Filahome Philatelic MagazineMargietstraat 4, 6921 ZD DUIVEN, NEDERLAND If you are keen on philately you will be interested in our Monthly Newsletter. It contains many articles about stamps and thanks to our sponsor it's FREE. Each Month we issue articles in our Newsletter which are not published on our site. To subscribe to our English Monthly Newsletter, send a blank email to: subscribe@filahome.com For the Dutch Version: nieuwsbrief@filahome.com Interesting links for collectors: Filahome Philatelic Magazine Philatelic links Newstamps Philatelic Articles |
 Pointers to Free Stuff
As a result of the First World War the independent state of Czechoslovakia was established on 28 October 1918. Masaryk became the first president of this new country and immediately after the independence declaration the question arose to issue own stamps. Bohemia and Moravia had used Austrian stamps, which were printed in Vienna and in Slovakia Hungarian stamps were used. Therefore no special stamp printing equipment or expertise were available to fulfil this demand. No wonder the first stamps of Czechoslovakia were printed so badly! At first the Czechoslovak Post intended to run a public competition for the first stamp design, but there was little time and so an important artist was invited for this task. The painter Alphons Mucha had to fulfil his job in three days. Not only postage stamps, but newspaper, postage-due and express-mail stamps had to be designed in this short period too! After twenty-four hours Mucha presented sketches of the postage stamps on 30 October 1918. Mucha selected Hradcany castle to be the focus of the design. Who ever visited Prague can tell that this building dominates the city. The castle is huge and situated on the slope of a mountain near the river. Traditionally it had been the seat of Czech rulers and this castle was therefore ideal to represent regained independence. In 1928 Mucha declared about his choice in Cesky Filatelista: "No other subject could be as sacred to me as our historic Hradcany castle. We used to look up to it in the times of our subjugation, and all we saw was darkness. The castle windows never shone any light down in Prague, the nation had almost stopped hoping that Jan Amos Komemsky would ever be proved right in his forecast. Each nation has its own capitol, to which it entrusts its hope for the future … So, I could pick no other motif for our stamps, after all they had to mark the first steps our people took into liberty." Mucha (1860-1939) was the perfect man for the job. The artist was born in Ivancice (Moravia) and moved to Vienna because he was refused for admission at the College of Art in Prague. Later he went to Munich and Paris. He was a great illustrator and designer of posters and stage decorations. In 1903 Mucha moved to New York. During his stay in the United States he helped out to sponsor the foundation of the Slavonic Committee. Between 1910 and 1928 Mucha painted his important series "Slavonic Epic". The first stamps that came into circulation were printed on ordinary lithographic presses and the craftsmen learned on the job. All kinds of paper, ink and gum were used during this learning process and the first stamps were issued unperforated. Mucha's design was also used for postal-cards. After the proclamation of independence at first Austrian cards were used which were overprinted with the letters "S R". Finally on 6 February 1919 Mucha's Hradcany design appeared on a postal-card. © 1999, R.T. van Capelleveen Back to Homepage  Shopping on the Internet Software | Free Classifieds | Free Downloads | Shops Free Stuff | Newsletters |