The Postage Stamps of the Baltic States of the Interwar-Period

• In Event: Images as Markers of Identity and History

Abstract

After gaining independence after the First World War Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania started issuing their own postage stamps. These can be regarded as simple means of prepaying for the transport of postcards or letters or as objects of interests for stamp-collectors. Given the huge numbers of stamps produced (e.g. compared to books), the wide range of their distribution both at home and abroad and the possibility of portraying their countries of origins through the depicted persons, landscapes or state symbols they can, however, also be regarded as small “ambassadors” of the countries they represented. The proposed paper will discuss primarily the similarities and differences of the Baltic postage stamps of the 1920s and 1930s as iconographic representations of the history, politics, economies and culture of their countries of origin.

Short Bio

Ph.D. in EastEuropean history, postgraduate degree in academic librarianship, librarian and deputy director of the Herder Institute for Historical Research in East Central Europe Marburg

Author

• Juergen Michael Warmbrunn, Herder Institute Marburg