Tag: Austria stamp

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Austria 2000, recognizing at least 100 years of Vienna’s Philharmonic

The Vienna Philharmonic is one of the top orchestras in the world. Austrians might claim the top, while their German friends might point toward Berlin. My own towns quite good Philharmonic does not rise that high, despite recently replacing an Irish fellow with a Japanese one, a local man to conduct apparently not an option. Who the conductor is seems to matter a lot on this stamp, as it only recognizes 100 of the Philharmonic’s then 158 years. !00 years was when there was a young outsider brought in to modernize. 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 do like the visuals of the stamp. I simple view of a violin, is a nice way to emphasize the importance of the music. Claiming 100 years when the Philharmonic was formed in 1842 seems strange, but may not be as political as I assume. In 1942, Austria was part of Germany and distracted by the war. The Philharmonic was performing during that time, but missed out on a stamp recognizing the milestone.

Todays stamp is issue A1066, a 7 Schilling stamp issued by Austria on September 15th, 2000. It was a single stamp issue. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $1.25 used.

Before the Philharmonic was organized there were orchestral performance. They tended to be one time mash ups of professional and amateur mucisians. The German composer and conductor Franz Lachner began to meet with prominent Vienna citizens how met regularly at the pub Zum Amor. The idea was that there would be a subscription service that would then hire musicans. The musicians would all be professional and standards would be assured by hiring only those that had previously served for at least three years with the Austrian state Opera, then known as the Hofoper. The Philharmonic, it was first known as the Kunstiemverein, moved to it’s current home in the Musikverien in 1870.

Around the turn of the 20th century, there was a movement to modernize the music that was played. A young Bohemian, Gustav Mahler, was proposed as the new conductor. He had previously worked in Budapest where performing German pieces was considered cultural colonialism. Mahler tried to show his traditional bonefied by diecting tradition Wagner and Mozart pieces as part of his demonstrations. Once appointed though, his first was a Czech opera that involved nationalistic yearnings that were further stroked by the hero not dying in the end as it was written. This sent shock waves through Vienna. Remember this being the time of Bohemian, Hungarians, and Germans all being under the German Hapsburgs. Appointing not Germans resulted in sudden changes as to what was produced. I will leave for another day whether diversity was a strength or a can or worms. The stamp comes down clearly on one side.

Politics have been a part of the Philharmonic since. The 1930s saw the changes began by Mahler reversed as people were forced out or just moved on. Then there was the reversal with a new cleansing in the late 1940s. This does not sound like a formula for one of the top orchestras in the world. The answer to why it still is may lie in the fact that the original idea of professional musicians of long tenure with the state opera. Professional standards. The organization now gets around the controversy  appointing conductors by only having guest ones who serve for a season.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast founder Franz Lachner and perhaps play some Wagner. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Gerrman Austria 1919, the rump state no one wanted

Austria paid dearly for involvement in World War I. Given that the war started with the assassination of an Austrian Royal and the last Emperor Karl had offered an early, gentlemanly end to the war for which he was Sainted, this was quite harsh. Yet here we have an early stamp from the treaty created rump state based on ethnicicity. Notice the German identity popping up, hmmm…. 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.

Here we have the Roman God Mercury. He shows up in a fair number of stamps of Catholic countries, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/05/22/spain-1962-can-the-winged-helmit-of-mercury-stop-us-from-falling-behind/   , Just a way to call for heavenly blessings without being overtly religious. Notice the overprint denoting the new German Austrian Republic. With the Hapsburg’s gone, there were three political parties. The communists, the  socialists, and the conservatives. The two left parties were in favor of joining the new left wing Weimar Germany. The conservatives didn’t, they probably harbored some royalist loyalty. The World War I victors were not going to have that, whatever the will of the Austrians and the German title of the Austrian Republic was quickly removed.

Todays stamp is issue SH2, a 5 Heller special handling stamp issued by the German-Austrian Republic in 1919. It was an overprint of the earlier Austrian Empire stamp of 1917. There are later overprints that take into account the inflation that was about to grip Austria. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 35 cents unused.

Austria was in a lot of flux at the end of the war despite defeating Serbia and having much military success against Italy. The sacrifice asked of the many nationalities was too high and first Hungary broke away then all the nationalities were forming separate nation states. This left the question of what to do with the German speakers of Austria. It was thought at the time that Austria itself was not economically viable without the industry of Bohemia or the farmland of Hungary. With the Hapsburgs gone, there was no other reason not to join Germany. The new Austrian Parliament passed a resolution in 1919 in support.

Austrian territorial claims based om locations of German speakers circa 1919

Request denied. New treaties even forced the removal of the German title from the Austrian republic. Austria did it’s part to try to stand up for German speakers as one might expect of an ethnostate. Austria issued claims for the return of large areas of land that contained majority German speakers. See map above.

