Books about stamps are not a huge business in modern purchasing at the University Library, but they can be incredibly interesting to more than the dedicated philatelist.  We recently bought two volumes about Ukrainian stamps more for the principles and attitudes reflected in the stamps than for the images themselves.  What inspires a government agency in its selection of images?  It’s a particularly keen question when it comes to a country whose last 10 years have seen parts of its territory overtaken by illegal annexation and ruined by a growing war.

Both books are by Lev Khmelʹkovsʹkyĭ: Krasa i velych Ukraïny : sproba filatelistychnoho doslidz︠h︡enni︠a︡ (The beauty and greatness of Ukraine : an attempt at philatelic research) and Ukraïnsʹki khramy i monastyri u filateliï (Ukrainian churches and monasteries in stamps).  The second followed the first in publication (2023 and 2022), although the covers in the image are in reverse order.  They make for poignant reading at times, when the stamps shows parts of Ukraine under Russian control or attack at the time they were designed and printed or places that have since been destroyed.

Ukrposhta, the Ukrainian postal service, maintains an excellent site in English, including a page showing foreign stamps issued to express support for the country.  Postage stamps have become more than ever something greater than a practical currency since Russia’s full-scale invasion was launched in 2022.  Ukrainian stamps engage with the war, marking specific events (the finger-based stand-off with the Russian warship, for example) and keeping the future of a reunited Ukraine in mind (see the Crimea entry in their collection of postmarks, say).  As with so many fantastic Ukrainian initiatives, the point is both to inspire and to fundraise, since many people have started to collect Ukrainian stamps from abroad.

In the UL, looking at other Ukrainian stamp resources, we also have a 2014 catalogue of World War 1 stamps and postcards about Ukraine from the collection of Ivan Snihur, and a 2009 book about the Ukrainian Underground Post that operated outside Soviet Ukraine and about which the National Historical Library of Ukraine has got an online exhibition.

Finally, a note about Ukraine blog posts.  We started the Slavonic item of the month back in 2013, about 6 months before this blog started.  Having written weekly posts about Ukrainian material since February 2022, we’ve decided to change things up a bit and stop the Slavonic item of the month (which I thought must have reached 100 by now – apparently that milestone passed 2.5 years ago and last month’s made it 130), changing it to the Ukrainian item of the month.  Additional Ukrainian and other Slavonic blog posts will appear along the way too, but the monthly item will allow us to keep on promoting Ukraine and the books we collect about and from the country until we can write the blog post celebrating Ukrainian victory.

Mel Bach