Month: December 2021

Categories
Uncategorized

Danzig 1923, a very early airmail stamp from a German city that suddenly found itself outside Germany

Many of the early Danzig stamps are air mail when sending letters that way was expensive. Perhaps subconsciously they were showing the airplanes as a way to maintain a connection to the Fatherland. 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 font and the style of these stamps could be nothing but German. In certain ways an earlier prewar Germany.  The interwar time in Germany was a time of some longing for the past and others going headlong into a modern harsh future. The separation lead to Danzig coming down in the former camp.

Todays stamp is issue AP3, a 25 Mark stamp issued by the League of Nations administered Danzig Free State in 1923. This was the time of great inflation in Germany and the stamps reflect that with ever higher face values. It was part of an 18 stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog. the stamp is worth 40 cents used.

Germany was heavily shrunk at the end of World War 1. In the east, Prussia lost a great deal of territory to make way for a reestablishment of Poland. This was done both to satisfy the long held desires of the Polish people but also to create a barrier between Germany and the Soviet Union. To prevent Poland from being landlocked, a further chunk of coastline was carved out separating still German East Prussia from the rest of Germany. For the further benefit of Poland the harbor German city of Danzig was made a free state with Poland having access to the port and the city entered a customs union and later switched to the Polish currency. At the time the city was less than 10 percent Polish and mostly Lutheran as opposed to Catholic Poland. Interestingly for stamp collectors. in addition to the line of German stamps that today’s stamp is one, there was a separate Polish post office in Danzig that issued overprinted Polish issues. In a sign of the future, they were overstamped Gdansk, the now standard Polish name of the city.

The city was something short of a Free State. The local Senate Leader had to answer to a high commissioner appointed by the League of Nations and the foreign policy was in the hands of Poland. The local leaders elected tended to be fairly right wing but with cold but businesslike relations with Poland. Relations worsened when the Nazis took over in 1933 both in German elections as well as in local elections in Danzig. Interestingly the First Nazi leader Hermann Rauchning broke with them and moved pre war to the USA. There he related his interactions with Hitler and put forth a desire for the return of the Prussian monarchy and Poland to become a vassal state of Germany. Since most German emigres of the time were of the political left. He was quite a contrast, as fitting someone from Danzig.

Dr. Rauschning during his American exile, making money off previous experience. He stayed in the USA after the war and didn’t like Adenauer either

The end of World War II saw Danzig change forever. The approaching Red Army in early 1945 saw many ethnic Germans flee west and the trend was further enforced by the new Polish communist regime. The ethnic cleansing left Gdansk much smaller but now a real Polish city. My German born(1929)mother always thought the revolts against the communist regime in Gdansk around 1980 were really related to the city still being German. I disagree, when you think of Poland, you think of Lech Walesa. It is hard to imagine him a closet German.

The airplane on the stamp is a Sablatnig P.III which was one of the first German designed airliners. It had 2 crew in a open cockpit and carried 6 passengers in an enclosed cabin. The plane was wooden and had folding wings and a carried a tent that could form a makeshift hanger. Sablatnig had built seaplanes for the German Navy in World War I and post war was in partnership with the aviation arm of Norddeutscher Lloyd, the large German shipping concern. In 1926 the Lloyd airline merged with a rival airline Junkers to form German Luft Hansa, the German flag carrier. No further aircraft orders went to Sablatnig and the P.III was retired in the early 1930s. Hansa in Lufthansa refers to the Hanseatic League of trading and shipping to which many northern German and Dutch cities belonged, including Danzig when it was still German. Danzig had requested and been denied having Hanseatic in their Free State title.

the Sablatnig P.III with it’s wings folded and tent. Note flap for propeller

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another and toast the pilots of the P.III on the stamp. Flying was quite dangerous then but moving mail allowed frayed connections to continue. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

Categories
Uncategorized

British Honduras 1891, Let in the Mayans, don’t let the British leave, but keep out Guatemala

Staying a colony can be the only way to move forward. Even if the original reasons for colonization have faded. 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.

A profile shot of Queen Victoria in a desolate colony. How you look at it depends on who you are. A British forester involved in the mahogany trade, very comforting and who the stamp is aimed at. An African laborer in the same camp is wondering what the Queen is doing for him. The newly arrived Mayans are wondering who she is and what she has to do with them. A Jewish merchant in the town of Belize is wondering how much the next British shake down will cost him. The Philatelist, look another version of this profile from yet another British outpost.

