Month: April 2020

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Hungary 1958, developing an aluminum industry

The communist promise plentiful jobs. Hard to do when agriculture was requiring fewer workers to do the same jobs and families were still large. Hungary was now a small country instead of an integral part of a big empire. Maybe that means that there will be an opportunity to add processing jobs in country. Like say aluminum metalworking to take advantage of long standing bauxite mining. 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.

I like the stamps of authoritarian regimes when they try to show off something that they are doing for the people. My favorite of these was an Albanian stamp I did here, https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/09/communism-provides-smokes-for-atheists-and-then-a-refugee-camp-for-muslims/   . There are always 2 questions I hope to answer when writing about such a stamp years later. Did the regime really do what they were claiming credit for. Also does the operation still go on, thereby proving that it really was something important. Spoiler Alert; yes and yes.

Todays stamp is issue A202, a 50 Filler stamp issued by Hungary in 1958. This was a 14 stamp issue in various denominations over several years with the later versions like this one shrunken down. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Bauxite mining was done in Hungary for many years previous to the Aluminum metalworking plant displayed on the stamp opening. The operations were largely owned by German(Germany) private companies with the processing occurring outside Hungary. This was not going to do after the iron curtain descended. The Inotal metalworking plant opened near Budapest in 1952. It started as just a smelter but later added more precision work involving wires and slugs. Slugs are the cases of small batteries.

In 1995 the management of the plant was able to achieve a management buyout that kept the plant open and got it into private hands. In 2002 the main smelter closed as the firm concentrated on the higher margin precision work.  In 2006, management sold out to still Hungarian Inotal PLC. Inotal in 2019 bought out rival Salker. All the modern corporate machinations have no doubt played havoc with the number of employees but I cannot find an account of workforce size over time.

Hungary has paid a price environmentally for the activities involving bauxite and aluminum. In 2010 toxic red sludge leaked into the Danube River.

 

Well my drink is empty and part of me wants to pour another for a toast for the long lasting plant, I can’t get past that sludge image. Apparently you could see it from space. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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South Korea 1957, Japanese poisoning the last Emperor leaves you with Syngman Rhee

Korea had been occupied by Japan for 40 years when they were defeated. So who could run Korea? The last Emperor was poisoned in 1920. Well luckily a pro western “provisional government” had been set up in China and received much funding to play lets pretend. After the USA occupied Southern Korea back comes no longer Provisional but appointed President Syngman Rhee, a man who had only been away a few decades. If you smell a fish, for gosh sake don’t join the Bobo league. 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.

The printing on this stamp might lead you to believe this stamp was North Korean instead of South Korea. The fact was in the 1950s there was not much difference between the two in terms of economic development. This stamp might imply South Korea liked their tigers, but perhaps not enough. In 1900 you could have found Siberian tigers in Korea. By 1990, both Koreas had lost them though Siberian tigers still exist across the North’s border with Russia.

Todays stamp is issue A121, a 30 Hwan stamp issued by South Korea in 1957. This was from the final redrawing of an issue that had been around since 1953 but had to reflect the hyper inflation of the period. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

Japan began formally administering Korea in 1905. The Emperor was forced to abandon his Throne in 1910. He was poisoned in 1920. After which there was a large uprising against the Japanese. The Japanese brutally put down the uprising and sent the leaders that survived into exile in China, Some of those folks gathered in Shanghai under Syngman Rhee and began putting forth that the rebellion was not inspired by the murder of the Emperor but instead that they were inspired by a speech given in English  by former USA President Wilson laying out points of peoples movement toward independence and democracy. Syngman Rhee had been a Christian Missionary and worked with the YMCA. Obviously the fish is begining to smell but the USA and the KMT in China began supporting this Korean “Provisional Government”.

During World War II it was decided that Korea was one of the occupied nations needing liberation from the Axis, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/01/09/usa-1943-korea-is-listed-as-a-country-to-be-liberated/  . Syngman Rhee, remember this is nearly a quarter century after the rebellion of 1920 came out of a retirement in Hawaii to go to Washington to be a part of liberation. After Japan’s surrender in 1945, Americans landed unopposed at Inchon and the Russians crossed into the North. The division was only to be tempoary although the Soviet Army left after a communist regime was set up in the North. The American occupation of the south continued and Syngman Rhee was made President in 1948. He was 73. The north refused Korea wide elections and the UN endorsed Rhee’s regime as the legitimate government of all Korea.

