Flag and coat of arms of Tartary. Part 2

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

We continue to understand what was depicted on the flags of Tartary, which are present in many reference books of the 18th-19th centuries. Who is depicted on these flags: a dragon or a griffin, a Slavic Semargl?

The first part of the article: Flag and coat of arms of Tartary. Part 1

Any association of people, be it an organization or a state, creates its own symbolism, which is a kind of visiting card and makes it possible to clearly identify such an association. The original symbols are used in various fields of activity - trade, production, provision of various services, in sports, in religious and public organizations. State symbols, in addition to protocol and other issues, solve the problem of rallying the people of the country, their awareness of their unity.

In the article "The famous flag of an unknown country" we found out that Tartary-Tartary had coats of arms and flags. In this work, we will consider the imperial flag of Tartary or the Tatar Caesar flag, as it is called in the "Declaration of the naval flags of all states of the universe", published in Kiev in 1709 with the personal participation of Peter I. We will also reflect on whether this flag could unite different peoples under itself Great Tartary and touch on some more moments of our past.

To begin with, let us recall the description of this flag given in the "Book of Flags" by the Dutch cartographer Karl Allard (published in Amsterdam in 1705 and republished in Moscow in 1709): (a great serpent) with a basilisk tail.”Now let's look at images of this flag from various sources of the 18th-19th centuries (the table includes images of flags from sources published: Kiev 1709, Amsterdam 1710, Nuremberg 1750 (three flags), Paris 1750, Augsburg 1760, England 1783, Paris 1787, England 1794, unknown publishing house XVIII century, USA 1865).

Unfortunately, the drawings leave much to be desired. are for reference and not heraldic purposes. And the quality of most of the images found is very weak, but nevertheless, it is better than nothing.

In some drawings, the creature depicted on the flag does indeed look like a dragon. But in other pictures it can be seen that the creature has a beak, and there seem to be no dragons with a beak. The beak is especially noticeable in the drawing from the collection of flags published in the USA in 1865 (the last drawing in the bottom row). Moreover, in this figure it can be seen that the head of the creature is a bird, apparently, an eagle. And we know of only two fabulous creatures with bird heads, but not a bird's body, this is a griffin (left) and a basilisk (right).

However, the basilisk is usually depicted with two paws and the head of a rooster, and in all drawings, except for one, there are four paws and the head is by no means a cock. In addition, various information resources claim that the basilisk is an exclusively European fiction. For these two reasons, we will not consider the basilisk as a "candidate" for the Tartar flag. Four paws and an eagle's head indicate that we are still facing a griffin.

Let's take another look at the drawing of the imperial flag of Tartary, published in the USA in the 19th century.

But maybe the American publisher got it all wrong, because Allard's Book of Flags clearly states that the flag must have a dragon depicted.

And could Allard be mistaken or deliberately distort the information on someone's order. After all, the demonization of the enemy in public opinion, which in modern times we have all seen in the examples of Libya, Iraq, Yugoslavia, and to be honest, the USSR, has been practiced since time immemorial.

An illustration will help us to answer this question, apparently from the same "World Geography", published in Paris in 1676, in which we found the coat of arms depicting an owl for the previous article.

The coat of arms of Little Tartaria (according to the canonical history of the Crimean Khanate) depicts three black griffins on a yellow (gold) field. This illustration gives us the opportunity to assert with a high degree of probability that the imperial flag of Tartary does not depict a dragon, but a griffin or a vulture (gryv), as it was called in Russian books of the 18th-19th centuries. Thus, it was the American publisher of the 19th century who was right, who placed the vulture on the flag of the Tatar Caesar, and not the dragon. And Karl Allard, calling the vulture a dragon, was mistaken, or by someone's order the information about the flag was distorted, at least in the Russian-language edition of the Book of Flags.

Now let's see if the mane could be a symbol that could be followed by the peoples who inhabited the multinational Empire, stretching from Europe to the Pacific Ocean.

Archaeological finds and old books will help us answer this question.

When excavating Scythian burial mounds in the vast expanses of Eurasia, I'm not afraid of this word, various objects with the image of a vulture come across in droves. Moreover, such finds are dated by archaeologists from the 4th or even the 6th century BC.

This is Taman, Crimea, and Kuban.

And Altai.

Both the Amu Darya region and the Khanty-Mansiysk Autonomous Okrug.

The pectoral of the 4th century BC is a true masterpiece. from "Tolstoy grave" near Dnepropetrovsk.

The image of a griffin was also used in tattoos, which is confirmed by archaeological excavations of burial grounds of the 5th-3rd centuries BC. in Altai.

In Veliky Ustyug in the 17th century, this fabulous creature was painted on the lids of chests.

In Novgorod in the 11th century, the vulture was carved on wooden columns, at about the same time in the Surgut region it was depicted on medallions. In Vologda, it was carved on birch bark.

In the area of Tobolsk and Ryazan, the vulture was depicted on bowls and bracelets.

A drawing of a griffin can be found on the page of the collection of 1076.

Even today, griffins can be seen on the walls and gates of ancient Russian churches. The most striking example is the 12th century Dmitrievsky Cathedral in Vladimir.

The walls of the St. George Cathedral in Yuryev-Polsky also contain images of griffins.