Todays stamp is issue A8, a 12 cent stamp issued by the Crown Colony of British Honduras in 1891. This was a 9 stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $3.25 mint. A 10 cent version of this stamp overprinted for revenue use but revenue misspelled “Revenu” is worth $725. I wish the frequent misspellings in my articles made them more valuable. Alas, no…

The modern independent country of Belize was founded as British Honduras. The area was under Spain but not occupied. The British desired logging camps with British foresters and African slave labour. A trading post was set up as Belize City that attracted German Jewish merchants that dealt with import and export with the camps in the interior. Spain proved unable to chase off the British and the outpost persevered through the surrounding areas independence from Spain. There was a caste war in neighboring Mexico that sent Mayan Indian refugees into British Honduras. At first, they attacked the logging camps, but after clashes with the British Army they were allowed to stay in separate communities and ended their attacks on the logging camps.

Old day squaring the mahogany logs for shipment.

The last crisis involved American support for William Walker, the American adventurer who attempted to colonize Central America and turn them into American slave states. See this Costa Rica stamp about this period The Philatelist covered here.https://the-philatelist.com/2018/09/27/costa-rica-remembers-the-the-drummer-boy-that-saved-central-america-from-an-american-manifest-destiny/ The Americans signed an agreement that set forth British cooperation in a proposed canal but banned British colonizing. The Americans felt that it meant the British should leave Belize but the British saw it as an agreement not to expand their existing colony. The Americans formally accepted the British in Belize after Honduras shot William Walker.

The colony went in a direction opposite from most. The Colony had self government but the foresters and the merchants just could not agree on things like tariff and tax rates. The solution was to send more power back to London who appointed a more powerful governor. This lead to policies more in favor of the foresters as the company engaged in that was the only entity sending money back to Britain. One policy badly affected the by now freed Africans was one that made breaking a labour contract a crime. In spite of these troubles, one Ashanti African named Isaiah Morter became himself a rich landowner by initiating the cultivation of coconuts and bananas. He was an important member of the pan African United Negro Improvement Association lead by Jamaican Marcus Garvey and tied to Ethiopia. See also https://the-philatelist.com/2018/08/09/jamaica-1970-mixed-race-leaders-try-to-graft-socialism-onto-black-jamaica/

A modern statue of Isiah Morter. I suppose the old contract laborer system clear cutting old growth is more digestible to the modern if the guy in a tuxedo is black.

Over time the supply of mahogany was depleted and Africans pushed for more rights and toward independence. One thing delaying it was that the military government of neighboring Guatemala, that was still pushing the old Spanish claims on Belize. The UN was not sympathetic to Guatemala and allowed Belize to get independence from Britain. Britain agreed to keep a small military presence in Belize post independence until Guatemala finally recognized Belize in the 1990s.

A modern mural of 19th century Belize history with the influence of Queen Victoria edited out.

Well my drink is empty, so I will pour another to toast Queen Victoria. She sure had a lot of places she was expected to look after. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

Categories
Uncategorized

German SW Africa, the Hottentot Captain can disappear into the grass, but shoot him at the water hole

The Germans did not last long in south west Africa, modern day Namibia. That does not mean they did not go a long way to shaping the place. 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.

Todays stamp is a standard colonial German issue. The empire was small outposts of Germans all over the world. So a ship or the home countries monarch would be a welcome sight on the stamps. Regular stops by ships to bring longed for contact from home was a big part of colonial life. Also the idea that the monarch remembers you and is looking out for you in a perhaps inhospitable place. This German stamp cleverly manages both. The ship is the SMY Hohenzollern II, the Kaiser’s royal yacht. You wouldn’t have seen it much in Namibia though, the Kaiser mainly used it for his annual vacation to Norway.

The stamp today is issue A3, a five Pfennig stamp issued by the Crown Colony of German Southwest Africa in 1900. The South West Africa version of the stamp came in thirteen different denominations. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth $20 mint.

