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Romania Flag
SKU: ROM35P
The colours of Romania's flag are tracable to the 6th century Coat of Arms of Emperor Justinian I. In practical use, they began to appear in the 14th century on flags of 3 principalities. Moldova flew a red flag and Wallachia flew a predominately yellow one. Systematic oppression in Transylvania prohibited the Romanians from flag flying. Instead they bore individual coats of arm in sky blue. In 1600, Prince Michael the Brave united all three Romanian provinces. As ruler of Wallachia and Transylvania, he defeated the Moldovan army on May 18, 1600. The three colours were officially incorporated into the Prince's arms. The Prince's assasination in 1601 quickly ended this unity. The colours would disappear until 1821 when Tudor Vladimirescu the leader of the Wallachian uprising used them to rally his supporters. In 1834, under the rule of Dimitrie Ghica, the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire approved the adoption of a flag with the three colours placed horizontally (blue at the bottom) and an eagle holding a crown and sceptre on yellow, for the use of all Romanian commercial and military units and ships. This was the first official union of the three colours, and while it held no nationalist meaning, it would later become a symbol for many nationalist movements. During the Revolution of 1848, the newly formed Romanian Government issued its first decree on June 14, 1848 stating that the official flag was to be composed of three colours: "dark blue, light yellow and crimson red". The flag had vertical colours with blue at the hoist, and bore the inscription "Justice, Fraternity". Some Romanians used white instead of yellow in solidarity with other European revolutions in France and Hungary together with the inscription "Virtus Romana Rediviva" or Romanian virtue reborn. Eventually, all Romanian flags slowly adopted the yellow colour. The Flag of the unified Romania was ratified in 1859 when Alexander Ioan Cuza was elected ruler of both Moldova and Wallachia.with large margins in both elections. He subsequently readopted the horizontal design also with blue at the bottom. It would change one last time in 1867, when again the vertical design was chosen by Carol I the new ruler of the Kingdom of Romania. The Communist takeover in 1947 lead to another change to the flag of Romania. The Romanian coat of arms was replaced with a Soviet version. It was an emblem, faithful to the Communist pattern: a landscape (depicting a rising sun, a tractor and an oil drill) surrounded by stocks of wheat tied together with a cloth in the colors of the Romanian flag and the letters RPR for Romanian Peoples Republic on the scroll. A red star symbolising Socialism was added in September 1952. Another change occurred on August 21, 1965 when Soviet authorities ordered the replacement of the letters RPR on the main part of the scroll with ROMĀNIA, and on the left and right parts of the scroll the words REPUBLICA and SOCIALIST? were added. Although the Soviets never changed the flag colours they taught School children that red stood for the blood of the fallen heroes, yellow for the crop fields and blue for the sky. Red being the Soviet colour was always mentioned first in describing the flag and was considered its most important colour. During the 1989 revolution, as anti communist demonstrations broke out on the streets of Timi?oara and Bucharest, citizens cut holes in their flags to remove the Soviet coat of arms. On December 27, 1989 following the deposition fo the Communist backed government, it was decided not to incorporate a new coat of arms into the official flag. The current flag was adopted by Romania's Parliament September 10, 1992 as a tricolore flag with vertical stripes of blue yellow and red.
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