Stamp from 1952

This beautiful stamp was issued in 1952 and it features five flaming torches from the Yugoslavian coat of arms surrounding the five-point red star - a symbol of the new Communist Yugoslavia. Each torch represents a nation within Yugoslavia. This is before Bosnian Muslims were recognized as its own nation in 1963. From that point on, Yugoslav coat of arms featured six burning torches.

The new Yugoslavia under President Tito brought national liberation of Montenegrians and Macedonians. During the dictatorship of the monarchy (pre-Tito era) these two nations were simply forced to be Serbians, which is why the country used to be called Kingdom of Serbs, Croatians and Slovenians.