Why Do All SLAVIC Countries Have Similar Flags?

Slavic flax you guys like the Arab flag video so much that I decided to make this one about another group of flags that also look very much alike now a gigantic number of flags across the world use the red white and blue colors they're very popular and while Slavic flags are a thing of their own and the reason for this similarity is specific the very first origin of their usage of these colors is common to everywhere else but I'm getting ahead of myself let's start with the basics we need to very quickly understand three things first who are the Slavs from where the word Slavic comes from which countries today Are Slavic countries and which of those countries use the Slavic colors and then after that we can get into the colors origin and the flag themselves learning where they come from and when each country adopted their flag as well as some historical examples of its usage that were then abandoned Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group they speak various languages but sharing somewhat common Origins they are geographically distributed throughout Northern Eurasia mainly inhabiting Central and Eastern Europe the Balkans to the west and Siberia to the east present-day Slavs are classified into East Slavs belarusians Russians and ukrainians West Slavs checks poles slovaks and South Slavs bosniaks bulgarians croats macedonians montenegrins serbs and slovenes and these are precisely the countries that we can today consider as slav countries however not all of them use the Slavic red white and blue colors on their Flags Poland for instance only uses the white and red and arguably due to different reasons only six arguably seven of them do today Russia Serbia czechia Slovakia Slovenia and Croatia the arguable extra one is Bulgaria so why these colors the pan Slavic red blue and white usage was defined by the Slavic Congress of 1848 in Prague this was the first occasion in history in which voices from nearly all slav populations of Europe were heard in one place the exact goal of the Congress was unclear I guess the organizers assumed that if these people share a cultural and ethnic Heritage then they would also share common goals and want to work together to achieve them while this may have been true even the conference planners quarreled over the format and the agenda of the Gathering perhaps an indication of how difficult it would be for the different factions to come together in the conference itself one theme did however present itself as the main one apparently there was a significant debate about the role of Austria in the lives of the Slavs likely due to the fact that many of its people lived under Austrian rule in the Habsburg Empire and this resulted in a joint statement by the Congress demanding an end of the oppression of Slavs and an another key decision took place as well the adoption of a pan Slavic flag meaning a flag that could be flown to represent all slav people a horizontal tri-color of blue white and red but why this choice of colors well by this time Russia was a great power enjoying great International Prestige and in fact it was the only independent nation where Slavs were a majority of the population effectively the only independent Slavic State and so they based their flag off of the Russian one but Russia didn't just make up this flag because they thought it looked cool the Russian flag was itself influenced by another one that already existed the Dutch flag because Peter the Great was so dedicated in making Russia as great as his name he wanted to model it off other European powers namely the Netherlands especially because he was a fan of Dutch Naval technology I believe he even studied in the Netherlands and so he chose a similar flag for his Merchant Fleet it was adopted in 1705 initially exclusively at Sea the Dutch flag also went on to influence According to some the future flag of France which in turn influenced so many other countries in the world that use the red white and blue colors thus allowing us to understand why the set of colors is so popular and how while the very first origin is the same the Dutch flag the secondary origin the French one comes from a separate Branch While most others are based on the French flag Slavic ones are based on the Russian so now that we know what Slavs are where they are and which use the pan Slavic colors to represent their countries today as well as where those colors come from let's go through those seven Slavic Flags one by one and learn when they were put into use we can skip the Russian ones since we literally just talked about its origin so let's move on to Serbia the flag of Serbia today is also a horizontal tri-color of red blue and white it's interesting to see that while many of these flags are extremely similar the tones of the colors vary a lot Serbia began using the tri-color even before that Congress of 1848 by 1835 the first constitution of the principality of Serbia described the colors of the Serbian flag as a bright red white and stylish dark essentially a dark gray blue color they continued to use these colors on their own flag until 1918 and then became a part of Yugoslavia keeping the Colors by changing the flag and country one of the historical examples of other nations that used the pan Slavic colors on their Flags then going back to their own once yukuslavia dissolved and adding the coat of arms with the ego to represent additional Heritage another historical example that was also part of Yugoslavia was the Old Kingdom of Montenegro from 1910 to 1918 they also used these colors then they joined Yugoslavia and by the time they regained independence they chose an all red field flag perhaps two precisely differentiate them themselves from Serbia from which they were separating Croatia however introduces an interesting case while it's also a successor state of the breakup of Yugoslavia most likely getting their flag from them there is another historical argument made for these colors some say the Croatian flag combines the colors of the flags of the kingdom of Croatia red and white and the kingdom of slavonia and almasia blue and white the old kingdoms that existed in the territory where the modern country now is but their usage of these colors dates back to as early as 1848-2 with the kingdom of Croatia in this painting from the time we can even see it hanging on the wall in the background it's likely that both the pan Slavic Heritage and the homage to local kingdoms are true moving away from Former Yugoslav States for a second czechia the Czech Republic is another one that uses the pan Slavic colors and has the extra credit of being original in the shapes used in the flag moving away from the typical horizontal stripes the first flag of Czechoslovakia was based on the flag of bohemia and was white over red I believe this is a similar case to that of Croatia there is an additionally pan Slavic Heritage a historical connection to these colors either it's a coincidence that the historical references used the same colors or they already partially represented that Slavic Heritage back then but I leaned more towards the coincidence after all these are very used colors everywhere in the world oddly enough when they