I’ve been avoiding the post for a month now- not because I don’t like being topical and timely, but because… and I’m reluctant to say this, but it’s kind of true: writing about the flag of Ukraine would be a short post- strictly from a design point of view.
The current design was settled on in January of 1992 after it was restored in August 1991. Before that, it was officially adopted on March 22nd, 1918. Looking through the wiki-page of the flag, there are plenty of design debates to delve into: the shade of blue, whether it should be blue-yellow or yellow-blue, the variations of the flag, the history of the different flags during the Soviet period and during the first period of independence after World War I.
Interestingly enough, I can’t find a solid interpretation of the colors on the wiki-page, but the general zeitgeist seems to be either blue sky over a field of sunflowers (the national flower of Ukraine) or a field of wheat (also important in Ukraine.)
I’m not going to lie: I enjoy this color combination quite a bit. It works for Sweden, it works for Kazakhstan and it works for Palau- of course, it’s going to look just beautiful and striking for Ukraine.
But here’s the secret: the flag isn’t the most interesting thing Ukraine brings to the table from a vexillological point of view- it’s the coat of arms.
Most of y’all have probably seen this on the odd patch on footage from battlefields, but it’s probably more likely you’ve seen it in the background of a speech by President Zelensky, as it’s usually seen either on the Presidential flag (yes, some countries have those) or just in and around the office of the President in general. Officially, this is the Emblem of the Royal State of Volodymr the Great or, the tryzub- which comes from the seal-trident of Volodymr, the first Grand Prince of Kyiv.
The symbol or variations on it have been around for centuries, but the interesting kicker to all of this is that most historians seem to think that this wasn’t intended to depict a trident, but rather a symbol of the Holy Trinity. (Specifically, a stylized falcon- imagery with a falcon and a Christian cross appear all over that area of Europe and up into Scandinavia.)
Another possible explanation emerges a bit later on in the historical chronology with variations on the symbol being closer to the Cyrillic letter that resembles a lower case ‘y’ (no, I don’t have the Cyrillic keyboard. Sorry.) At the time, Cyrillic didn’t have that specific letter in the alphabet using a digraph/monograph combination instead- but the modern Cyrillic alphabet denotes the sound ‘u’ as ‘Ukraine.’
So, either their coat of arms is a truly wicked looking trident (awesome option), the Ukranian equivalent of a shamrock (who needs a plant, when you can have a falcon to explain the concept of the Holy Trinity?), or an early variation on the modern Cyrillic alphabet equivalent of the letter ‘U’ for Ukraine.
All of these explanations are awesome. Plus, this thing just looks cool, and historically, they’ve done cool things with it- I mean, look at this:
This is the greater Coat of Arms of the Ukrainian People’s Republic that popped up on the map between 1918-1922 and it’s just gorgeous. Heraldry is not my primary thing and in my experience, Coats of Arms can either be loaded with symbolism to the point of ridiculousness or require a history degree to interpret. Some of the former Soviet republics however have got it going on, design-wise. (Kyrgyzstan’s National Emblem is just… mmmmm… *Chef’s kiss.*)
So yeah, the flag of Ukraine might be pretty basic from a design point of view, but their Coat of Arms more than makes up for it.
(The situation in Ukraine being what it is, it would be remiss of me to write about that nation without bringing something to the table- so if you’re for ways to help or have a buck or two you want to send their way, CNBC has what looks like a pretty decent list of charities to potentially support. To be honest, I don’t know what the prospects for peace currently are, so all I can do is wish for a speedy resolution to the fighting, just and lasting peace, and freedom for Ukraine. They’ve more than earned it.)