Blue, black and white: the flag born in 1884 in a students’ association and which survived hidden through the Soviet occupation.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
Civil, on land and at seaFIAV symbol: who may fly the flag.YesIt carries the coat of arms on the cloth.The flag in the words of vexillology and heraldry.
It is a rectangular field with a 7:11 ratio and three equal horizontal stripes.
Each element and how many of the 1,390 flags in the catalogue carry it. In yellow, the rarest.
Every date in its story, at a glance.
They consecrated it on 4 June 1884 in Otepää
1918: on declaring independence
A law confirms it in 1922
1940: the Soviet Union occupies Estonia and bans it
1988: in the middle of the wave of peaceful protests
24 February 1989: it replaces the Soviet flag at the top of the Pikk Hermann tower in Tallinn
1990: it becomes, officially, the flag of the country again
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
The flag of Estonia has three equal horizontal stripes: blue, black and white. In Estonian it is called sinimustvalge, which simply means “blue-black-white”. It is special for two reasons: very few national flags use black, and it was not created by a government but by a students’ association.
In the nineteenth century Estonia was part of the Russian Empire, and the Estonians were beginning to defend their language and their culture. A group of university students from Tartu, the Estonian Students’ Society, chose these three colours for their standard. They consecrated it on 4 June 1884 in Otepää, a village in the south of the country. Over the years, that student flag became the one of the whole Estonian people.
The design has never changed; what changed was whether it could be used.
1918
on declaring independence, the provisional government adopts it as the national flag. A law confirms it in 1922.
1940
the Soviet Union occupies Estonia and bans it. Anyone displaying it could be punished.
1988
in the middle of the wave of peaceful protests, the local authorities allow it again.
24 February 1989
it replaces the Soviet flag at the top of the Pikk Hermann tower in Tallinn.
1990
it becomes, officially, the flag of the country again.
There is no meaning fixed by law, but the most widespread reading is this:
Blue
the sky, the lakes and the sea, and also fidelity.
Black
the soil, the black barns of the peasants and the difficult past of the Estonian people.
White
the snow, the bark of birches and the wish for a better future.
In 1940 the students swapped the original flag for a copy and hid the real one in the base of the chimney of a farm. They dug it up on 26 December 1991, in front of the cameras of Estonian television. Today it is on display in the National Museum of Estonia.
4 June, the anniversary of that 1884 consecration, is Flag Day.
At Pikk Hermann tower the flag is raised at sunrise, never before 7 am, and lowered at sunset.
Test what you have read about the flag of Estonia.
Text based on the article “Bandera de Estonia” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Original: Unknown author Vector: SKopp, PeepP and others, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
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