The Forster Flag (USA)

The today's review is dedicated to a flag that will soon be auctioned: the Forster Flag, also known as Forster-Knight Flag, because of its original owner families.

Here's a reconstruction of the flag (a photograph of original flag can be seen here):

It's a crimson field, with six white stripes on left hoist on obverse, and seven on reverse. A difference piece of fabric on canton proves that the flag was made from a red ensign with Union Jack removed. Its overall state is very good to an American Revolution flag, and cord and tassels have survived!

The flag will be auctioned on Doyle New York on April 9th 2014, and its estimate value is between US$ 1,000,000 and 3,000,000. The value seems too high, but a list of facts about the flag, elaborated by vexillology legend Whitney Smith to Flag Bulletin #205 (3rd bimester/2002), can justify it:

• It's the oldest known American flag i.e. the first flag intended to represent the country;
• It's the oldest surviving flag to represent America with thirteen red and white stripes;
• It was carried on the battles of Lexington and Concord, the firsts of Revolutionary War;
• It's one of 30 surviving flags used by rebel troops during the war;
• It's one of two surviving Revolutionary flags to replace a British symbol by an American one;
• Among the 27 war colours on USA, it's the only one that's not owned by a public museum or institution, and its ownership history since Revolutionary days is well established;
• It was never restored but is still in good state, including the original cord and tassels;
• It appeared on a 1999 US Post stamp series in tribute to important flags of American history;
• And much other reasons that can found on link above.

This flag was originally owned by Samuel Forster, lieutenant of Essex Regiment, and was preserved in his family until 1975, when it was acquired by the Flag Heritage Foundation, a non-profit organization and has, since then, been the most valuable item of its collection. Its authenticity was proved many times.

If it's a so important flag, why is it in auction? Only a very good reason would justify it, and there is one: the money will be reverted in benefit to the collection of the own Whitney Smith's Flag Research Center unique and collection to be incorporated by the University of Texas at Austin, what will be very valuable to vexillology research around the world.

I certainly don't have US$ 1,000,000 to pay on a flag, so I can only wait that the future owner knows how to preserve and have good use of this true treasury of American history.

Stockholm city (Sweden)

Some flags have a really curious history, and Stockholm, the capital of Sweden and biggest city of Scandinavia, is one of those cases that deserves their own "review".

The flag of the city of Stockholm:


You may be asking: "Who's the man on the flag?".

Well, the answer is not that simple. The banner of arms of Stockholm is blue and yellow (Swedish flag colors) with the head of St. Eric, former king and patron saint of Sweden, associated with many popular legends. The arms of the city is inspired by a mediaeval seal of the city. The combination of colors and charges is excellent to denote the importance of Stockholm to Sweden.

So the man on the flag is St. Eric? Don't be so sure.

During the standardization of Stockholm coat of arms, in early 1930s, inspiration were took from a statue on Roslags-Bro Church, that can be saw below.


The curious history about it all is that, currently, that statue is considered to most probably represent another saint: St. Olaf, king and patron saint... of Norway!

Comments are welcome.

New England (USA)

Ho ho ho! Christmas has passed but its spirit is still on air. Christmas trees, for example, might last until January (by the way, have you ever thought about decorating your Christmas trees with mini-flags?). And few flags are so Christmassy than New England, that's red and white and have a pine tree:

The flag is evidently based on former English red ensign, to be flown, principally, by merchant ships. In Massachusetts Bay Colony, a local variant showed the flag without the cross (i.e. only a red flag with a white canton), because Puritan settlers considered the cross a symbol of "Anti-Christ".

The use of pine trees to represent New England colonies is known as early as 1686, the date of a drawing by lieutenant John Graydon (although there the tree looks like an oak tree). Possibly, the use of pine trees was inspired by "Massachusetts pine tree shilling", accepted as currency on all Northeast. Flags like the one above could be commonly found until 1707, when a proclamation by Queen Anne determined the substitution to British then red ensign. But there are sources that shows flags like this:

The New England flag was revived in 1775, by rebels during American Revolutionary War, purposely without St. George's cross:

This variant, known as "Bunker Hill flag", is often erroneously colored blue instead of red, that generated this a-historical flag copyrighted by Ebinger brothers (you can see my opinion about copyrighted flag here).

A happy 2014 to all blog readers!

Comments are welcome.

Svalbard (Norway) [proposal]

The Svalbard (or Spitsbergen) archipelago hasn't an own flag. The only flag that regularly flies on the Norwegian territory with less than 3,000 inhabitants is the Norway national flag. The only symbol of the islands is the "coat of arms" of its governor, and there isn't an urgency to adopt an official flag. However, a proposal dating from the 1930s is still unofficially used in the web, and today's post is exactly about it.

