COVER N.189 - BELGIUM

Postmark: Antwerpen X  01.12.22

Posted on the 1st December; Received on the 19th December 2022
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What can one say when one opens the letterbox to find  an envelope therein as nice as the one I got from Lieve, with postcard #99 inside? 

Not only is the envelope, hand-made (?) from paper from a children's story book, truly beautiful, but it is also graced with three very interesting stamps. Thank you so much, Lieve. I know I have stated in my postcrossing profile that I'd rather receive my postcards in an envelope, but I wasn't expecting such high standards :-). Thank you so much. I truly appreciated it!

Stamps. left to right:

- Blood... the most precious liquid on the face of earth. an absolutely vital commodity.... and yet, one that is criminously wasted by those who hesitate not to order that their equals be extricated of it by  sheer force and brutality... casualties, they are declared, how obnoxious.. as if killing someone was but a ...casual, mundane act...

And yet again, there are other people who hesitate not to generously donate it, so that others can live.

On 19JAN 2008, BPost, the Belgian Postal Administration issued a single Tariff 1 (domestic) + 0,25 stamp celebrating the Red Cross and the generous act of donating blood, and the message couldn't be clearer for if a cat can donate blood to a mouse, why should we do otherwise?

- Beethoven, surely one of the greatest musical geniuses of all times.  The man who wrote what his ears could not ear, but his brain would perfectly synthesise as if  sound and harmony were but ordinary human senses. 

Freedom and justice are values that are central to Ludwig van Beethoven's works -  after all, Fidelio, the Eroica, the 9th, to name but three of his better known masterpieces are all works that are permeated with the notion that someday somehow, "Alle menschen werden brüder" as Schiller wrote in his "An die Freude" ode. 

Another of his musical monuments traversed by the fire of these ideas is the  set of incidental  music for Goethe's Egmont play that tells the tragic story of Lamoral, Count of Egmont, a nobleman who stood up against the Spanish dominators in the then Spanish Netherlands, an act for which he was  sentenced to death, but whose execution led to mutinies which, in time, would lead to the independence of the Netherlands. 

The Egmont set is fundamentally remembered by its extraordinary overture, which is often executed in concert halls around the world.

The beautiful stamp with Beethoven's portrait and the effigy of the Count of Egmont over  a couple of staves from the Egmont score was issued on 06OCT1990, as part of a three stamp set dedicated to Culture and Music with face values of 10+2; 14+3; 25+6 Belgian Francs.The companion stamps are dedicated to the 50th anniversary of the "Jeunesses Musicales" and to the centenary of the birth of  sculptor Josef Cantré (1890 –  1957).

- The capital of the West Flanders Province, Bruges, is the subject of the last stamp on the envelope. Issued on 25SEP2006, with a face value of 0,70 € it is part of a two stamp set celebrating the 650th Anniversary of the Hanseatic League, a merchant confederation, an avant la letre common market that spread across Central and Northern Europe from the late 12th century until its demise, in the mid 17th century.

Bruges, the city of the bridges from where it gets its name (Brugga in old Dutch), but also of  the many canals, the Venice of the North as it was also called, was one of the most important merchant centres of the League, for its strategic location as a crossroads for the northern and southern Hanseatic trade routes.

Gone are the days of the League, but Bruges is still one of the most interesting cities to visit in Belgium if only for its sheer beauty, as the 8,5 million visitors a year (2019 data) aptly proves.

The stamp is illustrated with an image of the Hanseatic House, the "Oosterlingenhuis", as can be read on the legend, of which today only a section remains.

The companion stamp (0,80 €) s dedicated to another Belgian city, Antwerp, and it is illustrated with an image of the Hanseatic House therein built by the German Hanseatic League in 1564. 

Antwerp is also the place where the letter was mailed from, as informed by the  mechanical postmark.