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Introduction
1882 - I |
SOKOL POSTCARDS
1912 - VI - Prague
(Click on any image to view an enlarged version)
Celebrating the 50th anniversary of Sokol,
and occurring at a time shortly before the horrors and disruptions
of WWI, the sixth festival celebrated a new sense of Slavic identity
and independence. It lasted five weeks.
More than 30,000 Sokols participated, including teams from the USA, France and
other Slavic countries, as 300,000 spectators watched. 22,000
uniformed Sokols took part in the grand parade.
A special Ancient Olympic theme, "Marathon," was adopted for the festival,
with a grand spectacle performed by 1,500 athletes.
Over 1,200 special trains had to be arranged to carry the thousands of foreign visitors
to the event. Several of the cards below show photos or paintings of the events,
and give some idea of the enormous stadium, and the huge crowds in attendance.
From the
Jicin Sokol website:
TJ Sokol Jicín is the oldest organization in our town.
It was founded November 5, 1862 and was the fourth Sokol unity,
following the example of the Sokol of Prague. Followed by Jaromer,
Nová Paka, Kutná Hora and Jicín. The Sokol thought was brought
to Jicin by college students who arrived home in Prague in 1862
for holidays. The idea was taken up, the committee was appointed
and the trainers selected. The beginnings were very difficult,
practicing outdoors, but with dedication to patriotic consciousness and enthusiasm.
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Below, a postcard with one of the official images for the event. The artist is
František Hornik. Note the similarity to the poster design (top of page).
The artist preferred this version, and it was the one given preference on the post
cards - note number on back - "1" - the other version was also issued as as postcard,
it has number "22" - see below.
There were over 40 "official" postcards issued for this event - 11 were published in
October, 1911, as part of the advance publicity, and then 30 festive colored cards
plus 5 monochrome cards were published in July, 1912, during the festival.
Official cards can be identified by the medallion trademark printed in the upper
left corner of the address side, and by the printer's credit at bottom left -
"Minerva" Praha.
And the same image on poster stamps.
Someone on the promotion committee for this Slet was a huge fan
of poster stamps, as there are more different official varieties
for the 1912 celebration than for any other Slet - two primary designs,
both of them in several different sizes, and with multiple variations in
text. Above, the first design. Each of the five varieties shown was printed in
a rainbow of colors.
12/31/18 - Štefan Šuták sent the image below,
which shows that there are two sub-varieties of the second one above,
differing in the tiny decorations in the corners - Madness!
He provides some statistics about the number of colors used for each, as well.
Thanks, Štefan!
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Below, another postcard by Hornik, with design very similar to the one above.
Above, six of the most sought-after of ALL Sokol postcards, a set reproducing paintings by
noted Czech painter Kamil Vladislav Muttich, and depicting scenes related to the
festival's Marathon theme.
Below, a great recent find: The envelope in which sets of the Muttich postcards
were sold!
Photographs of the Marathon presentations.
Below, the design that won second prize in the poster contest,
The artist for this card was František Urban (1868-1919), who placed second
in the competition for the official poster, won by F. Hornik.
Note that Urban reversed the colors of the Czech flag in the card
on the left (the first card, which was the design he submitted
for the poster competition) -
the red stripe should be on the bottom - but he did not want the white stripe at the edge,
it offended his artistic sensibilities (!) - earlier postcards
have the error, some later ones have the error fixed. His poster
was used as advance publicity, issued in October, 1911, and then the Hornik poster
was issued in April, 1912.
Above, the second poster stamp design, this time based on the runner-up poster, and
this time in three varieties - shown below. As with the other official poster stamps
at the top of this page, these were issued
in many colors (Štefan Šuták estimates 18 colors for
each variety). And the placement of the flag's stripe is correct on these.
The first two varieties differ only in the dashes separating the text at the bottom -
double vs. single.
Below, an American (New York)
travel agency card advertising the event,
Below, photos of teams and a famous competitor:
Card showing Bulgarian group (Yunak) on parade at the VI. Slet; postally used locally in Prague.
Unused card produced for the VI. Slet, showing Serbian Sokols on parade,
wearing fluffy plumes placed centrally on their caps which helps to
clearly identify them.
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Photos of the Athletic demonstrations.
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Štefan Šuták sent the image above,
showing five Cinderellas with images of
Miroslav Tyrš and
Jindřich Fügner,
that caused a bit of controversy
at this Slet. As I mentioned near the top of this page,
there were more official poster stamps issued for these Games
than any other all-Sokol Slet.
But the stamps shown here were issued "without permission," and
caused quite a fuss. I've no idea who produced them,
or what the money was intended for, but
they did not ask the Slet organization group, they just
printed these stamps. The Sokol organisation warned
its supporters not to buy them.
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Created -- 10/25/2005
Revised -- 04/22/2022