🇺🇦 August 23 is the Day of the State Flag of Ukraine.
On September 18, 1991, after the collapse of the USSR, the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine granted the blue-yellow flag official status. However, this symbol did not appear on the same day, and its roots go back a thousand years. The symbols of the lands and princes since the times of Kyivan Rus were coats of arms with a combination of blue and yellow colors. The flag of the Galicia-Volyn Principality, which existed since 1199, was a golden lion on a blue cloth - similar to the modern coat of arms of the Lviv region and the emblem of the SS division "Galicia".
In 1240, the Mongol-Tatar horde destroyed the East Slavic center - Kyiv, and already in the 1320s it reached the Galicia-Volyn Principality. In 1387, the Polish king Casimir III captured most of the Galicia-Volhynia state, and in 1392 the principality ceased to exist. The ancestors of the Ukrainians found themselves divided between several states, until in the 14th century the Lithuanian princes of the Gediminas family recaptured most of the lands from the Horde, including the city of the Thunderer - Kyiv.
The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in a conflict with the Teutonic Order, which sought to subjugate the pagan lands of the Baltic. The conflict resulted in the Great War of 1409-1411, and the Battle of Grunwald. Władysław II Jagiełło, king of Poland, and Vytautas, prince of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, led 90 horse banners to the battlefield. One banner consisted of 50-120 "spears", at the heart of each lance was a mounted warrior - a knight, accompanied by his retinue - several more mounted warriors. In total, 15-20% of the army was made up of ethnic Ukrainians.
Among them, three banners stood out: the banner of Lviv - an unchanging golden lion on a blue field, the banner of Peremyshchyna - a golden double-headed eagle on a blue canvas, the banner of the banner of the Ukrainian magnate Yaroslav - a golden crescent and a star on a blue field. At the same time, the pennants of the Lviv banner were simplified, but in fact already then, at the beginning of the 15th century, they were blue-yellow banners. In the Battle of Grunwald, the Teutonic Order was defeated, as in the war itself, and the ancestors of Ukrainians, being true knights, first stood under their national colors.
In the Cossack times, new symbols and colors appeared, but from the 18th century, blue cloths with gold coats of arms began to prevail. The obverse side of the regimental and hundred banners was an emblem depicting a Cossack with a musket in a gold or yellow shield field, and the reverse side was a regimental or hundred emblem of the corresponding color with a certain image. The flag of the Black Sea Cossack army, which formed the basis of the Kuban Cossacks, was blue-orange with a red cross.
For the first time, the Ukrainian blue-yellow flag was hoisted over the Lviv Town Hall on June 25, 1848 during the revolutionary "Spring of Peoples". At the same time, the Main Rus' Council in Lviv resumed the use of the coat of arms of the Galicia-Volyn Principality. At this time, Galician Ukrainians already recognized the blue-yellow colors as their national colors, and at the end of the 19th century, Lviv burghers publicly used national flags in blue-yellow colors on state and national holidays. At the beginning of the 20th century, the yellow-blue flag gained some popularity.
Gradually, the concept of a blue-yellow Ukrainian flag spread to the Transcarpathian lands. In 1917, after the February Revolution, the Ukrainian Central Rada was formed, and blue-yellow flags appeared in Kyiv, Odessa, Kharkiv, Dnipro, Chernihiv, and Poltava. During the Soviet occupation, possession of the blue-yellow flag was considered a crime, but there were regular cases of its demonstration. After the declaration of independence of Ukraine, on September 4, 1991, the blue-yellow flag was solemnly raised over the parliament building.
☠️ @vallholl
