80th ANIVERSARY OF VERSAILLES TREATY

The Paris Conference determined a new territorial and political structure of Europe that lasted till 1938 as well as established the League of Nations. Under the Versailles Peace Treaty Poland received the territory of Great Poland and Gdańsk Pomerania. It established the Free Town of Gdańsk The Treaty also provided for plebiscites to be run among the people domiciled within the territory of Silesia, Warmia and Mazury being in dispute between Germany and Poland.

On the date of entry of the stamps into circulation, the first day circulation envelopes will be sold at the Post Office Warszawa 1.

POLISH MANSION HOUSES 

value PLN 0.70 - the mansion house in Modlnica near Kraków; today there is housed the centre of creative work of the Yagiellonian University named after Oskar Kolberg, who lived there for 13 years, conducting ethnographic research. Artur Grottger, eminent painter, was also a frequent visitor there. A one-storey building with a sloping roof, covered with shingles, with an en suite location of rooms, and with four wooden columns in the portico - it is a form which has been preserved till the present day.

Value PLN 1.00 - the mansion house in Krzesławice near Kraków; there lived, for instance, father Hugo Kołł±taj and the eminent painter Jan Matejko, who painted several pictures there, including "Ko¶ciuszko in Racławice". The owners transferred the house to the Kraków Society of Art. Lovers in 1957. There is housed a permanent exposition of souvenirs of Matejko, and one of the rooms is devoted to Kołł±taj.

Value PLN 1.40 - the mansion house in Winna Góra near Wrze¶nia; it was given to General Jan Henryk D±browski by Napoleon in 1807. His descendants lived there till the Second World War. Due to a poor technical state, the house was demolished in 1910 and a new one was constructed. The initiator of the undertaking, count Henryk Mańkowski, created a museum of souvenirs of General D±browski, a collection of paintings, fabrics, and numismatists. The mansion house is the seat of the Scientific and Research Centre of the Plant Protection Institute. A one-storey building was constructed on the plan of a rectangle, with a habitable first floor under the high roof. The front facade has a huge four-column ionic portico. It is made in the baroque and classicist style.

Value PLN 1.60 - the mansion house in Potok Złoty; it belonged to General Wincenty Krasiński, father of Zygmunt, poet. It was damaged during the Second World War. The reconstructed building houses a museum of the poet.

Value PLN 1.85 - the mansion house in K±¶na Dolna; constructed in the 1730s. It belonged to Ignacy Paderewski in the years 1897-1903. The Paderewski Centre Tarnów-K±¶na has been located there since 1984. The classicist building made of bricks is located in a place beautifully located in the valley of Biały Dunajec. 

Special first day circulation envelopes will be applied in the Post Office Warsaw 1 on the day of the introduction of the stamps into the market. 

6TH VISIT OF POPE JOHN PAUL II IN POLAND 

Value PLN 0.60 - Pope-Pole surrounded by the Church of St. Mary in Kraków at one side and a manifestation of Solidarity at the other side, symbolising changes in Central Europe. The following inscription is placed along the upper edge: "I, the son of the land, Polish land."

Value PLN 0.70 - surrounded by believers with Orthodox and Roman Catholic crosses; the whole picture symbolises the ecumenism. The following quotation along the upper edge: "Jesus Christ expects a clear unity sign from us."

Value PLN 1.00 - close to all people, at a meeting with the world teenagers. The following quotation along the upper edge: "The Church needs you. You form it."

Value - PLN 1.40 - as a Pope Pilgrim. Photographs of famous places from all over the world in the background: the Eiffel Tower, Christ the Saviour from Rio de Janeiro, and Fatima. Quotation: "Don't be afraid!" refers to challenges of the new millennium.

Special first day circulation envelopes will be applied in the Post Office Gdańsk 1 on the day of the introduction of the stamps into the market. 

YOUTH SPORTS

These trendy sports, developed in recent years, have a great influence on the physical development of young people. They also introduce new styles of fashion, manner of behaviour, and establish a new subculture, easily identified with by young people.

