2021 has come and gone and I doubt that I will miss it. It was a stressful year and a strange for my personal study of history. In fact I have devoted even more time to history than usual, as a very big part of the year was filled with writing my master thesis. That however means on the other hand that I had very little time for leisure with my stamps, postcards and blogs. My main blog suffered, but this blog suffered even more. Only four posts I have published here, one each in January, March, April and December. I had actually planned many more including two or three bigger posts. Maybe I will write them this year, but I do not think so, as it will be another stressful year and I have already new plans. Apart from these personal reasons for a different year of devoting time to history also the pandemic still plays a role in changing plans especially with regard to museums, which for me are an important part of engaging with history in a leisurely way. Due to Covid-19 museums here in the region were closed on 1st November 2020 and apart from one week in March were just allowed to reopen in late May. Nonetheless I still managed to do roughly 20 museum visits in 2021. The highlights were the Nebra Sky Disc exhibition in Halle an der Saale, the new permanent exhibition at the Bavarian Army Museum in Ingolstadt, "Kinosaurier" in Hanover, the Premonstratensians in Magdeburg, Plagues in Hildesheim and exhibitions about Rudolf Manga Bell and the Silk Road in Hamburg. In my Outlook of 2021 I had written about nine exhibitions that I had hopes to visit during the year. Two of them were postponed and six of them I actually visited. Only the Late Gothic exhibition in Berlin I have not seen. When I wrote that the opening of the Humboldt Forum was not on my radar. I have not visited it yet, but hope to do so this year.
In my outlook I had already mentioned that there seems to be no big jubilee in 2021 and I was right. I had added some jubiless to my original list and these here the stamp issue numbers I have for them:
- zero issues: 150 years Proclamation of the German Empire, 500 years Diet of Worms, 650th birthday of Zheng He, 750 years Beginning of Marco Polo's Journey
- one issue: 100th birthday of Friedrich Dürrenmatt (Switzerland), 100th birthday of Sophie Scholl (Germany), 150th birthday of Friedrich Ebert (Germany), 450th birthday of Johannes Kepler (KEP), 500 years Fuggerei in Augsburg (Germany), 1600 years Venice (Italy), 1700 years Jewish Life in Germany (Germany), 1900th birthday of Marcus Aurelius (Slovakia)
- two issues: 100th birthday of Joseph Beuys (Germany, Serbia), 100th birthday of Stanislaw Lem (Poland, Serbia), 150th birthday of Marcel Proust (Monaco, Portugal), 200th birthday of Charles Baudelaire (France, Serbia), 200th birthday of Gustave Flaubert (France, Monaco), 200 years Beginning of the Greek Revolution (Cyprus, Greece), 300 years End of the Great Northern War (Åland Islands, Russia)
- three issues: 450 years Battle of Lepanto (Italy, Montenegro, Spain)
- four issues: 450th birthday of Caravaggio (Bulgaria, North Macedonia, San Marino, Vatican), 550th birthday of Albrecht Dürer (Bulgaria, Hungary, KEP, San Marino)
- five issues: 100 years Communist Party of China (Armenia, China, Hong Kong, Macau, Serbia), 100 years Discovery of Insulin (Brazil, Canada, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Switzerland), 200th death anniversary of Napoleon (Andorra - French Post, France, Italy, Malta, Saint Helena + Cuba (EDIT: 6th February 2022)), 400th birthday of Jean de La Fontaine (Bulgaria, France, Hungary, Monaco, Portugal)
- six issues: 700th death anniversary of Dante Alighieri (Czechia, Georgia, Italy, Liechtenstein, Uruguay, Vatican)
- seven issues: 200th birthday of Fyodor Dostoevsky (Bosnia and Herzegovina - Republic Srpska, Bulgaria, KEP, Monaco, North Macedonia, Russia, Serbia)
And just for comparison these are the number for recent BIG jubilees:
- 16 issues: 100 years End of World War I (2018)
- 19 issues: 500 years Reformation (2017)
- 30 issues: 50 years Moon Landing (2019)
- 40 issues: 250th birthday of Ludwig van Beethoven (2020)
In the outlook I wondered whether Dante or Napoleon might become the BIG jubilee of the year and indeed both performed rather well, but are nothing near the jubilees of the last years. Fyodor Dostoevsky on the other hand was not on my radar at all.