Rhee was an outsider to Korea so not all were ready to support him. Much of the development had been owned by Japanese and while such things were quickly nationalized in the North, in the South there was less change. Rhee began to label all opposition to him as communist spys from the North. Several hundred thousand suspected trouble makers were rounded up and sent to a series of reeducation camps known as the Bobo League. When the North invaded the South in 1950 prisoners at the camps were liquidated before South Koreans withdrew south.

After the end of the war the camps did not reopen but resistance still grew. The constitution was reinterpreted to allow Rhee to seek reelection. His last reelection effort in 1960 at age 85 was helped immensely by his opponent having died before election day. Protest got large and the USA sent a plane to get Rhee safely out of the country. On the flight out,  Rhee’s Austrian wife went to the cockpit and gave the American pilot a large diamond. Rhee’s first wife had been Korean but remember  he had spent so many years abroad and his second wife had been an interpreter at the League of Nations. Rhee had spent much time there with his hand out, excuse me, making his case for the Korean people. Rhee died in 1965 and afterward his body was returned to Korea. After Rhee’s death his wife Franziska moved to Austria for a few years but from 1970 was able to return to Korea and live in the old family home with her adopted son and his family.

From the exile years, Syngman Rhee and his soon to be wife Franziska

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering how these folks come of out of nowhere to fill the void in an ex colony. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Australia 1991, to Albany by land and by sea

I love when a country does a stamp about the old explorers, because there are always stories of danger and adventure involved in the discoveries. For Edward John Eyre danger came during his land expedition to Albany in Western Australia. For George Vancouver, trouble came for him on the streets of London, in retirement, from members of his old ships crew. 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 is a very well done stamp. However the stamp issue might have benefited from being a two stamp issue. The stamp was printed connected to a souvenir sheet that may included more about Eyre and Vancouver. but this stamp entered my collection without that.

Todays stamp is issue A434, a $1.05 stamp issued by Australia on September 26th, 1991. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 used. Still attached to the souvenir sheet, the value goes to $2.25. Overprinted for a Tokyo stamp show, you are up to $7.50.

George Vancouver entered the Royal Navy of Britain at age 13 as a “young gentleman”. He served as a young midshipman on several of the voyages of Captain Cook. In 1791 comanding two ships HMS Chatham and a new HMS Discovery. He sailed around Cape Town to Australia, where he landed near Albany at a place called Possession Point where he formally claimed Western Australia for Great Britain. He went on to New Zealand, Tahiti, Hawaii and on to his more famous work to North Americans mapping the northwest coast, often on a small boat with ours. He liberally named places he found after Naval associates but that did not make him popular with all his crew.

After the several year expedition, Vancouver retired to London. He then began to be constantly harassed by people that served with him. Naturalist and connected rich guy Archibald Menzies could not get over that his man servant had been pressed into ship service during a shipboard emergency. The ships Astronomer Joseph Whitbey did not think he had fully paid for his service and that Vancouver did not work hard enough to get his money for him. You would have though naming Whitbey Island for him would have been enough. The worst trouble came from Thomas Pitt, the 2nd Baron Camelford. Pitt had received several punishments for infractions at sea and was eventually sent home in disgrace. In Vancouver’s retirement, he was jumped on the street near his house and caned by Pitt. Vancouver was in and out of court about the incident for the rest of his life.

An English cartoon of Vancouver getting caned by Pitt

Edward John Eyre made a fortune driving 1000 sheep and 600 head of cattle from Monaro to Adelaide. With his fortune he began self funding overland expeditions. His third expedition was with John Baxter and 3 Aborigine guides to be the first to reach Albany by land. He woke up one day to find Baxter murdered and 2 of the Aborigine gone with all the supplies. One guide named Wylie stayed and they continued. They would not have survived if they had not been spotted by a French Wailing ship with a British Captain who replenished their supplies. In proper explorer style, The ship’s Captain got Rossiter Bay named for him. This was Eyre’s last expedition but he enjoyed a comfortable retirement having sold a lucrative memoir.

Map of Eyre’s Expeditions

Well my drink is empty and stuck at home I may have another. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Portugal 1969. Remembering the Portuguese that moved in the top circles of world culture

Portugal had an issue in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The worldwide empire that great ancestors found was doing more to drown us in the white man’s burden than making us rich. Portugal falling behind. Stories of that won’t inspire our young here in 1969 before they go off to do their patriotic chore in Bissou or Sou Tome’. Time to show the other side of the coin, a pianist trained by Liszt who traveled the world. Telling people getting out might also not be the answer but why not try. 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.

