Yesteryear Yugoslavia

1987: PTT (Posta, Telegrafa i Telefona) Museum Card

An Ericson phone but not one which would happily sit in a pocket. As much a desk ornament as an object to communicate. I would love to wind the handle.  The card says on the back "Desk phone Ericson system from 1900. These devices date from the first period of telephony development and are characterised by a local power source, an inductor and electric bell are used to establish connection. The first installations of telephone sets began in our country Zagreb (1881) and in Belgrade (1883)

Paddle Steamer towed by steam locomotive on Sip Canal

Here we are on the Sip Canal constructed to make navigation through the notorious Iron Gates gorge with its riverbed boulders, whirlpools and rapids easier.  The project was run by the Austro-Hungarian government and opened in 1896 but they miscalculated the fast river flow which meant that ships had to be navigated upstream by a steam powered tugboat and winding cable. Enter the Germans and their occupation of Serbia in WW1 and whose forces built a railway on the canal embankment and locomotives began towing boats instead of the tugboats. After the war the railway was reconstructed and  extended with 11 locomotives in service pulling boats.

1981: 125th Anniversary of European Danube Commission

You cannot see this scene today because of the Iron Gate Hydroelectric Power Station joint venture between Romania and Yugoslavia and the creation of the largest dam on the Danube meant it was flooded by the Derlap Lake in 1969.  Unfortunately this happened six month before it was projected with the waters rushing in flooding everything - the entire railway system and locomotives are now on the bottom of the lake. There was a scheme to try to raise the locomotives in recent times because these JZ Class 30 'Berliners' are the last remaining types but it came to nought.  The stamp was designed by the prolific artist Dušan Lučić(b1937) and the engraver Dušan Matić (b1939) who also collaborated on other Yugoslav stamps.

1951: Iron Gates, Danube

The Sunday Stamps II prompt this week is the Letter Y - here for Yugoslavia - See it on a Postcard 

Young Ones

1995 UN (New York): Youth - Our Future

For the UN International Youth Year in 1995 the Austrian artist Gottfried Kumpf produced this FDC. As well as his paintings he is known for his small bronze sculptures of animals and people and the twins he created for his series on the zodiac signs appear embossed on the cover.  The little figure he is famous for is of his Kumpf sitting down called 'Asocial' or 'Social Misfit'

but a more accurate translation from what he has said I think is rather the artist as outsider observing but also needing a place to dream. Sometimes he places this figure hidden in the periphery of his paintings but I think he has placed himself this time

in plain view 'Man Looking Out to Sea'.  The other stamp is on the move with cycling family.  When he was a young boy Kumpf liked to go out with his dog and sit and paint whereas

1982: Joy of Europe

Heiko Jäkel aged 7 from Berlin stayed closer to home with his painting 'In the Bath Tub" and

Tibor Božo, aged 6 took a walk around his home town of Subotica to watch and paint the traffic.  The stamps and cards were issued by PTT (Post - Telegraphic - Telephone) whose museum in Belgrade hosts a children's postal hour the first Saturday every month, well I think it does because the website doesn't seem to have been updated in a while.  I do know that the 'Joy of Europe' festival which the stamps celebrate is still going strong, founded by the city of Belgrade in 1969 and organised by the Children's Cultural Centre it takes place at the beginning of October every year

with dance and music. So I move to paintings by children to a painting of a child

1970:The Art of Otto Nagel et al

and Otto Nagel's 'Portrait of a Young Girl' which is actually his daughter Sibylle who was born in 1943.  The painting today is in Dresden's Galerie Neue Meister which displays painting from the 19th Century to the present.

1991: African Animals

Lastly who can resist a baby elephant stamp. I could claim that this is a link to where I started this post with Gottfreid Kumpf whose sculpture of a baby African elephant stands outside the Natural History Museum in Vienna but really it is serendipity.

Master of Supply Lines (Rail)

Sunday Stamps II prompt this week is the Letter Y - for Young and Yugoslavia - be Ys and See It On A Postcard

Y

1968: Paintings by Van Gogh

Where better to start than with a postman and thanks to Vincent Van Gogh his name lives on, Joseph Roulin. Van Gogh loved to paint portraits but he could not afford to pay anyone to sit for him however the Roulin family in Arles were happy to do so for nothing and in exchange Vincent gave each family member one of the numerous paintings he made of them; worth more than money I think.  From a yellow background to

a yellow jacket worn by Joseph Roulin's eldest son Armand who at the time of the painting was aged 17.

1980: Flags of Member Nations (1st Series) - Yugoslavia

Here is a flag that does not flutter in the wind anymore when the nations of this part of the world were joined under the one flag of Yugoslavia.  The various nations featured individually on

1957: Yugoslav Costumes (1st Series)

Yugoslavia's series of stamps featuring national costumes. This scene above shows a Croatian family of shepherds

1961: Yugoslav Costumes (2nd series)

and here are some Macedonians dancing into the stamp to the sound of a drum. At first I was unsure of the significance of the dates 1941-1961 but 1941was the date the Nazi's invaded Yugoslavia (the April War) when the Royal Yugoslav Army collapsed and the king and several ministers fled into exile.  I discovered that 1941 was also important for the forming of the first partisan battalions and resistance to the occupying armies, a date search revealed there were medals awarded to the armed forces in 1961 to mark the 20th Anniversary of the Yugoslav People's Army (the founding of the Partisan Army).

