Venezuela was one of the many nations that broke off from Gran Columbia after independence from Spain. This breaking apart leaves small nations to try to piece together a cultural heritage as Venezuelans rather than Colombians of even Spaniards. So here we have an author from a period of history when less than 20% of the country could read. To promote him might distort a sadder legacy. 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 stamp shows author Rufino Blanco Fombona standing in front of some of the books that he published. The portrait is worthy of a man of letters who rests in the National Pantheon of Venezuela. A nice positive image, but one that totally distorts the Venezuela of Blanco’s time.
Todays stamp is issue A212, a 10 Centimoes stamp issued by Venezuela on October 16th, 1974. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations honoring the birth century of Mr. Blanco. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether used or unused.
Rufino Blanco Fombona was born in Caracas in 1874. He published about 10 books of fiction in the first three decades of the 20th century. During the years he was active he was nominated five times for a Nobel Prize in Literature. The nominations got his books out on the wider world market that was unusual for a local literary figure of the time. He never won the award and the nominations shouldn’t be conflated to assume that Blanco’s work ranked among the worlds best. The nomination was often a sign of respect and support for someone trying to create literature in a desolate place. Blanco’s name is on an upscale primary school in todays Venezuela.
Education in the old days of Venezuela was spotty at best. The Spanish and the Columbians left little in the way of educational institutions and even their outposts were few and far between. Aside from outreach from the Catholic Church, little at all was done to educate indigenous people. Well off people were taught by tutors or at boarding schools. Simon Bolivar’s tutor is often elevated in order to imply levels of education that were not reality.
In 1881 school attendance was mandated by the government and a few schools were built. Oil was discovered in Venezuela in 1919 and oil revenue started to flow to the government. On purpose the money did not flow into education. Less than a third of eligible children attended school and the nations literacy rate was around 20 %. The long term dictator of the period, Juan Vincente Gomez openly stated his belief that an uneducated people were a docile people. Remember stability is supposed to be a selling point of a dictator. He may have had a point. An uprising in 1928 was lead by university students. Obviously members of the top two or three percent of their age cohort. The uprising was put down and the student leaders sent into exile. Lefties like to point out how rough Gomez could be with agitators in the use of murder and torture. Hanging men upside down by their testicles till dead. Yet these students only got a probably well funded exile, a leap year. Well the rich are different, even to a dictator. Many of the exiled students came back to be leaders in Venezuela. There is debate how much of the early oil revenue was stolen by Gomez and how much by Wall Street. I imagine some was spent on leap years.
Later governments got more democratic and oil revenue kept flowing so things eventually improved. There is a perception that the situation in Venezuela has deteriorated under the Socialists claudillos lately. One area that has continued to improve is literacy which is currently 96%. This is one of the highest in Latin America. They should perhaps do more stamps on people that made that happen and less made up stories from the countries dark age.
Well my drink is empty and so I will wait till tomorrow when there is another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.