Vilnius 1939

Arrival cancel Warszawa 1 on the back

I have few Gryżewski covers and this one is my personal favorite. It is a philatelic cover sent in 1939 from Wilno 2 to Warszawa (Warsaw) with a special postmark commemorating the 20th anniversary of Polish air links. According to B. Brzozowski's "The Vilnius Directorate of Post and Telegraph between 1919 and 1939", the illustration part and the date part of the postmark is separated but on my copy, it looks like a single ensemble or even a machine cancel of some sort.

Klaipėda 1940

It is a very nice looking German commemorative postal stationery cancelled in 1940 in Memel (now Klaipėda, Lithuania). The postmark is also a commemorative one, both for the occasion of the day of the postage stamp of January 7th 1940. The card has an old good German classic design which makes you almost forget that it has been issued under the Nazi regime.

Lauksargiai 1941

This is a German semi-postal stationery sent in 1941 from Laugszargen (now Lauksargiai, Lithuania) to Göttingen, Germany. It has a nice commemorative cancel of "Rückführung der Volksdeutschen aus Litauen" which can be translated as the repatriation of ethnic Germans from Lithuania. Laugszargen was a town in former Memelgebiet with a railway station bordering Lithuania. When it was re-annexed by the Third Reich in 1939, it served has repatriation gate to Germany for the ethnic Germans living in Lithuania.

Vilnius 1959 - Alexander Pushkin

This is a maximum card of Alexander Pushkin cancelled in 1959 in Vilnius. A maximum card is a postcard with a cancelled postage stamp with the same topic. This one is about Alexander Pushkin, probably the best known Russian poet. Pushkin is actually not totally irrelevant to Vilnius, his great-grand father Hannibal (or Gannibal), a black African believed to be from somewhere in Cameroon, came to Vilnius with his master the emperor Peter the Great and was baptized there in 1705. The church where he has been baptized, St. Paraskeva Church, still stands today in old town of Vilnius and has a memorial plate of the event on the outer wall. Although Alexander himself never lived there, the Pushkin family house and estate (his son Gregory and the wife Barbara lived and died there) is preserved and now serves as a museum of the poet.
The postmark commemorates the 100 years of the establishment of telegraph in Vilnius.

The First Białystok-Vilnius Philatelic Exhibition 1977

Since I have posted the 2nd and the 3rd, why not the First? So, here we go, the First Wystawa Filatelistyczna Białystok - Wilno (Białystok-Vilnius Philatelic Exhibition) held in 1977 on the ocasion of the 60th anniversary of the Great October Revolution. It looks like they didn't intend to have the 2nd at the time, there is no mention of being the first of this series of exhibition. The coat of arms of Białystok is the Polish Eagle and the Lithuanian Vytis which was also the coat of arms of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It is also used for the coat of the Podlaskie Voivodeship which Białystok is the capital city of. The majority of ethnic Lithuanians living in Poland are concentrated in Podlaskie, preserving their own cultural identity in remote villages, especially in few counties in the north where Lithuanians exceed 70% of the population. That is very interesting fact because that's exactly how it was in Lithuania under the Commonwealth where majority were Polish speakers at that time and Lithuanian spoken only in remote villages. "IF", the Grand Duchy of Lithuania have survived until today like the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg now, I think it would look more like the present Podlaskie than the actual modern Lithuania itself.

Train of the Podlaskie Railway with the coat of arms running between Suwałki and Białystok
If the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was still existing, the state railway would probably look like this present Podlaskie trains.

The 3rd Białystok-Vilnius Philatelic Exhibition 1985

This is a postcard to commemorate the III Wystawa Filatelistyczna Białystok - Wilno (3rd Białystok-Vilnius Philatelic Exhibition) held in 1985. I have already posted in this blog the commemorative postcard of the 2nd Exhibition held in 1982 (please click the label "WYSTAWA FILATELISTYCZNA BIAŁYSTOK - WILNO" below this article to check it. ), this is the 3rd of its kind. The stamp used is the commemorative issue of the Wojna Obronna 1939, literally meaning "defensive war" which points out the war the Poles fought against the German invasion at the beginning of WWII in 1939, also known as "Kampania wrześniowa", the September Campaign.

Cancellations of the post-Soviet Republic - 01 FDC

Palanga 2001 - This is one of the 3 stamps of the  joint issue with Latvia and Estonia

Personally, I very much like the design of this postmark!

