Who are these memory keepers? These trackers of the past? These tracers of time? What drives them to do so? Colorful portraits of these black and white lovers.
It all started when Fadi was a child. Like most boys his age, he used to remove stamps from letters his parents received. This was the 1970s when the Beirut post office was functioning very well. As for postal stamps, they came from all over the world and always made us dream of travel.
The young man of a Belgian mother and a Lebanese father will then pursue his medical studies in Belgium. During his stay in Europe, he started collecting Lebanese stamps and got attached to his native country. This fact will grow over the years until the young surgeon enters the world of serious collectors.
Postage stamps and research, quests and finds, all ways to feed the umbilical cord that, according to him, has never been cut with Lebanon. As is often the case, exile strengthens the bonds with one’s homeland. For Fadi Maassarani, this means collecting correspondence and more specifically postal archives, his life’s passion. Stamps tell us about the country and the course of events. They accompany letters and postcards which, in turn, relay more private stories such as emotions, discoveries, and feelings. There are also the letters of the Ottoman subjects, then those of the French soldiers who, during the mandate, used to send their families news of this foreign country, and commercial correspondences. Fadi deciphers these letters with great tenderness and modesty.
He quickly turns to topics that are dear to him: Medicine, Lebanese hospitals, but also mended letters, condolence letters lined with black, and Lebanon’s airmail archives. He always finds time between surgeries to explore “his own world” by digging up memories in his papers. But unfortunately, these memories will not make him forget the painful reality of Lebanon’s events. He confessed that the moment the country got in trouble he put an end to his research and sold his collections. This was done as a protest, out of pain, or just out of decency. However, the collecting demon always catches up with its victims and Fadi has often resumed his passion for postal archives from scratch.
Today with more than 5000 postal cards, a complete collection of Lebanese postal stamps, and two unpublished collections of mended letters or condolence letters, he carries on with his quest and devotes all his free time to it. Always on the lookout for the missing detail, for the hidden story behind words or photos, and for sharing with those who are as passionate as he is. Besides, behind the collector, there is a real storyteller. And this is what he tells us: “Collecting is not just an act, a matter of accumulating items or being addicted to auctions. There’s a meaning behind it, possibly including the illusion of belonging to a geographical, historical, or thematic space.”
“The condolence letters of the Land of Cedars”
As far as the postal history of Lebanon is concerned, I chose to distance myself from most of my fellow collectors by focusing on condolence letters. The subject may sound morbid, but being a Hippocratic disciple, I always try to remind people that death is a part of life. I actually believe that reality is simpler: from a philatelic point of view and thanks to the collected material, I managed to cover all of the country’s postal history periods, from the Ottoman until the contemporary one.
Indeed, Lebanon, like some other countries, has used these black border letters since the second half of the nineteenth century. It was a cultural practice during the mourning period and the year that followed, possibly introduced from Europe. They consisted of envelopes of different sizes, sometimes square or oblong, with black bands around the edges. There is no definite conclusion about the width of these black bands. One could imagine that they were proportional to the grief experienced or in relation to the state of the deceased. This was not the case. These envelopes were used to announce the death of a loved one and were very similar to the ones sold by funeral homes. However, their content could vary from family correspondence to commercial transactions and business papers!
” Damaged and repaired envelopes “
Collectors are particularly fond of beautiful envelopes with beautiful stamps and stamp cancellations. I have decided to go against this stereotype by focusing on damaged items. According to me, a damaged envelope, in spite of its imperfections and scars, is a valuable object.
When a letter leaves its sender, it is subject to various accidents. From a wrong address to a mechanical sorting center, it can arrive severely damaged at its destination. Usually, the letter is rescued by the mailman who labels it as ” arrived in a poor state and fixed by our care “, and closes it with postal adhesive tapes before forwarding it to the right destination. This is of course the exact opposite of the popular saying: It went off without a hitch!
“Postcards”
In my opinion, a postcard is kind of the ancestor of the SMS. It was used to communicate with the other side of the world. The messages on the back of the cards are real testimonies of the time! Stories straight from the heart, like this one from a soldier in the Army of the Levant to his family, recounting the cold snap of February 1920. The card is relevant in view of the terrible conditions prevailing in the country.
In some cases, it is the view side of the map that tells the story, like this one captioned “USS Brooklyn in Beirut 1903-1904”. It should be noted that living in Beirut at the beginning of the last century was not a good thing because of the prevailing insecurity and community tensions in the city. The U.S. Vice Consul was shot on his way home. Following false reports of the Vice Consul’s assassination, President Theodore Roosevelt dispatched two warships to repatriate the diplomat’s body and to look after American interests in the region. Upon a rumor, Beirut just escaped its first landing of Marines!
A card is also a souvenir brought back home by a traveler. For example, this postcard from Beirut bears various stamps from the Ottoman Empire.
Obviously, this card’s author was a collector who went around the different postal agencies of the capital (Ottoman, English, Russian, French, German, and Austrian) to affix and cancel all the foreign stamps by their corresponding office. The establishment of international postal offices in the Ottoman Empire dates back to 1830 thanks to concessions granted by the Sultan to foreign powers of the time.
As for the modern postcards of Lebanon, they are tinged with a touch of nostalgia. This is our parent’s version of the country as told in the guidebooks that finally come out through these pictures showing us the same places as them…
*I loved borrowing Hanan el-Sheikh’s excellent novel title. To be read of course.