There is an Elton John song titled “I’m still standing” As you get older that feels more like a real accomplishment. With each new twist in the life of the palace on this stamp reminds of that song. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of a certain brand of vodka, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This is a stamp from the 1930s depicting a then 120 year old palace. His most prominent resident, Marshal Josef Pilsudski, the father of modern Poland, had just died in it. The stamp makers intention was probably document the palace as it passed into the historical. Dig a little deeper and we find that much of the history of the place was yet to be written.
The stamp today is issue A65. a 25 Groszy stamp issued by Poland in 1935. It displayed Belvedere Palace in metropolitan Warsaw. It was part of an 11 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents used.
Belvedere Palace was built in 1819 on the site of what was originally a porcelain factory. Russian Grand Duke Constantine took up residence there in 1818. He abandoned it during an uprising in 1830. The tendency of the residents of Belvedere to abandon the premises when the mob arrives at the gate would see the palace through many a crisis. After World War I, Poland was an independent country again and hero of the wars with Russia Marshal Josef Pilsudski took up residence. He left after his 4 year term but then returned in a coup in 1926. The previous president abandoned the palace as Pilsudski’s troops approached the gates. Pilsudski’s years there, he died there in 1935 are thought of as the best years. The history was still being written.
During World War II Germany and Russia invaded Poland and Warsaw ended up in the German zone. The cruel rule of the Nazi occupiers was lead by Hitler crony Hans Frank who set himself up in Belvedere Palace. He once sadisticly joked that if a new poster was printed for every Pole he ordered shot the Polish forests would have to be cleared. Things did not go well on the home front for him as well. He sought a divorce from his wife Brigitte but she fought it based on her love for being “Queen of the Poles”, self proclaimed of course. Even the Nazis didn’t recognize that one, but they stayed married with Brigitte insisting she would rather be a widow. Frank also abandoned the palace as the Russians approached in 1944 and later was captured by the Americans in Bavaria. He was tried, convicted, and hung in the Nuremburg trials, leaving Brigitte a widow. The memoirs he wrote in jail were the source for the claim that Adolf Hitler had a Jewish grandfather who grandfathered him through his maternal grandmother who worked for him as a maid. The claim is unsubstantiated.
The Communists General Secretaries then took up residence at Belvedere. When Lech Walesa became President after the end of the cold war he also took up residence. The Presidential Palace in the city center of Warsaw became gradually to be more used while Belvedere became more ceremonial. It is still used today by visiting heads of state. I hope they are given a tour that goes into the significance of where they are staying. There is talk of turning the palace into a museum in honor of Marshal Pilsudski. It they do, I hope there will be a new stamp to honor it. Or maybe just a reprinting of the 1935 issue. The Polish vodka brand Belvedere is named after the palace and there is a likeness of the palace on the bottles. It is not made on the grounds.
Well my drink is empty and so I will open up the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.