The Author
A.M. LaVey is a New York-based digital archivist. In the summer of 2021 LaVey deployed to the American Philatelic Research Library with a grant from the Association of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies to increase discoverability of the library’s Slavic-language resources. Research interests include the cultural semiotics of philately and the posts as a tool of information warfare. Collection interests include Belarus, Russia, the Soviet Union and Ukraine.
[note: This article originally appeared in the 4th quarter 2021 issue of Philatelic Literature Review (PLR), the quarterly journal of the American Philatelic Research Library. Learn more about PLR subscriptions at stamps.org/library.]
Archives and archival collections can play an important role in philatelic research. A veritable treasure trove of potential information, even archives that are not philatelic in nature can be valuable resources for philatelists. Archivist Peter J. Roberts notes in the 2007 article “Philatelic Materials in Archival Collections” that “many archival collections contain significant quantities of material related to postage stamps and postal history [and] many philatelists are interested in researching them.” Recently, thanks to advances in digitization, many archival collections are moving online and allowing greater access for philatelists around the world.
One such archive is the New York-based Blavatnik Archive, a collection that concentrates on 20th century Jewish and world history, with a focus on the two World Wars and Soviet Russia. Started in 2005 with 10,000 postcards, the collection now includes about 120,000 items with 25 percent of the collection digitized and about 15 percent publically available for researchers online. Out of the archive’s 15,563 online records, there are 10,456 postcards, 917 letters and 247 stamps – a total of about 75 percent of their online collection are philatelic objects.
According to their website, the Blavatnik’s mission is to preserve and disseminate their resources, and encourage primary source-based scholarship and education. These philatelic materials, while certainly having distinct functions themselves as physical and historical artifacts, when gathered and seen together in this collection now highlight an important period in time, specifically the transition from the Russian Empire to the Soviet Union. Archival collections, through the archival bond – that is, the interrelationship of the archival records and their contextualization – have the ability to create new meaning and new information for and by philatelic researchers.
What is this new information? Indrek Ibrus and Maraja Ojamaa in their 2020 article “The Creativity of Digital (Audiovisual) Archives” write that construction of meaning does not come from the individual archival objects themselves, but rather through the usage, remediation and recontextualization by researchers. This article will explore this topic using the Blavatnik Archive as a case study.
Figure 1. From the Blavatnik Archive Foundation website, the introduction to the Rowley Soviet Ephemera collection.
The archive’s website is a proprietary content management system that features three main tabbed sections: Collections, Explore and Browse. The Collections tab currently features 18 collections of archival objects categorized into thematic collections such as Jews in the Military, Leningrad-published Postcards and WWI Postcards. The Explore tab is subdivided into Stories and Veteran Memories. Stories allows readers to explore curated stories created using philatelic content, such as “The Construction of Race in World War I: A Snapshot from German Postcards” and “The Jewish Ghetto in Postcards.” The Browse tab is subdivided into Items and Veterans, with Items containing the entirety of the collection’s digital and digitized records, and Veterans containing oral history recordings.
In this article, I will focus on one interesting holding called the Rowley Soviet Ephemera collection (Figure 1). The collection is curated by historian Alison Rowley and “explores aspects of early Soviet history that are reflected in mass media, with a special emphasis on the shifting representations of women and cultural symbols of power and society” (Blavatnik Archive Foundation, 2021). The collection spans the period from 1899 through the end of World War II and contains 14 different types of media, such as periodicals, currency, posters and postcards. Of the 472 items on display, 247 are stamps – a mix of different types: postal, charity and revenue; as well as issuers: the Russian Empire, the Provisional Russian Republic, the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic and the Soviet Union.
In an April 19, 2021, email, Rowley mentioned that she was not originally interested in stamps, but added them to her doctoral dissertation in order to add visual interest to her work. Turning to eBay, she searched for some stamps specifically and others by place and date in order to see what had been issued. The archive contacted her about donating her collection after Rowley published her 2013 book Open Letters: Russian Popular Culture and the Picture Postcard, 1880-1922, but she did not consider her donation as a stamp collection, as stamps were only part of her collection.
