Azerbaijan stamp – The-Philatelist

Once a flag rises it can never fall was a slogan of Azerbaijan during it’s one year of independence in 1919. Perhaps it should have been never be sure you won’t see this flag again. In the mean time, lets print some fake stamps. 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.

Yes todays stamp is fake. The few real stamps from the early Azerbaijan were imperforate stamps printed on an unusual yellow paper. This stamp mimics those in how the country name is presented and currency but is later. The modern real Azerbaijan stamps don’t say republique and have a different currency. Fake stamps still plaque the country but there is something fake about the real stamps. If you see the Muslim country stamp featuring John Lennon, that is real. A stamp with the Spice Girls, that is fake. Makes you wonder if the whole country is fake.

This is a fake stamp so it is not in the catalog. So therefore the stamp is priceless.

The city of Baku was taken from Persia in the early 19th century. Oil was discovered and the town became a boomtown of Czarist Russia. The area contained Muslim Turks, Persians and Christian Armenians and Russians. With the chaos that overcame Russia in 1917 the Caucus area quickly attempted to break away. The local unit of the Czarist army became the army of the area but there was much infighting between Muslims and Armenians. The Muslims had an Ottoman Turk Army in support and the Armenians allied with the Soviets. Baku fell to the Ottomans and there was an ethnic cleansing. In theory Azerbaijan became an independent Republic under local Azer writer and journalist Mammad Ammin Rasulzadeh, who I will call MAR from here on out. MAR had been an early communist but had also trafficked in Muslim separatism. A rebel with many causes. The Czar had sent him to exile in Persia where he was part of the new Iran movement against the Shah. The Shah then sent him on to Turkey where he agitated against the Ottomans. A 1913 Czar amnesty let MAR return to Baku where he was supported by Zeynalabdin Tagiyez. ZT was a contactor that stuck oil and sold out becoming one of the richest men in Russia. An independent Azerbaijan relied on an occupation Ottoman army that was withdrawn at the end of 1918 as the Ottomans were on the losing side of World War One. After a respectable period, The Red Army marched in and made Azerbaijan a Soviet Republic.

The Soviets showed some grace to the Azers after the reconquest. MAR had known a young Joseph Stalin when both were anti Czarist agitators and gave him a job in public relations in first Moscow and then Leningrad. MAR escaped to Finland and then Poland where he married. Another war sent him on to Romania then Turkey from where he often spoke to Azerbaijan over Voice of America. He died in 1955. ZT in view of his previous philanthropy was allowed to live out his days in his summer cottage as his other properties were seized. ZT’s second wife Sona was not so lucky. Despite being of noble birth and upbringing, in 1924 upon ZT’s death, Sona was evicted from the summer cottage and spent her remaining days a street person in Baku. Sona died in 1938.

ZT with grandchildren a year before his death

Azerbaijan again got independence in 1992. Oil is not has plentiful as it once was probably explaining why the area no longer receives the attention of the Russian, Turkish, or Iranian army. Baku is a big city today but the Armenians and Jews that used to be a big part of life there are gone and even Russians are down below 5 percent of the population.

Well my drink is empty and my stamp fake so come again for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2019.

The colonial power leaves but after being there so long is there a cohesive country still to reconstruct. 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.

During the cold war era, the Eastern Bloc put out for years well printed large stamps on popular topics. They were readily and cheaply available to worldwide collectors and allowed many stamp collectors to specialize in automobile stamps or in this case cat stamps. Azerbaijan got into this act quickly after independence. In a way that is surprising as the eastern system is after all what they were rebelling against. The fact is though the system was still ingrained in those making decisions. To be frank, these type of stamps are not my thing. I don’t like that most are mint and even if cancelled have never seen an envelope. I also prefer the stamps to be more of a mirror to teach about the place of issue.

The stamp today is issue A55, a 250 Manet stamp issued by Azerbaijan on October 30th, 1995. It was part of a 6 stamp and one souvenir sheet issue displaying domestic cats, in this case a Somali cat. One can see the hyperinflation of early days of independence. The Manet currency was only out for 3 years when this stamp was new. Already the Giapicks, cent equivalent, are gone and the denomination of the stamp is 250 Manets. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 65 cents in it’s cancelled to order state.

Azerbaijan had been taken from the Ottoman Empire by Russia in Czarist times. There was a brief period of independence in the chaos after the 1917 revolution but the new Muslim country was at war with next door Christian Armenia and was unable to resist the Red Army when it came to restore both countries to Soviet aethist Republics.

In the late 80s the Soviet system that had kept the peace began to break down. The locals began to have more contact with their fellow ethnics in neighboring countries and the local Soviet authorities no longer had the stomach to stop them. The border lines of Azerbaijan contained an area called Nagorno-Karabakh that was heavily Armenian in nationality and Christian in religion. As the still Soviet republics both got more autonomy from Moscow, the Armenians gave the vote to Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh. The outraged Azerbaijan independence front leaders and they began an anti-Armenian ethnic cleansing pogrom that was quite deadly, the numbers are disputed as usual.

In early 1990 this got the Soviets off the dime and a state of emergency was declared and Soviet troops sent in. The troops were lead by later Russian nationalist leader Alexander Lebed. The Soviets were able to regain control but now Azerbaijan had it’s own massacred in what became known as Black January. At the time of the anti Gorbachev coup, the Azerbaijan Popular Front declared itself independent from Tehran, Iran.

Elections and war with Armenia followed. Gaidar Aliyev was an Azeri who had risen high under the Soviet system but was not allowed to compete allegedly due to age. The Azerbaijan Popular Front had two presidents in short order that fought a losing war with Armenia. APF discredited, Aliyev was then allowed to run and won the Presidency in 1993. He arraigned a ceasefire with Armenia and put his son in charge of the national oil company. When he died he was succeeded by his son who remains in power today. Azerbaijan is again close to Russia.

Well my drink is empty and as I enjoy another I wonder how many former colonies would happily elect an old colonial governor. More than a few I would expect. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.