Have a nice Summer

Towe from Sweden wishes "Have a nice Summer" with this nice card.

Thank you Towe, hope you have a great Summer too.

International Philatelic Exhibition STOCKHOLMIA86

Further to my post on 30th April 2013, here is another souvenir card from the International Philatelic Exhibition STOCKHOLMIA86 held in Stockholm Sweden, from August 28 to September 7, 1986.

The stamp on this card is dedicated to engravers of stamps, and is one of four issued in 1984 to popularise Stamp Collecting and as an advertisement for STOCKHOLMIA86.

Thank you Merja.

International Philatelic Exhibition STOCKHOLMIA86

Souvenir card from the International Philatelic Exhibition STOCKHOLMIA86 held in Stockholm Sweden, from August 28 to September 7, 1986.

The stamp on this card is one of four issued in 1984 to popularise Stamp Collecting and as an advertisement for STOCKHOLMIA86.

Thank you Merja.

Cries and Whispers

Cries and Whispers is a 1972 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman and starring Harriet Andersson, Kari Sylwan, Ingrid Thulin and Liv Ullmann. The film is set at a mansion at the end of the 19th century and is about two sisters who watch over their third sister on her deathbed, torn between fearing she might die and hoping that she will. After several unsuccessful experimental films, Cries and Whispers was a critical and commercial success for Bergman, gaining nominations for five Academy Awards. These included a nomination for Best Picture, which was unusual for a foreign-language film.

Cries and Whispers returned to the traditional Bergman themes of the female psyche or the quest for faith and redemption. Unlike his previous films, Cries and Whispers uses saturated colour, especially crimson. It was for the color and light scheme that the cinematographer and long-time Bergman collaborator Sven Nykvist was awarded the Academy Award for Best Cinematography.

Merja gave me this maxicard the stamp of “Cries and Whispers”  from the miniature sheet commemorating Swedish Film History, issued on 10^th October, 1981.

King Gustav III of Sweden

Merja sent me this card which portrays an Helmet from King Gustav III’s tournament armour in the 1770’s.

Gustav III was King of Sweden from 1771 until his death. He was the eldest son of King Adolph Frederick and Louisa Ulrika of Prussia who was a sister of Frederick the Great of Prussia.

A vocal opponent of, as he saw it, abuses by the nobility of a permissiveness established by parliamentarian reforms that had been worked out since the death ofCharles XII, he seized power from the government in a coup d'état in 1772, ending the Age of Liberty and venturing into a campaign to restore royal autocracy which was completed by the Union and Security Act in 1789, sweeping away most of the last pretences of Riksdag rule. As a bulwark of enlightened despotism, his expenditure of considerable public funds on cultural ventures contributed to his controversial majesty. Attempts to seize first Norway through Russian aid, then to recapture the Baltic provinces through a war against Russia were unsuccessful, although much of Sweden's former military might was restored. An admirer of Voltaire, Gustav legalized Catholic and Jewish presence in the realm and enacted wide-ranging reforms aimed at economic liberalism, social reform and the abolishment, in many cases, of torture and capital punishment, although the much-praised 1766 Freedom of Press Act was severely curtailed through amendments in 1774 and 1792, all independent media effectively extinguished.

Warehouses in Hudiksvall Harbour, Halsingland

Hudiksvall was founded by King John III of Sweden in 1582. He had the inhabitants moved from the town Hudik, where his father Gustav Vasa had collected the trade- and craftsmen of Hälsingland in order to more easily collect taxes, to Hudiksvall by the shores of the bay. At the time, fishing and the trading of furs, skins, iron, copper and wood products were the main sources of income, and the city flourished. But the city lost its privileges for foreign trading in 1636, and its development was somewhat stalled for the next two centuries. This card showing the famous warehouses of Hudiksvall, was sent to me by Inge of Germany.

Lighthouse in Sweden

A lighthouse with turbulent seas somewhere on the Swedish coast. Kati sent me this card. If this is what the lighthouse keeper and his wife have to face, you can well imagine what we sailor boys had to face at sea in rough weather. They say that a sailor has a girl in every port. That’s just because in every port there are some kind hearted sweet young things who feel sorry for these simple minded sailor boys who had just come back from the sea, and were yearning for some sympathy and good company!