The image on this stamp is taken from a painting of pianist Vianna da Motta by artist Colambano Bordalo Pinheiro. It shows the pianist at his craft looking thoughtful and elegant. The stamp might have been improved if it somehow could be brought home to Portugal. Without that, the message to the young seems to be; if you want to succeed get out like da Motta.

Todays stamp is issue A268 a 1 Escudo stamp  issued by Portugal on September 24th, 1969. It was a two stamp issue cellebrating the birth century of Vianna da Motta. According to the Scott catalog,the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Vianna da Motta was born on Sou Tome, the then Portuguese colony off Africa where his father was a pharmacist and amateur musician. After moving back home his father saw his potential on the piano. Soon he was off to Berlin to study under Scharwenka brothers and to Weimar to study under Liszt and von Bulow. da Motta came of age in the romantic era and loved playing works of Bach and Beethoven. Soon he was doing concerts in Berlin, London and New York and associating with such heavyweights as Busconi. He also took a hand at composing both for the piano and a full symphony. In order to lure him back and remind him where he comes from, Portugal appointed director of the Lisbon Conservatory in 1919.

Vianna da Motto did one interesting thing to bring the classical music he performed to a wider audiance. The German firm of Welte-Mignon was advancing technoloy with regard to player pianos. Previously the wooden rollers inside the player pianos could only reproduce the musical notes themselves in order. Welte- Mignon perfected paper rollls of perforations that could better reproduce tempo, dynamics, and pedalling of piano playing. Welte-Mignon hired da Motto to record for them so the rolls purchased for their player piano was music as performed by a virtuoso. The Welte-Mignon player piano was first featured at the Leipzig trade show in 1904 and soon featured in pianos sold around the world.

Welte Mignon Player Piano circa 1905

Well my drink is empty and stuck at home I may have another. I think I may be more in the mood for listening to Kenny Rogers than Beethoven however. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Israel 1978, Remembering Rabbi Kook and his role helping Jewish diaspora make a home in Palestine

In the nineteen century there was a movement among Ashkenazi Jews in Europe to move to Palestine which was then part of the Ottoman Empire. These new Jewish communities needed spiritual guidance and help interacting with the long established Jewish community already in place. Rabbi Kook took on this challenge. 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 was from a series of stamps on the heroes of the underground movement of Jews in Palestine in the lead up to the founding of the modern state of Israel 30 years before. The stamp issue started by remembering five heroes. Then it was realized that there were more people worthy of remembrance. By the end of the year 14 stamps had come out each with a different hero. I am left feeling sorry for the 15th hero on Israel’s list who just didn’t make the cut. What was he? chopped liver?

Todays stamp is issue A280. a 2 Israeli Pound stamp issued on August 2nd, 1978. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.

Abraham Isaac Kook was born in Courland in what was then Czarist Russia (now Latvia) in 1865. I did a stamp about Courland here,  https://the-philatelist.com/2019/08/09/latvia-1919-ulmanis-slays-the-russian-dragon-to-take-kurland/   . He was born into a family of prominent Orthodox Rabbis and became one himself. He was known as quite a Torah scholar. He believed it was the destiny of Jews around the world to return to the territory of the ancient Israeli Kingdom in order to fulfill divine prophesy.

In 1904 he accepted a Rabinacle assignment in Jaffa. His responsibilities their included nearby newly established Jewish farming communities. To his surprise he found the communities to be fairly secular. He made reaching out to secular Jews a specific mission of his. He thought secular Jews still had a part to play in the founding of a new Israel. He could see the important work they were doing getting agriculture in place in what had been a desolate land. He also was in deep spiritual communications with Jews still in Europe and others in Yemen to guide them on the path of coming to Palestine.

