During the Ottoman rule in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the first telegraph line was established between Mostar and Metković in 1858, and two years later between Sarajevo and Constantinople. Immediately after the occupation of Sarajevo in 1878/79, the Austro-Hungarian occupying army quickly formed military posts and telegraph stations with their central offices and branches throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina, so that in accordance with national, military, and economic objectives, regular postal and telegraph connections were established with all parts of the Monarchy. By the end of 1878, telegraph stations offering unlimited daily and nighttime service were opened in almost all major military strategic locations within Bosnia and Herzegovina.
Thanks to the construction of narrow-gauge “military railways” in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the “War Ministry” of the occupation army effectively utilizes the infrastructure corridor of the railway line for the implementation of telegraph wire connections and its station buildings for housing telegraph stations and personnel. All postal and telegraph traffic was conducted in accordance with regulations issued by the authorities of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy.
Gradually, telephone traffic was introduced in stages, initially primarily used by the military (local commands, garrisons, and the like), government administration, and the railway directorate for the purpose of regulating communication. The first ringing of the telephone and the conversations conducted are attributed to military units during the suppression of the Herzegovinian uprising in 1882. These devices were operationally capable of transmitting conversations between two separated parties. It wasn’t until 1884 in Sarajevo that a small manual telephone station was installed, serving around 30 subscribers.
With the construction of the first electric power plant in Sarajevo in 1895, conditions were created for the introduction of the city’s, and later also regional, telephone networks. The first telephone exchange in Sarajevo was put into public operation on November 16, 1898. Initially, the first users were, as usual, military commands with stationed garrisons, followed by the Royal Government Palace, Town Hall, banks, and other key buildings from the public and cultural life of Sarajevo.
Calls to the “subscriber” could be made by turning a handle on the phone, which signals the switchboard, and the duty telephonist-operator manually dials the requested number. During 1889, telephone exchanges across Bosnia and Herzegovina were gradually interconnected. It was not until 1913 that international telephone traffic was established, when Bosanski Brod was connected to the Hungarian telephone network. Sarajevo received its first automatic exchange on March 1, 1936, with 2,000 numbers.
Subscriber Directory of the Public Telephone Network in Sarajevo from 1911
Original name of the directory in German – “Directory of the Subscribers of the Public Telephone Network in Sarajevo, 1911”.
This rare historical document was accidentally discovered among the preserved archive of railway traffic in the Bosnia and Herzegovina Archive. Namely, in 1911, the aforementioned directory was signed and submitted to the address of the Bosnian-Herzegovinian State Railways Directorate in Sarajevo for their knowledge and further use. The document is typed on plain office paper, likely because, given the small number of subscribers in Sarajevo, printing it would not have been deemed practical.
The 1911 directory lists 251 subscribers (by 1917, Sarajevo had 483 subscribers). The subscribers are primarily government institutions, public enterprises, private companies and firms, lawyers, doctors, and wealthy citizens from aristocratic families. Attached to this article, you can visit the photo gallery and view this valuable document, with the note that it is being presented exclusively, for the first time, through our portal.
