Stamp design project, frame only, on cardboard.
The first commemorative issue “300th Anniversary of the House of Romanov”. Artist I. Bilibin. Depicts Peter I (after a portrait by Carl Moor, 1717).
The first and only series of commemorative stamps of the Russian Empire was issued on January 1, 1913, and was dedicated to the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. The series consists of 17 stamps with face values from 1 kopeck to 5 rubles. Some stamps are known imperforate. The 7-kopeck stamp exists in blue instead of brown. The post offices of St. Petersburg, Moscow, and Riga prepared and offered for sale booklets made up of blocks of commemorative stamps of various denominations.
The official date of release into circulation is January 1, 1913, but isolated cases are known of stamps entering circulation in late 1912.
Preparation of the design for a large series of jubilee stamps began long before the celebrations. In February 1912, the Expedition for the Preparation of State Papers (EZGB) submitted for approval to the Main Directorate of Posts and Telegraphs a proposed coloring scheme for stamps with denominations from 1 to 70 kopecks, along with portrait images of tsars that had already been agreed with that directorate earlier.
In January 1912, official notices appeared in the press about the production at the EZGB of the “300 Years of the House of Romanov” stamps, and at the end of that year newspapers reported that these stamps would be put into circulation on January 1, 1913, replacing all postage stamps that had existed up to that time.
However, the new stamps had hardly entered circulation when the newspaper “Petersburg Leaflet” of February 7, and other newspapers as well, published items stating that within a short time it was planned to withdraw from sale stamps with portraits of reigning persons “due to certain inconveniences in canceling the stamps.”
More specifically, the problem was explained in other publications. In the official organ of the Holy Synod, Bishop Nikon (secular name N. M. Rozhdestvensky) condemned the printing of the stamp’s face value next to images of the tsars, which, he argued, demeaned the pious sovereigns revered by the people. The stamps were subject to cancellation, and devout Orthodox believers and loyal supporters of the monarchy denounced what they considered a desecration of the sacred image of the tsar. “Worse still,” he wrote, “these Tsarist portraits are smeared with a postal postmark, as if for the greater mockery of us.” And the newspaper “Zemshchina,” the mouthpiece of the far-right “Union of the Russian People,” pointed out that by law, desecration of the emperor’s image was punishable by penal servitude. “Many postmasters refused to defile the tsar’s face with postal markings and left the stamps uncanceled.”
The Main Post Office and its branches stopped selling the jubilee stamps. The stamps immediately began to be sold at speculative prices, but after only 5 days the situation with stamp sales took an entirely new turn. At the Main Post Office, 35- and 50-kopeck stamps, as well as sets (booklets) of 1-, 2-, and 3-kopeck stamps, and also the 2-ruble stamp, began to be sold without hindrance. However, most low-denomination kopeck stamps still were not sold.