A committed pacifist,Rabbi Kook sat out World War I in Switzerland and London while the territory of Palestine passed from the Ottomans to the British. The now British administration of the area was heavily staffed by British Jews and the time was right to make his move back to Jerusalem to become the Chief Rabbi of Palestine. This was the first time that job had been held by a Ashkenazi Jew rather than an Ottoman Rabbi. This was reflective of the Jewish community now being far more than Jewish Quarters of Ottoman cities. See also, https://the-philatelist.com/2017/12/05/mosque-of-omar-the-mandate-to-try-to-stand-between/

Rabbi Kook did not live to see the founding of the modern Israel, dying in 1935. A Yeshiva he founded still exists and a community has his name in the form of an acronym of his name in Hebrew, Kfar Haroeh.  I am not Jewish, and am no religious scholar but I think this quote from Rabbi Kook did a good job of explaining where he was coming from. “Therefore the pure righteous do not complain of the dark, but increase the light; they do not not complain of evil, they increase justice; they do not complain of heresy, they increase faith: they do not complain of ignorance, they increase wisdom.”

Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till tomorrow when there will be another story to be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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China 1958, Dreams of a future in aviation

When the People’s Republic took over in 1949 there was a lot of optimism. China was badly underdeveloped, but that could soon be rectified by a new generation of people untainted by the corruption of the past. China first jet was designed by a small group whose average age was 22. The design from a clean sheet of paper took 100 days. Gosh if things were that easy, why can’t everybody do it? 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.

You have to admire the optimism of this stamp. Our life has been hard, but our children will live the life we dream of. Where China does for itself and it’s output is world class. We will be reaching for the sky in airplanes from here. Not foreign stuff we have to pay so much for. Our future will be our own.

Todays stamp is issue A103, a four Fen stamp issued by the Peoples Republic of China on December 30th, 1958. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 50 cents used.

In 1949 there were only 36 airports in all of China, most of which could not handle large airliners. China had yet to manufacture an airplane. The two airlines were joint ventures, one with American Pan Am, another with German Lufthansa. If China was going to build an aviation industry, it was starting from the absolute bottom. A then secret airplane factory was established in Shenyang and the first aircraft would be a two seat piston engine pilot training plane. This was done with Soviet help and was a reverse engineered Yak 18. The establishment of a Chinese aviation industry was a high priority of Chairman Mao and he outlined a strategy that went from the ability to repair existing imported planes to copying those planes for domestic production, and then to design and manufacturing. That last step is something that still confounds China 70 years later.

The Shenyang factory attempted to leapfrog all this. They saw that jet fighter aircraft were getting a lot faster and harder for pilots to handle. As in the West, team leader Chen Ming Sheng saw that jet pilots would need a small maneuverable jet on which to train. Unlike plane designers in the west. Chen was young, untrained, and a carpenter by trade. A team of 92 people with an average age of 22 built a prototype of a two seat jet trainer in 100 days. The design drawings were sent to Russia for advice. The jet engine was a copy of the Soviet copy of the Rolls Royce Derwent jet engine that the British Atlee government had some thought foolishly passed on to the Soviet Union post war. In Britain, the Derwent jet powered the Gloster Meteor fighter.

The first Chinese indigenous airplane, the Annihilation Instruction 1 by Shenyang on it’s maiden flight in 1958

Mao was very happy to hear of the Chinese design. The name Annihilation Instruction 1 was given.  He arranged for there to be an airshow for him of the two flying prototypes. The airshow went off but on the return to Shenyang one of the jets had trouble with the engine and barely made it back. Progress then ground to a halt as nobody at the factory had any idea  how to fix the jet engine they had copied. The government realized that the Annihilation 1 was probably not ready for mass production.

Mao and the young design team check out a model of the Annihilation Instruction 1

The failure was papered over by claiming that Chinese pilots did not actually need jet trainers as they were having no problem going from the Yak 18 to the Chinese copies of Soviet Migs. Oddly this proved true. The Soviets withdrew their support of Chinese aviation in 1960 and China was left without the modern designs and just continued manufacturing copies of 1950s Soviet designs. It was the 1990s before China built a jet trainer, and it still relies on mostly imported parts.

Well my drink is empty and unlike most today and I feel sorry for the Chinese. The West development of aviation took the work of many over a long period. It was not just given to us. Having to take and copy where there is no natural ability must be humiliating and a far cry from the youthful if foolish optimism of the stamp. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Turkey 1975, CENTO is about Russia, not you people

Here we have a stamp showing a Pakistani leather vase on a Turkish stamp. At the time, Turkey was in an alliance with Pakistan and Iran that sought joint security and coordinated economic development. At least that is what the member states thought. It was really just a cold war containment strategy against Russia concocted and paid for by the USA and Great Britain. To bad it was a scam, the countries involved were into it. 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.

