A city state near a moveable border and with a diverse population is a formula for unrest. Sometimes what comes to occupy the vacuum is just bizarre. 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.
Fiume never had a stable government in it’s five years of existence. So there was not time to let the drama of the place be reflected on the stamps. Many were just overprints of Italian or Hungarian stamps. The stamp today is a newspaper stamp that though Fiume specific is somewhat generic.
Todays stamp is issue N2, a newspaper stamp issued by the free state of Fiume on September 12th, 1920. This was during the time the right wing Italian poet and soldier Gabriele D’Annunzio had declared himself El Duce and that Fiume was the Italian regency of Carnaro. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $4.00 mint.
Fiume is a port city on the Adriatic that for many years belonged to the Austria-Hungarian Empire. It was administered by Hungary and was their only port. The people who actually lived there were mainly Italians and Croatians. At the end of World War I, Fiume was not part of the land that transferred from Austria to Italy and Hungary was also not able to hold on to it. Italy and Serbia claimed it but at the suggestion of mediator Woodrow Wilson it was declared a free state. There was much turmoil with new governments every few months.
Into this quagmire lands uninvited an Italian poet and war hero named Gabriele D’Annunzio. This was before the fascists had taken over in Italy but Fiume became a model for that takeover. He declared himself El Duce of the Italian regency of Carnaro. Only the Soviet Union recognized his government. He gave long poetic and musical speeches from his balcony in the central square. He reorganized the government into a series of corporations where people were assigned various tasks. He famously enshrined in the constitution that one corporation was to protect the interest of poets, heroes and supermen. What no Philatelists? Perhaps they were covered by the title of Supermen. Music was also enshrined as a fundamental principle of the state. He put forth a new moto for Fiume, “This place is the best!”
D’Annunzio clamped down on opposition by the use of black-shirted thugs. They are believed in originating the technique of dousing opponents in castor oil. This was an extreme laxative that would immobilize and humiliate them. Eventually the Italian military forced D’Annunzio to withdraw from Fiume and Fiume reverted to Italy in 1924. This was opposed by the local government which became a government in exile. At the end of World War II they again tried to claim the city but their leaders were quickly assassinated by Yugoslavia which took the city for itself. Fiume is now the Croatian city of Rijeka.
D’Annunzio returned to Italy and retired to his villa. He was weakened physically when he fell from a window on the second floor. It is not clear if he was pushed or lost his footing due to intoxication. It meant though that he did not participate in the rise to power of his fascists allies in Italy. He did live on into the rule and was the recipient of honors from them. His son was a movie director of movies based on his stories.
Fiume passed to Italy in 1924, to Yugoslavia in 1945 and finally to date Croatia in 1991.
Well, my drink is empty, and as I am on the third floor so I will abstain as I like lack the castor oil to keep the bastards at bay. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.