CARINTHIA

Today Carinthia is one of Austria's federal states.

Before WW1 it was mainly populated with Slovenes. After the fall of Austro - Hungarian empire the newly established State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs demanded this territory for itself in order to unite all Slovenes in one state. But on Paris peace conference it was decided that people living in Carinthia should decide about their future on a referendum. So, Carinthia was divided into two parts: southern part which was named Zone A and was administered by Yugoslavia and northern Zone B which was under Austrian authority.

On October 10th, 1920 referendum was held in Zone A. Because of a strong Austrian propaganda, disordering conditions in Kingdom of Yugoslavia and the fact that Yugoslav government (consisting mainly of Serbs) hadn't cared much for Slovenes, the voting turned out in favor of Austria. Due to this result, the referendum in Zone B had not even been carried out. Therefore whole Carinthia was given to Austria and Slovenia had lost a large part of its national territory.

Since then, Slovenes living in Carinthia (and in Austria in general) have been continuously exposed to germanization.

Both countries issued stamps commemorating the referendum. Austria overprinted its definitive stamps (with overprint 'Karnten Abstimmung - Carinthia Referendum') while Yugoslavia overprinted newspaper stamps.