The stamp designer is Zdenka Sertić (1899-1986), artist and ethnographer who produced a number of folkloric stamp series for Yugoslavia and her nephew has produced a beautifully illustrated page of her work here (the English translation is at the bottom).

Sunday Stamps II prompt of the Letter Y -  for Yemen, Yugoslavia and yellow - See It On A Postcard

Quest for a Q

 

1967: Famous Navigators Ships

This Qatar stamp shows a scene from the Bayeux tapestry and the Norse influence on boat building can be seen in the Viking type ship both the Normans and English built in the middle ages.

1968: 10th Anniversary of Qatar Postage Stamps

An Arab scribe completes the total number of Qatar stamps I have in my collection, two.  I turn to the natural world for my next Q 

1973: British Trees (Designer - David Gentleman)

 and the beautiful and long lived oak, Quercus robur.  1973 was 'National Tree Planting Year' hence the cancel slogan.

1921: Republic of Mirdita

Not so beautifully but an interesting piece of history. These stamps were issued by the short lived and unrecognised republic declared in Northern Albania by Marka Gjoni which lasted from the 17 July-20 November 1921 - the stamps were never issued. The currency is the Qint (pronounced chint) which is Albanian for 100.

  Whoever was wielding the scissors doesn't seem to be in control of them. They also seem to have changed their minds on the currency as this overprint shows. Marka Gjoni's rebellion against the Albania was supported by Belgrade and Greece, but in the end Marka Gjoni was forced to flee to Yugoslavia however he later returned to Mirdita where he lived until his death in 1925.  Of course it is said that the pen is mightier than the sword

or in this case, the quill.  The Yugoslavia Post Office (PTT - Posta, Telegrafa i Telefona) card and stamp

from the PTT museum and library in Belgrade shows a commercial letter posted in Serbia on 21 June 1869 in the "pre-philatelic era".

The Sunday Stamps II prompt of the Letter Q - for Qatar, Quercus, Qint and Quill - quickstep over to See It On A Postcard.
  

Workers of the World

2013: Europa - Postman's Van

For the 'Professions and Trades" theme this week of course my first thought was of  the person we look forward to each day, Postie, and here we see three of them on their rounds.  The one featuring a postman on his bike and the one pushing a trolley looks to be by the side of the River Liffey in Dublin. An Post operate one of Ireland's largest fleets of motor vehicles and the green van is a familiar sight in town and country. The stamp design is by Steve Simpson working with the photographer Harry Weir.

Of course I always want to see stamps on my post so lets pay a visit to the printer

although in this case they are printing books.  This is from a series of definitive stamps issued by Yugoslavia in the 1950s featuring numerous workers at their trade.

In 1969 Belgium celebrated the 50th Anniversary of the International Labour Organisation with a stamp featuring a 1950 painting by Fernand Léger "Les Constructeurs".  The ILO was founded in 1919 as part of the Treaty of Versailles in the  wake of World War 1 its objective was, and is, to "pursue a vision based on the premise that universal, lasting peace can be established only if it is based in social justice".

So here is a bit of equal opportunities and perhaps could be working below the builders on the construction site, there certainly seems to be a ladder behind them, which may be made of wood

Lumbering

The building will have to be wired up so here comes the electrician

From all the hustle and bustle of the building site perhaps its time to retire to the hubble bubble of a chemistry laboratory

for in the 1950s Czechoslovakia also produced engraved definitive stamps on occupations, although I don't have many of this particular set, unlike the Yugoslavian ones which I think were issued for a longer time and in various printings, colours and denominations which may be the reason I seem to have rather a lot in my childhood album. 

Time to take a walk into the countryside and watch the fields of sunflowers being picked.

And then pay a visit to see other Professions and Trades at  Viridian Postcard's Sunday stamps meme here.

Food and Drink

 

I have a copious numbers of stamps on agricultural themes but none it seems with the end product on a plate, or in a glass. This Yugoslavia stamp of the 1950s is from a set full of workers heroically toiling in the fields or industry but the exception is this bucolic scene of gathering apples.  The child on the left I think is amazed at the number of apples in the basket but I am sure is about to take a bite of the one in her hand. Who can resist a fresh picked apple.     

Stopping in the same decade I'm on theme with this one, a cook with a tray of hot food.   Mmm I wonder if there is any dim sum on there.  The stamp celebrates community meals as part of a 1959 set commemorating the anniversary of people's communes.  This propoganda poster shows

 1958 Propaganda Poster

 the ideal people's commune with the communal restaurant in the middle surrounded by a rich harvest and a wind that is blowing all those greenhouse gases in the other direction.

After a hard day at work I'm sure a nice relaxing drink would go down a treat

 This South African stamp shows a gable of the historic Cape Dutch dwelling and national monument at Groot Constantia, and more importantly for that drink the grapes of this vineyard which has been here for over 300 years. This was the first definitive stamp series of the Republic of South Africa issued on 31 May 1961 when as the result of a whites-only referendum the country left the commonwealth becoming a republic and legislated for a continuation of apartheid. The same year it introduced the rand currency and this 2½ cent stamp was the cost of posting a standard letter.  

  

I presume by the fourth printing in 1969 the cost of letter writing had gone up. Enough to turn you to drink, or a wine tasting at Groot Constantia, today owned by a not for profit trust.

An entry to Viridian Postcard's Sunday Stamp theme of Food and Drink