Like the Europa series of joint issue stamps in Europe, CENTO resulted in joint issue annual stamps between 1965 and 1978. They were all jointly issued by Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan and were three stamps with each stamp showing the uniqueness of each country in some area. There was papering over to do. The alliance also included Great Britain and was heavily funded by the USA. Including those two in a five stamp annual issue would have given the game away so the stamps were routed through the economic part of the organization that only included the regional three.

Todays stamp is issue A488, a 250 Kurush stamp issued by Turkey on July 21st,1975. The three stamps that year showed a Turkish porcelain vase, an Iranian ceramic one and this leather one from Pakistan. Each country showed all three under their name. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 95 cents used.

The USA’s strategy for the cold war in the 1950s was one of containment of the Soviet Union where relations with friendly governments in  different regions were formalized for joint support. In theory for common defense but really just to prevent communist takeovers. For the area from Turkey to Pakistan, the Baghdad Pact was formed in 1955. Iraq’s membership ended when it’s Monarchy fell in 1958, see https://the-philatelist.com/2020/01/07/iraq-1958-neither-faisal-nor-churchill-would-have-been-happy-where-his-tanks-were-headed/ . and the organization was renamed CENTO, the central treaty organization. This was the idea of the USA but it was not a member itself. The pro Israel lobby in the USA would not allow it. Great Britain therefore sat in and British forces then stationed in Cyprus were committed to it.

The three remaining countries got on well together and increased ties into other areas as seen by the stamps. It did not work as a military organization. Pakistan tried to invoke the joint defense treaty during their war with India in 1965. Containing India wasn’t the idea so not only did the alliance not come to Pakistan’s defense, both the USA and the UK cut off arms shipments. No more Starfighters for dear ally Pakistan.

Britain effectively pulled out of the alliance when Turkey invaded Cyprus in 1974 and British troops withdrew, see https://the-philatelist.com/2018/02/07/the-british-in-cyprus-again-having-to-stand-between/. The final straw was when the Shah fell in Iran in 1979 and the new Islamic government withdrew. A few months later, the remaining members voted to dissolve CENTO.

There was still interest in economic and development cooperation between Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan. In 1985 they formed a new Economic Cooperation Organization. It’s goal  was to form an economic common market among Islamic nations. It never managed to do that but Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan later joined. That was of course after Russia had trouble itself containing.

Well my drink is empty and I may pour another while I admire a vase made of leather by and for Nomads. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Zimbabwe 1984, Suggesting Walls and Banana as check and balance

Britain put a lot of effort into the turnover to black rule at the begining of the 1980s. The transitions 20 years before had been mostly bungled, but lessons were learned. The newly elected rebel force would be guided by a non political President named Canaan Banana and leaving Rhodesean General Peter Walls in charge of the newly integrated army. What could go wrong? So slip on your smoking jacket, fill your pipe, take your first sip of your smoking jacket, and sit back in your most comfortable chair, Welcome to todays offering from The Philatelist.

Two interesting things to note about the appearance of this stamp. First note that the black eagle on the stamp has nothing whatever to do with Zimbabwe. They are native to Asia and are the national bird of The Philippines. So Zimbabwe was doing that old post colonial tradition of having printed topical stamps for money that are meaningless in telling people about the new country. At least it was them doing it, in 2015 the Zimbabwe Postal Authority declared over 80 different souvinier sheets of topical stamps frauds. Don’t worry ladybug fans, the four stamp issue from 2018 was real. Also notice that four years after the transition, 17 cents would still mail a letter. Quite a bargain for all the future trillionaires of Zimbabwe. It takes a while for everything to fall apart.

Todays stamp is issue A86, a 17 cent stamp issued by Zimbabwe on October 10th, 1984. It was a six stamp issue in various denominations with the top value given the African hawk eagle. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 90 cents whether used or unused.

In late 1979 a deal was struck at Lancaster House in London that specified the structure of the post independence government. Rhodesian General Peter Walls would remain head of the Zimbabwe Army and be tasked with integrating the rebel forces into the Army and maintaining the professionalism of the force. Canaan Banana, a Methodist Reverend and leader of the old Rhodesean legal black party would be the new Presidential Head of State.

There was some reason for optimism. Rhodesia blacks had a much higher standard of living than others. Though the country had a foreign debt left from the Bush war, Britain, Nigeria and others promised aid over three times that amount over the next decade. At first, there was some progress. During the 1980s, life expectancy rose 5 years thanks in part to new health clinics. The average amount of schooling available to blacks rose and there was a slight uptick in their literacy.