These demands were ignored. The left of center government under Chancellor Karl Renner passed many reforms to help the common person but the government was perhaps not left wing enough for the capital Vienna and yet far to liberal for the rest of the country. Interestingly he was in favor of the union with Germany as it occurred under the Nazis in 1938. He thought the Nazis were just a fad like other right wing governments he had witnessed. With the experience of World War I, Renner was ready when the German war effort flagged in 1945. He put together a provisional government of the three parties from before and declared the 1938 union with Germany null. Knowing Renner was far more left wing than who the Americans would have put in charge, Stalin quickly recognized Renner’s government. This got Austria much better treatment post war as it was classified as being liberated from Germany instead of being a part of it. Impressive flexibility on Renner’s part and he was again Chancellor until his death in 1950. Typical of Austria, he died in Vienna, but Renner’s home town and former family land were now in Czechislovakia.

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering if the overprint of German-Austria looks as bizarre to modern Austrians and Germans as it does for me. Then again I don’t understand why the Austrian Republic still has Empire(Reich) in it’s title? Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

 

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Austria 1983, 1000 years of upper Austria, so show an empty castle

You can’t tear it down, your country is no longer a kingdom and most of the royals are not well remembered. So lets make some money and rent it out for weddings. 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.

To be frank, I am not much enamored with this stamp. The stamp is logical. Celebrating a thousand years of Upper Austria with a castle that was very near a thousand years old. Except that it wasn’t. The town is much older and had been the capital of a Roman Empire Province. The early castle was wood and replaced by a stone structure 600 years later. That is what is shown on the stamp. It was redone to be one of the many castles available to the Hapsburgs. If the Hapsburgs were so great though, why aren’t they still ruling? A 1000 years of upper Austria should be a time to show what is unique about upper Austria, what changed when the area affiliated with Austria. An empty place to stay by long departed royals doesn’t do that for me.

Todays stamp is issue A634, a 3 Shilling stamp issued by Austria on April 28th, 1983. It was a single stamp issue issued in conjunction with the Upper Austria Millennium Exhibition. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

The stamp shows the town of Wels in upper Austria. In Roman Empire times, it was known as Ovilava. Then it was the provincial capital of  the province of Noricom. The town retained some importance as a market town into the middle ages. The first mention of a wood castle on the site was in 773AD.

The castle was reconstructed of stone for Holy Roman Emperor Maximillian I. At the time Empires were built by arraigning useful marriages of Royal offspring. So Maximillian sent off his daughter Margeret at age four to be raised by the King of France and hopefully eventually marry his son.  His son Phillip, who he marketed  as the handsome, was sent to Spain in order to get a Hapsburg on the Spanish throne. Margeret did not succeed as her betrothed broke the engagement and married her stepmother. Even failure cannot long hobble a Royal however and Margret ended up a regent in Holland. Maximillian died in 1519 at Wels Castle. The castle has been empty for many years but is open for tours and can be rented for weddings so the bride can be a Princess for the day before starting their life with their own betrothed, who hopefully is as handsome as Phillip.

The portrait of the castle on the stamp is by noted Swiss engraver Matthaus Merian. It was part of a collection of engravings titled “Topographia Germaniae” that captured views of many Germanic cities of the 17th century. This work went back into print in the 1960s.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast Prince Phillip the handsome. Good looks and royal blood can take you far, perhaps all the way to Spain. A better designed stamp would have had me toasting Upper Austria. Come again tomorrow for another that can be learned from stamp collecting.

Phillip the allegedly handsome

 

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Austria Hungary 1867 Hope you like Emperor Franz Joseph, he will be around a while

I like the early medallion stamps, where a countries leader is presented in profile in the manner of the first stamp, the British penny back, featuring Queen Victoria. This one is both Austrian and Hungarian and features the even longer serving Hapsburg Emperor  Franz Joseph. These stamps don’t tell you much of the leader but that just leaves more work for The Philatelist. 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 fairly unique in that it was issued by both Austria and Hungary. The Austro-Hungarian Empire was structured as two realms under one monarch. For the most part therefore the stamp issuances are separate. Since the countries shared a monarch, this issue is the exception. After so much time has past. This stamp becomes harder to identify. There is no country name on the stamp and most representations of Franz Joseph show him as a much older man, he served until 1916.

Todays stamp is issue A9, a 5 Neu-Kreuzer stamp issued by Austria in 1867. There are a great number of variations of this stamp that came out for over a decade. I believe mine is the Type I by Austria judging by the clear printing of the Emperor’s beard. That is unfortunate because according to the Scott Catalog, the stamp is only worth 25 cents, despite it’s age and higher denomination. Quite valuable is a sheet of the 5 Kr stamps with a cache of 3 Krs in the corner. It is worth $37,500.

Franz Joseph took over the Austrian Empire after his uncle abdicated during the unrest of 1848. He was rather warlike and reactionary being on the loosing sides of a war with Prussia and wars of Italian unification. More famously he ignited World War I after declaring war on Serbia after the assassination of his unloved, unworthy heir Arch Duke Ferdinand.

Over his long rule his large empire was beset with troubles over the desires of the various peoples for self rule. The conversion of the Austrian Empire into the Austro-Hungarian Empire was a step toward addressing this  and later in his rule there were thoughts of doing the same with Croatia, a separate government still under the Hapsburg Emperor. This was not enough to quell nationalist tendencies. Franz Joseph ruled in an older style that even saw him using his power to veto a potential Pope during a College of Cardinals. The next Pope rescinded this right.

