On May 29, a PCWCS dedicated to the 200th Birth Anniversary of Tertiy Filippov, a statesman and the Chairman of the Song Commission of the Russian Geographical Society was put into postal circulation in the Geographical Projects of Russia series

Tertiy Filippov (1826–1899) was a Russian statesman, an essay writer, an ethnographer, an Actual Privy Councillor, and an Honorary Member of the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences.

T. Filippov was born in 1826 in the town of Rzhev. He graduated from the Department of History and Philology in the Faculty of Philosophy at Moscow University with a candidate degree. From 1850 to 1856, he was a literature teacher at the First Moscow Gymnasium. From 1857 to 1864, he was a special envoy of the Chief Procurator of the Synod. He conducted an inventory of the Synod’s book collection. In 1860, he was appointed a member and a record manager of the Committee on the Reform of Theological Educational Institutions under the Synod. From 1864, he worked at the State Control Office as an assistant director (1864–1870) and the director (1870–1878) of the Provisional Audit Commission. In 1874, he was appointed a member of the Tax Commission under the Ministry of Finance. He was a member of the Statistical Council under the Ministry of Internal Affairs representing the State Audit Office (1876). Tertiy Filippov was a Fellow of State Controller (1878–1889), a Senator (from 1883), a State Controller (1889–1899), and a member of the Finance Committee (from 1889). Under the T. Filippov’s leadership, the elaboration of new State Control Agencies was completed (1892).

From the 1850s onward, T. Filippov was engaged in literary activities. Together with A. Ostrovsky, A. Pisemsky, and others, he was a member of the “young editorial board” of the Moskvityanin journal and the Editor of the Russkaya Beseda journal (1856–1857, in cooperation with A. Koshelev). He was allied to Moscow Slavophiles. In the 1860s to 1880s, he contributed to the Grazhdanin journal and a number of Orthodox periodicals, criticized the Russian government’s stance on the Greek-Bulgarian religious conflict, and advocated for the lifting of restrictions on the Old Believers; in the 1870s, within the Society of Friends of Spiritual Enlightenment, T. Filippov proposed convening an Ecumenical Council on matters concerning churches of Common Faith.

He founded a choir of the house church of the State Control Office, which included officials from the agency. The repertoire comprised church, folk, and contemporary songs. He had close links with composers who were members of the Mighty Five.

T. Filippov was a member of the Russian Geographical Society (since 1872, in the Ethnography Section), the initiator and the first Chairman (since 1884) of the Society’s Song Commission. He was a founding member and a vice-chairman of the Orthodox Palestinian Society; in 1883, Patriarch Nicodemus of Jerusalem granted him the title of epitropos (authorized representative) of the Holy Sepulchre and representative of the patriarchal throne. T. Filippov was the founding member of the Russian Literary Society (1886).

The main image provides a portrait of T. Filippov, collections of folk songs published with his involvement, and the RGO logo; a commemorative stamp features images symbolically reflecting geographical projects.

In addition to the issue of the postcard with a commemorative stamp, JSC Marka produced special cancels for Moscow, St. Petersburg and Tver.


Design Artists: S. Kapranov and R. Komsa.
Quantity: 4 thousand postcards.

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