Secrets of the Russian flag and coat of arms

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Or what are the state and national colors of Russia? Russian tricolor, a combination of "white, blue and red", or royal combinations of "black, yellow and white" do they correspond to historical or heraldic realities?

According to the rules of heraldry established in all European countries, state colors are borrowed from the color of fields or shields in state emblems and from the color of the heraldic signs depicted on them. At the same time, metals - in those cases where only ordinary and not metal paints are actually used - it is customary to replace: gold - "yellow" or "orange", and silver - "white", as, for example, on flags, banners, cords, draperies, etc.

The Austrian Empire, according to its coat of arms - a "black" eagle in a "golden" field - uses the colors "black and yellow". Sweden, whose coat of arms depicts three “golden” crowns in a “blue” field, uses the colors “yellow and blue” as state colors.

The state colors of the kingdom or the kingdom of Poland are "white and red", since the coat of arms of Poland is a "white" eagle in a "red" field.

Italy still inherited from the Romans the state or, more precisely, national colors - "white and red", and the "green" color, as one must assume, was added to these colors later - as the color of "hope." A country enslaved by foreigners has long held the hope of freeing it from this yoke, and therefore the addition of green has a symbolic meaning.

In royal France, white was recognized as the state color. It was considered the color of the royal family and was borrowed from the "white" or "silver" lilies found in the coat of arms of the House of Bourbons, on the "blue" field, which is why sometimes blue was added to the white color.

The “red” color, which is so frightening to Europe today, appeared for the first time in France, during the first revolution, and was borrowed from the red field, which is available in the coat of arms of the city of Paris. But soon another color was added to this single color, also borrowed from the aforementioned coat of arms "blue" color, since the heraldic sign in the coat of arms of Paris is a blue ship.

When, on July 14, 1789, the temporary reconciliation of the people with the kingdom followed, the "white" color of the Bourbons was added to commemorate this, and thus the current national or state colors of France were borrowed from the coat of arms.

The use of state colors in all other European states, in the kingdoms of Belgian, Danish, Bavarian, Dutch and former Hanoverian, is based on these heraldic rules: borrowed from state emblems. In Spain, the state colors were extremely variegated, since their state emblem contains multi-colored fields and figures.

In Russia, during the existence of the principalities, the Moscow coat of arms represented a “white” horse in a “red” field, the same coat of arms (“chase” - according to the old symbolism) was used by the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. Most likely: - this is the more ancient coat of arms of Kiev or Russian, which both Grand Dukes, Moscow and Lithuania, tried to keep along with the Grand Ducal title!

After the famous Mamaevsky massacre, the Moscow coat of arms took a different look, Dmitry Donskoy ordered to depict, in the "red" field, (red banner!), A rider on a "white" horse striking a snake with a sword ("rider" - according to the old symbolism).

Ivan III, already depicts a rider on the coat of arms, for whom he replaced the sword with a spear. From now on, the coat of arms of the Moscow principality becomes the coat of arms of Russia, where the "red" color is historically justified as the national colors of Russia, and was used at all celebrations up to the 17th century.

This color also corresponded to the innate taste of the Russian people, which, as you know, preferred, and still prefers, red to all other colors, and a Russian person uses the words to designate what he likes: beauty, beauty, red maiden, red-sun. Red kumach, in which red maidens and pullets love to flaunt, for which, as long as now, the red kumak sundress is the most elegant clothes.

In addition, the "red" color would have been correctly used from a heraldic point of view, since it could be considered borrowed from the red field of the Moscow coat of arms. So, the Russian state emblem was established only in the second half of the 17th century because until that time the two-headed eagle borrowed (forcibly !?) was used separately by itself, just like the old "banner" of Moscow - the rider (rider) - was depicted separately from the eagle, and it was only during the time of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich that this "banner" began to appear on the eagle's chest.

Here it is necessary to add, by the way, that the established opinion that the Grand Duke of Moscow Ivan III adopted the Byzantine coat of arms depicting a two-headed eagle, as a result of his marriage with the Greek princess Sophia Fominishna Palaeologus, is absolutely not confirmed by anything.