Although the first European contact in south west Africa was with Portuguese, they did not stay. The bulk of the locals were hunter/gatherer Khoikhoi tribesman. To the Germans they were known as the Hottentots. The first European camps were German Lutheran Rhenish missionary camps. The British also sent some missionaries but they quickly affiliated with the Germans. The missionaries were followed by industrialists who saw the potential for farming and copper mining. Unlike other German colonies, the call went out for German colonists. As the locals were nomadic there was nothing really to conquer, but German interests in the area were confirmed by the Conference of Berlin in 1884. Cooperation with Britain was a part of this and English and especially Boers became important investers. Diamonds were discovered in 1908. The area of the Colony was larger than Germany.

The Hottentots were not happy with German presence. In something that will sound familiar to modern South Africans, Hottentots began raiding German farms and killing the families. The Hottentots were under the leadership of German trained tribal King Hendrik Witboi, who they named the “captain who disappears into the grass.” Over 150 Germans were massacred and Hottentot sieges were laid on even the capital of Windhoek. The Germans only had the 1700 strong Schutztruppe of part time German colonists with officers from Germany. Luckily their ranks were swelled by Boer volunteers and additional troops sent from Germany. The Hottentots were chased into the desert northern part of the territory and the women and children held in camps. The Germans then put a guard on all the water holes and shot all Hottentots that approached until they surrendered in 1908. By the end of the uprising, the native population was less than half of what was before, more from the desert than the fighting. Hendrik Witboi died in action against the Germans and is revered in today’s Namibia, even appearing on the money, which I am sure they mean as a compliment.

Hottentot tribal King Hendrik Whitboi, “The captain who disappears into the grass”

When World War I came, the South Africans invaded and the Germans did not resist and many stayed in South West Africa. The change in the counties demographics after the Hottentot rebellion meant the country stayed white ruled much longer than most. It only became African ruled Namibia in 1990, and there are still over 30,000 people there of  German heritage.

The SMY Hohenzollern survived World War I but was not required by the Weimar Republic. Therefore she sat unused and was broken up in 1922. This was also the fate of the half built replacement ship, the Hohenzollern III. The ships had been built by AG Vulcan shipyard in the former German city of Stettin. Kaiser Wilhelm II had spent over 4 years of his life aboard.

The Royal yacht Hohenzollern on a postcard from Norway. The natives there appear more friendly than the Hottentots.

Well my drink is empty. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

Categories
Uncategorized

Great Britain 1989, defining educational leadership as bringing it to the masses earlier than most

When one thinks of education in Britain, one thinks of the 10 or so ancient public schools that train the aristocracy. This is instead about spreading the opportunity to the masses. More teachers certified to a low standard, less religion, more state control and resources. Something for every lowly brick in Pink Floyd’s wall. 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.

How strange this stamp is. Showing fireworks and a graduation cap. The first in a lower background family to graduate perhaps. Brought to you by your government who has decreed what you will be taught, how your progress is evaluated, who teaches you, and requires your attendance. This can be for the good but it was a big change in the 19th century. Perhaps we should hold off on the fireworks.

Todays stamp is issue A1252, 1 19 penny stamp issued by Great Britain on April 11th 1989. The stamp honours the 150th anniversary of public education that the stamp times to the Whig educational reform of 1839. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Education was around in England long before 1839. The public schools were selective, expensive, single sex, and mainly boarding. They were known for loneliness, bullying, and rampant homosexuality. They were also known for a classical education that was beyond any where else in the world taught by teachers that were experts in their fields. The contacts made by the students helped them to network their way to success in later life as part of a community of their classmates, in both senses of the world.

In the 19th century came the industrial revolution. Fewer people were needed on farms but had to be prepared for life as a factory worker. A basic knowledge of reading, writing and arithmetic was helpful. Also though the ability to stay indoors all day and take instruction from strangers put in a position above. Most importantly perhaps was to get them in the habit of showing up when the reward of wages may be days or even weeks away.

This need was not adequately filled by the education system of the time that was mainly through the church. Liberal politicians had gotten a big increase in government education spending to provide workers for the new economy. It was also important to them that liberals be in charge of the system so that they could control what was taught and by whom.

To the liberals disappointment this is not how it was going. The educational grants given by government required local matching funds. Although non religious schools were free to apply, The Anglican church took the vast bulk of the government money as they were able to raise the matching funds through their school’s local parish.

