Tag: Yugoslavia stamp

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Slovenia 1919, a hint of Slovene freedom between Carniola and Yugoslavia

This stamp does not show Millenia’s grandmother. Rather it shows a 19th century style allegory of freedom. For a brief period after World War I, the peoples of Austria-Hungary had a choice, or so it seemed. 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 end of a long devastating war can bring hope. Especially with the knowledge that the Hapsburg dynasty is over and with it any allegiance to Vienna. So we have a stamp long on hope and promise. Also though the seeds of a harsher reality. The area breaking away was a amalgamation of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs. One of the stamps of this issue featured elderly Serbian King Peter I, who had avoided the disasters of WWI with a self imposed exile in the spas of Corfu. Were the Slovenes trading one aloof foreign King for another?

Todays stamp is issue A3, a 50 Filler issued by Slovenia in 1919. If was part of a 15 stamp issue in various denominations. The stamp issues remained regional for the first few issues of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. It was a time of lots of stamp variations with some of this issue printed in Vienna and others in Ljubljana. According to the Scott catalog, this stamp is worth $1.10.

Slovenia had long been part of the Hapsburg Empire both in it’s Holy Roman and it’s Austria-Hungary periods. During this period it was known as the Duchy of Carniola. The people were about 95 percent Slovenes and 5 percent German, mostly nobles and professionals. Slovenes are Slavic. It was the most economically advanced part of what became Yugoslavia. The native peoples were not completely without a voice in Austria-Hungary as they sent representatives to the Reichsrat, the Parliament. To maximize their voting block, the representatives of Yugoslav areas voted together. This voting bloc stayed together long enough to break away as one from the now former empire.

The original idea was that the various peoples would have a fair amount of autonomy with Serbian King Peter a ceremonial head of state. Peter was quite old and not likely to interfere. Slovene political leader and Catholic Priest Anton Korosec, a former Reichsrat deputy could see the mistake early on. When Peter’s son Alexander succeeded him in 1921, he determined to give himself and his fellow Serbs more power at the expense of areas like Slovenia. Korosec lobbied for more power for Slovenes and for a short while was sent into exile. King Alexander himself was assassinated by a Bulgarian working for also feeling dominated Montenegrins. See this stamp about that, https://the-philatelist.com/2018/02/08/it-is-dangerous-to-rule-the-kingdom-of-serbs-croats-and-slovenes/

Father Anton Korosec

Upon Korosec’s return, he sought closer ties with Germany for Slovenia as a hedge against the Serbs. He died in 1940 before the German invasion of Yugoslavia in 1941. After the war, many Slovene politicians went into exile as Tito’s Yugoslavia banned other parties, either regional or non communist.

Well my drink is empty and I am left wondering what would have happened in the area if the Reichsrat deputies had not made a decision amongst themselves to act as a block. Would Yugoslavia not have happened and the Serb King stayed in Serbia. Then German friendly Slovenia and Croatia would not have been invaded in 1941 and the Serbs kept their King and avoided invasion and Tito. A lot of ifs there, but it may be an excuse to have another round while we contemplate. 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.

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Communist Yugoslavia in 1950 sells off the now invalid exile stamps

Midway through World War II, the Allies shifted their support from the former Royal government of Yugoslavia to the Socialist force that was having such success resisting the German occupation. This left the Royals in exile out in the cold, and their stamp offerings. 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.

Exile agreed with the stamp issues. The Royal government in exile was out of London. Therefore the printing of their stamps moved to London, which had simply better printers. A while back we did another questionable stamp issue printed in Vienna on behalf Indonesian independence fighters. See https://the-philatelist.com/2017/11/24/well-we-think-we-are-independant-we-have-a-constitution-a-flag-and-austrian-stamps/. In both cases, the iffy stamps are of far higher quality that what was printed locally in less trying times.

Todays stamp is considered an invalid overprint of issue 1K8 that was issued by the Royal government of Yugoslavia in exile in London. The unoverstamped version is considered legitimate even though they were not sold or used in Yugoslavia at all. The postal system in Yugoslavia was using stamps issued by their German occupiers and their collaborators. What makes the exile stamps legitimate was that they were valid for postage on Yugoslav Navy ships at sea. One can only imagine the infinitesimal number of the stamps used that way but that makes it a recognized stamp. With the change of affiliation of the Allies the recognized socialist government of Tito came into possession of the stock of already printed stamps. They overprinted the 1945 you see on my copy and eventually sold off the stock to stamp dealers in 1950. They were not valid for postage in Yugoslavia at all and so go unrecognized by the catalogs today. According to the Scott catalog, the 1K8 issue is worth $1.60 mint. My stamp, who knows? but less…

King Peter II briefly took the thrown at age 17 in 1941 after his father was forced to abdicate. He had signed an unacceptable alliance with Germany. The Germans invaded a few weeks later and the government offered little resistance and went into exile in London. Given his age, Peter was not taken seriously as a leader for Yugoslavia by the allied leaders. There were separate partisan operations actively resisting the Axis in Yugoslavia, a socialist one and a royalist one. The socialist one was much larger and more effective. In fact the Germans had the most trouble in Yugoslavia than in any of the other countries occupied. In many occupied countries the resistance was dominated by the tiny Jewish minority. After the Tehran conference in 1943, Allied help flowed to Tito and his partisans. When Tito cleared the Nazis out, Yugoslavia was quickly declared a People’s Republic and the Royals were stripped of their titles, property, and even their citizenship. King Peter refused to abdicate and moved to the USA leaving his son behind in England to be raised by a grandmother. Peter drank himself to death. His son Alexander, was Crown Prince for a few months as a baby in 1945 has now had Serbian citizenship restored and is allowed to reside in the old palace in Belgrade. In 2013, King Peter’s remains were returned to Serbia and placed in the Royal Tombs. Alexander still lobbies for his return to the Serbian Throne of his ancestors. Things were great under his great grandfather, so says Alexander…

Todays stamp features Vuk Karadzic, a Serbian linguist from the 19th century. He was born a peasant but was educated and transcribed for the first time Serbian folk songs and poems. There is a rich tradition in Slav countries of the peasant song and poetry recited and sung with great feeling at night around the campfire. The transcription lead to the songs becoming better known around Europe where they were quite a hit. Vuk later worked on reforming Serbian writing to bring it more inline with what was spoken. This lead to increased literacy. He also translated the New Testament into Serbian. Interestingly much of his work was banned in Serbia in his day even though it was not political. It was feared that the songs would stir up patriotic feelings of Serbs at a time when they were still pledged to the Ottoman Empire.

Well my drink is empty and I am faced with another fake stamp. Fake stamps though still have a story to tell. Come again tomorrow for another story that can be learned from stamp collecting.