The flag proposal looks approximately like this:

The flag in question was initially proposed in a booklet called Fylkesmerker (1930), by Norges Bondelag (Norwegian Agrarian Association), that presented proposals of coats of arms and flags (always banners of arms) for each Norwegian region, some of them adopted with small changes. The only explanation for the design by heraldist Hallvard Trattberg on the book is:

Riksløven på gråverk (heraldisk pelsverk) for å betegne gammelt norsk land.

What means, in English:

Norwegian lion in vair (heraldic fur) to denote old Norwegian land.

In fact, the lion is identical to the one present on Norwegian coat of arms. Although there isn't presented, in my understanding, a clear rationale to background of vair (better blazoned as "vair in fess", in this particular case), my (unsourced) theory is that it's a clever reference to blue and white landscape of this icy archipelago, and a association between a fur (in the case, squirrel fur) and the cold climate. If this theory is true, I think this proposal was very well-though, and could be a winner once Svalbard needed a flag.

Until then, it's only one more flag that exists only on internet..

Your comments are welcome.

Germany

In this post, you'll see a little more about the history of the German flag on its current and imperial versions.

The first thing to be noticed is that "Germany" is a relatively recent invention, as the Holy Roman Empire lasted until 1806 (being disestablished by Napoleon). A German Confederation was formed in 1815 to substitute the vacuum caused by the end of the Empire, but failed because of the political dualism between Prussia and the Austrian Empire.

However, it was during this period that appeared the ancestral of current German flag, in the context of the Revolutions of 1848, also known as "Springtime of Peoples" or "Spring of Nations", when the black-red-gold flag was used by revolutionaries unsatisfied with the policies of the post-Congress of Vienna. Then the flag was adopted by Confederation between 1948 and 1950.

This flag was a mix of the flag of House of Hapsburg's black-gold Empire of Austria flag, with a red stripe remembering the flags of the Hanseatic cities (important ports of Northern Europe).

The confederation was disestablished in 1867, and substituted, among others, by the Northern German Confederation, that adopted a black-white-red flag:

The color set is a mix of Prussian black and white and the Hanseatic colors (red and white). In 1871, it became the flag of new German Empire.

From this date, the Germans alternated between the two flags. In 1918, the German Empire was substituted by the so-called "Republic of Weimar", that made the black-red-gold its flag. This period lasted until 1933, when Hitler revived the imperial colors for a brief time, when it was substituted by the well-known swastika; the imperial pattern appeared in many flags and emblems of the period, though. With the end of the Second World War, both West and East Germany revived the black-red-gold as the basic pattern to their flags, and it's been used even after the German reunification.

For the end, a curiosity: even although the flag isn't actually "gold", the term "black-red-yellow" or similar isn't used anymore since it was used in a derogatory way by the monarchists and Nazi. The Germans call it "black-red-gold" or, in German, "schwarz-rot-gold". Remember the tip!

Your comments are welcome.

Río Negro (Argentina)

Today, we'll review the history of the flag of the Argentinean province of Río Negro and its case of self-plagiarism... or something like this.

Firstly, let me present the flag of the province:

The history starts in 2009, when a contest was made to select the new flag of the province, that was until flag-less.

According to the author, the symbolism of the design is the following: blue stands for justice, and the rivers and lakes, green for hope and the agriculture, the forests and the valleys; white was chosen because it's formed by the union of all the colors; the black canton with thirteen stars represents the thirteen departments (a geographic subdivision) that forms the province. The use of the black color is unclear, but my theory is that it's someway allusive (canting) to the name of the province, that means "black river" in Spanish.

Soon after the flag was designed, many negative critiques appeared, specially with the opinion that black was improper because of its association with mourning. Particularly, I think the flag isn't bad, I only think that black and blue shouldn't be put together because of their similarity.

Graver of the accusations of plagiarism. Firstly, that it was very similar to the flag of the former Kingdom of Araucanía and Patagonia. The kingdom was an attempt, by a French adventurer, to establish a monarchy on southern Argentina and Chile (including part of current Río Negro province) with the support of native Mapuche people, but severely combated by Argentinean and Chilean armies. A more serious claim of plagiarism is related to an unofficial flag that, according to Wikipedia, was used on some deeds by province government. The colors, the stars, all the elements of current flag are there!

Usually, looking for symbols on its own history (is it really self-plagiarism) is not unethical (if you cite the sources, obviously), but is it fair appropriating of someone's work to gain a contest?

What's your opinion about it? Your comment is welcome!

Zaire (1971-1997)

Between 1971 and 1997, the Democratic Republic of Congo was renamed to "Zaire" and under the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko, suffered an attempt of "re-africanization".

Politics apart, the flag of Zaire was very nice:


Initially, a noteworthy point is the creative use of the Pan-African colors (red, green and yellow), dissonant in relation to the more abstract and generic depictions. The color palette is completed with brown, what's very understandable considering the ideal of "African" Zaire. This color is rarely found on vexillology, as well as the lighter shade of green used on the background.