While Rowley might not consider the collection philatelic, the stamps in the collection, when viewed together, highlight the evolving political and economic changes in the last days of the Russian Empire and the beginnings of the Soviet state. Stamps serve as powerful visual symbols of a nation and communicate the official version of that nation’s cultural history. They transmit cultural information and preserve cultural memory. Stamps transmit information – not only that postal duty has been paid, but also the artistic and ideological message of the stamp’s designer and issuer – and as we see here, show a nation in revolutionary and social flux.
In the 2002 article “Miniature Propaganda: Self-Definition and Soviet Postage Stamps, 1917–41,” Rowley writes that by 1900 the Russian Empire had already issued more than 312 million postage stamps and had become a ubiquitous part of Russian life for many. Following the 1917 revolution, early Soviet leaders recognized the power of stamps and their potential for visual propagandic purposes and their reach both within and outside Soviet spaces.
Archival collections serve as memory institutions within a cultural space and they model that culture; the Blavatnik defines itself as a cultural repository for Soviet Russian records and its collection reflects this. Archives are full of recorded information or texts, and according to semiotician J.M. Lotman in the 1990 book Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture, texts have three culturally communicative functions: the transmission of information, the preservation of memory and the generation of new information. The archive’s social role is to serve the information needs of its designated community and the culture that created it through its collection of philatelic (and other) texts.
Figure 2
Internal Metadata (observed by author): Issuer: USSR Subject: Order of Ushakov Denomination: 1 ruble Description: Blue ink on white perforated paper Condition: Used
Blavatnik imputed metadata: Accession number: ROW.00232 Title: Postage stamp with an image of the Order of Ushakov, ca. 1940s Type: Stamp Collection: Rowley Soviet Ephemera Description: One of the World War II stamps celebrating the introduction of new military awards. Scott (2022) Title: Order of Ushakov Catalog #: Russia Scott #964 Date of issue: January 1945 Denomination: 1 ruble Color: Dull blue (green) Part of a set of an untitled set of six showcasing Soviet military awards Value $0.80 new, $0.40 used. Unwatermarked. Perf. 12 ½. Also printed imperforate, Scott #964A. Zagorsky (2018) Title: Order of Ushakov Catalog #: USSR Zagorsky #865 Date of issue: January 1945 Denomination: 1 Ruble Color: Grey-blue Part of a set of six entitled Orders and Medals of the USSR Also printed imperforate, USSR Zagorsky #859 Value about $1.73 new, $0.16 used. 700,000 stamps issued, issued in 10x5 sheets. A ‘see also’ entry indexes and connects this set to the rest of the Orders and Medals of the USSR series. Designer: A. Mandrusov
But first researchers need to discover the archive’s resources and this is done via searching and querying the objects’ records via its metadata. Metadata is commonly described as “data about data,” but is more correctly defined by librarian Jeffrey Pomerantz in the 2015 book Metadata as “a statement about a potentially informative object.” In digital archives like the Blavatnik, these statements and their links are powered by the internet, leading to unlimited potential new connections and the creation of new information by researchers.
Figure 3
Internal Metadata : Issuer: USSR Subject: Female farmer with grain (foreground) farm and farm machinery (background) Denomination: 20 kopeek Description: Green ink on white perforated paper Condition: Used
Blavatnik imputed metadata: Accession number: ROW.00343 Title: Postage stamp with a woman holding wheat stalks, ca. 1950s Type: Stamp Collection: Rowley Soviet Ephemera Description: Soviet postage stamp depicting a collective farm worker. Artist: Vasilii Zav'ialov. Scott (2022) Title: Woman farmer Catalog #: Russia Scott #1344 Date of issue: 1949 Denomination: 20 kopeek Color: Green Part of a 5-stamp untitled set, originally issued in brown as a 1948 eight-stamp untitled set. Reissued in 1954-1956 in a smaller size and recolored olive green. Value $3.00 new, $1.25 used. Perf 12x12 ½. Zagorsky (2018) Title: Kolkhoznitsa (Female collective farmer) Catalog #: USSR Zagorsky #1294 I Date of issue: April 28, 1949 Denomination: 20 kopeek Color: Blue-green and olive green Part of a set of five definitive stamps Reissued in 1955 in smaller size and recolored Grey-Green (USSR Zagorsky #1294 II) Value about $32.02 new, $14.68 used. “Many” stamps issued, issued in 10x10 sheets Massive color variations Designer: V. Zavyalov
Audit of philatelic records
The Blavatnik descriptive record format allows for the recording of accession number, title, description, resource type, hyperlinked collection, hyperlinked subject term, places, copyright information, a permalink, and ‘similar items.’ The inclusion of a hyperlink allows researchers to search the archives via clicking a link to find related resources. All 247 stamp records have a title, resource type, accession number and hyperlinked collection index. The title statement in some records also includes notes about the stamps, such as description, surcharge or type, however this is not standardized. In order to analyze the informational capacity of the archive’s philatelic records, I examined three stamps, chosen by my interest, looking at their internal metadata (that which I can see on the object itself), the metadata statements included in the archival record, and compared this information to external metadata sourced from the American Scott and Russian Zagorsky catalogs. (See Figures 2-4.)