existed as the protectorate of bohemia and Moravia an occupied German Reich puppet they still used a pan Slavic tri-color even though the Slavs were one of the people targeted by the Third Reich within Czechoslovakia the Czech Republic also used the old flag of the kingdom of bohemia to represent itself then adding the blue to represent Slovakia as well but then after they separated from the slovaks they kept the blue on the flag as their own this leads me to think is czechia as much of a slav Nation as the rest of Eastern Europe or do we consider the flag as such much because of their previous connection to Slovakia let me know what you think in the comments and let's move precisely to Slovakia the flag of Slovakia is literally the flag of Russia with the Slovak coat of arms on it its usage dates back to the 19th century too as early as 1848. it's odd that some of these regions just directly use the Russian flag did this portray a desire to be a part of the Russian Empire at the time I would doubt it in addition the usage of the Slavic tri-color by Russia wasn't very significant at first as we saw it was initially a naval flag and even when it was used on land it sometimes contained other elements like we can see here with the golden Canton in a World War One postcard but back to Slovakia the usage of the colors here can also be traced to another historical origin the region in which Slovakia exists today used to in part belong to the Margaret of Moravia whose medieval Banner was this one a blue field with a white and red checkered pattern Eagle even earlier on the prince of parody of Nitra within the kingdom of Hungary used this Banner there's a lot more to say about the origin meaning and development of all these flags but here I'm just focusing on the moment they became pan Slavic if you will if you want I can do more dedicated videos for each nation's Flags this Banner was red and white and using the cross we see today on their flag and national emblem which by the way also shows up on the Hungarian flag and coat of arms in 1848 a group of slovaks revolted precisely against Hungary who ruled them at the time demanding equality for slovaks within the kingdom this is when they began using the Slavic tricolor the Slovak National Council was formed and they flew this flag which as we can see wasn't the Russian flag inverting the colors and adding text on it given the point of this Revolt was to reach equality for the slovaks and at the point of the Slavic Congress was to reach equality for these Slavs altogether it makes sense they would adopt these colors given the similar or even equal purpose similarly named is Slovenia and both of them have a country name that's similar to slav Slovakia acetamine land of the Slavs while Slovenia acetamine land of the slovenes both seem to come from the origin word slav whose etymology is highly disputed some say it would have a similar origin to slave but I believe this isn't the case the most likely Origins are two different ones either coming from the proto-slavic adjective svop meaning one self or person or from slovo meaning word originally denoting people who speak the same language but back to the flag today it's also identical to the flag of Russia and Slovakia saved the slovene coat of arms in the top left corner the court of arms is a shield with the image of mount triglov slovenia's highest peak but while the flax colors are considered to be panslavic and they are they actually come from the medieval Court of arms of the duchy of carniola again I guess it's just a coincidence that these matched up it's very interesting how these colors are Slavic making these countries want to use them because they are Slavic countries but also that so many of them already used the same colors in the banner of their medieval predecessors the duchy of carniola's coat of arms was a white shield with a Blue Eagle adorned with red and yellow elements a fun fact the naval flag of Slovenia uses the white and blue and then the yellow showing off the other color on the medieval coat of arms the existing sloven tri-color was raised for the first time in history also during the revolution of 1848 it seems the Slavic Congress of this year perhaps triggered all of these local revolutions or maybe it was done as a result of them but they must be connected it was subsequently recognized by the Austrian government as the official flag of the region within the Austrian Empire after the Empire collapsed they were a part of Yugoslavia using all its different flags and then resumed using this one upon Independence finally another slav country whose slack is arguably pan Slavic 2 Bulgaria p 1321 article chart depicts this as the flag of Bulgaria using red on a white field these seem basic colors used by almost everyone at the time they used various emblems throughout history many of them being described as red Fields but there's very few depictions and so we can't really make sure that that's true the modern flag however was first adopted after the 1877 Russell Turkish War when Bulgaria gained its de facto Independence this was a conflict between the Ottoman Empire and a coalition led by the Russian Empire and including Bulgaria Romania Serbia and Montenegro it was fought in the Balkans and in the Caucasus and it originated in emerging 19th century Balkan nationalism in part highly connected to Slavic people wanting to be independent with Russia supporting these movements it makes sense and provides an additional factor for them to inspire their flags on the Russian one the first Bulgarian flag is now known as the banner of breila seen here in a museum it was a swallowtailed banner equal to that of Russia but using green instead of blue there was also a lion and the inscription Bulgaria in the center the green was likely only chosen to differentiate themselves from Russia other entities today at a non-national or unrecognized level use these colors too such as Republica serpska within Bosnia and erzgovina the unrecognized state of transnistria in Romania or Crimea so those are the pan Slavic flags of European countries understanding which countries are Slavic and which of them use a Slavic flag learning when the pan Slavic flag was first created in that 1848 Congress in Prague why the choice of colors was this being modeled off the flag of the Russian Empire at the time the only independent Slavic Nation who in turn inspired its flag in the Dutch flag and also when each of these countries put the colors into use connecting them to that Slavic Heritage but also coincidentally representing the colors used in the medieval banners of their historical predecessors likely due to the popularity of these basic colors did you notice any mistakes or do you have any additional information about this also which other groups of similar Flags exist in the world let me know in the comments below along with your opinions and thoughts thank you so much for watching this video subscribe if you want and I will see you next time for more general knowledge

Channel: General Knowledge

Views: 405,758

Keywords: generalknowledge, funwithflags, countriesthatdon'texist

Id: dVQtLZTr6CE

Length: 14min 20sec (860 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 24 2023