Austria has a long and difficult history of fighting forindependence, including the rule of a foreign dynasty and the late emergence of revolutionary movements. State symbolism has a deep meaning, it manages to convey a lot of information about the past, on the basis of the events of which Austria has developed. The flag and emblem of this country are united by one color solution and demonstrate a combination of two horizontal red stripes and one white between them. What does it mean and what symbols are hidden in these two state signs?
Excursion to the history
To understand what symbolism the Austrians use and why, it is worthwhile to deal with some historical facts. The German name for Austria in translation means "Eastern State".
Образовал его, отвоевав эту территорию у Баварии, Emperor Otto the First. It happened in 955, and two centuries later, in 1156, the lands were freed from Bavarian power and finally transformed into duchy. By 1453, the local rulers officially became archdukes. The Austrian throne was occupied by representatives of the Habsburgs, who later became its permanent owners until the bourgeois revolution in the twentieth century. Therefore, family emblems and flags of those who were in power served as national symbols, and there was practically no national symbolism, such as, for example, the revolutionary French.
The appearance of state symbols
Officially, the flag and coat of arms of Austria first appeared.in wide use in 1918, when the bourgeois-democratic revolution took place in the country and a republic was proclaimed. The Habsburg dynasty fell, taking with them its black and gold symbolism. The history of the state in the new quality began on November 12, 1918, and its flag was legally approved a year later, in October 1919. The rectangular panel had three horizontal stripes of equal width. The upper and lower were bright red, and the central - white. In the middle, the state emblem was depicted as a black crowned eagle with a flag-colored shield on the chest and with a sickle and a hammer in its paws. The national flag is different from the state by the absence of such an image.
Type of coat of arms after World War II
After the victory over the fascist invaders inThe national emblem of Austria was amended. To remind you of the release, an image of broken chains was added. Thus, this picture does not relate to communism, which some people think about at the sight of a sickle and hammer in the paws of an eagle. The coat of arms of Austria, photos of which demonstrate its modern appearance, was used from the first of May 1945. It was finally approved a little later - on the twenty-eighth of March 1984. According to the law, the flag was adopted as a red-white-red flag with a length that is one and a half times wider, and the coat of arms of Austria retained the image of a black eagle with a golden sickle, a hammer and a silver chain torn at its feet.
The value of the colors used
It seems that the coat of arms of Austria is not so ancient.Despite this, his story begins much earlier than the twentieth century. It has its roots in the distant Middle Ages. Austria, the flag and coat of arms of which were officially absent due to the use of the family symbolism of the Hapsburgs, used a red-white-red combination as early as the thirteenth century. Such a shield, which is still the central fragment of the coat of arms, was then found on the seals of the Babenberg dynasty. The scarlet-silver-scarlet banners are connected with the fact that Duke Leopold the Fifth fought the Saracens under Accra so cruelly that his entire cloak was saturated with enemy blood. There is only a narrow white stripe. The clothes of the duke and became the prototype of the image, which even now shows the coat of arms of Austria.
What does an eagle mean?He is also associated with the Babenberg dynasty. Henry II used the eagle on the seal, and at Leopold the Fifth, the knights went on crusades under the banner with the specified image. Interestingly, the motive with such a bird was used in the Habsburgs, in contrast to the flag. But then the coat of arms was made in black and yellow colors, which belonged to this dynasty. The family coat of arms of the Habsburgs displayed a red lion on a golden shield, but the black double-headed eagle was also used in those days.