The image of the two-headed eagle began to appear in Russia, in the form of the state emblem, twenty-six years after the aforementioned marriage, and besides, this image was not finally adopted in this sense because even Ivan IV sometimes used on his seal, instead of the Byzantine eagle, a unicorn borrowed from the English coat of arms. Most likely, the Moscow princes began to use the two-headed eagle of the sovereign as their hereditary, and at the same time as the state emblem, as a result of the fabulous legend about their origin from Augustus Caesar, who "possessed the entire universe", was dissolved at the beginning of the 15th century - origin, which was so proud of Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich the Terrible.

How did the Eagle appear in the coats of arms and where is it from? The Roman legionaries chose the eagle as their emblem, and the image of this bird has been, since the time of Mary, on the victorious banners of the Romans. In historiography, there is an opinion that Constantine the Great built a second capital for the Roman Empire, and gave this new capital the same rights as Rome - then a second head was added to the Roman eagle so that the two-headed eagle would represent the two heads of the world, Rome and Constantinople.

But most likely: the second head of the emblem eagle appeared with the emergence of the Latin Empire. The German barons, who headed the Latin Empire, in order to get away from the pope's imperious tutelage, gave Constantinople equal rights with Rome, and then the second head of the eagle appeared.

Then, the Russian, borrowed from a stranger, the state emblem was established in the form of a black two-headed eagle in a "golden" field, then, according to the rules of heraldry, the colors "black" and "orange or yellow" would have been this did not pay attention to another more ancient coat of arms of the great reign of Moscow, which after that ceased to exist independently and which began to fit on the chest of the Roman-Latin eagle.

As a result, under the influence of Western heraldic concepts, in Russia in the first quarter of the 18th century, the colors “red” and “yellow” were the state colors, although there was no information about legalization in the “Code of Laws” regarding this. Nevertheless, in different government, and especially in different orders for the ceremonial part, it is mentioned, as appropriate, about the "three colors of the empire" - and the third such color is recognized as "white".

But this "white" color is the wrong addition and has no historical significance, and if such a meaning is admitted with great exaggeration, it will turn out to be rather strange and, perhaps, even completely inappropriate.

Although during the coronation of Catherine I and on the shishaks, the cavalier guards and hats newly formed for this occasion wore white cockades, which under Empress Anna Ivanovna were called “the Russian field color”, in neither case was this color given the meaning of “state colors.

Currently, the correct combination of our state colors can be seen only on the ribbon of the Order of St. George, since this ribbon is only in two colors: in "orange" and "black" without adding "white" to them. These two colors were used in former times on the lanyards of swords and on officer's scarves, and in general in all those cases where it was required to signify the state colors of Russia.

When the Great Legislator Catherine II in 1769 on November 26 established the military order of the Holy Great Martyr George, then in a decree she commanded that the ribbon for this order should be of three black and two yellow stripes. There is no reason to doubt that for the great meaning she attaches to this order, she chose these colors, as stemming from the colors of the State Emblem.

When Emperor Paul I ascended the throne in 1796 on November 6, the cockade was finally installed from black and orange ribbons. This is seen in the complete collection of laws, volume XXIV, p. 93.

White was added to the two previous colors under the Emperor Pavel Petrovich. A written announcement of such an increase could not be found, but according to old rumors and the events described, it was made out of Paul's hatred of the French revolutionaries and his sympathy for the Count d'Artois who found refuge in Russia, later the French king Louis XVIII, since the family color Bourbons - "white" was also the color of royal France, as noted earlier.

More likely, however, it seems to us that the reason for the addition of white to the two former Russian state colors under Paul I was the emperor's acceptance of the title of Grand Master of the sovereign order of St. John of Jerusalem, or the head of the Knightly Order of Malta.

The white cross of this order was, at the behest of the sovereign, entered into the Russian state emblem and placed on the chest of an eagle, and thus, the former Moscow emblem took not second, but third place, being inserted alongside the Maltese cross, completely alien to Russia. The addition of a new white sign to the Russian state emblem served, from the point of view of heraldry, as a completely correct basis for adding white to the old Russian state colors. In these three colors, under Emperor Paul, were, among other things, painted sentry boxes, milestones and lampposts, bridges, railings, state warehouses, etc.

It is appropriate to add here that since the time of Peter III, who cared about everything Prussian, everything official was painted in the Prussian state colors, that is, in two wide, diagonally set stripes of white and black, with a vein or a narrow strip of red wiring between them.

