Collecting French stamps is most popular in France. While
there are plenty of clubs and journals devoted to French philately in existence
outside France, the center of gravity is in France, which is hardly surprising.
In Russian philately we are seeing the end of
a long, unnatural period in which Russian philately was most intensively
studied outside of Russia. While the Civil War and the 1920s saw a worldwide
growth of interest in Russian philately, in the Soviet Union itself philately
came to a screeching halt when stamp collectors were deemed to be suspicious
characters because of their contacts with the outside world. Philatelists were
purged along with everyone else during the Great Terror, and serious philately
recovered only slowly, the appearance of a reborn “Soviet Collector” in the
1960s being the first sign that something was stirring again in the USSR.
In the meantime, Russian philately flourished
outside Russia. After WW2 the BSRP started its long love affair with Russian
philately, while yet another incarnation of the Rossica Society was founded in
the USA. Other countries soon followed: Germany, France, Denmark, Sweden,
Canada, Australia and New Zealand all had or have Russian philatelic societies.
But philatelists outside Russia were in a
uniquely handicapped position. The lack of access to primary sources (e.g.
postal archives) meant that Russian philately abroad developed as an
“empirical” field. Outstanding postmark studies came into being simply by inventorying
the material in our collections. Specialized stamp and postal history studies
were based on material in collections, not on Goznak archives.
Tantalizing hints of what could be achieved
with archive access came when the reborn Soviet Collector started publishing
serious philatelic studies by Soviet philatelists. In the USA, the Library on
Congress turned out to have a nice collection of official Russian publications
as well, and in recent years Dr. Howard Weinert has used the interlibrary loan program
as an impressive philatelic research tool. But the philatelic research
achievements outside Russia have mostly been impressive because they were
achieved at all, despite the handicap of having no or limited access to those
all-important archives.
After the glasnost’ thaw, contacts
between philatelists inside and outside the USSR intensified and we saw a flood
of articles from serious philatelists inside the USSR appear in translation in
Western journals. While 70+ years of active philatelic research had produced an
immense mountain of knowledge in the West, seeing what access to archives could
do was an eye-opener. While there were and are Western philatelists who combine
intense study of their collections with archive research where this could be achieved,
seeing nuggets of information unearthed from the archives of the Russian post
and Goznak was and is wonderful.
Another big difference between philatelists
inside and outside the former Soviet Union is their choice of subjects.
Obviously, very few journals here in the West ever ran articles on “Lenin’s
contribution to world peace through philately” or something like that, but even
disregarding the obvious political differences, the Imperial and Civil War
periods were far more popular in the West than the Soviet period, while the
reverse seems to have been true in the USSR. And in Post-Soviet Russia? The
Civil War is attracting growing interest, and the fine catalogs and handbooks
now available for the Imperial period are signs that the pre-revolutionary
period is more popular than ever before.
Demographics are another factor. The
“Russian” philatelic societies in the West have an aging membership base, and
it has become increasingly difficult to keep them going. It is not surprising
that the Canadian Society of Russian Philately ceased publishing its very fine
journal The Post-Rider, and the BSRP also had and has problems
finding enough volunteers to do the inevitable work that keeps a society
functioning.
Perhaps what we’re seeing is the end of an
era: the end of a long period during which Russian philately flourished more
outside Russia than inside Russia. The “Russian” philatelists in the West have
done an outstanding job in keeping the field alive and well during the last 70
years, and have left a legacy of philatelic articles, books and exhibits that
is now becoming available to an ever-increasing number of people through the
internet. But the center of gravity may be shifting to Russia itself, where a
new generation of philatelists is eagerly exploring a new world of philately. I
think they’ll find the Western legacy to Russian philately a great basis for further expansion. We wish them well.