The Royal House was beset by the anarchist that were seemingly all around at the time. Franz Joseph himself was once stabbed in Hungary but was saved by the stiff material of his military uniform collar and quick help from a military aid  and a passing butcher. The Emperor immediately made noblemen of his first responders. Later his son/heir Rudolf  was found dead with his 17 year old mistress at his hunting lodge. It was thought that they were also set upon by anarchists but the mistresses letters were found many years later indicating an intention to commit suicide together. Suicide being sin that forgoes a Christian burial, Rudolf was declared mentally unstable and the hunting lodge was donated to become a nunnery. To this day the nuns pray daily for Rudolf’s soul. His legitimate daughter also proved somewhat deadly as she shot an actress in Prague involved with her husband. Franz Joseph was so annoyed he skipped her child’s Christening. Rudolf death left the line of succession with Ferdinand who was less than ideal due to his demeanor and his marriage to a lessor noble whose offspring could not be in the line of secession.

Franz Joseph’s wife Elisabeth found the formality of the Royal court in Vienna too stuffy so she spent much time abroad traveling incognito. This caught up with her in Switzerland at a hotel where her presence was leaked. An Italian anarchist waited for her outside the hotel and stabbed her with a poison filled syringe that was found in his room the next day.

After his death in 1916, his nephew Charles became the last Hapsburg Emperor. Seeing the futility of World War I, he sent out offers of peace that involved all nations returning to the 1914 status quo with no reparations acknowledging the war was a mistake for all. His offers were rejected but Pope John Paul II later beatified Charles for his efforts that had the support of the church. When World War I ended, Charles resigned from the governments but did not abdicate hoping that he would again be called on when things settled down. Later while on a vacation in Switzerland, Austria forbid his return and the Allied powers forced his exile to the Portuguese island of Madeira where he died of pneumonia in 1922.

Well my drink is empty so I will open the conversation in the below comment section. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Bosnia 1906, an enlightened stab at the Eastern question

With the Ottomans being the sick man of 19th century Europe, strategies were concocted to replace them. Sometimes even being enlightened is not enough to pull off the impossible. 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.

When I saw this stamp, I knew that Austria must have governed the Bosnia of the day. The style and the printing of the stamp tells you that.This was a fairly unique offering in that it offered views of Bosnia instead of just the Austro-Hungarian Emperor. Beni Kallay must have not been a stamp collector. The stamp offerings might have been an ideal way to show off local loyal nothings as if they were somethings. This as a condescending way to show that you as the big man are at one with the little people. I guess it was too early in the 20th century for that.

The stamp today is issue A4, a 10 Heller stamp issued by Bosnia Herzegovina in 1906. The stamp is part of a 16 stamp issue in various denominations. This stamp displays the Vrbas River Valley. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

By the second half of the 19th century, the Ottoman Empire was the sick man of Europe. After losing a war with Russia in 1878, the Great European powers met in Berlin to divide up the spoils. The resulting treaty in theory left Bosnia within the Ottoman Sanjak of Novi Pazar but gave Austro-Hungary the right to militarily occupy it. Austria invaded and although the local Ottoman garrison gave them a serious bloodying, Bosnia was conquered although theoretically still Ottoman. To me it was surprising that what followed was not an ethnic cleansing sending the Moslems back to Turkey. Times were changing though and there was a new class of enlightened with inclusion theories to try out.

The Hapsburg Empire appointed prominent Hungarian Beni Kallay the administrator of their new Condominium of Bosnia and Herzegovina. He was a writer, political thinker, and historian of the various peoples in the area. He started a program of encouraging Bosnian nationalism as separate from Turkey or Serbia. Writers and artists were subsidized to promote Bosnia as a new self governing nation that was tied to the Hapsburg Emperor  as a benefactor and protector. The Moslem faith was allowed to continue but the clergy were made employees of the state so to lessen the influence of the Caliph in Constantinople.

Beni Kallay

Kallay managed to keep Bosnia mostly peaceful for over 20 years. It is worth stressing what a feat this was in this part of the world at the time, or any time really. However after Kallay’s death in 1903 the policy was reassessed. Over time he was supposed to build a loyalty among the people toward the Hapsburg throne. This did not happen despite the cultural sensitivity and relative success economically. In fact the Muslims were actually still loyal to the Ottoman Pashas that were remember still present, if not actually doing anything. The Austrians formally annexed Bosnia in 1908 causing unrest and a political crises. The crisis was ended when Austria paid the Ottomans to accept Austrian sovereignty. With the sellout of the Bosnians by the Ottomans, the other powers quickly recognized Austrian sovereignty that lasted until the end of World War I in 1918.

Kallay reminds me of later liberal international do gooders like Bono or George Soros. In the end all the virtue signaling and wealth transfers can at best paper over the reality that local people want to represent themselves and don’t want to be spoken for. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.