Analysis
According to librarian and philatelist David Straight in the 1994 article “Adding value to stamp and coin collections,” the two most important metadata statements are country and date of issue – and this information is not included in the Blavatnik records, though some records include estimated “print dates.” The records are not in chronological order. Even though the collection aims to show a “special emphasis on the shifting representations of women and cultural symbols of power and society,” it is difficult to illustrate the shift without date-related metadata [emphasis mine].
The “Similar items” do not index specific stamps and neither Figure 3 or 4’s “Similar items” include other stamps in their series. Instead it seems to only index the Stamps category, repeatedly showing the first eight stamps of the collection (ROW.00224-ROW.00230) thus adding no researcher value. Figures 2 and 4 have subject terms indexing them to larger groups, “Order of Ushakov” and “Belorussians, 1933,” respectively, but Figure 3 does not. None of the records use the Places index, which in theory would allow for grouping or limiting of records by geography or historical state.
Figure 4
Internal Metadata: Issuer: USSR Subject: Female farmer (foreground) farmworkers, horse, farm and farm equipment (background). Embroidery effect border and the word “Belarusians” in Russian. Denomination: 15 kopeek Description: Grey ink on white perforated paper Condition: Used
Blavatnik imputed metadata: Accession number: ROW.00395 Title: Postage stamp with Belarusians, ca. 1933 Type: Stamp Collection: Rowley Soviet Ephemera Description: Soviet stamp, part of a series celebrating the various ethnic and national groups that made up the Soviet Union. Print Date: 1933 (estimated) Scott (2022) Title: Byelorussians Catalog #: Russia Scott #506 Date of issue: April 1933 Denomination: 20 kopeek Color: Dull green Part of a 21-stamp set entitled Peoples of the Soviet Union Value $16.00 new, $2.00 used Zagorsky (2018) Title: BelarusiansCatalog #: USSR Zagorsky #330 Date of issue: July-Sept. 1933 Denomination: 15 kopeek Color: Olive green Part of a 21-stamp set entitled Peoples of the Soviet Union Value about $28.00 new, $1.53 used. About 200,000 stamps issued, issued in 5x15 sheets Massive color variations Designers: D. Golyadkin, I. Dubasov, V. Zavyalov and S. Novsk
Reflection
Compared to the different information resources referenced, the archive is lacking in the metadata requirements for philatelists. This somewhat to be expected, as it was not designed specifically with philatelic researchers in mind, even though the majority of the collection are philatelic objects.
Librarian Megan Ozeran in the 2017 article “Managing Metadata for Philatelic Materials” notes that the quality of institutionally-provided metadata in philatelic digital records has a direct effect on the effectiveness of the researcher’s research, but generally philatelic resources are often ignored and lack standardization. The lack of information in metadata records also keeps the researcher from finding more information about these stamps from other reference sources, such as the Zagorsky catalog. Ibrus and Ojamaa (2020) note that the revelation of new information and meaning comes from the realization and discovery of similarities and links between different bits of information, and this information is found via metadata that highlights these links. In the case of the stamps in this archive, those links are few if any.
The lack of metadata also keeps the record from being retrieved during the information-searching process and resource discovery. If a researcher or web indexer like Google cannot find the record either inside the archive or via an internet search engine, how will researchers be able to find or use the resource? Metadata is like a treasure map that can lead a researcher to a resource, allow them to use it and from it generate new information.
