Laižuva is a township ca. 15 km north-east of Mažeikiai, close to the border with Latvia, on the railway line Mažeikiai – Jelgava (Mitava, Mitau). Laižuva’s railway station gained some importance during the German advance into Žemaitija and Kurland in 1915. After a Russian counteroffensive, the area was secured on about July 15, 1915 by 41. Infanterie-Division.
During the German retreat from Russia at the end of 1918, one of the Red Army’s vanguards advanced along this railway, coming to Laižuva in mid-January 1919. When the German Grenzschutz launched a drive on Riga, Laižuva’s strong defence was eventually overcome by units of 1. Garde-Reserve-Regiment on March 8. In the second half of 1919, the area was dominated by “bermontininkai”. In November 1919, they were pushed out by Latvian troops who in turn were replaced by Lithuanian troops.
In the czarist period, Laižuva had a post office (Laizhevo) which seems to have been housed in its railway station. A Lithuanian postal facility was re-opened in 1920, possibly also in the railway station. In the absence of documentation it appears that, as in some other similar cases, the facility appears to have begun as a collection/transit point or an “agentūra”, and a few years later its status was raised to a P.O. No information has been found about its early employees.
For stamps, Laižuva had some values of Fourth Berlin Issue, followed by the Sėjėjas Issue etc. In the absence of a formal postmarker, cancelling at first was done in manuscript by showing place and date.
Later, Laizuva made use of a makeshift two-liner cachet.
At a later date, a regular calendar-type postmarker was provided, showing Laižuva’s status as a P.A. = pašto agentūra. In subsequent postmarkers “P.A.” was dropped.
Known provisional markings:
Cancelling in MS:
9 / IX 20m. single, Berlin IV 10 [colln. Jankauskas]Cancelling by a two-liner cachet:
No date, cover to USA, Berlin IV 1a [colln. Lapas]