I mentioned that the role of Walls and Banana was was to operate as a check on the excesses of Mugabe who remember had never ruled a country before. Walls tried to do his job. He reported personally to Margaret Thatcher that the election carried out in the last days of colony was unfair because of Mugabe intimidation gangs. When Britain had no response he made his report publicly on the BBC. Mugabe was already nervous about Walls asking him soon after independence, “Why are your people trying to kill me?” Walls responded that if his people were trying to kill you, you would be dead. Walls was fired from his position after the interview and forced into exile in South Africa. For the rest of his life he lead a quiet life but there were constant stories that this or that rival to Mugabe was scheming with Walls.

Rhodesia/Zimbabwe General Peter Walls M.B.E.

Reverend Canaan Banana also worked to balance out Mugabe. He was fully anti colonial though less radical and always working within the system in Rhodesia. He had wrote a book aiming to bring Christianity to the poor called “The Gospel according to the Ghetto”. He also rewrote the Lord’s Prayer. in his version it began “Our Father who art in the Ghetto, degraded be Thy Name”. I am not kidding. This may have been someone who could work with Mugabe. Indeed he tried. The two rebel armies against Rhodesia were now rival political parties. This sounds okay except there were a series of massacres between them known as the Gukuruhundi. Banana was able to get the two parties to merge which helped Mugabe by creating a united party still under him. That was not good enough for Mugabe and the constitution was changed making the Prime Minister the President. Banana continued to serve as a diplomat but was arrested in 1996 on charges of sodomy and sentenced to 10 years in jail. His homosexuality had came out when two of his bodyguards faced assault charges when one accused the other of being Banana’s gay wife as well as his bodyguard.

Zimbabwe President Canaan Banana before his fall

Well my drink is empty and we are talking of Zimbabwe so of course no toast. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Austria 1978, an economic miracle allows for reaching out a helping hand to the challenged

Austria had manged to rope a dope an end to the occupation of four belligerent occupiers barely 20 years before. From lack of food and fuel to enough wealth and spare energy so to reach out to those who might not have benefited yet. In the case of this stamp, the handicapped are being offered a helping hand, though with a strange period image. There must have been some kind of miracle between. 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.

The image on this stamp is a fun one that could only be from this period. An earlier era stamp would have shown the handicapped as pathetic desperate wretches in the hope of extracting the most sympathy from those more blessed. A modern stamps would have the afflicted recast as the hero slaying the challenges they face. He we have a three part image with one distorted. In other words things aren’t really great  until they are great for everyone so lets get to work. Neat!

Todays stamp is issue A502, a 6 Schilling stamp issued by Austria on October 2nd, 1978. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, this stamp is worth 55 cents used. A stamp issue like this from anywhere dates badly, because what they did for the challenged is far less than what is done now and definitions of who was handicapped was much narrower.

In 1945 Austria was in quite a bad position. It was a region of Germany. In March, Germany launched Operation Spring Awakening that hoped to secure oil fields in the area between Vienna and Budapest and retake Budapest. The Soviets were ready for the attack, defeated it and counterattacked taking Vienna. Former left-center President Renner reached out to Stalin and convinced him to let Renner  create a new Austrian government. The Allies had previously decided that the union of Austria and Germany would not stand post war but Austria would be treated as a perpetrator rather than victim country. The German and some Hungarian remnant forces were enough to slow the Soviet advance westward to allow Americans to enter western Austria and surrender to them. The Renner government quickly declared the end of the union with Germany and made noises that Austria was but another victim of the Nazis.

Renner was not a man the Americans would have picked but he was in place and Austria was divided into four sectors like Germany had been. Vienna was divided like Berlin. Austria was really in a bad way. they still bought their coal and most of their food from the East but that was virtually impossible now. The Austrian oil fields were in Soviet hands and the Russian sector was heavily looted. Austria like other Eastern European countries were expected to pay the cost of the Soviet 40,000 troop occupation Force. America was creating arms stockpiles in the west assuming an East and West Austria with an armed western Austria as a cold war ally.

An election was held at the end of 1945 that elected a more right of center government, but the Soviets refused to let it be seated.  There were food riots in Bad Ischi in 1947. There was a poor potato crop that year and communists tried to claim greedy farmers were withholding food to sell for more on the black market. This then backfired because the agitators were Jewish and many blamed the black market on them so they became the targets of the riots. This discredited further the old exiled Jewish communists in Stalin’s eyes and made them put more faith in the local left wing government installed by Renner. America responded with much food and industrial help because Renner’s people could be seen as keeping the real communists at bay.

