In the 1930s/40s, Adolf Hitler was a master of having his stoic portrait adorn countless stamps. One even showed a smiling Hitler gently accepting flowers from a young Bavarian girl. Mao was another leader happy to have his image on China’s stamp. So too for Kim Jong Un and Kim Jong IL of North Korea. And, yes, Vladimir Putin has appeared on stamps from several Russian territories....
Collectors know most every country in the world has issued stamps (as well as paper currency) with images highlighting their noted people and attributes. Ukraine is no exception. Over the past decade, Ukrainian stamps have commemorated everything from indigenous flowers and farm animals to fine art, chess champions, authors, architecture, fairy tales and much more.
With the war now consuming Ukrainian daily life, stamps also offer the chance to highlight the bravery of the defense forces. To raise that bar, Ukraine recently announced a competition for designing a stamp focusing on the resistance to the Russian invasion.
Specifically, the competition was created to showcase an incident on tiny Snake Island – a microscopic island in the Black Sea near the Crimean peninsula off the coast of Ukraine. Snake Island measures less than 1/10 of a square mile – about the size of a very large shopping mall. Defending the island were 13 Ukrainian soldiers. Last month, that small contingent of soldiers on the island were approached by two Russian warships – the kind that could lay waste with a few salvos of their large guns.
The Ukrainian soldiers were notified by the Russian navy ships to “Surrender…otherwise you will be bombed.” Instead of giving up, the soldiers on Snake Island pointedly responded with the Ukrainian version of: “Russian warship…Go f___ yourself.” (Feel free to fill in the blank.)
Granted, it sounds a bit like Will Smith yelling at Chris Rock during last week’s Oscars. It’s also a far cry from 1944 World War II when General Anthony McAuliffe politely replied the word, “Nuts” when German troops surrounded Bastogne demanding his surrender.
Ukrainians were enamored with the bravery of the Snake Island soldiers, so much so that the government held a national contest to design a new postage stamp in their honor. In fact, the name of the campaign was, “Russian Warship, Go F___ Yourself.” Not a lot of gray area there.
Over 500 entries were submitted. Most were pointed. Given the derisive theme of the contest, the soldier’s rather profane resistance is front-and-center in most of the submissions.
One of the tamer entries includes a color illustration of the front of a towering Russian warship approaching the tiny island. On that island stands a defiant soldier holding the Ukraine flag. Another entry shows the same small island on which is a lighthouse. The twist is, the island stylistically appears like a human knuckle. The lighthouse is a middle finger extended upward.
That sentiment carried over to the winning stamp submitted by Ukrainian artist Boris Groh. His design features a soldier standing on the shore of the island watching a Russian warship cruising past just off the coast. The soldier holds a rifle in one hand. His other arm is raised with the hand and middle finger extended upward sending a clear message. (Some forms of profanity/communication are apparently universal.)
We may never know which soldier it was that verbally responded to the Russian navy with his anatomically impossible suggestion. As of now, the fate of the 13 Ukrainian soldiers is unknown. They may have been killed by Russian shelling or taken prisoner. Either way, they are missing but are homeland heroes.
Artist Groh once lived in the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea until Russia invaded and occupied it. He moved to Kviv and then to Lviv – both of which have been bombarded by Russian artillery and planes. Once printed and sold, Groh will undeniably hold title to creating one of the world’s most daring, pointed and provocative stamps. It’s a safe bet people from around the world will eagerly be ordering and collecting them. As to their future value, that too is, for now, unknown.
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