The end of the year also means once again to choose My Favourite History Stamps of the Year in addition to my general My Favourite Stamps of 2021 over on my stamp blog. Unlike last year I am contended with this list, so without further ado:
11. Robert Blum (Germany)
Robert Blum is one of the most famous German proponents of the Revolution of 1848, yet this is the first time that he is shown on a stamp. I actually thought that this might be the "prequel" for a 175th anniversary stamp issue of the revolution itself in 2023, but no such stamp is planned. This souvenir sheet is not connected to any anniversary and is actually part of the stamp series "Aufrechte Demokraten" (Upright Democrats), which was started in 2002, but for which this is just the sixth issue. It is great to see Blum honoured with a stamp, but I do not like this design at all with the white streak on his face and the text in the background that is covered and thus unreadable. Hence just the 11th rank.
10. 400th Birthday of Jean de La Fontaine (France)
I really like the design of this sheet, but more so because I collect also Childhood Heroes on Stamps. La Fontaine was not on my historical radar until recently, his works are however of immense importance and this sheets thus deserves to be included here.
9. Bicentenary of the Congress of Laibach (Slovenia)
This congress in Laibach, which is now called Ljubljana and is Slovenia's capital, was one of four successor congresses of the Congress of Vienna and an "attempt of the five Great Powers to settle international problems after the Napoleonic Wars through discussion and collective weight rather than on the battlefield" (Wikipedia). I guess it is not widely known that these congresses existed at all, but it is nice to see that at least one is remembered on a local/national level. This is a nice little stamp, but unfortunately a victim of my own course of the year. I bought it online, scanned it, put in my album and did not think about it further. Still a worthy addition to any stamp collection about European history.
8. Industrial Revolutions (United Kingdom)
This is a very interesting set. I am not aware of any other issue that decidedly thematises this theme and shows different inventions of the era (although I am actually sure that there are some), so this is a set of immense interest for my collection.
7. Birth Centenary of Sophie Scholl (Germany)
Standing up against extremism is once again of big importance these days and so a list like this would not be complete without Sophie Scholl. It is nice to see that they used a different image than usual and they have chosen an interesting quote: "Such a nice, sunny day and I shall go. What however is my death due to, if through us thousands of people are startled and awaken" (22nd February 1943, Scholl's death day). The question however remains why her brother Hans did not get the same treatment in 2018.
6. 230th anniversary of the Constitution of 3 May 1791 (Poland)
Did you know that Poland (or more precisely the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) was one of the first democratic states in Europa? A democratic constitution was introduced already in 1791, but was not effective very long, as the country was divided soon after and disappeared from the map for over 100 years. A rather odd jubilee, but this constitution got the European Heritage Label. Once again a painting by Jan Matejko was chosen to illustrate a historic theme on a Polish stamp.
5. 1700th anniversary of Jewish Life in Germany (Germany)
This is a striking yet simple design and once again a theme to remember these days. Like the Slovenian stamp this one was issued in early 2021 and I have forgetten it a bit in the course of the year. I guess Covid-19 prevented many bigger celebrations. This stamp is also a reminder for the sad fact that the number of special postmarks in Germany was drastically decreased in 2021. In 2019 there were over 360 special postmarks used in Germany (I mean those that are organised locally and not officially tied to a stamp issue), last year there were only roughly 170. That means a great loss for the philatelic commemoration for smaller and local events and anniversaries. In a normal year I guess there would have been multiple postmarks highlighting local connections to this jubilee, but under these circumstances there was only this one from Seelow. It is nonetheless interesting for showing a Stolperstein, the ubiquitous memorial to the Shoa.
4. Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky and the Frankfurt Kitchen (Austria)
This is another stamp without jubilee, but I like it very much, as it closes a big gap in the philatelic documentation of modern architecture. The Frankfurt Kitchen was designed by Margarete Schütte-Lihotzky, one of the first women to study architecture in the Austro-Hungarian Empire and probably the first who actually worked fully as architect, for Ernst May's social housing project New Frankfurt. It is considered to be the forerunner of the modern fitted kitchen. Schütte-Lihotzky however was not only a designer, but also a communist activist in the Austrian resistance to Nazism. A worthy and long overdue commemoration!
