3295 ROMANIA - Postcrossing Meetup, Bucharest, 5 May 2018

3295 The fifth postcard of the series
"100 years since the Great Union of Romania" (5/12)
- "The passage of the Romanian army to Dobruja"
by Henryk Dembitzky.

The previous postcard of the series "100 years since the Great Union of Romania" (4/12)

The fifth meeting of the Romanian postcrossers in the year of the Centenary of the Great Union took place on May 5, 2018, in Bucharest. This time Mihnea Răducu chose for the postcard dedicated to the meeting the lithography The passage of the Romanian army to Dobrudja by Henryk Dembitzky (1830-1906), a Polish artist, graduate of the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna, refugee in Romania. He made his debut as a lithographer in Bucharest, in 1877, therefore in the very year in which Romania proclaimed its independence, and his lithographs in colors related to the War of Independence are very well known by the Romanians.

The choice of image wasn't accidental, because on May 9, 1877, Mihail Kogălniceanu read, in the Romanian parliament, the act of independence of Romania from the Ottoman Empire. In April started the Russo-Turkish War, and, due to great losses, the Russian Empire asked Romania to intervene, so, on July 12, the first Romanian Army units crossed the Danube and join forces with the Russian Army. Romania won the war but at a cost of more than 19,000 casualties. Its independence from the Porte was finally recognized on 13 July 1878, at the Congress of Berlin.

At the same time, Romania was forced to turn over South Bessarabia to Russia, receiving instead Northern Dobrudja. On November 14th, 1878, Romania’s king Carol 1st was crossing the Danube from Brăila to Ghecet, in Dobrudja, which was joining the other Romanian territories after 460 years of foreign rule. This moment is illustrated in Dembitzky's lithograph. I also recall that on the same day, May 9, Romanians also celebrate the Victory Day of the United Nations Coalition in WWII (the capitulation of Nazi Germany) and the Day of Europe (In 1950, France's foreign minister, Robert Schuman, issued the declaration considered to be the cornerstone of the European Union).

At the initiative of Mihnea Răducu, between December 1 2017 and December 1 2018, so in the year in which the Romanians celebrated the centenary of the Great Union, took place every month a meeting of the Romanian postcrossers, and at each meeting has been edited a postcard to recall this exceptional event for the Romanians.

The next postcard of the series "100 years since the Great Union of Romania" (6/12)

About the stamps

The first stamp is one of the two of the series The Holy Easter 2018, issued on March 9 2018. The two postage stamps of the issue, both with the face value of Lei 1.30, illustrate icons from the patrimony of the Alba Iulia Cathedral: 
• The Entrance to Jerusalem  
• The Resurrection of Jesus Christ - It's on the postcard 3295

The second stamp is part of the series Cats, about which I wrote here.

Sender: Mihnea Răducu and the Romanian postcrossers who participated to the Postcrossing Meetup which held in Bucharest on May 5, 2018.
Sent from Voluntari (Ilfov / Romania) on 15.05.2018
Edited by Postcardsmarket - 100 years since the Great Union of Romania - Series 5/12