Panevėžys 2002 - Narrow gauge train

There is a train even in the postmark!

Panevėžys 2003 - 500 years anniversary of the city of Panevėžys

Coat of arms are one of my favorite topical subject, it reflects history

's-Gravenhage Stamp Exhibition Estonia - Latvia - Lithuania 1938

This is the first time I'm posting a Dutch cover on this blog! It is a cover with a commemorative postmark of 's-Gravenhage (also known as Den Haag/The Hague) Postzegel Tentoonstelling (Stamp Exhibition) of Estland/Estonia Letland/Latvia and Litauen/Lithuania held in 1938. I can understand that people of Poland, Germany, Russia or Latvia showing interest in Lithuanian philately because these countries are closely associated with Lithuanian history but Netherlands does not have any direct connection nor significant immigration of Lithuanians like the US, Canada or Australia, and still managed to gather enough people interested in Baltic philately to held an exhibition during the prewar period. I must say I'm impressed by the Dutch people.
The author probably addressed the cover to himself but then changed his mind and wanted it immediately by rewriting the address to Tentoonstellingen (exhibition ground). According to Google Books, there is even a publication about this exhibit, titled: Tentoonstelling van postzegels van Estland, Letland en Litauen te 's-Gravenhage published in 1938, the author is credited to Jan Hendrik Peursem, Vereeninging Nederland-Balticum. The content has only 36 pages but I would definitely like to take a look if I would ever had a chance to do so one day.

1968 Opening of the Polish Airline LOT line Warszawa - Wilno - Leningrad

This is an interesting first flight card sent in 1968 from Warszawa/Warsaw, Poland to Vilnius, part of the Soviet Union back then. There is a nice commemorative cancellation with the inscription "Otwarcie Linii Lotniczej PLL LOT Warszawa Wilno Leningrad" meaning: Opening of the flight line PLL LOT Warszawa Wilno (Vilnius) Leningrad (now St. Petersburg, Russia). PLL is "Polskie Linie Lotnicze", the Polish Airline and LOT is the name of that airline.
It seems like the sender sent it from Warszawa to get this special postmark to Vilnius as "poste restante" but for some reason did not pick it up. There is a arrival cancel of Vilnius opp. Lit. SSR and sent back to Warszawa. The sender didn't fill out the returning address where it should have been but the Polish Post have noticed later (that's probably why it is handwritten in red "retour" above the inscription "retour inconnu" which means: return address unknown) and sent back to Racibórz, where the sender live. It must have been such a "trouble maker" card from the postman's view but certainly interesting for us collectors.
Racibórz is a Polish town just few kilometers from the Czech border which also has a very interesting postal history going through Austrian, German, Czech, Polish rule but unfortunately this blog is about Lithuanian philately so I won't discuss it.

Vilnius 1937

This is a maximum card of Józef Piłsudski, the Chief of State of the Polish Second Republic, cancelled in Wilno (Vilnius, Lithuania) in 1937 with a commemorative postmark of the exhibition of the 10th anniversary of Radio Wilno, known as "Radio dla miasta i wsi" (Radio for cities and villages) at that time. It was the first permanent radio station in Vilnius. The following year in 1938, the Polish Radio released a publication about the contents of the exhibition which, thanks to the Polish National Digital Library, we are able to see. Here is the link.

440th Anniversary of the Union of Lublin 2009

I just love this commemorative cancel! It's commemorating the 440th Anniversary of the Union of Lublin signed by Poland and Lithuania. It was an exclusive postmark for the post office in Lublin, Poland. the coat of arms of the commonwealth of Poland-Lithuania depicting the Polish eagle and the Lithuanian Vytis is just beautiful!

The 16th Vilnius Kaziukas Fair in Poznań 2009

This is a commemorative card of the XVI Kaziuk Wileński w Poznaniu (16th Vilnius Kaziukas Fair in Poznań, Poland) held on 8 March 2009. Kaziuk is the Polish name for the traditional fair of Vilnius, Lithuania called Kaziuko mugė. Large number of Polish speaking population in Vilnius have moved to Poland as part of the Post-war population replacement orchestrated by the Soviet authority. Largest part went to Gdańsk and Poznań, which is the sites of the 2 biggest Kaziuko mugė held in Poland today by the former residents of the Vilnius region and their descendants. Besides Poland, there are several places outside of Lithuania celebrating Kaziuko mugė, Grodno, Belarus and Daugavpils, Latvia are the most known ones. However, outside of the former Grand Duchy of Lithuania, Kaziuko mugė is not celebrated (both Grodno and Daugavpils were once an important part of the Grand Duchy).
The cancellation is commemorating the 20th anniversary of Towarzystwo Miłośników Wilna i ziemi Wileńskiej (Friendship society of Vilnius and Vilnius region) on the occasion of the 16th Vilnius Kaziuk.

