Black, white and red with a solar amulet in the centre: the flag of Udmurtia, a republic of Russia, carries a sign from Udmurt folklore.
Every fact about the flag, each with what it means.
Normal flagFIAV symbol: the form of the flag.
CivilFIAV 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 1:2 ratio divided into three equal vertical stripes: black next to the flagpole, white in the centre and red on the fly side.
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.
Until 1991 Udmurtia was an autonomous republic inside Soviet Russia
The new flag was drawn by Yuri Lobanov, and the Supreme Council of the republic approved…
A law of 2002 fixed its measurements in detail
How it was born, how it has changed and what it means.
Udmurtia is a republic of Russia, west of the Urals, with its capital in Izhevsk. Its flag has three vertical stripes, black, white and red, and in the centre a red eight-pointed sign. According to Udmurt folklore, that sign protects people from misfortune.
Until 1991 Udmurtia was an autonomous republic inside Soviet Russia, and its flag was the red one of Soviet Russia with its name written on it. In October 1991 it became the Republic of Udmurtia and looked for symbols of its own, taken from the culture of the Udmurts, a people whose language is related to Finnish and Hungarian.
The new flag was drawn by Yuri Lobanov, and the Supreme Council of the republic approved it on 4 November 1993. A law of 2002 fixed its measurements in detail.
The Soviet flags were all almost identical; the one of 1993 broke with them.
1937-1954
Red, with the initials of Soviet Russia and the name of the republic in Russian and Udmurt.
1954-1978
It copies the new Russian flag, with a blue stripe next to the flagpole, and adds the initials of the republic.
1978-1991
The initials are replaced by the full name, in Russian and Udmurt.
1991-1993
After declaring itself sovereign, the republic removes the A from ‘autonomous’ in its name.
1993
Black, white and red tricolour with the solar sign, approved on 4 November 1993.
The official explanation gives a meaning to each colour.
Black
the earth and stability.
White
the cosmos and moral purity.
Red
the sun and life.
Eight-pointed solar sign
a protective amulet from Udmurt folklore, which keeps bad luck away.
The red sign in the centre is not a religious cross. It is a solar symbol that, according to Udmurt tradition, protects from misfortune.
From 1954 all the Soviet autonomous republics of Russia used the Russian flag, red with a blue stripe, and were only distinguished by the name written on it.
In 1991 Udmurtia removed the A from ‘autonomous’ on its Soviet flag. Other republics, like Tatarstan or Komi, did not touch it until they changed flag.
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Test what you have read about the flag of Republic of Udmurtia.
Text based on the article “Flag of Udmurtia (Wikipedia en inglés)” from the Spanish Wikipedia, published under the licence CC BY-SA 4.0.
Sources consulted:
Flag image: Fibonacci, Wikimedia Commons · Public domain.
