Tag: Ukraine stamp

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Russia 1914, It is again time for young would be Ilyas to defeat the German Idolishche

Ilya of Murom was a legendary Bogatyr (knight) who rose from a sickly childhood to defeat invaders both real and mythological in the service of Vladimir the Great. His fighting over, he later became a monk and was later Beatified. Doesn’t that sound like exactly the type of person Czar Nicholas could use in his ill considered invasion of Germany? 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 visuals of this stamp are much different than most Czar era stamps. If one is going to war against a powerful rival, isn’t it better to imagine yourself a superhuman Bogatyr in the glorious service of a Royal who is Great. Well…. This stamp sold at twice the face value with the extra Kopeck helping war victims, so at least the stamp was honest about the price of war.

Todays stamp is issue SP5, a 1 Kopeck semi postal stamp issued by Russia in 1914. It was a four stamp issue in various denominations. According to the Scott catalog, the stamp is worth $2.00.

Ilya of Murom was a real person who lived about 1000 AD. His believed remains bear out some of the stories about him. After a childhood illness, Ilya was unable to walk until the age of 33 when he was prayed over by Christian Pilgrims on their way to a Holy place. They not only healed him but gave him super human strength. Ilya decided to use his blessing to rid nearby Kiev of the foreign pagans occupying it called Idolishche. Notice that raises the Orthadox Christian Church and cast the Russians as the saviors of Ukraine. Ilya was in the service of Vladimir the Great of the Rurik Dynasty. As a Bogatyr he is credited with single handedly chasing the Idolishche from the city of Chermigov.

Ilya’s battles were not over. In fact they were about to get downright mythological. In the forests near Bryansk, Ilya faced his biggest foe, Nightingale the Robber. Nightingale was half man and half bird. He lived in trees and had an alcohol problem. He had the ability to stun people with his whistle after which he would rob them of their booze. Sounds like a job for Ilya and one that must be dealt with immediately. Ilya braved the whistle and shot his arrow twice hitting Nightingale in the eye and temple. Wounded, Ilya then took him back to Vladimir’s Castle in Kiev. Prince Vladimir wanted to hear his whistle but Nightingale was unable until he had a few glasses of liquid courage. Then he came fourth with a whistle that leveled the castle. Ilya then took him out and finished him off. Idolische and half bird men who rob you and harsh your buzz. Hmm… Germans and gypsies anyone? After Czar Nicholas defeats the Germans, he will also be considered great like Vladimir right?

Ilya’s fight with Nightingale by 20th century Soviet artist Ivan Bilibin

It is believed that the prototype for Ilya of Murom was Ilya Perchersky, a monk who had previously been a great warrior. He had the nickname, Small Boot. He had been surprised by his enemies and fought them off by hitting them with his boot. He was Beatified in 1643.

Well my drink is empty. Perhaps if I whistle, my wife would bring me another. No Ilya would not approve. Come again soon for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting. First published in 2020.

 

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Ukraine 1920, If we won’t look to Saint Petersburg, and we can’t look to Berlin, how about Warsaw?

Ukraine was a wild place after World War I. Germans during the war broke it off from Russia to weaken it and perhaps to have Ukrainian foodstuffs go west instead of east. They left a Cossack Hetman in charge but there had been a cadre of Ukrainians ready to break away. Russians, whether White or Red did not want to lose Ukraine so the area was soon visited by the Red Army and Denkin’s White Army. Maybe if President Petliura can align with Poland there will be hope. 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 mentioned that Ukraine was a wild place. Well the independent Ukraine ordered this stamp issue from Vienna when it was the legitimate government. By the time the stamps were ready, the forces of this government no longer held Kiev so were not officially issued. There is talk that some got out from rebel held post offices but not enough for this issue to be recognized as a legitimate stamp issue. Later in the 1920s there were even more Ukraine fake stamps issued by an Italian stamp dealer allegedly for famine relief.

Todays stamp is not real but the person on it was. He was Symon Petliura the head of the Ukraine Republic during the time it was ruled by a directorate. Don’t feel too bad for President Petliua’s stamp being fake. They still are worth $2 on ebay and that is more than the legitimate stamp issued for him by modern Ukraine in 2004, which is only worth 50 cents. He won’t be getting any new stamps in the Ukraine. As with several other eastern Europeans of the era, his legacy is under attack by those who allege Antisemitism.

