On January 24, a stamp dedicated to the 200th Birth Anniversary of Vladimir Stasov, an art, theatre and music critic, was put into postal circulation

Vladimir Stasov (1824-1906) was a Russian essay writer, an art and music critic, an art historian, bibliographer, archivist, and a public figure. He was an Honorary Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences (1900), a Privy Councillor (1884).

Vladimir Stasov was born on January 2 (14) of 1824 in St. Petersburg into a noble family. In 1843, he graduated from the St. Petersburg School of Law, served in the Land Survey Department and the Heraldic Senate Department, in the Ministry of Justice.

In 1847, he turned to the art-critical activity in the Otechestvennye Zapiski journal. From 1856, he cooperated with the Imperial Public Library. He regularly consulted writers, artists, and composers, collected and published the manuscript heritage of Russian people of art, including letters of M. Glinka, A. Dargomyzhsky, M. Mussorgsky, A. Serov and others.

In 1861-1864, he was the editor of publication Izvestiya Imperatorskogo Arkheologicheskogo Obshchestva (Proceedings of the Imperial Archaeological Society). At the same time, he was a member of the Second Department of His Imperial Majesty's Own Chancellery in 1863-1882.

He strongly supported the creative search of the Artel of Artists and the Association of Travelling Art Exhibitions. He was an ideologist of the Mighty Five, and took a vivid part in the creative plans of A. Borodin (Stasov initiated the idea of an opera on the plot of The Tale of Igor's Campaign) and M. Mussorgsky (suggested the plot of Khovanshchina to him). He was open to everything new in Russian music and had a reputation as a "fisherman of talents" (he supported A. Glazunov, A. Lyadov and A. Scriabin).

He devoted numerous articles and monographs to the creative activities of K. Bryullov, V. Vasnetsov, V. Vereshchagin, I. Kramskoi, V. Perov, N. Ge, I. Repin, M. Mussorgsky, A. Borodin, masters of the performing arts (including O. Petrov and A. Rubinstein), as well as to issues of archaeology, history, folkloristics, etc.

The postage stamp provides a fragment of painting Portrait of V.V. Stasov by Ilya Repin (State Russian Museum, 1883).

In addition to the issue of the postage stamp, JSC Marka produced First Day Covers and special cancels for Moscow and St. Petersburg.


Design Artist: M. Bodrova.
Face value: 67 rubles.
Stamp size: 35×35 mm, sheet size: 160×96 mm.
Emission form: a sheet with formatted margins with 8 (4×2) stamps.
Quantity: 64 thousand stamps (8 thousand sheets).

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