Another slaying the beast stamp. This time not Russian see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/11/16/russian-soviet-federative-socialist-republic-1921-triumphant-so-claims-the-stamp/ , in fact Russia is here represented as the dead dragon. At the time Latvians faced many dragons. Russians, Germans, and even Jews. It also had a leader Karlis Ulmanis, who believed Latvia was for Latvians, and only Latvians. So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your adult beverage, and sit back in your most comfortable chair. Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.
This stamp is obviously anti Russian. Really though could the image be more Russian. Latvia had been in Russia’s orbit for quite a while and of course neighbors for all time. More assimilation must have occoured than a Latvian nationalist like Ulmanis would like to admit to.
Todays stamp is issue A6, a 10 Kapeikas stamp issued by the newly independent provisional government of Latvia. It was part of a four stamp issue in various denominations celebrating the Latvian government gaining control over the province of Kurland. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents whether it is mint or used.
Kurland started the 20th century as a Dutchy of Czarist Russia. The area lies on the coast of the Baltic just east of the then furthest eastern city of Germany Memel, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/06/21/memel-1920-the-french-worry-about-the-germans-and-forget-to-worry-about-the-lithuanians/ . During World War I the Russians were pushed back and the area became German. After Germany lost the war, The intact and indeed victorious German Eastern Army was used to prevent the Soviets from retaking the area. Weimar Germany hoped the Baltics would become vassal states. After the German Army pushed back the Soviets they turned over Kurland to the Latvian government of Karlis Ulmanis.
Kurland was about 80 percent Latvian, 8 percent German, 8 percent Jewish, and only 1 percent Russian. Germans were over represented in the cities and the landowning class while Jews were over represented in the professional and artistic classes. Ulmanis sought to replace the Germans and Jews with Latvians not by force but via an education system that heavily favored the after all native Latvians. Independent Latvia was however politically splintered and there were numerous minority governments till Ulmanis again took power in a coup in 1934. He ruled by decree until the Russians pushed him out and imprisoned him in 1940. Ulmanis died of chronic diarrhea while his Soviet guards fled East away from advancing Germans in 1942. He died knowing what the Russian dragon on the stamp must have felt like.
The German dragons were also back in Kurland in World War II. They in fact were especially long lived. The German forces that had been besieging Leningrad faded into Kurland and were cut off in a pocket in 1944. German Generals advised Hitler to evacuate Kurland by sea. Hitler instead had the fantasy that the troops there could lead a new push to Leningrad when the tide turned. Indeed the German force stayed intact and undefeated until the end of the war but unlike World War I was not willing or able to keep the Baltic states from being absorbed by the Soviets. The Soviet dragon was alive in Latvia, even if the German and Jewish ones were dead.
Karlis Ulmanis is well remembered by modern independent Latvia. There are now statues of him and a major highway built by the Soviets was renamed for him. Ulmanis was a homosexual so had no offspring, but a grand nephew of him Guntis Ulmanis served as President of Latvia from 1993-1999.
Well my drink is empty and so I will patiently wait till tomorrow when there will be another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.