There are griffins on the Church of the Intercession-on-Nerl, as well as on the gates of the temple in Suzdal.

And in Georgia, on the 11th century temple of Samtavisi, about 30 kilometers from the city of Gori, there is an image of a griffin.

But the vulture was depicted not only on religious buildings. This symbol was widely used in Russia by the great dukes and kings in the 13th-17th centuries (illustrations from the multivolume Antiquities of the Russian State, printed by the determination of the supremely established Committee in the middle of the 19th century). We can find vultures on the helmet of the Grand Duke Yaroslav Vsevolodovich (XIII century).

We find Giphon both on the royal zion (ark) of 1486, and on the entrance doors to the upper chamber of the Terem Palace of the Moscow Kremlin (1636).

Even on the banner (great banner) of Ivan IV the Terrible in 1560 there are two griffins. It should be noted that Lukian Yakovlev, the author of the supplement to the III section of the Antiquities of the Russian State (1865), where the banner with the stamp is shown, in the preface (pp. 18-19) writes that “… the banners were always made with images of sacred content, other images, which we will call everyday, were not allowed on the banners."

After Ivan IV, the vulture cannot be found on the royal banners, but on other royal attributes it continues to be used until the end of the 17th century. For example, in the case of the Tsar's Saadak. By the way, it can be seen from the cloud that the "rider" on horseback is not opposed to the griffin, he pricks himself a snake at one end of the bow, and the griffin stands at the other end and holds the State of the Russian Kingdom.

The last made image of a griffin on royal things before a long break until the middle of the 19th century was found on a double throne, which was made for Tsars Ivan and Peter Alekseevich.

The griffin is also present on one of the main symbols of the royal power of the "Power of the Russian Kingdom" or otherwise "Power of Monomakh".

Now think that in most of the territory of Tartary (Russian Empire, USSR - as you like), images of a griffin have been used at least since the 4th century BC. to the end of the 17th century (in Muscovy), and in the Perekop kingdom (as Sigismund Herberstein in the 16th century calls the Crimean Khanate known to us) - most likely before the capture of Crimea, i.e. until the second half of the 18th century. Thus, the continuous period of life of this symbol on the vast territory of Eurasia, if we are guided by the canonical chronology, is more than TWO THOUSAND TWO HUNDRED FIFTY years!

According to legend, griffins guarded gold in the Ripaean mountains of Hyperborea, in particular from the mythical giants of the Arimasp. They are trying to look for the emergence of the image of a griffin in the Assyrian, Egyptian and Scythian cultures. Perhaps the origin of this fantastic animal is foreign. But taking into account the "habitat" of the griffin and the fact that, with rare exceptions, the image of the Scythian vulture has not changed much since the 4th century BC, it seems that the griffin is not alien to Scythia.

At the same time, one should not be afraid that griffins are still used in the heraldry of cities in other European states to this day. If we talk about the north of Germany, the Baltic states, and in general about the southern coast of the Baltic, then these are the lands of the ancient settlement of the Slavs. Therefore, griffins on the coats of arms of Mecklenburg, Latvia, the Pomeranian Voivodeship of Poland, etc. should not raise questions.

Interestingly, according to the legend recorded in the 15th century by Nikolai Marshal Turiy in his work Annals of the Heruls and Vandals: “Antyuriy placed Bucephalus's head on the bow of the ship on which he sailed, and put a vulture on the mast”. (A. Frencelii. Op. Cit. P. 126-127, 131). The mentioned Antyury is the legendary ancestor of the encouraging princes, who was a companion of Alexander the Great (this is an important fact for our further research). Arriving in the Baltic, he settled on its southern coast. His companions, according to the same legend, became the founders of many encouraging noble families. By the way, on the coat of arms of Mecklenburg, along with the griffin, there is a bull's head, and Bucephalus means "bull-headed" (I came across information from

swinow).

If we recall the image of griffins in the Cathedral of St. Mark in Venice, then there is also a Slavic trace, tk. there is a possibility that Venice could have been Venedia, and only then Latinized.

As we have seen, the image of the griffin, both among the Slavs and among other peoples of our country, was popular, therefore, the presence of a griffin in the symbolism of those settlements where these peoples could live in antiquity should not cause surprise or bewilderment.

Interesting fact. If you look for the old Russian name for the griffin, you can find that it is not only divas, but also legs, legs, sometimes, naked, legs. The Nogai Horde immediately comes to mind. If we assume that its name came not so much from the name of the commander of the Golden Horde - Nogai, as from the name of the bird Nogai, i.e. griffin, under the banners with the image of which they fought, as, for example, the vanguard of the Tatar Caesar, then instead of a gang of incomprehensible savages "Mongols" is seen a very presentable military unit of Tartary.

By the way, a newly-made Nogai flag is walking on the Internet, the historical connection of which with the past, judging by some reviews, raises questions. At the same time, he is wearing a winged beast, though not a vulture, but a wolf. And a miniature from the "Vertograd of the Histories of the Countries of the East" by Hetum Patmich (15th century), depicting the battle of the Temnik Nogai on the Terek, will not be superfluous to look at, although the image of the griffin is not there.

Continuation: Flag and Coat of Arms of Tartary. Part 3