Antique & Vintage Postcards

A rare and historically significant postcard documenting the interior of the Bosansko-hercegovački Sabor — the Parliament of Bosnia-Herzegovina — during an actual session, with the chamber packed with delegates in morning coats alongside a handful of men in fez headwear, galleries crowded with observers, and the ornate Moorish-revival gilded and tiled interior of the purpose-built parliament building in full view. The Sabor was inaugurated in 1910 following the formal annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary in 1908, making this image a document of one of the very first sittings of that short-lived constitutional assembly. Published by Postkartenverlag Cappon of Sarajevo (Franz Josefstr. Nr. 4, catalogue C.S. 750), the card is captioned in German, Bosnian Latin, and Bosnian Cyrillic — a trilingual choice reflecting the complex ethnic and administrative reality of the territory. The Sabor was dissolved in 1914 at the outbreak of WWI, giving this image a poignant historical terminus.