Figure 5. From the Blavatnik Archive Foundation website, the complete record for the stamp shown in Figure 3.
Conclusion
Metadata is not only a tool for information representation; it helps us to understand the archival object itself. Do the Blavatnik philatelic records need to be metadata rich? Yes, because while the Blavatnik might not advertise or classify themselves as a philatelic institution, about 75 percent of their total digitized collection is philatelic – and philatelists need metadata for their research. Philatelic metadata provides connections to other philatelic objects and connects them to cultural and historical events surrounding their issue. During the writing of this article I learned that all three of these examples were parts of ongoing series in what Rowley (2002) calls a deliberate and controlled attempt of the state to show the Soviet Union as a powerful modern industrial nation and workers’ paradise. So why not include this information in the archive record?
Archivist Adrian Cunningham writes in the 2008 article “Digital Curation/Digital Archiving” that digital archives are not like digital libraries or museums because archival records construct meaning “from a myriad of contextual relationships surrounding their creation and use – relationships that have to be documented and understood.” These three stamp records and the rest of the collection are artifacts of a time and a place that no longer exists. Like other artifacts, say a random bone in the tundra or a piece of broken pot, they have no meaning by themselves – they require interpretation and contextualization. Meaning is created by the archive’s researchers. In order for the philatelic collections in the Blavatnik to be of any great use to philatelic and other researchers, their records need to be updated with additional metadata allowing for increased discovery, usage and meaning.
Stamp images courtesy of Blavatnik Archive Foundation, 2021.
Resources
Blavatnik Archive Foundation. “Postage stamp with a woman holding wheat stalks, ca. 1950s [Photograph].” Blavatnik Archive Foundation. Accessed 2021. http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4697017f.
Blavatnik Archive Foundation. “Postage stamp with an image of the Order of Ushakov, ca. 1940s [Photograph].” Blavatnik Archive Foundation. Accessed 2021. http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4b56d763.
Blavatnik Archive Foundation. “Postage stamp with Belarusians, ca. 1933 [Photograph].” Blavatnik Archive Foundation. Accessed 2021. http://n2t.net/ark:/86084/b4r49gc7q.
Blavatnik Archive Foundation. Rowley Soviet Ephemera. Blavatnik Archive Foundation. Accessed 2021. https://www.blavatnikarchive.org/collection/rowley.
Cunningham, Adrian. “Digital Curation/Digital Archiving: A View from the National Archives of Australia.” The American Archivist 71, no. 2 (2008): 530–543. doi:10.17723/aarc.71.2.p0h0t68547385507.
Ibrus, Indrek, & Ojamaa, Maraja. “The Creativity of Digital (Audiovisual) Archives: A Dialogue Between Media Archaeology and Cultural Semiotics,” Theory, Culture & Society 37, no. 3 (2020): 49-70. doi:10.1177/0263276419871646.
Lotman, J.M. Universe of the Mind: A Semiotic Theory of Culture. (Indiana University Press, 1990).
Ozeran, Megan. “Managing Metadata for Philatelic Materials,” Information technology and libraries 36, no. 3 (2017): 7-17. doi:10.6017/ital.v36i3.10022.
Pomerantz, Jeffrey. Metadata. (The MIT Press, 2015). doi:10.7551/mitpress/10237.001.0001.
Roberts, Peter J. “Philatelic Materials in Archival Collections: Their Appraisal, Preservation, and Description,” The American Archivist 70, no. 1 (2007): 70-92. https://www.jstor.org/stable/40294450.
Rowley, Alison. “Miniature Propaganda: Self-Definition and Soviet Postage Stamps, 1917–41,” Slavonica, 8, no. 2 (2002): 135–57. doi:10.1179/sla.2002.8.2.135.
Scott Publications. Scott Standard Postage Stamp Catalog 2022 5B. (Amos Media, 2021).
Straight, David. “Adding value to stamp and coin collections,” Library Journal 119, no. 10 (1994): 75-79.
Zagorsky, V.B. (ed.). Pochtovye marki Rossiiskaia Imperiia, RSFSR, SSSR 1857-1965. (Izdaneksnvo V. Zagorskogo, 2018)
Endnote
As of November 2021 https://www.blavatnikarchive.org/