This was not what the liberals had in mind and a change in the system was put through. As of the 1839 Whig reform bill. The three pillars of the reform were onsite school inspections, the end of local matching funds, and certification of teachers. One can see how this is really a takeover of the system. The reform had a great deal of success. The illiteracy rate in Britain dropped from about 40 percent in 1850 to about 5 percent in 1900. That perhaps calls for some fireworks. Literacy over time was measured then by the percentage of adults that were capable of signing their marriage certificates with more than an x. Curiously the system might have thought to be a bigger help to females, but they had a persistent advantage in literacy in Britain back to 1500.

Who knew the filling out of this was the ultimate test of the educational system’s changes. It is, or at least was, universal and across nations and economics

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast this years graduates. I have great confidence that you will be able to proudly sign you marriage certificates, if you ever bother to marry. Come again tomorrow, public schools having taught you the mistake of skipping, for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

 

 

Categories
Uncategorized

Jamaica 1970, Mixed Race Leaders try to graft Socialism onto Black Jamaica

How a place is to be administered after the colonial power leaves is a difficult issue. Socialists in the mid 20th century brought much to that discussion but convincing the people that this is how they should self determine is a 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.

I rather like this stamp. So many former colonies shut off anyone who participated in the colonial administration as if they were evil vassals of the devil. Yet here is a stamp issue that declares them heroes. Not that Jamaica was in a great place but it was independent and there was hope for a better future. This is not a standard Commonwealth issue with the Queen in the corner aimed at Anglophile stamp collectors. This is a more open window into Jamaica.

Todays stamp is issue A89, a 5 cent stamp issued by Jamaica on March 11th 1970. It displays former Prime Minister Norman Manley. It was part of a 5 stamp issue honoring leaders of the movement toward independence. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents whether it is mint or used or which independence leader was displayed. One of the leaders is Marcus Garvey is also known as a civil rights leader in the USA. This does not seem to help it’s value which I think is pretty good evidence that not enough historians of the civil rights movement collect stamps.

Post World War II, Great Britain’s time in Jamaica was nearing an end. As part of the transition two members of the Jamaica mixed race community were given prominence. They were Alexander Bustamante and the subject of this stamp Norman Manley. They were well educated in Britain and surprisingly even served in Empire militaries. Their educations had seen them exposed to the workers unite socialist movements that they hoped would be good for Jamaica. The challenges economically for Jamaica were great. Sugar cane really does require the type of large plantations and ample slave labor to be economically successful. Therefore it is not suited to post land reform, post independence Jamaica. In the 1950s, there was a bauxite mining boom that saw Jamaica become the world’s leading producer. These facilities were foreign owned and it is always a challenge to make sure the foreign company is making enough to continue while the area is seeing enough of the benefit. Remember Dr. No’s laird in Crab Key was a bauxite mine in the James Bond movie.

The two leaders formed rival socialist parties and set out toward land and education reform. In education, results were mixed as the new opportunities only slowly trickled from the top down and land reform saw output collapse as the crops did not suit the new small farms. The bauxite mines were so heavily taxed and beset with labor strife that Jamaica has fallen far down the list of producers. Another independence leader, Marcus Garvey, proposed former slaves emigrating back to Africa, where they won’t be held back the vestiges of the colonial system. His ideas were never tried.

Manley’s rival, Jamaica’s first Prime Minister, Sir Alexander Bustamante
The road untraveled. Marcus Garvey

By the end of the 60s things were getting worst fast. Manley’s son Michael took over his father’s party and served as Prime Minister several times the first in 1972. By then mixed race leaders were unfashionable and many of the younger Manley’s six wives were black. He even took to wearing a formal but shirtless and tieless Kariba suit. Bustamante old party was now in black hands and the two parties had armed gangs fight it out in the street during election time. 800 died in the 1980 election.

Michael Manley, in his kariba suit, his fourth wife Beverley, and then USA President Carter

Well, my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Marcus Garvey. Since his ideas were not tried, he did not disappoint anyone. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

 

Categories
Uncategorized

China/Manchuria 1950, China figures out how to scare the USA

The Cold War was a time of diplomatic games to get an advantage. Here was a stamp that displayed one of the key turnabouts. 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.