The background of each stamp gives the name of the sport featured in the stamp, performed in the popular graffiti, a technique well familiar to the young generation.

EUROPE - NATIONAL PARKS

The Polish Post centres the topic of this year's issue "Reservations and National Parks" around Białowieski National Park, one of the oldest parks in Europe. The Park is located in the central part of Puszcza Białowieska, which constitutes the most natural forest complex in the lowland part of Europe. It was included in the world biosphere reservations of UNESCO in 1977, and it was considered to be the first and the only World Heritage object in Poland in 1979. The area of the Main Reservation shall be paid a special attention to because there were not performed any forest works since 1921. The Park keeps the biggest centre of breeding aurochs and the genealogic book of the aurochs.

The stamp represents a woodpecker and an image of an auroch in the background (it is a symbol of Białowieski National Park) The woodpecker, Picoides tridactylus, the rarest type out of nine types of woodpeckers in Central Europe, is regular and numerous in Puszcza Białowieska, and especially in the National Park, where it finds the best conditions for living. It has its nests in hollows in tree trunks and has a resident style of life. It mainly eats larvae and chrysalides of insects, which it takes from under the bark from lower parts dead or nearly dead trees.

A special first day circulation envelopes will be applied in the Post Office Warsaw 1 on the day of the introduction of the stamps into the market.

50TH ANNIVERSARY OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE EUROPEAN COUNCIL

The European Council, which Poland has belonged to for several years already, is a respected authority in the field of the protection of human rights and its strive towards a dignified life in tolerance and peace. While fulfilling its tasks, including e.g. the widening of the democracy in Europe and a support for the society based on a state of law, it has worked out and implemented the European Human Rights Convention. It is the only Convention in the world which protects rights of an individual person living in a member country by means of the Human Rights Tribunal at the European Council.

A special first day circulation envelopes will be applied in the Post Office Warsaw 1 on the day of the introduction of the stamps into the market.

ACCESSION OF POLAND TO NATO

Heads of the diplomacy of 16 NATO member countries signed protocols on the accession of Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary to the North-Atlantic Treaty Organisation on December 16th last year. "It is a message of confidence, solidarity, and hope for Poland and Central Europe ...," said, for example, the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, Bronisław Geremek. NATO membership ratification acts will be delivered to the American administration of March 12th, 1999. Poland will become a formal member of the Alliance this moment.

A special date seal will be applied in the Post Office Warsaw 1 on the day of the introduction of the stamps into the market.

HEROES FROM THE TRILLOGY

Henryk Sienkiewicz, winner of the Nobel Prize, author of the Trillogy, a literary cycle consisting of three novels, became famous as one of the greatest writer of historic novels, written "to rise the spirits" in Poland and in the world. He presented an extremely colourful and suggestive, although idealised picture of life and historic events occurring in Poland in the 17th century, i.e. during the wars with the Cossacks, the Swedish invasion, wars with Turkey and Moscow.

The Polish Post will issue six post stamps representing persons and scenes from individual parts of the Trillogy at the occasion of the first-night performance of "With Fire and Sword", namely:

Three types of the first day envelopes can be purchased at the Post Office Warsaw 1 on the day of the introduction of the stamps into the market.

PORTRAIT OF THE HOLY MARY - PATRON OF CAPTIVES - SOLDIERS IN THE EAST

There is already much information about camps for Polish captives in Katyń and Kozielsk, but years of hiding the truth resulted in the fact that the martyrdom places are not well known for the general public in the world. We owe the remembrance about them to victims of the Stalinism for whom a prayer could be the only consolation.

Images presented in the stamps refer to the Eastern Golgotha of the Polish nation. The Victorious Holy Mary from Kozielsk is the patron of the 2nd Corps of the Polish Army commanded by General Władysław Anders. Her portrait was ceremoniously crowned by the Pope John Paul II during his 5th Pilgrimage to Poland.

A special date seal will be applied in the Post Office Warsaw 1 on the day of the introduction of the stamps into the market.