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Flag of Georgia (country)

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For other uses, see Flag of Georgia.

The flag of Georgia (Georgian: საქართველოს სახელმწიფო დროშა, romanized: sakartvelos sakhelmts'ipo drosha), also known as the Five-Cross Flag (ხუთჯვრიანი დროშა, khutjvriani drosha), is one of the national symbols of Georgia. Originally a banner of the medieval Kingdom of Georgia, it was repopularised in the late 20th and early 21st centuries during the Georgian national revival.

Georgia
Five Cross Flag
UseNational flag, civil and state ensign Small vexillological symbol or pictogram in black and white showing the different uses of the flag Small vexillological symbol or pictogram in black and white showing the different uses of the flag Reverse side is congruent with obverse side Flag can be hung vertically by hoisting on a normal pole, then turning the pole 90°
Proportion2:3
Adopted12th century (five cross flag)
14 January 2004; 20 years ago (2004-01-14) (current design)
DesignA white field with a centred red cross; a red Bolnur-Katskhuri cross centres each quarter.[1]
UsePresidential Standard
Proportion1:1
Proportion1:1
DesignFlag of the Minister of Defence
Proportion1:1
DesignFlag of the Chief of the General Staff
Proportion2:3
DesignWar flag of Georgia
UseNaval ensign Small vexillological symbol or pictogram in black and white showing the different uses of the flag Small vexillological symbol or pictogram in black and white showing the different uses of the flag Reverse side is congruent with obverse side
Proportion2:3
DesignA blue field with a white saltire bordered by green.

History

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The current flag was used by the Georgian patriotic movement following the country's independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. By the late 1990s, the design had become widely known as the Georgian historical national flag, as vexillologists had pointed out the red-on-white Jerusalem cross shown as the flag of Tbilisi in a 14th-century map by Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano.[2]

A majority of Georgians, including the influential Catholicos-Patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, supported the restoration of the flag and in 1999 the Parliament of Georgia passed a bill to change the flag. However, it was not endorsed by the then-President Eduard Shevardnadze. It was adopted in the early 2000s by the main opposition party, the United National Movement led by Mikheil Saakashvili, as a symbol of popular resistance to Shevardnadze's rule as well as a symbol of the Rose Revolution.[3]

The flag was adopted by Parliament on 14 January 2004.[4] Saakashvili formally endorsed it via Presidential Decree No. 31 signed on 25 January,[5] following his election as president. 14 January is annually marked as a Flag Day in Georgia.[4]

In 2021, a coin was discovered, minted during the reign of King David IV. According to Georgia's State Council of Heraldry, the engraving on its reverse side displays a "folded five-cross composition" and thus is an unmistakable historical connection of the design of the Georgian national flag with King David IV.[6][7]

Design

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The national flag of Georgia, as described in the decree:[8]

The Georgian national flag is a white rectangle, with a large red cross in its central portion touching all four sides of the flag. In the four corners there are four bolnur-katskhuri crosses (also referred to as a Georgian Cross or a Grapevine cross) of the same color as the large cross.

Scheme Red White
RGB 255-0-0 255-255-255
CMYK 0-100-100-0 0-0-0-0
Pantone 485 C Safe
Web #FF0000 #FFFFFF
 
Flag construction sheet

Previous flags

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See also: List of flags of Georgia (country)
 
The five crosses on the current Georgian flag are sometimes interpreted as representing either the Five Holy Wounds, or alternatively Christ and the Four Evangelists.[9]

Early Georgian states

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The first Georgian flag design came about during the era of the early Georgian state, the Principality of Iberia which had a red cross against a white background, similar to the flag of England. The subsequent Principality of Tao-Klarjeti shared this same flag.