There are both German and Italian stamps from the 30s and 40s that similarly show Hitler an Mussolini, but face it. Italy was a second string power in terms of military if not cultural power. Stalin and Mao signing a treaty that amounted to an alliance is really much scarier to potential rivals like the USA. Just 5 years earlier, Stalin was our ally against Hitler and in the last days at least against Japan. Two years before China was ruled by the USA allied nationalists. Chinese troops at the exact time were pouring into North Korea and pushing back the American gains in Korea. 6 years after World War II the effect of all this must have been terrifying.

Todays stamp is issue 1L177, a 5000 Juan stamp issued by the Northeast China Postal Service (Manchuria) on December 1st, 1950. It was the last days of Manchuria being postally administered separately from the People’s Republic. The stamp honors the treaty of friendship between China and the Soviet Union earlier that year by showing Mao and Stalin shaking hands. The Northeast China issue is in different colors and denominations from the same stamp issued by the PRC. The 4 vertical Chinese characters on the upper right of the stamp also signify it. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $29 in mint condition. There are reprints of this stamp that have a lower value, but they are printed on a duller paper.

Manchuria had been occupied by the Japanese during World War II and before. In the late days of the war, the Soviets invaded in order to be in place to take the Japanese surrender. The area had been important to Russia since czarist times as railroad and port access was helpful to a Soviet Far East presence. After taking the Japanese surrender, the area except the needed ports and railway was turned over to Mao’s communist forces. This explains why separate postal administration lasted into the first years of the PRC.

A treaty of Friendship was signed in 1950 was closely modeled on the one signed with the Chinese nationalists in 1946. It replaced that one and had some additional goodies for China. It allowed for the turnover of the Russian railway and the ports of Dalian and Lushun to China. These were some of the last enclaves of European colonialism except for Hong Kong and Macau and getting them back was an important accomplishment. The treaty also provided to China a 300 million dollar loan at a time when civil war recovery and supporting the invasion of Korea was a big expense to China. The treaty ran until 1979 but did not prevent the Chinese-Soviet communist doctrinal split after the end of Stalinism. Deng Xiaoping did not want to extend or have a new treaty with the Soviet Union. He was then anxious to attack Vietnam, a Soviet ally that the treaty would have prevented.

With Chinese troops pouring over the border into Korea pushing back America’s hard won victory over the North Koreans, the effect of the alliance was profound. The American General Macarthur was removed after suggesting a nuclear attack on China was the only military solution to the Chinese onslaught. Instead the line was stabilized into trench warfare very near the original North-South border until a cease fire was finally arraigned in 1953. Chinese troops in North Vietnam in the 60s also kept America from bringing that war to a successful conclusion, showing how important the treaty was. War with China now meant World War III.

Well my drink is empty and I wonder how scary the early 1970s pictures of Nixon and Mao were to the Soviet Union. Very scary I am sure,  No stamp of that though, the closest I could find was the Chinese ping pong stamp. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

Categories
Uncategorized

The United Nations wants to help you with your factory, or did until the developed world realized the implications

Today we look at the cycle of the United Nations. The initial promise, the flawed execution, the abandonment, and then the reassessment to perhaps justify a continuation. 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 the first United Nations stamp I have covered. It is a great period piece of a different time. Factory smokestacks spewing not pollution but streams that turn into arrows signifying economic growth. It makes one want to join Gregory Peck and don the grey flannel suit. Notice also the acronym on the stamp. It is the French acronym for the organization. The lower denomination of the stamp issue is similar but has the English acronym UNIDO. Remember French and English are the international languages of diplomacy.

Todays stamp is issue A98, a 13 cent stamp issued by the United Nations in New York City on April 18th, 1968. It was a two stamp issue that celebrated the forming of the United Nations Industrial Development Organization in 1966. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents, mint or used either denomination of the issue. Sometimes with collectibles, things go up in value as they become seen as a failed period piece. This stamp may have a shot at such a revival.

The United Nations Industrial Development Organization arose out of whiz kid studies done for the Secretary General’s office in the 1950s. With so many new nations forming at the end of the colonial period, a universal plan for quick industrialization of the new countries was imagined. Expert help, capital, and help meeting international standards so goods could be exported were all parts of the plan. You have to admire the audacity of thinking they could actually pull something like that off. Remember though the 1950s was a more optimistic time. The Secretary General realized quickly that the task at hand was great and a dedicated organization was required, so one was formed in 1966.