President Karl Renner

The death of Stalin provided a opening in the 1950s. The Soviets hoped that by withdrawing their forces and allowing Eastern and Western Austria to reunite as a neutral country that it would show a path for a similar outcome for Germany. So Austria allowed to unite but the west held the line in West Germany.

If you compare economically Austria today to Hungary the former partner that remained under Soviet occupation during the cold war, the differences are dramatic. GNP per capita in Austria is three times that of Hungary and even 10% ahead of Germany. Plenty or resources to help the challenged.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast President Renner. He didn’t live to see Austria reunite and prosper but it could not have happened without him. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Ukraine 1920, If we won’t look to Saint Petersburg, and we can’t look to Berlin, how about Warsaw?

Ukraine was a wild place after World War I. Germans during the war broke it off from Russia to weaken it and perhaps to have Ukrainian foodstuffs go west instead of east. They left a Cossack Hetman in charge but there had been a cadre of Ukrainians ready to break away. Russians, whether White or Red did not want to lose Ukraine so the area was soon visited by the Red Army and Denkin’s White Army. Maybe if President Petliura can align with Poland there will be hope. 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.

I mentioned that Ukraine was a wild place. Well the independent Ukraine ordered this stamp issue from Vienna when it was the legitimate government. By the time the stamps were ready, the forces of this government no longer held Kiev so were not officially issued. There is talk that some got out from rebel held post offices but not enough for this issue to be recognized as a legitimate stamp issue. Later in the 1920s there were even more Ukraine fake stamps issued by an Italian stamp dealer allegedly for famine relief.

Todays stamp is not real but the person on it was. He was Symon Petliura the head of the Ukraine Republic during the time it was ruled by a directorate. Don’t feel too bad for President Petliua’s stamp being fake. They still are worth $2 on ebay and that is more than the legitimate stamp issued for him by modern Ukraine in 2004, which is only worth 50 cents. He won’t be getting any new stamps in the Ukraine. As with several other eastern Europeans of the era, his legacy is under attack by those who allege Antisemitism.

Symon Petliura was born in Ukraine of Cossack origin. He was a teacher and opinion journalist who participated actively in what were called Hromadas. These were secret societies of prominent Ukrainians that came forward after the Crimean War to promote the idea of a separate Ukraine apart from Russia. These tended to be halfheartedly persecuted by the Czar who thought of Ukraine And Belarus as Little Russia.

When the Kerensky revolution happened in Russia Ukraine first broke away as a socialist republic. As The Germans defeated Kerensky’s army they then installed a pro German government lead by a Hetman, a Cossack Royal title, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/10/25/ukraine-1920-calling-all-hetmen/  . When support for this dried up after German defeat, a new non socialist government came in by coup under Symon Petliura. The place was really quite the vacuum for neighbors. The Red Army of Lenin invaded as did the Czarist White Army under Denkin, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/02/04/white-south-russia-1920-fake-stamp-issued-by-the-black-barron/ . New nation Poland also invaded. None of these armies were strong after all the war that came before but they created enough chaos that the agricultural fields that the area so relied upon did not get planted. Petliura in desperation made a deal with Poland that traded some territory in Galatia for a Polish Army on his side. He briefly with their help was back in Kiev but the Red Army was gradually getting more organized and soon the force was pushed back into Poland. As Russia became the Soviet Union, hopes of a new invasion of Ukraine faded and the Soviets demanded of the Poles that they turn over Petliura to them.

Simon Petliura was able to escape to Paris. There is talk of Antisemitism. He would have denied it and his regime employed several Jewish government ministers. Assuming he wasn’t, that might have changed if he had survived the events of May 25th, 1926. He was approached outside a Paris bookshop by a anarchist and Yiddish poet named Sholom Shwartzbard. Shwartzbard penned poetry under the pen name “the Dreamer” but Petliura was not dreaming when he was shot 5 times. Shwartsbard was arrested and confessed but the jury acquitted based on his defense that the Ukrainian nationalist deserved it for old anti Jewish pogroms. Several streets in Israel are named for Schwatzbard where he is known as the avenger. Weird that Ukraine doesn’t protest this.

Shalom Schwartzbard, The Dreamer, the Avenger, and the assassin of President Symon Petliura

Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.