Tag: Slovakia stamp

When the old system broke down and even the country split, it is understandable that everyone gets nervous. So when a bland figure from the past offers his services, maybe you give him a try. 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.

You may have to do a double take on this stamp. It really has a strong resemblance to the old Czechoslovakian stamps of the communist era. I doubt Slovakia was doing this consciously, but perhaps it fits with an official from that old regime is returned to power as a compromise leader. This time he would be dealing with the EU instead of COMECON, but I bet that COMECON experience was useful. This fellow even had a German name.

Todays stamp is issue A190, a 5.5 Koruna stamp issued by the independent republic of Slovakia on June 15th, 2000. It was a two stamp issue several years apart honoring Slovak President Rudolf  Shuster. According to the Scott Catalog, the stamp was worth 25 cents used.

Slovakia broke away from Chechia in 1992. The 20th century had seen many border changes And so Slovakia also contained Carpathian German and Hungarian minorities. These ethnic minorities added to the massive number of political parties that formed in Slovakia after independence. In Czechoslovakia remember there was only one party the Communists. Elections work best with a clear majority, and that became difficult with the plethora of parties.

This was handled by coalition governments. There was also the issue of the old Communists wanting to stay in the game. One such fellow was an ethnically Capitanian German ex Communist named Rudolf Shuster. The Carpathian Germans were evacuated by Germany with the approach of the Red Army in 1945 but some returned post war submitting to a Slovakisation process. With the help of an old crony Pavel Rusko, that came to own a TV station, he was able to put together a new left party of civic understanding. The selling off of government assets had not gone well with the stench of corruption and this tainted the Slovak bid to join the EU. Why not add Shuster to put a new, old face on the government to be a point man on EU integration. Shuster got that job done and Slovakia joined the EU in 2004.

By then Rusko had lost interest in Shuster and the party of civic understanding. He formed a new party that more directly featured himself. Rusko was later able to cash out of his media empire with it becoming part of the international operations of AT&T. Shuster ran for reelection in 2004 as an independent but came in fourth. After this he retired from politics. He was a popular figure with the EU, despite just being just a front man. What does it say about the EU about there willingness to deal with front man, and also that when picking a front man both sides look to the old failed Communists?

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

The Eastern European Nazi collaborators are tarnished by the association. In Slovakia’s case, for good and ill, these leaders were practicing Catholic Priests. 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 was issued by a semi independent Slovakia, under the “protection” of the Third Reich. Yet here you have a Priest, who called Hitler a cultural beast, being honored as a recently passed founding father. It points to the strange situation the nation found itself.

Todays stamp is issue A20, a I.3 Koruna stamp issued by Slovakia on March 20th 1942. The stamp was a single issue that honored Father Andrej Hlinka, a priest and politician who had died in 1938. Father Hlinka has been honored by other stamp issues of modern Slovakia and the 1939-45 entity. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth 25 cents used.

Up until 1918, Slovakia was ruled by the Hungarian part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire under the Hapsburg Emperor. Father Andrej Hlinka was a parish priest who moved in conservative political circles to try to gain more self determination for the Slovak people. In doing so he angered both the Hungarian authorities and his Bishop. He was suspended as a priest and sentenced to jail for his political activism. While in jail a new church finished construction in Cernova that Hlinka had been the force behind. The local parishioners wanted to wait to consecrate the church until Father Hlinka could do it. Instead the bishop sent a Hungarian speaking priest to do it guarded by 15 military police men. The local protest turned to rock throwing and the soldiers then fired on the crowd killing and wounding many. Father Hlinka’s story was now out and a appeal to the Pope got him released from prison and his priestly duties restored. As the post Austro-Hungary breakup Slovak future was being decided in Versailles in 1919, Father Hlinka traveled to Paris to try to get a better deal for the Slovak people. At this point he was in favor of a united Czechoslovakia, but only with rights of autonomy for Slovakia. His presence was not welcome and he was again jailed in Paris for allegedly traveling to France on a fake passport. This again raised his status with the Slovak people. Czechoslovakia became independent but with perhaps too much power in the hands of the Czechs. In 1920, Father Hlinka was again released from jail and elected to parliament as a member of the right wing Slovak People’s Party.

He was a leader of the party and when he died in 1938, leadership passed to another Priest, Father Josef Tiso. The troubles with Germany and Czechoslovakia were then coming to the fore. Hitler suggested to Tiso that Slovakia declare itself independent and that would be recognized by Germany. This was done and Father Tiso was named Prime Minister. The collaboration with Germany lead to the expulsion of many Jews to labor camps that became death camps. This crime was protested by the Vatican and temporarily stopped in 1942. There was also a lot of bribery of lower officials from Jews of the Bratislava Working Group. In late 1944 there was an uprising that was violently put down by the Nazis and now Father Tiso was just a figurehead. The Germans restarted the rounding up of Jews. With the Red Army approaching, Father Tiso fled to a monastery in Bavaria where he was arrested by the Americans and sent back to Bratislava to face a war crime trial at the hands of the new again united Czechoslovakia communist regime. He was found guilty and hung while still in his priests garb.

Well, my drink is empty and I may have a few more while I ponder the Slovaks then plight. First association with Hungary, then Chechia, then Germany, then Chechia again, when the desire was just to stand alone, with God. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.