Symon Petliura was born in Ukraine of Cossack origin. He was a teacher and opinion journalist who participated actively in what were called Hromadas. These were secret societies of prominent Ukrainians that came forward after the Crimean War to promote the idea of a separate Ukraine apart from Russia. These tended to be halfheartedly persecuted by the Czar who thought of Ukraine And Belarus as Little Russia.

When the Kerensky revolution happened in Russia Ukraine first broke away as a socialist republic. As The Germans defeated Kerensky’s army they then installed a pro German government lead by a Hetman, a Cossack Royal title, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/10/25/ukraine-1920-calling-all-hetmen/  . When support for this dried up after German defeat, a new non socialist government came in by coup under Symon Petliura. The place was really quite the vacuum for neighbors. The Red Army of Lenin invaded as did the Czarist White Army under Denkin, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/02/04/white-south-russia-1920-fake-stamp-issued-by-the-black-barron/ . New nation Poland also invaded. None of these armies were strong after all the war that came before but they created enough chaos that the agricultural fields that the area so relied upon did not get planted. Petliura in desperation made a deal with Poland that traded some territory in Galatia for a Polish Army on his side. He briefly with their help was back in Kiev but the Red Army was gradually getting more organized and soon the force was pushed back into Poland. As Russia became the Soviet Union, hopes of a new invasion of Ukraine faded and the Soviets demanded of the Poles that they turn over Petliura to them.

Simon Petliura was able to escape to Paris. There is talk of Antisemitism. He would have denied it and his regime employed several Jewish government ministers. Assuming he wasn’t, that might have changed if he had survived the events of May 25th, 1926. He was approached outside a Paris bookshop by a anarchist and Yiddish poet named Sholom Shwartzbard. Shwartzbard penned poetry under the pen name “the Dreamer” but Petliura was not dreaming when he was shot 5 times. Shwartsbard was arrested and confessed but the jury acquitted based on his defense that the Ukrainian nationalist deserved it for old anti Jewish pogroms. Several streets in Israel are named for Schwatzbard where he is known as the avenger. Weird that Ukraine doesn’t protest this.

Shalom Schwartzbard, The Dreamer, the Avenger, and the assassin of President Symon Petliura

Well my drink is empty and so I will have to wait till tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.

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Ukraine 1920, calling all Hetmen

The end of World War I was a chaotic time in the Ukraine. The country seesawed back and forth between Bolsheviks and Socialists with Soviets, Germans, and even Poles having their say. If only Ukrainians could find a strong legitimate leader to give an independent Ukraine a chance. 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 mentioned the see-saw Ukraine was on. This is very visible in the stamps. The style of the communist and the monarchist is just diametrically opposed. This is from the definitive issue of the monarchist Hetman government, printed in Vienna. By the time it was ready the government was no longer in Kiev but operated from exile in Warsaw. For this reason the stamp is fake. There was a later overstamp of the issue that celebrated a planned invasion of the Ukraine in 1923 but the invasion was aborted. The Scott catalog admits to a value of the 14 stamp set of $5.

Ukraine had been under Russia since the time of Catherine the Great. Part had been in a confederation with the Poles and Lithuanians. Before all this there was a Cossack ruled area ruled by a Hetman, their term for King/Czar/Head of state. The revolution in Russia in 1917 saw the Ukraine break away under a socialist regime called the Rada that resembled Russia’s Kerensky administration. This did not satisfy Bolsheviks who formed a rival government. Germany defeated Kerensky and when he was overthrown the Soviets quickly signed the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk which put Ukraine in the German sphere. Germany still had it’s Kaiser so it should be no surprise that the current pretender to the very old Hetman line, Pavlo Skoropadsky was tracked down and the line reinstalled in power.

