The National Flag of Montenegro
Montenegro, a small nation located in the Balkans, never really had a single national flag until the late 1880's. Up to that point, tending to use military colours as representative of the Montenegrin people.
From 1876, one widely recognised design used the pan-Slavic colours of red, blue and white in a horizontal tricolour design.
In 1910, Prince/King Nikola introduced his Royal flag. Taking the Montenegrin horizontal tricolour, and placing his double headed eagle at its centre, with a crown over the eagle, and his cypher "H.I" underneath.
However, from 1905, a new state flag was brought in. To differentiate from the Serbian flag, the central blue stripe was switched to a lighter shade. Legend has it that someone had a Montenegrin flag out in the sun for a long time that the sun bleached the blue stripe. One day, Nikola spotted it, and loved this shade of blue, and adopted it for the new flag of Montenegro.
The Balkan Wars of 1912-13 where initiated by Montenegro, and it sided with Serbia during WWI. However, after the war, Montenegro was merged with Serbia, into the new Kingdom of Yugoslavia. The flag for Montenegro was subsequently dropped.
In 1946, Yugoslavia moved from being a Kingdom, to being a socialist republic. Montenegro adopted a new flag. Returning to their old tricolour of red, blue, and white, but this time, with a large, gold edged, red star in the centre.
With the collapse of Yugoslavia, Montenegro remained in union with Serbia in a rump Yugoslavia, and in 1993, adopted a new flag. Bringing back the tricolour with the lighter shade of blue. However, to really make sure it was different from Serbia, the flags ratio was altered to make it longer.
After the Balkan crisis of the 1990's, and the Kosovan crisis in the late 90's, Yugoslavia was replaced with a looser union of nations, called the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, and then after a long campaign, Montenegro gained its independence from this State Union after a referendum which saw support for independence at 55.3%, narrowly surpassing the limit of 55%, set by the EU monitors for the referendum.
Upon independence, a new flag was adopted. Combining the 2 headed eagle that has been used in the past to represent Montenegro, and the red banner of the earliest military flags that represented the Montenegrin people. The eagle itself features a crown above, and a shield in the centre, with a lion on the shield. The red banner is bordered on all four sides in gold.
It will not be that Montenegro did not have a flag. The national flag of the state flag and the national flag was ruler banner, which was red with a white frame and white two-headed eagle with a golden lion passant. This flag is known from the 16th century, representing ruler banner the House of Crnojević who had the emblem of the red gold double-headed eagle.
ReplyDelete1876 red-blue-white flag was Ensign of Montenegro, which has not been used as the national flag. Tricolor flag for the first time becomes a state and national flag proclamation of the Kingdom of the 1910th
The new flag was adopted in 2004, two years before the referendums, in fact it is an old design, the royal banner, the red stripe is postaljen coat of arms of Montenegro with golden frame
Flag of Montenegro
ReplyDelete