This was something that the third world was highly in favor of. A UN organization would work most easily with the kind of socialist operations that were being envisioned by the new countries. A group of 77 such countries banded together in Lima, Peru during 1976 calling for more resources and setting the specific goal that 25 percent of the worlds industrial output originate from their countries. This may seem an understandable, low short term goal to the developing world that still had great hopes for the future now that they were setting their own path. To the developed world it crystalized that production was to them a zero sum game and the goal was to take from the rich and give to the poor. Such a pose cannot be received well by the people of the developed world, who were implicitly being asked to provide resources for the effort.

A large bureaucracy was formed in Vienna that absorbed much of the rich country largesse. The work of the agency did not successfully develop any of the 77 counties. Indeed UNIDO did little to keep going the socialist enterprises as economic reality struck in the 80s and 90s. During the 90s, the USA, the UK, France, Canada, and Australia all withdrew from the organization. The organization still continues with 700 employees and a budget of 500 million Euros, paid for mainly by Germany, Japan and Scandinavia. It has refashioned itself with talk of sustainable development and renewable energy, so a President Trump probably wouldn’t have much success gaining UN funding for a scheme to bring smokestack factories back to the Midwest. Even if he allowed solar panels on the roof. An office building filled with children of the rich bureaucrats in a swank, jet set, European city. Now you are talking about something more realistic.

Gerd Muller, new head of UNIDO takes office and the fancy folder. He just left office in Germany with the change of government where he distributed German aid. There his result was doubling the budget with no mention of results of the distributions. The two masked people are probably the flower arraigners.
Li Yong the old boss of UNIDA. In China he harmonized fiscal and industrial policy. More on point, but notice the fancy building behind him is no factory

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering what the former whiz kids thought when reality hit later and they were more mature. Something like the executers were not as smart as the planners, or was it always just a scam to get set up royally in Vienna. A little bit of that modern pessimism seeping in. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

Categories
Uncategorized

Finland remembers Toivo Kuula for adding music to the new national identity

There is an old slogan from the Fennoman independence movement. Swedes we are not, Russians we can never be, therefore Finns we must be. 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.

Todays stamp does a good job in telling the story of Kuula with just a picture. A very serious younger man of some class portrayed in a country setting. After all an areas natural culture arises from peasants in the countryside and then formalized by a more serious and educated upper class in the city.

Todays stamp is issue A356, a 30 Markka stamp issued by Finland on July 7th, 1983. The stamp celebrates the 100th anniversary of the birth of classical piano and choral composer Toivo Kuula. According to the Scott catalog, the single stamp issue is worth 40 cents used.

Toivo Kuula was born in Finland and studied under legendary Finnish composer Jean Sebelius. Though he had experience as a conductor and an unfinished symphony at the time of his early, unexpected death, he was most famous for his choral works that were usually accompanied by piano and perhaps a small string section.

The Finland of Kuula’s youth was a Grand Dutchy that pledged allegiance to Czarist Russia. The people still had many ties to neighboring Sweden including language. Rising up from the peasant class was a unique local culture and language that many hoped could form the basis for a new independent Finland that was free of both Russia and Sweden.

Part of this is a movement to make more formal the local peasant culture that often included stirring, patriotic, and romantic songs sung in local dialects around the campfire at the end of a hard days work in the fields. I recently did a Yugoslav stamp featuring Vuk Karadzic who was doing similar work in Serbia. See https://the-philatelist.com/2018/07/30/communist-yugoslavia-1950-sells-off-the-invalid-exile-stamps/ . Ataturk in Turkey was doing similar things. He went so far as to bring in Austrians to do classical arrangements of the Turkish peasant campfire songs. The challenge of course is to keep the passion and local flavor of the music intact as it is turned into something played in a opera house. According to the music critics of the day, Kuula pieces such as “The maiden and the Boyar’s son.” and “The sea-bathing maids” did a good job of this. Kuula’s teacher Sibelius famously said “Don’t listen to critics, they don’t make statues for critics”. He has a point and after listening to a few of the pieces I wonder if Kuula did a better job with titles than the music itself.

Finnish peasants dancing. You have to start somewhere.