3. Margaret Atwood (Canada)
Do not worry, Margaret Atwood is not dead yet. So you might wonder, why do I include a stamp like this in my list of history stamps? Well the reason is that reading The Handmaid's Tale shaped my interest in historic themes in the recent years like nothing else. Compared to Brave New World, Nineteen Eighty-Four and Fahrenheit 451, I think that this dystopia is the most frightening and also most realistic and in case you did not know, Atwood says that everything that she described in her book had an equivalent in real history. Is that not reason enough to investigate the dark sides of humanity's past from dictatorships to genocides for many years to come?
2. 150th anniversary of the Internment of the Bourbaki Army (Switzerland)
As I said before, I have written my master thesis this year. The theme was the change of depiction of the Foundation of the German Empire in German history schoolbooks between 1971 and 2021 and the reason why I chose this theme was the omission of a German stamp for the jubilee. 1971 there was a stamp and my assumption was that if back then there was and now there is not a stamp there had to be changes as well in how the schools want to communicate the theme to the following generations. Well, in the books however there is no big change at all and so I am wondering even more why there was no such stamp. Our southwestern neighbour however issued a stamp about an event in the atmosphere of the German Empire's foundation. The French Armée de l'Est originally under General Charles Denis Bourbaki was interned in Switzerland in the late phase of the Franco-Prussian War and Switzerland was thus able to consolidate its reputation as a humanitarian nation. The stamp shows a detail of a panorama painting about this event. Apparently you could scan it with a particular app to view the complete painting, but I have not tried.
Honourable Mention: Konrad Adenauer (Spain)
Last year my first place stamp was the Spanish stamp about Robert Schuman that was said to be the start of a series about the Founding Figures of the European Union and I said that I was looking for the stamp about Konrad Adenauer. That stamp was now already issued, but I do not have it yet, so just a honourable mention.
1. Death Bicentenary of Napoleon Bonaparte (France)
Even if I would have got the Adenauer stamp it would not have stand a chance against this sheet. I think this is one of the most beautiful stamp issues that I have ever seen and talking about history-themed stamps nothing comes near it for me in 2021. A well deserved first place and in fact the only theme I managed to write a post about in 2021, so nothing more to add.
With Looking Back finished, let's now begin the Looking Forward.
2022 will bring us of course the announcement of the new European Heritage Label sites. That is something I always look forward to and it might happen in March. Checking out some museum programs and other online news the biggest German history exhibition of the year seems to happen in Trier. From June to November a state exhibition in three museums will thematise the Fall of the Roman Empire. Other German exhibitions I hope to visit will be held in Hildesheim (Islamic Art in Medieval treasures), Münster (Barbarossa) and maybe Stuttgart (History of Beer and Wine). The National Museum of History and Art in Luxembourg plans an exhibition about the Luxembourgian entanglement with the (Belgian) imperialism, which sounds very enticing. Too far away but still noteworthy are the exhibition about the Nebra Sky Disc at the British Museum in London and the openings of Grand Egyptian Museum in Cairo, the Palace Museum in Hong Kong and the Lucas Museum of Narrative Art in Los Angeles.
This is my preliminary list of Jubilees in 2022:
50 years The Limits to Growth
75 years Independence of India
100th birthday of Betty White
100th birthday of Doris Day
100th birthday of Kurt Vonnegut
100 years Discovery of the Tomb of Tutankhamun
100 years Irish Free State
100 years Soviet Union
150th birthday of Piet Mondrian
150th birthday of Otto Braun
150th death anniversary of Giuseppe Mazzini
150 years Yellowstone National Park
200th birthday of Gregor Mendel
200th birthday of Heinrich Schliemann
200th birthday of Louis Pasteur
200th death anniversary of Karl August von Hardenberg
200 years Decipherment of the Hieroglyphs
200 years Independence of Brazil
250th birthday of Novalis
250 years First Partition of Poland
350th birthday of Peter the Great
350 years Rampjaar
400th birthday of Molière
450 years Herzog August Library in Wolfenbüttel
450 years Os Lusíadas
450 years Saint Bartholomew's Day Massacre
550th birthday of Lucas Cranach the Elder
900th birthday of Frederick Barbarossa
Once again there is no jubilee that stands out, so most likely there will be again no BIG jubilee. I am however aware of at least one stamp for most of the themes. I would guess that of these either Mendel, Moliere or Pasteur will have the most stamps issued by the end of the year. As this year will be busy, I do not want to plan too much, but I think about posts for Ancient Egypt, Louis Pasteur and maybe Guiseppe Mazzini.
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