The first commemorative issue, “The 300th Anniversary of the House of Romanov.” Artist I. Bilibin. Depicted is Peter I (after a portrait by Karl 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 denominations from 1 kopek 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 released 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 the 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 draft color scheme for stamps with denominations from 1 to 70 kopeks, along with portrait images of tsars that had already been previously agreed with this directorate.
In January 1912, the press published official reports on 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, no sooner had the new stamps entered use than the newspaper “Petersburg Leaflet” of February 7, as well as other newspapers, published reports that it was planned in the near future to withdraw stamps with portraits of the reigning persons from sale “due to certain inconveniences in canceling the stamps.”
More specifically, the issue 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 the images of the tsars, which he felt demeaned the pious rulers revered by the people. The stamps were subject to cancellation, and devout Orthodox believers and loyal supporters of the monarchy condemned what they regarded as the desecration of the sacred image of the tsar. “Worse still,” he wrote, “these Tsarist portraits are smeared by the postal cancel, as though for the sake of even 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 image of the emperor 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 ceased selling the jubilee stamps. Immediately the stamps began to be sold at speculative prices, but after only five days the situation with stamp sales took an entirely new turn. At the Main Post Office, stamps of 35 and 50 kopeks, 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 of the kopek-denomination stamps still were not being sold.