Flags of the Soviet Republics

The Flags of the Soviet Socialist Republics were all defaced versions of the flag of the Soviet Union, which featured a golden hammer and sickle, (the only exception being the Georgian SSR, which used a red hammer and sickle), and a gold-bordered red star on a red field. When Byelorussia and the Ukraine were the founding members of the United Nations in 1945, all of their flags were red with only small markings in upper left corners and needed distinct flags for each other. As a result, the UN demanded changes to the flags in 1949. The authorities in the Ukraine and Byelorussia adopted the flags on July 5, 1950, and December 25, 1951, respectively. All other republics adopted the flags between 1952 and 1953. The last republic, the Russian SFSR, adopted the flag on January 9, 1954.

Their final versions prior to re-adoption of the non-Soviet national flags were as follows:

Flags of other republics

Other Union Republics and autonomous republics existed within the Soviet Union, mostly using flags on a similar pattern, or the flag of their "parent" Union Republic, further defaced. Today, the only former Soviet Union territories that use modified versions of their original Soviet flag are the republic of Transnistria (a state of limited recognition, formerly part of the Moldavian SSR), Belarus (since 1995), Kyrgyzstan (since 1992, maintains the red background with the blue and white stripes removed) and Tajikstan (since 1992, using the same colours with different design.)

The official flags of the ASSRs were seldom used, and were generally the flag of the republic to which the ASSR belonged, defaced with the ASSR name in its own language(s) and the official language of the SSR; flags matching this pattern are not displayed in the gallery below:

  1. ^ Despite its name, the SSR of Abkhazia was never a Union Republic of the Soviet Union but had a special status as a contractual republic of the Georgian SSR, more similar to the administrative republics of the Soviet Union; see Socialist Soviet Republic of Abkhazia: Status.
  2. ^ Current flag. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Belarus returned to using the white-red-white flag of the Belarusian People's Republic, which is sometimes regarded as a German puppet state. In 1995, the current flag of Belarus was approved by referenced, created by modifying the 1951 flag of the Byelorussian SSR to remove the Communist hammer and sickle and the red star and to reverse the colours of the ornament pattern.
  3. ^ The Bukharan People's Soviet Republic was a short-lived Soviet state that governed the former Emirate of Bukhara during the years immediately following the Russian Revolution. In 1924, its name was changed to the Bukharan SSR. After the redrawing of borders by nationality in Soviet Central Asia, its territory was assigned mostly to the Uzbek SSR and some to the Turkmen SSR.
  4. ^ The Karelo-Finnish SSR was a short-lived Union Republic formed in 1940 from the Karelian ASSR with territory ceded from Finland in the Winter War. In 1956, it was demoted back to an ASSR within the RSFSR.
  5. ^ The Khorezm People's Soviet Republic was created as the successor to the Khanate of Khiva in 1920, when the khan abdicated in response to popular pressure. In 1923, it was transformed into the Khorezm SSR. A year later, it was divided between the Uzbek and Turkmen SSRs and the Karakalpak AO during the national delimitation in Soviet Central Asia.
  6. ^ Current flag. The flag of Kyrgyzstan was adopted on 3 March 1992 by the Supreme Council of Kyrgyzstan replacing the flag of Soviet Kirghizia. It consists of a red field with a yellow sun in the center having 40 uniformly spaced rays. This flag retains the red background with the blue and white stripe removed and the hammer and sickle symbols were replaced with the sun which its 40 rays represent the 40 Kyrgyz tribes unified against the Mongols by the epic hero Manas.
  7. ^ After the Russian Revolution, the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus was established; once Soviet rule was established during the Russian Civil War, the republic was converted to an ASSR of the RSFSR. Over the course of its three-year existence, the Mountain ASSR was partitioned into various autonomous okrugs and oblasts.
  8. ^ The Moldavian AO, within the Ukrainian SSR, was upgraded to become the Moldavian ASSR, encompassing modern Transnistria (generally recognised as being within Moldova) and a number of territories that are now part of Ukraine, with the intention of winning over Bessarabians and the first step towards a revolution in Romania. In 1940, as a result of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina were ceded to and occupied by the Soviet Union during World War II; the ASSR and the newly-won territories were upgraded to a Union Republic as the Moldavian SSR.
  9. ^ The Tajik ASSR was an autonomous republic within the Uzbek SSR, created in 1924 during the redrawing of borders by nationality in Soviet Central Asia. Five years later it was promoted to a full Union Republic as the Tajik SSR.
  10. ^ Current flag. The flag of Tajikistan was adopted in November 1992, replacing the flag of the Soviet Tajikistan of 1953. It is a horizontal tricolour of red, white and green with a width ratio of 2:3:2, charged with a crown surmounted by an arc of seven stars at the centre replacing the symbols of Communist hammer and sickle and the red star. Although nearly similar, the design is slightly larger in which the tricolour retains the choice of colours in the Soviet flag. Tajikistan was one of the last Soviet republics to receive the new flag.
  11. ^ In 1922, the Armenian, Azerbaijan and Georgian SSRs were merged to form the Transcaucasian SFSR. In 1936, they were repartitioned back into the original three Union Republics.
  12. ^ Current flag. The flag of Transnistria, a state of limited recognition, is near-identical to the flag of the former Moldavian SSR. When Moldova became independent, some places in Transnistria refused to fly the new Moldovan flag and continued to fly the flags of the Soviet Union and of the Moldavian SSR. The SSR flag was officially reintroduced as the flag of Transnistria in 2000. Despite the flag and coat of arms, Transnistria is not a communist state.
  13. ^ The Turkestan ASSR (initially, the Turkestan Socialist Federative Republic) was an autonomous republic of the RSFSR located in Soviet Central Asia. Upon dissolution, the Turkestan ASSR was split into the Turkmen SSR, the Uzbek SSR, the Tajik ASSR, the Kara-Kirghiz AO and the Karakalpak AO.

See also

Notes

    External links

    Wikimedia Commons has media related to Flags of the Soviet Republics.
    This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the Wednesday, May 04, 2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.