Postai és Távközlési Múzeumi Alapítvány, Postamúzeumi évkönyv, 1990

Adattári közlemények - Sebestyén Kálmán: Adatok az erdélyi posta XVIII—XIX. századi történetéhez

Data on XVlIl-XIX-th. century history of the Transylvanian Post.

The history of the Transylvanian Post in the XVIII XIX-th century is an especially interesting part of the history of the Hungarian post: the ancient messenger institution was replaced by the postal organization that time, which was managed by the state. The first stage-coach and later the diligence started on its first route that time.

In 1693 Leopold I. ordered to establish a postal managemet at Nagyszeben, and to start from there three postal routes to Brassó, Kolozsvár and Szilágysomlyó. The Nagyszeben Post Prefectorate managed and controlled 32 Transyvanian postal stations.

In 1722 Charles n. declaired the post to be an imperial regalia.

The author introduces three types of the postal services: the letter post (ordinaria) the extraordinai letter post (extraordinaria)a and the passanger transport either by horseback or by stage -coach.

The order, issued in jun.28, 1754, on the start of a diligence route between Vienna and Nagyszeben is connected to the name of Maria Theresa. With the start of the diligence route a new age was started in the history of the hungarian passanger transport, the age of the scheduled mass passanger transport.

The author introduces the routes of the postal services, and according to the contemporary accounts of travels he gives samples of the journey with stage coach, the rules of the transportation and the conditions of the transportation. (He reports about schedules, tables of fees, etc.)

The charges of the letter delivery was chanling: the charge of the letters up to 1 lat (appr. 17.5 gr) was 6 krajcár (approximately 6 pennies) before 1750 in 1750 it was 8 krajcár, in 1798 it was 12 krajcár, and in 1803 it was 16 krajcár.

A very interesting part of the study is the one which dealis with the epidemics of the plagues, and the activities of the health cheking stations. The quaranties and the health checking postal stations made the postal traffic slow, or even frequently they stopped it for a short period of time. Health cheking postal stations were operating in Transylvania in Vulkán, Tömös, Törcsvár, and in the Vöröstorony pass, etc.

The study closes with a firstly published interesting collection of data on the chronological register of the names of the post masters and postal stations of the XV]H- XIX-th. centuries of Transylvania.

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