Medieval Georgian flags

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Detail of the 1367 Pizzigano chart, showing Tbilisi and its flag

The white flag with the single red St. George's cross was supposedly used by King Vakhtang I in the 5th century.[dubious – discuss][10] According to tradition, King Tamar (d. 1213) used a flag with a dark red cross and a star in a white field.[11] In the 1367 map by Domenico and Francesco Pizzigano, the flag of Tifilis (Tbilisi) is shown as a Jerusalem cross (a large cross with smaller crosses in each quarter). According to D. Kldiashvili (1997), the Jerusalem cross might have been adopted during the reign of King George V.[12]

After the collapse of the Kingdom of Georgia

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Democratic Republic of Georgia (1918–1921)

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During Georgia's brief existence as an independent state as the Democratic Republic of Georgia from 1918 to 1921, a flag consisting of a dark red field with black and white bands in the canton was adopted. The design resulted from a national flag-designing contest won by the painter Iakob Nikoladze. It was abolished by the Soviet Union following the 1921 incorporation of Georgia into the USSR. After the collapse of the USSR, Georgia adopted a modified version with the length extended (see below).

Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (1921–1991)

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Main article: Flag of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic

During the Soviet period, Georgia adopted several variants of the red Soviet flag incorporating first the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic's name, and later a red hammer and sickle with a star in a blue sun in the canton and a blue bar in the upper part of flag. The flag of the Georgian SSR was replaced by the flag of the Democratic Republic of Georgia by the Georgian government in November 1990, shortly before it declared independence from the Soviet Union.

Georgia (1991–2004)

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The previous flag used by the Democratic Republic of Georgia from 1918 to 1921 was reestablished as the flag of the Republic of Georgia on 8 December 1991, by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Georgia. However, it lost popularity thereafter as it became associated with the chaotic and violent period after the collapse of the Soviet Union. The wine-red colour symbolises the good times of the past as well as the future, whilst the black represents Russian rule, and the white represents hope for peace.[13] This flag was later replaced by the current Georgian flag following the bloodless Rose Revolution.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Decree of the President of Georgia No. 32 of 25 January 2004.
  2. ^ "The new flag of Georgia does not seem to be related with this historical banner. The flag of the National Movement was unknown ten years ago [1993] and was called 'the Georgian historical national flag' by the opposition leaders only after publications by the Georgian vexillologist I.L. Bichikashvili." Mikhail Revnivtsev, 25 November 2003 crwflags.com Archived 2018-12-15 at the Wayback Machine
  3. ^ "A majority of Georgians, including the patriarch of the Georgian Orthodox Church, have long favored adopting the five-cross banner as the nation's official flag. But the outgoing president stymied all efforts to make the change. In 1999, the Georgian Parliament voted to change the flag, and all Shevardnadze had to do was issue a supportive Decree. Inexplicably, he refused to do so, instead setting up a powerless Heraldic Commission to study the matter. When Saakashvili founded the National Movement in 2001, therefore, the five-cross flag was the natural choice to illustrate his party's populist bent." Brendan Koerner, "What's With Georgia's Flags? Archived 2018-02-09 at the Wayback Machine", Slate, 25 November 2003.
  4. ^ a b "Georgia celebrates National Flag Day today". Agenda.ge. 14 Jan 2017. Archived from the original on 2 February 2017. Retrieved 24 January 2017.
  5. ^ Presidential Decree 31 Archived 2017-02-02 at the Wayback Machine(in Georgian)
  6. ^ Georgian Journal. 27 December 2021. "Newly-Discovered Coin Dates Georgian Five-Cross Flag Back to XII Century". Archived 2024-04-01 at the Wayback Machine
  7. ^ State Council of Heraldry. 24 December 2021. ახლად აღმოჩენილი მონეტის შესახებ ("About the newly discovered coin"). Archived 2022-01-11 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Brdzanebuleba_31.pdf Archived 2023-06-16 at the Wayback Machine [bare URL PDF]
  9. ^ Michael Spilling, Winnie Wong: Georgia p. 37.
  10. ^ Theodore E. Dowling, Sketches of Georgian Church History, New York, p 54. D.M.Lang – Georgia in the Reign of Giorgi the Brilliant (1314–1346). Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, Vol. 17, No. 1 (1955), p. 84. G. Macharashwili დროშა გორგასლიანი, თბ. 2011.
  11. ^ "Georgia.". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 2013-02-14..
  12. ^ David Kldiashvili, ქართული ჰერალდიკის ისტორია ("History of Georgian heraldry"), Parlamentis utskebani, 1997; pp. 30–35.
  13. ^ Steve Luck, ed. (1997). Oxford Family Encyclopedia (first ed.). London: George Philip. Oxford University Press. p. 281. ISBN 0-19-521367-X.
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