With German troops and more Cossacks inducted in the Ukrainian army the Bolshevik and Rada forces were pushed out. A deal was struck that Ukrainian grain would now feed the German war effort providing much exchange revenue. They were open to white Russians who wanted to escape the Soviets. However unlike in the Baltics, see https://the-philatelist.com/2019/08/09/latvia-1919-ulmanis-slays-the-russian-dragon-to-take-kurland/  , the end of Imperial Germany saw the German army quickly depart. Quickly the Soviets put aside the treaty they had signed and invaded Ukraine. Poland then invaded from the west and there was a difficult few years of fighting with the Soviets eventually victorious. Additional Polish lands were allocated to the Soviet Republic of Ukraine after the Soviet invasion in 1939 that were never returned to Poland.

Now former Hetman Skoropadsky settled eventually in Berlin. He did not collaborate with the Nazis and was not involved in their administration of Ukraine between 1941-1944. In 1945 he fled west to avoid the Red Army and took refuge in a German monastery. He died there when it was bombed. Skoropadsky had no son but his daughter lived on in Switzerland. She visited the new Ukraine a few times late in her life but there was no one alive to remember the Hetman.

Well my drink is empty and I will pour another to toast the Hetman Royal line. Sure being Cossacks they weren’t exactly Ukrainian but they were strong, a necessity in a neighborhood of powerful lustful neighbors like Russia, Poland, and Germany. It beats putting faith in Biden’s drug addled son. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting

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Not a country long enough to get the stamp issued

Welcome readers to todays offering from 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. We have an interesting story to tell of a country that did not last long enough to get it’s first issue of stamps out, but of course that does not mean that they were not sold to collectors.

The stamp looks like a cross between a Russian and an Austrian stamp. The Russian lettering show the former and the decent quality of the lithograph the later. I suspect it was printed in Vienna. The issuer was to be the People’s Republic of the Ukraine, but the countries independence ended when Ukraine became a Soviet Republic

I can’t give you an issue number as the set this stamp was a part of was never issued officially. There were 14 stamps of various denominations printed in 1920 and the entire set in mint condition is worth $5.00. There are no cancelled copies. There are apparently a lot of printer mistakes and variations with off center or even inverted central pictures. No doubt the stamp dealers of the time got extra for these but there is no stated value to them now. Scott catalog may want to do more research on this. Now that Ukraine is independent, it may be a new market for these stamps. There also may be a market in Russia and Poland, where the instability of the early days of the 1917 revolution must be an interesting time for local history buffs and philatelists.

Ukraine petitioned the last white Russian government for self rule and this was granted and a peoples republic was declared under Ukrainian historian Hrushevsky. This was a coalition government of Communists, Poles, Jews, and White Russians. Events overtook this government when the Communists came to power and sued for peace with the Kaiser’s Germany. The peace treaty accepted Ukraine’s independence and the Germans/Austrians set up a  Hetman, head of state, royal government with a Czarist general PP Shoropadsky as the new king/ hetman. The German/Austrian surrender in November 1918 was the end of him and he went into exile in Germany.

A new peoples republic was declared but by now chaos and foreign intervention was the rule of the day. Soviets were invading to bring Ukraine into the Soviet Union. organized anarchists were mostly on there side. There was a Ukraine army which fought to stay independent aided by White Russians, French, and Americans. The American interest was in a weaker Soviet Union and in the plight of the Jews in the Ukraine. Also newly independent Poland invaded to try to bring Ukraine into Poland so a bigger country could better withstand being between Soviet Union and Germany. Kiev, the capital of the Ukraine, changed hands 5 times during a one year period. The chaos became so great that people left the cities for the countryside looking for food.

The Soviets had won this war by late 1920 and signed a treaty with Poland dividing Ukraine with Poland. The Soviet part becoming The Soviet republic of Ukraine. This lasted till 1992. Interestingly though this stamp was not issued the former Ukraine government went into exile in Warsaw, Poland and planned to reinvade. Part of that planning was a new stamp issue to issue once back in Ukraine. The invasion plans amounted to nothing, but this issue of stamps from 1923 also of course made it to collectors. Amazing how that works.

Well my drink is empty and so it is time to open up the conversation in the below comment section. Does anybody recognize the statue on the stamp? It does not appear to be the famous Ukrainian statue with the swords or the later Cubist statue of the early Communist that was also on a hillside. I am stumpted. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.