Trakai 2011

This is a FDC of one of the 2 stamps of the church series issued in 2011. The church on the stamp is the Church of the Visitation of Saint Mary/Švč. Mergelės Marijos Apsilankymo bažnyčia in Trakai, originally build in 1409 by Vytautas the Great. The basic gothic features of the building itself are still preserved but the exterior has been redecorated in Baroque style. You can also see the church on the lower left picture of the postcard. Nice arrival cancellation of Vilnius 38 which is Naujininkai.

Kaunas 2008

To be honest, I find pretty refreshing to see a modern postcard on this blog. I think I should do this once in a while. Well, this is a FDC postcard sent in 2008 from Kaunas to Vilnius with a nice stamp commemorating the 75th anniversary of Darius & Girėnas's flight cancelled with a first day postmark. Darius & Girėnas are the Lithuanian version of the Wright brothers, who successfully flew from New York to Europe across the Atlantic ocean in 1933. However, they couldn't make it to Kaunas due to an accident somewhere in Poland. You can see their plane "Lituanica" on both stamp and postmark. If you ever have a chance to visit Lithuania, these 2 guys are pretty hard to miss, not only they are on the 10 Litas banknote but literally everywhere in any form, for example street names, school names, memorials or even in some restaurant menu like "D&G steak" or "Cocktail Lituanica", not to mention that they are a major "stamgast" topic of the trans-atlantic airmail covers.

Šiauliai 1988

This is a Soviet postal stationery commemorating the philatelic exhibition "Прибалтюнфил 88" (Pribaltyunfil) held in Шяуляй/Šiauliai in 1988 with a commemorative cancel of it. This philatelic exhibition  took place in 2 consecutive years 1987 and 1988.  Прибалтюнфил/Pribaltyunfil 87 was held in Narva, Estonian SSR.

Šiauliai 1991

This is a philatelic cover with a postmark cancelled in 1991 commemorating the bicentennial of the recognition of Šiauliai's city right in 1791. The Grand Duke of Lithuania and King of Poland Stanislovas Augustas Poniatovskis (known as Stanisław August Poniatowski in Polish) has reconfirmed Šiauliai's city right originally given in 1589 and granted a coat of arms shown in the postmark. It depicts the bear of Žemaitija (Samogitia in English, the region which Šiauliai is the capital), Eye of the Providence and the bull which is also the coat of arms of the House of Poniatovskis/Poniatowski.

The 2nd Białystok-Vilnius Philatelic Exhibition 1982

This is a  postcard of the II Wystawa Filatelistyczna Białystok - Wilno (2nd Białystok-Vilnius Philatelic Exhibition) held in 1982 to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the ZSRR/USSR (it is the polish abbreviation for: Związek Socjalistycznych Republik Radzieckich). It features a very nice illustration of Gediminas tower in Vilnius with a Commemorative cancel.

Šiauliai 2011

A FDC of the 2011 issue of the religious architecture series cancelled in Šiauliai. It depicts the cathedral of Ss. Peter and Paul in Šiauliai. The original wooden church built in 1445 was remodeled in late gothic-renaissance mixed style in 1626 and acquired the present appearance.

Alytus 2011

This is a FDC of the commemorative stamps of Alytaus kraštotyros muziejus (Alytus regional museum) cancelled in Alytus on 04/06 2011. The first day cancellation depicts the wooden statue of saint John of Nepomuk which the museum owns. John of Nepomuk was a Czech saint (called Jan Nepomucký in Czech) popular in Lithuania during the Catholic counter-reformation period, depicted in numerous places throughout the country including the coat of arms of Anykščiai.

Vilnius 1936

Special cancellation "Witaj Gwiazdo Złota" from 1936. "Witaj Gwiazdo Złota" is the name of a very popular Christmas song in Poland. From the very cute looking of this postmark, it doesn't seem but actually it is a pretty rare postmark.