The flag of Bohemia is a historic flag, which now forms part of the design in the modern
flag of the Czech Republic. The flag, a horizontal bicolour, was based on the colours of the former
monarchs of Bohemia.
The
heraldic flag of Bohemia (the flag of Bohemia in the form of the flag with coat of arms) is described and drawn for example in the work of Jacob Koebel: Wapen des heyligen römischen Reichs teutscher Nation from 1545.[1] The even older description of this flag (13th century) can be read in the chronicle of Ottokar aus der Gaal (Otacher ouz der Geul, Ottokar von Steiermark) (* about 1265; † between 1318 and 1322): Die Steirische Reimchronik.[2]
Hern Dietrich Spatzmanen sach man die banier leiten: in einem rȏten samît breiten was gewohrt ein lewe wîz. ouch heten ir baniere flîz, die von Merhaeren wârn: ein geschâchzabelten arn von rȏter und von wîzer varbe sach man ob in begarbe waejen von dem winde.[3][4]
History and use
"The colors of the flag, white and red, were derived from the coat of arms of the King of Bohemia (silver lion on a red field) which was granted to the king
Vladislaus I in the 12th century. This quickly became the coat of arm of the
whole kingdom."[5]
The oldest surviving full colour depiction of the arms of Bohemia is represented by the fresco in the hall of the castle of Gozzoburg in Krems an der Donau, that comes from the early 1270s.[6] A further depiction can be found in the
manuscript of abbes Kunigunde from the 1310s.[7]
The bicolor white-red banners were therefore carried into battle by the armies of the Bohemian kings and in the 19th century the colors were adopted by the
Czech national movement. But when the goals of the movement were fulfilled in 1918 by the restoration of the
independent Czech state, the need for the significant symbols, including a flag which was not identical to that of
neighbouring Poland, led to the approval of the new
flag of Czechoslovakia in 1920. This new flag still included the white and red horizontal stripes from the flag of Bohemia.
In 1990, the
Bohemian flag was adopted as the official flag of the
Czech Republic, then part of the
Czech and Slovak Federative Republic (ČSFR, 1990–1992).[8] The flag was adopted in reaction to the adoption of separate Slovak symbols. However, the Czech flag was used much less than the wider
flag of Czechoslovakia, whereas the
flag of Slovakia (then without coat of arms and thus identical to flag of the
World War II Slovak Republic[9]) was widely used in Slovakia. This difference mirrored prevailing separatist tendencies in the Slovak Republic and federalist tendencies in the Czech Republic. Another problem, again, was the Bohemian flag's similarity to the
flag of neighbouring Poland, because the only difference was the proportion 2:3 (Polish flag is 5:8). For these reasons, Czech politicians decided to preserve the flag of Czechoslovakia as the symbol of the state with which most of
Czech society was identified.
Since 1993, the flag of Bohemia has had no legal status and is only rarely seen today in the Czech Republic.
The hall with coats of arms in Gozzoburg Castle in Krems
^Aptly expressed by
František Palacký in his Dějiny národu českého v Čechách a v Moravě I–V ("The History of the Czech Nation in Bohemia and Moravia"), 1836–1867: "Známé povídačky o rozdávání nových erbův rodinám českým, ba i království českému, v ležení před Milánem, nechceme zde ani připomínati, ana sama v sobě hloupá jest a od jiných před námi již dávno vyvrácena byla." (cited from: Rostislav Nový: K počátkům feudální monarchie v Čechách II. Časopis národního musea 1978; for the history of the coats of arms of historical Czech lands: Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, see the entry on Czech Wikipedia: Heraldické znaky českých zemí.)
^Krejčík, Tomáš; Pícha, František (2009). "Český a moravský znak ve znakové galerii v Gozzoburgu v Kremsu". Genealogické a heraldické informace 2008 : Moravská genealogická a heraldická společnost, o. s. 2009 (in Czech). Vol. 13. Brno. pp. 49–57.
ISSN0862-8963.{{
cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (
link)
^"Sbírka Národní knihovny ČR". ces.mkcr.cz. Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic: Central Registry of Museum-type Collections. Archived from
the original on 20 January 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2015.
^Constitutional act on the state symbols of the Czech Republic 67/1990 Coll.
^Constitutional act on the name, coat of arms, flag, seal and anthem of the Slovak Republic 50/1990 Coll.