Surviving provisional postal markings demonstrate that in 1919 there was a Lithuanian postal facility at Gudžiūnai, which is a railway station on the Šiauliai – Kaišiadorys route, ca. 15 km south of Baisogala. However, there is no record of its opening in the documents of Pašto Valdyba for 1919 – a gap explained by the circumstance that the postal facility of Gudžiūnai was only a continuation, but with a change of name, of the same facility that had been set up a few months earlier at the Mikelmontas (Michelmond) railway station. The opening of the latter had been entrusted, on April 16, 1919, to Pranas Daukša-Jurevičius.
The occasional confusion of these place-names goes back to the fact that, in czarist times, the township’s name was Gudzjuny but the railway station 2 km west was called Michelmond. The change of name of the railway station from Michelmond to Gudzjuny may already have occurred before 1915, for it is significant that maps of German cavalry movements for that region in 1915, which comprise the Šiauliai – Kaišiadorys railway route, name not Michelmond but Gudzjuny.
The maps show that the Gudzjuny railway station was first raided on May 6, 1915 by reco units of 3. Kavallerie-Division and, after a Russian counteroffensive, was securely taken on July 21 by units of 36. Reserve-Division. When the German forces withdrew from Russia at the end of 1918, some Red Army units, after entering Šiauliai, were probing south as far as Gudžiūnai and were pushed back by a German Grenzschutz formation, Regiment Kettner, on March 12, 1919.
The early postmaster (įgaliotinis) of Gudžiūnai may be assumed to be the same person as the įgaliotinis for the previous Mikelmontas, Pranas Daukša-Jurevičius. This supposition is supported by the similarity of writing the date on the stamps from both Mikelmontas and Gudžiūnai.
For stamps, Gudžiūnai had Fourth Berlin Issue followed by the Sėjėjas Issue etc. For cancelling, at first a one-liner cachet “St. GUDŽIŪNAI” [where St. = stotis = railway station] was used. No other provisional markings have been noted.
By 1921 Gudžiūnai was supplied with a regular calendar-type postmarker.
Known provisional markings:
Manuscript cancelling:
23 / X / 19 single, Berlin IV 30 [colln. Liesis]
2 / XII / 19 single, Berlin IV 30 [colln. Jankauskas]