglaló angol nyelven
subscribers. The system was taken over by the state in 1900, when the exchange moved to the old general post office. The new postal mansion was equipped with a concentration- coil telegraph exchange and an automatic telephone exchange in 1931. After the damage done in the war, the telephone service was provided by three LB 30 exchanges, which were replaced by a 7DU automatic exchange in 1949, when the first trunk exchange was installed as well. After being expanded several times, the exchange had IT-system longdistance equipment added to it in 1979, when it also received a crossbar-system exchange, which allowed the number of lines to be increased. International dialling followed in 1982. An electronic, long-distance exchange run by a stored programme was installed in 1993, to link Debrecen and district with the up-to-date long-distance system. The Rezső Soó Memorial Room, to a professor of botany who twice won the Kossuth Prize, contains an annually changing selection from the collection of 225,000 philatelic items he left to the city and the Stamp Museum. Debrecen’s cultural relics and postal history are shown in thematic collections, commemorative cards, commemorative postmarks, first-day covers, delivered letters, and collections of cancellations and graphics. Dr Kálmán Sebestyén: Transylvanian Post Offices of the Kuruc Period With the 1690 diploma of Leopold, which ended Transylvania’s period as an independent principality, the fiscally financed postal service was replaced by one modelled on the system in the Austrian hereditary provinces, with post offices run by postmasters. It became the task of the counties and autonomous districts to develop a system of post offices and stages for changing horses. The postmasters provided post horses for the posts and for passengers, and served them with food and drink. The study draws on the archives of Torda (Thorenburg, Turda), an important Transylvanian town, to demonstrate how the postal service worked during the Kuruc wars of independence in the early 18th century. Transylvania at the time had five postal routes with 27 stages. These followed the east-west (Maros Valley) and north-south (Szamos Valley) axes of communications in the period of the principality. The study emphasises the important role played in post-office operations by the magistrates and councils of the towns, as well as the postmasters. This explains how the postal services continued to work smoothly in Transylvania during the war years, despite frequent changes of central authority. Mrs István Szegedi: The Issue of Stamps and Awards for Printed Products The study examines how stamps have performed in the competitions among printing presses for the Outstanding Printed Product awards. The story of the awards, which began with work emulation contests and developed into competitions erecting high professional standards, provides an interesting picture of the period. The list of stamp issues to receive an Outstanding Printed Product award is not complete, but the material presented provides information about how performance in the printing industry was assessed. Readers learn incidentally what printing technologies have been used, from the earliest issues to the present day, by the country’s two postage-stamp 298
