A Triune Slavic State Doesn’t Exist but Moscow Already Thinking about Its Flags and Coats of Arms

Paul Goble

            Staunton, Dec. 14 – Russian specialists on flags and coats of arms are already at work behind the scenes on possible designs for these for states that do not now exist and may never exist, a common state of Belarus and Russia or one including those two countries plus Ukraine. Sergey Makin says.

            The expert community and the powers that be will likely be making decisions about these things without involving the population, the historian says; and most likely the new symbolism will not prove any more successful than earlier efforts by these groups in the case of the symbol of the CIS adopted in 1996 (ng.ru/ng_religii/2021-12-14/11_521_symbolics.html).

            Most likely, Makin continues, “Alyaksandr Lukashenka will insist on retaining the current Belarusian flag. And that is too bad because one could create a more contemporary banner even for the Belarus Republic. The historian offers four possible variants that vexillologists should consider.

            The first would move the embroidery now on one end of the flag to the top and thus yield “an ornamentally red-green flag,” something that would help Belarus “overcome the complex of being a part of another state, the Belarusian SSR within the Soviet Union and bring its flag into one rank with analogous banners” of Lithuania and Russia.”

            The second variant would be to create a three-color flag, with white, red and green bands analogous to the white, green, and red Bulgarian flag and the red-white-green Hungarian one. A third possibility, Makin says, would be to make the three bands vertical like France. And a fourth might feature a red cross on a white background.

            “In the 1990s,” the historian continues, he came up with a proposal for “an alternative coat of arms for Russia … I think the symbolism of the three sisters – Belarus, Ukraine and Russia – could be similar,” with Mary, the Mother of God, at the center, sheaves of grain at the bottom as in Soviet coats of arms, and “faith, hope and charity” inscribed at the top.

            That would be most appropriate, Makin argues, except for one thing. These countries are supposed to be secular and keep church and state separate. But that can be overcome; and in his original article, he offers a picture of just what this coat of arms might look like. Undoubtedly, there are many alternatives now being floated behind the scenes.