“Protecting future generation from AIDS is our common cause!” Soviet postcard from 1989.(Author’s collection).
One of the lenses through which the Polish team of the Media and Epidemics project views epidemics is through philately (the collection and study of postage stamps). This is a rather unexpected perspective, given that none of us are stamp collectors, but perhaps that is why we can be more critically minded about the subject. Let us see how the emergence of the AIDS/HIV crisis has been portrayed through the medium of stamps and other philatelic objects in the Eastern European context to consider what philately teaches us about epidemics and global health.
Medical Philately
Health has long been a popular subject in philately. Initially, these were usually depictions of great medical pioneers, or of commemorations of groundbreaking discoveries that made it possible to eradicate one disease or another. Both of these styles of medical philately served as propaganda by presenting the issuing country as an important scientific center, and as a responsible partner in the fight for a healthier humanity. In fact, stamps, though tiny in size, were issued in many millions and reached the farthest corners of the globe, very often to convey concise messages of a propagandistic nature – usually with political or ideological intent. However, it is believed that by popularizing images of medical pioneers or their discoveries, such stamps also served to raise health awareness on a global scale.
Philately began to be consciously used to raise health awareness in the early twentieth century. Even before World War II, stamps were issued to draw attention to the need to combat malaria, for example. Sometimes, in addition to their educational role, such stamp editions directly supported pro-health campaigns through the surcharge which was paid in addition to the postage cost of sending a letter or postcard. In the years that followed, pro-health philatelic campaigns were organized repeatedly, also on a global scale. When the world was confronted with the threat of AIDS/HIV in the 1980s, the subject matter of stamps and other philatelic items, such as postcards and cancellation stamps, quickly reflected this.
The Eastern European Context
It is assumed, albeit somewhat simplistically, that the study of postage stamps as a unique medium for disseminating information provides insight into state policy, for it is the state, which owns and controls post offices, that controls the content of the information contained on stamps. However, let us skip the question of how legitimate this claim is and instead consider what the stamp policies of Eastern European countries looked like on the brink of the AIDS/HIV crisis. In these countries, the AIDS/HIV crisis coincided with a crisis of power and a gradual transition away from communism. During the communist period, Eastern European authorities ignored the threat of AIDS/HIV, believing that, since the disease in the West mainly affected homosexuals and drug abusers (as suggested by the statistics from the first years of the epidemic), socialist societies, which were said to represent higher moral standards, would be safe. As a result, any decision by the authorities of the state postal service concerning raising AIDS/HIV awareness on stamps would have been an admission to the contrary. It is no wonder, then, that in Hungary, despite the efforts of the local philatelic association to issue an AIDS stamp which have been underway since 1987, a decision on the matter has been continually postponed.
Other socialist countries were not in a hurry to raise awareness of the crisis either. In the Soviet Union, the first AIDS-themed philatelic item was a postcard not issued until May 1989. It featured a slogan in the style of communist propaganda: “Protecting future generations from AIDS is our common cause!” The drawing, by A. Kozhevnikov, depicted a father cuddling a child, which clearly stands out from foreign designs that depict parenthood in a more traditional way, with the image of the mother. However, before we marvel at the progressive nature of this visual message, let us remember the strong homophobic tone of Soviet discourse on AIDS as, in this case, choosing to depict the father could be read as a criticism of homosexuality.
“Narcotic kills.” Polish postcard from 1990. (Author’s collection)
Addiction Awareness
Although the first Polish philatelic object about AIDS (also a postcard) was issued in the autumn of 1990 (after the fall of communist rule in the country), the symbolism of its narrative remains firmly rooted in the discourse of the 1980s. A characteristic feature of the epidemiological situation in Poland at that time was the dominance of drug use among the HIV-infected. For this reason, the main motif of the Polish postcard, designed by S. Małecki, and issued on the initiative of the Society for the Prevention of Drug Addiction, is a poppy – a symbol of the heroin derived from it and a substance which was commonly used by drug addicts in Poland. The cartridges in the barrel of a revolver pointing at the poppy are described in English as “AIDS, DRUGS, AIDS,” while the slogan at the bottom of the postcard proclaims, now in Polish, that “Narcotic kills.” The postcard was issued in an edition of 200,000, which was rather modest for a country of 35 million people, suggesting that its primary audience were collectors, and not the general public. In fact, the collectors themselves criticized the initiative as overdue and not very decisive, pointing out that the number of infected people in Poland was already in the hundreds and that twenty of them had already died.
In conclusion, philately can indeed provide an interesting window into the past of epidemic public health. The broader picture that philately reveals, however, is far more complex and nuanced than the tiny size that the postage stamp would suggest.
Sławomir Łotysz
Polish Team
Media and Epidemics (MEDEP) 