Submittals from a stamp design competition (01/04/04)

Submittals from a stamp design competition

In times of crisis, it is usually best for someone to take charge in order that an effective and timely response may be made to confront the emergency. That was not immediately done in trying to address the 1921-1922 famine, and it was also not done in regards to the famine relief stamps. One of the reasons that this issue was so late in getting released is that it was felt that a competition was necessary in order to come up with appropriate designs.

Several years ago a U.S. auction house (Raritan Stamps Inc., Auction No. 5, July 24, 2000) offered a lot comprised of eight essays (stamp design proposals) for the famine relief issue (Figure A). One of these designs (upper left) had been used (with modifications) on the 90 + 30-karbovantsi value.

While the other stamp proposals offer interesting ideas, it is easy to understand why they were not selected. None of them presented a particularly flattering depiction of the new Soviet "worker's paradise." While apparently it was acceptable to depict death as an adversary to be confronted, showing deceased, emaciated or begging individuals was not.

Evidently, skulls as a symbol of death also were anathema. The design in the lower left is particularly perplexing. It seems to show the Soviet hammer and sickle driving a wedge into a skull. To me this arrangement appears almost subversive. Perhaps others understood it this way as well.

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