By Heidi Trautmann

For a couple of days only, January 6 – 11, we had the chance to visit an extraordinary exhibition at the Atatürk Cultural Centre. “50 Years Cyprus Turkish Post Stamps”, a reflection on the history of North Cyprus. I was there for the opening on January 6 and President Dr. Derviş Eroğlu opened the exhibition in the presence of Doğan Emiroğullari, the Post Minister, Dr. Ahmet Kaşif, Minister of Public Roads and Transport, Sedat Çomunoğlu, President and Bünyamin Altinok Vice President of the Philatelic Association and many more officials and philatelists. The exhibition is accompanied by a programme of seminars and Jury meetings, the latter to determine the winners out of the 141 collections by 34 private collectors including the Association itself, the Post Ministry and the Ankara Stamp Museum. The collectors are specializing on themes, many on the history of Cyprus, then of North Cyprus, one on the Cypriot Railroads,  another on the Victorian Period, historic buildings collections and so forth; also young girls have participated with their collections on flora and fauna. Most interesting. Also Mehmet Şik, our 90 year old photographer had a panel with his collection on Red Cross and Red Crescent. I asked one collector, he is a policeman and specializes on Cyprus Railways, where he gets the missing parts from and he answered, from the internet and at auctions.  In the entrance hall there were animated discussions and exchanges going on as I could observe and many memory sheets were on sale.

Only recently I had spoken to Mehmet Ertuğ, the author of the book ‘Postal History of the Turkish Cypriot Posts’. On the occasion of my interview with him in his function as the last puppeteer in North Cyprus, the Master of the Shadow Theatre ‘Karagöz and Hacivat’he gave me this book on the postal history of Cyprus. Mehmet Ertuğ is the founder member of Cyprus Turkish Philatelic Society (1979) and Cyprus Turkish Philatelic Federation (1984) and the first president of both. One of his main ambitions was to make philately a popular hobby in Cyprus. Mr. Mehmet Ertuğ participated in many national and international stamp exhibitions and won many prizes.

It is the third edition (2001) I am holding in my hand, the first was in 1979 and second in 1985. In his foreword, Mehmet Ertuğ says: …Everything in this book is based on documents and great care has been taken not to include anything which is not based on supporting documentation. This book attempts to explain the realities reflected in philatelic events which are analogous with political events.

The words of a German educator, who after examining the previous edition carefully, stressed the realistic and documentary nature of this book, are quite interesting: ‘If I were your Minister of Culture and Education, I would utilize this book in schools….’.

I can only confirm this after I had read the book and even for an amateur such as I, the reading is interesting.

There is another book on the same subject I have in my possession, it is ‘Cachets and Special Date Stamps 1972-2008’ by Gülter Kuran.  I have written about it in 2009 and you can read the full text in my review No 32 on my website. Gülter Kuran was the Director of Postal Services from 1998 – 2001 and had started her research while still in service. Her first book covering the period 1970-1998 on Postage Stamps and First Day Covers came out in 1999. Now she has finalized her research work to collect the information and is now happy to present her work to the public. The book is both in English and Turkish.

The exhibition organised to celebrate 50 years of Cyprus Turkish Postal Services is a huge history book, to which so many have contributed to. The valuable collections are witnesses of historical events in Cyprus, however, also tell of Cyprus’ historical riches and beauty, images of personalities and local artists. Many of my artist friends have contributed to special memory sets with their works.

I am impressed; unfortunately the collections will all go back to their owners as from January 11 so it is good that we have books that we can go back to.