Soon after the accession to the throne of Emperor Alexander Pavlovich, the Maltese cross was removed from the Russian state emblem. At the same time, it would be necessary to eliminate the white color from our state colors, but for some reason this was not done then and, thus, the existence of the white color was strengthened - it is not known whether with the light hand of the Bourbons or the Maltese cavaliers.

But the "white" color reappears among the Russian troops after the transition, in January 1814, of our armies across the Rhine to France, to finish off Napoleon. Then Emperor Alexander I ordered a white bandage on the sleeve of every Russian soldier.

It seems to me that this was done from purely military-tactical considerations: in those days, black powder was used, and in the heat of battles one could distinguish one's soldiers from foreigners.

Although in secular circles it was noticed that the French knew and were aware that with the family color of the Bourbons, their kings, the northern barbarians did not come to plunder, not to destroy dwellings, not to desecrate the shrine, that is, not for the very thing that in 1812 year allowed his combined army to do in Russia Napoleon.

With these white armbands or with the color of royal France, the Russians fought from the Rhine to Paris with the remnants of the imperial legions, entered Paris with the same color, deposed Napoleon, established prosperity in France, restored the king, - in a word, they accomplished the imperial will of the Emperor Alexander the Blessed, what so rightly said at the same time in the song to the Russian tsar:

“He paid good for evil:

Resurrected the Bourbon house;

He glorified the Russian name, The world of the universe gave!"

And in memory of this truly great event, the "white" state color of France won by the Russians and added, like a victorious trophy, to our state colors. And at the same time, in the center of France, in Paris, new tricolor, white-yellow-black cockades for flaunted on the triangular hats of our tsar, our generals, headquarters and chief officers.

As for the actual court color, it should be considered green at the imperial-Russian court, at least, this is how the entire so-called "state livery" was carried out before and until now this color is supposed to. The red livery used at court was installed by Pavel Petrovich, borrowing this color from the color of the supertests of the Knights of the Order of Malta, which, of course, has no reason to be proud of keeping this kind of memory about him.

During the coronation of Tsar Emperor Alexander II in Moscow in 1856: the heralds and the officials of the court accompanying them, during the proclamation to the people of the upcoming Coronation as the highest state and national celebration, had scarves over their shoulders with long ends of three colors: “black, orange and white and the same bandages on the left sleeve.

If, as explained, the current Russian state colors represent a violation of heraldic rules and, in addition, indicate a noticeable historical blunder, then, in turn, the so-called Russian "national" colors - tricolor, turn out to be, simply, simply, historical incongruity.

In Russia there were never any flowers, they were not introduced under Peter I. They appeared long after him, although indirectly, he was the culprit of their appearance.

The fleet established by Peter I needed some kind of flag, and since there were admirals of the white, blue and red flags in the English fleet at that time, he borrowed these colors for the Russian fleet in their total aggregate. Actually for the fleet, these colors had their own relative meaning, as if showing that in Russia there are three degrees of the highest naval rank, and that therefore our fleet is as significant as the English.

A kind of excusable vanity can be expressed here. But, the fact is that over time, these flags began to be used on solemn and other occasions, like our Russian "national" colors, and we have to smile every time we read that our city or some building was decorated " national "flags, which, in essence, have not the slightest relation to the" Russian nationality."

Now it turns out to be extremely strange that the British admirals, although they themselves are very respectable and brave sailors, are here on solemn occasions, for no reason, no reason, as if representatives of Russian "nationality" or, more precisely, symbolism.

How can one sensibly explain to a Russian person why he should consider such insignia bestowed on these alien navigators as Nelson, the Duke of Edinburgh - Philip and even the pirate Francis Drake, also a vice admiral, as his national banner?

Whether the Emperor Pavel Petrovich added white out of his personal sympathy for the Bourbons or out of sympathy, even stronger, to the Order of Malta, in any case, neither the one nor the other reason is of such historical importance that the memory of this is constantly preserved in one of the the most important, and at the same time, very common signs of Russian statehood, especially since if the Maltese cross is not included in the state emblem of the Maltese cross after Emperor Paul, the white color turns out to be completely inconsistent with this emblem.

Therefore, it would be more correct to eliminate the white color, as an admixture that has no heraldic basis or special historical significance.