Slovakia 1939 – Milan Stefánik
Milan Rastislav Stefánik (1880-1919) is probably best known as one of the founders of Czechoslovakia,
but in his early career he was an astronomer. He worked at Meudon Observatory
near Paris from 1905 to 1907, during which time he led an expedition to make
solar observations from the top of Mont Blanc. In 1910 he observed Halley’s Comet from Tahiti and the following year went to Australia to observe a solar
eclipse. In 1912 he took French nationality and during World War I helped
organize the Czechoslovak forces which fought with Britain and France. His
diplomatic efforts after the war are credited with establishing an independent
Czechoslovakia.
In 1919 Stefánik was killed in a plane crash outside the Slovak capital Bratislava. His
mausoleum, built on the site, is shown on this set of stamps produced in 1939
to commemorate the 20th anniversaryof his death. He wears the uniform of a
French army general, while the stars and comet convey his lifelong interest in
astronomy and, presumably, are meant to remind us of his observations of Halley’s Comet.
Before the stamps could be issued, Slovakia came under German domination.
Unsurprisingly, the Germans were unwilling to glorify a man who had led
opposition to them in World War I, so the stamps remained unreleased. They have
no Stanley Gibbons catalogue number, although there is a gap in Gibbons’ Slovakia numbering system between 35a and 40 which would accommodate them. Were
the numbers once assigned and then withdrawn? Incidentally, all four stamps are
reproduced here to the same scale – the 2 Ks stamp really was larger than the rest of the set.
Czechoslovakia issued stamps depicting Stefánik in 1935, but they had no astronomical content and so are not included here.
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