For this week’s sortie into Postcard Friendship Friday, let us consider this photograph of friends.  Two of them are clearly soldiers, and the notation “1918″ puts them at the end of World War I.  But whence?

I puzzled over the origin of this card for quite a while.  First there was some ambiguity as to the handwriting on the back — the only clue whatsoever on this real photo postcard.  Tig lieu, perhaps?  Researching several permutations finally yielded success after I decided that the word was “Jiglau”.

It turns out that “Jiglau” is a variation on the spelling of Iglau, which is the German name for Jihlava, a city in the Vysočina Region of what is now the Czech Republic.  Its predecessor, Czechoslovakia or the Czechoslovak Republic, was created on October 28, 1918.  Previously, it had been part of Austria-Hungary.

Let us assume that two of these young men are newly minted Czech soldiers, and that the three of them are posing to celebrate the end of hostilities and the birth of a nation.

Be sure to check out the other blogs celebrating Postcard Friendship Friday.