The central charge is also very well-thought. On a green background that symbolizes the hope and confidence of the people, there's a golden disc, whose shape represents unity and whose color remembers the natural wealth of the country. In the center of it, the arm of an African man holding a torch, representing the revolution, with a red flame, whose color stands for the blood of the martyrs.

This is a very beautiful piece of graphic art, specially on more stylized depictions like the one above. The flag goes direct to the point of the Mobutu's ideology, without making it overcharged or cryptic, and without a single word being used. Point to the designer!

Comments are welcome!

Please, avoid the political discussion. This is a post about sole vexillology.
It's the 50th post of the blog. I'd like to thank all the readers!

The "Estelada"

One news [text in Spanish] that called my attention this week was the announcement that a Spanish businessman, called José Antonio Blázquez, "copyrighted" the "estelada", a variant of the flag of the Catalonia, the senyera.

While the common senyera is simply nine-striped yellow and red, the estelada (in Catalan, "starred") has a blue triangle with a white star on the hoist:


This variant of Catalonia flag is used by independentists. Initially, it was supposed that the businessman, that labels himself "Spanish and anti-indepentist", would register the flag only to forbid its use without authorization (that he supposedly won't give), but it's now known that he made it only for the financial exploitation of flag's usage.

My personal opinion, supported by some specialists [text in Spanish] is that the flag couldn't be copyrighted, in legal sense. The businessman claims that a unofficial flag isn't protected for copyright, but it's certainly not the case: a well-known work in public domain can't be copyrighted, because it's considered an usurpation. One could argue that the flag is too simple to be registered, but it's debatable. The specialists predict that the registry will be annulled as soon as disputed and mr. Blázquez won't gain any money for his action.

I believe that the only flags that can be copyrighted are those that contain a copyrightable content (like a logo or an armorial bearing) or other types of unofficial flags (like commemorative flags, for example) that required a considerable level of originality and design knowledge.

What's your opinion about flag copyright? Your comments are welcome.

Thai Vexillological Association (Thailand)

I took knowledge about the activities of Thai Vexillological Association (TVA) for only few weeks. However, the work has been impressive, in my opinion, especially in their Facebook page (I recommend the visit).

They also have a very clever flag:

The elephant comes from the flag used by Thailand from the 19th century until 1917; there were variants with a simple and an adorned with royal regalia elephant, and it was actually a white elephant on a red field. It seems obvious the option for the elephant as a royal symbol. On the top of the flag, there's a representation of the sheet knot, initially used by FIAV (Federation of International Associations of Vexillology) and then by many other associations of vexillology; the knot represents the nautical origins of the flags. The knot is adorned with the colors of the current Thailand flag.

The current Thailand flag was adopted in 1917. According to a story, the king Rama VI, when seeing the elephant flag flying upside-down, decided to adopt a totally symmetrical design. Initially, the middle stripe was red, but soon it was changed to blue. The symbology of the colors is the following: red for land and people, white for all religions, and dark blue for monarchy (the astrologers considered the color auspicious to Rama VI). Moreover, the flag was adopted during World War I, and had the same colors of the flags of some Allies: the USA, the United Kingdom and France. Having a good and exclusive design, the flag remains without problems since then.

Your comments are welcome.

Slovakia

The flag of Slovakia, adopted in 1992, is the following:

Although flags with full achievement of arms are considered a bad practice, simple shields, specially when cleverly executed like in Slovakian case, can generate very good flags. The flag of Slovakia needs to adopt the coat of arms because its plain version is identical to Russia's.

As I said, the flag of Slovakia is very cleverly executed, using only three colors and a very geometric coat of arms in a very equilibrated layout.

The Slovak flag contains the pan-Slavic colors, and is charged with an off-centered coat of arms of the Slovakia. The origins of the coat of arms of Slovakia is the Hungarian coat of arms. While the stripes were more associated with Lower Hungary, the double cross and the mounts were more associated with Upper Hungary (whose territory was similar to current Slovakia). The double cross was used at least since the Crusades, as a Christian symbol and of old usage in the kingdom. The hills represent the Tatra, Matra and Fatra chains, in this order (Tatra and Fatra are in Slovakia).

During the Revolutions of 1848 (also known as "Springtime of the People"), the coat of arms was adopted, when the red-white-green color set (associated with Hungary) was substituted by the pan-Slavic colors, by a "Slovak National Council". In the same time, the current flag (with or without coat of arms) started to be used unofficially. It was used to represent Slovakia in the Czechoslovakia, and adopted by the Nazi-client Slovak Republic. Because of the association with the nazism, the coat of arms wasn't used by the socialist regime, but returned to usage in Slovakia independence.

I hope you liked the post. All comments are welcome.