Kuula did not live to enjoy an independent Finland he was so in favor of. He was partying in a hotel on a Saints festival day when he was hit by a stray bullet fired from a group of nearby Jagers.  Jagers were independence fighters that were Finns trained and funded by Germany as a way to shrink and weaken Russia. They were successful in breaking Finland off from chaotic revolutionary 1917 Russia and the soon after the collapse of Germany prevented Finland from becoming a German stooge. Interesting to me that Germany was behind the independence movement, I had detected some German influence in the music of Kuula as well. Why do locals so often get co-opted by outside forces?

The Jaegers when they were organized as a battalion of the German Army. Recruited from Finland they were released from German WWI service in the Baltics to fight for Finnish independence and kill Kuula

Well my drink is empty. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.

Categories
Uncategorized

Sri lanka 1974, Madame Prime Minister would like you to remember her late husband

Breaking away from the colonial power is hard. For how much do you throw away or at least pretend to. 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 today does not give away many clues to the world wide philatelist. The former prime minister on the stamp was assassinated years before with his widow taking over his political party. The early 70s saw her and her party back in power and soon follows a tribute to her late husband. All well and good and domestic philatelists can follow what is happening. For world wide collectors more investigation is required to know what is going on. Sounds like a job for The Philatelist.

over and over PM Sirimavo Bandaranaike. In the stamp she asks you to remember her husband. Her daughter then remembered her after she was elected President, (other guy assassinated even), and gave her another term as PM in her old age

Todays stamp is issue A168, a 15 cent stamp issued by the Peoples Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka on September 25th, 1974, It was a single stamp issue honoring S.W. R. D. Bandaranaike, the then current Prime Minister’s late husband and former Prime Minister himself from 1956-59. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is worth 40 cents whether mint or used. If you have the later version with 15 cents blotted out and 25 cents in it’s place, you are in luck because that version is worth $7.

Ceylon got it’s independence from Britain in 1948. The people to whom power was given were those who had participated in the colonial administration. So the British first names and Oxford educations did not mean a lot to vast bulk of the people  that were not participating in the tea plantation based economy except as exploited workers. This lead to much tumult in the 1950s.

I suppose a true grass roots movement could have formed but instead why not have the feelings coopted by those in power. There was a natural divide as many of the new leaders had come back from their Oxford education as indoctrinated socialists. Since socialism is of course in favor of the worker and happy to take on affectations of local nationalism, it seemed a great fit. Solomon Bandaranaike was just such a leader. He was the son of a knighted colonial administrator and when his party won the election he was ready to give his country full independence.

The Knighted patriarch of the family. Soloman Bandaranaike. Nice uniform in the Kandy tradition
What the fun of being colonial stooges if you don’t score an English style stately home built for patriarch Soloman and still in the family.

Well at least he was willing to do the standard socialist things. The British were blamed for troubles and the English and Indian Tamil languages were targeted. The tea plantations were nationalized and instead of being closed down or privatized among true locals the exploited workers were now being exploited on behalf of the state. British military bases were closed and even the local military was targeted as a bastion of colonial sympathy, which was true but now a thought crime. Eventually the name of the country was changed and notably not to Kandy, the name of the place before colonization.

Naturally policies like this made a lot of enemies and soon Mr. Bandaranaike was assassinated. Not by the British, by then they didn’t care enough, but by gunman working for the Indian minority that were a left over from the colonial period. Remember how small the elite of independent Ceylon was. The two large parties were both in the hands of single families. Mrs Bandaranaike became the worlds first female Prime Minister and continued and intensified her late husbands policies. This perhaps would be a better milestone for female empowerment if it were not just nepotism and a would be cult of personality.

Economic output dropped and the UK and USA aid dried up as there was ever more socialism and by extension opposite side cold war posturing. Eventually the Tamil rebelled and the decimated military was not in a good place to fight it, so it dragged on and on. Also going on and on was the families political party which later featured such diverse leaders as the Bandaranaike’s son and daughter, who show their solidarity with the people by no longer having British first names.

Well my drink is empty and my learned musing/screed above might be thought of as pro British. It is actually the opposite. As the colonial power, it was their job to lift up all the people and not just a small elite. It was also a crime to permanently change the demographics of the place for their own convenience without a thought to what that meant for the future peace. Come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2018.