THE EXTRAORDINARY HISTORY OF THE RUSSIAN FLAG

Jessica Adamson - C19 Tamar news

The Russian flag is a symbol of Russia. It is the memory of the power and prestige of the great Russia all over the world. This country has gone through many upheavals in the course of history even though it has existed since the very beginning of Russian history.

The Russian white, blue and red flag has been in use for over 300 years. It began its career on ships and today, in different variants, it represents the country abroad.
On August 22, 1991, the Russian flag was officially raised for the first time in Moscow, replacing the red communist flag with a sickle and hammer as the state symbol.

The genesis of the Russian flag
Battle flags appeared in Russia a long time ago.

1560 Ivan le Terrible

Large banner of Ivan the Terrible hoisted in 1560 showing the Tsar surrounded by the earthly and heavenly armies guided by the archangel St. Michael.

In the late 1660s, the first fleet was created in Russia, the Volga-Caspian fleet. Thus, the Russian flag appeared at the turn of the 17th and 18th centuries, during the formation of Russia as a powerful state. The white, blue and red flag was first hoisted in 1668 on the first Russian warship “Eagle”, during the reign of Peter I’s father, Alexei Mikhailovich.

The “Eagle” did not have happy days because it burned as quickly as it was put on the water, going down the Volga to Astrakhan, it was burned by the rebellious peasants of Stepan Razin. The legitimate father of the tricolor is recognized by Peter I. On January 20, 1705, he issued a decree that “every ship that trades” must hoist a white-blue-red flag.He drew a pattern and determined the order of the horizontal stripes.

On April 28, 1883, Alexander III issued a decree that states: “On solemn occasions, when it is possible to decorate buildings with flags, the Russian flag consisting of three stripes should be used: top – white, middle – blue and bottom – red.”

In 1896, Nikolay II created a special council in the Ministry of Justice to discuss the issue of the Russian national flag. The conference came to the conclusion that “the white, blue and red flag has the full right to be called Russian or national and its colors: white, blue and red can be called state colors”.

The tricolor was the national flag of Russia until 1917. After 1917, the Soviet government replaced it with the red flag of the proletariat.

Soviet Russia did not reject the tricolor symbol of Russia immediately. On April 8, 1918, Ya. M. Sverdlov, speaking at the meeting of the Bolshevik faction, proposed to approve the red battle flag as the national flag of Russia, and for more than 70 years the red banner was the national flag. The flag was a red field with a golden hammer and sickle and a red star with a golden border at the top. This red flag with its hammer and sickle caused terror throughout the world and the cold war between the USA and the Bolshevik regime.

On August 22, 1991, an extraordinary session of the Supreme Soviet decided to consider the tricolor as the national flag of Russia, and on December 11, 1993, a decree of the President of the Russian Federation approved the Regulation on the National Flag of the Russian Federation. In August 1994, Russian President Boris Yeltsin signed a decree that stated: “In connection with the restoration on August 22, 1991 of the history of the Russian tricolor national flag, which was honored by many generations of Russians, and in order to educate the present and future generations of Russian citizens to a respectful attitude to the symbols of the state, I make the following resolution To create a holiday – the Day of the State Flag of the Russian Federation and to celebrate it on August 22”.

The flag of Russia is considered to be one of the oldest state flags in the world. As it existed throughout Russian history until 1917, in the early 1990s, when the question of choosing a new symbol was raised, this version was approved.

On December 25, 2000, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed the law that the state flag of Russia is a rectangular fabric consisting of three horizontal stripes of the same dimensions, with a white stripe at the top, a blue stripe in the center and a red stripe at the bottom.

Mythes et symboliques autours du drapeau de Russie

The origins of the flag Tsar Peter I the Great had ambitious plans to transform Russia into a modern state. Building a Russian navy was part of this program, and he visited the Netherlands to learn about the most advanced shipbuilding concepts and techniques.

The flag he chose for the merchant ships in 1699 reflected the flag of the Netherlands: the Russian flag differed only in the arrangement of stripes.

These colors are sometimes endowed with traditional Russian symbolism – such an interpretation recalls the red shield of the Great Principality of Moscow, with its depiction of St. George dressed in blue and riding a white horse. There is also a reference to the white and red quartered flag with a blue cross that flew on the Oryol of 1667, the first Russian warship.

The new flag became very popular, so much so that during the nineteenth century, the black-orange-white flag that the tsars tried to impose as the national flag on earth completely failed and was finally abandoned. Just after the outbreak of World War I, the flag was modified by the addition of a golden yellow canton bearing the imperial arms, symbolizing the solidarity between the ruling dynasty and the Russian people.

The non-Russian territories acquired by the Tsars and the Communist rulers became independent, and the Russian Federation that remained readopted the white-blue-red Russian national flag. The flag thus became official on August 21, 1991, a few months before the confirmation of the dissolution of the Soviet Union.