In social networks there is an opinion that the Russian state flag was invented by Peter I, changing the order of the stripes on the Dutch flag. We decided to check how true this is.
According to the most common version of the flag borrowing, Peter I saw the flag of the Netherlands and decided to make it Russian when he studied in Amsterdam for shipbuilding. About this, for example, Writes The community "Russia is my history / Stavropol." This version is popular in the Ukrainian media. On the air TV channel "Kyiv" Journalist Valery Kalnysh said that Peter I stole the flag among the Dutch and this symbol has nothing to do with Russia. Then this was repeated the publication "Reviewer"And the site"Anticorus". About the "theft" of the flag among the Dutch can be found in Russian social networks - ""VKontakte " And Livejournal.
Before Russia appeared in Russia, there was no vital necessity in the flag. The first mention dates back to 1667, when, by order of Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, they began to build a ship "Eagle". The captain of the future ship, Dutchman David Butler, listing the necessary materials, did not forget about symbolism: “42 arshin Kindyaku On a long narrow banner: and with flowers, all Kindyaki, as the sovereign will indicate: only on ships happens, which is the state of the state, that state happens and the banner. ” Kindyaki is a fabric, and the order was preliminary: to choose the colors to Alexei Mikhailovich himself. From further documents it becomes clear that the choice was made: in April, “three hundred and ten arshins Kindyakov and one hundred and fifty arshins were requested from the Siberian order TAFT devilish [red], white and lazores [blue] to shipbuilding on banners and Yalovchiki [pennants]. " Thus, in 1667, the color scheme of the future flag was determined.
How exactly the colors were distributed on the flag is not known. The most plausible version was nominated in 1911 by Captain-Lieutenant Peter Belawen, who was for the Ministry of Justice A detailed certificate About the history of the Russian flag. The Belarusian believed that the first flag sewn for the “eagle” was a panel divided by a blue cross into four quarters (two quarters white, two red).
He brought two arguments: firstly, most of the Streletsky regimental banners looked like that; Secondly, in 1700 on engraving “The capture of Azov. 1696 "Dutch artist Adrian Schonebek, ship flags of the Russian fleet are depicted with crosses.
However, other options are also found in other engravings. For example, the book of the former sailing master of "Eagle" Yana Streis about his journey to Russia is illustrated pattern, on which three different stripes are clearly visible, and white is located in the middle, like on the Dutch flag.
In the first engraving (with crosses), the artist knew about the capture of Azov only from the stories, he himself was not present there. In the second case, Belawen suggests that the former sailing master simply gave a description of the first flag that came to him, that is, Dutch.
In any case, there are undeniable documents proving that the white-blue-red flag appeared even before Peter I, and even more so before his trip to Holland in 1697. However, there is no exact evidence that it was a flag of three lanes. In 1695, the Dutchman Karl Alyard wrote a “Book of Flags”, where Russian symbolism appeared for the first time along with long -known flags. The second edition of this book, which saw the light in Amsterdam in 1705, was translated into Russian in 1709. This book has Both options - And with a cross, and with three stripes:
This proves that the existence of the flag of pre -Petrine time was recorded in another source.
The flag of three lanes has definitely existed since 1693, that is, again before the trip of Peter I to Holland. He was raised above the yacht "Holy Peter" and until the beginning of the 20th century was stored in the Cathedral of Arkhangelsk. Now the flag located In the Central Naval Museum in St. Petersburg-the same captain-Lieutenant Belawen brought it there.
The flag is a panel of white, blue and red horizontal stripes, on top of which a golden double -headed eagle is sewn.
Thus, the colors and even locations of the stripes were accepted even before the tsar’s trip to Holland. However, this does not answer the question whether the Dutch flag affected the emergence of Russian. The team of the Orel ship consisted mainly of the Dutch. The subject of this state was the captain of the "eagle", asking Alexei Mikhailovich to decide on the colors of the flag. The Dutch were also artists who captured the Russian flag. Undoubtedly, Peter I was also influenced by the Dutch masters of maritime. However, the question of borrowing the flags of each other for each other for the 18th century sounds a little absurd: for example, in England and Genoa, two influential naval powers, the flags were identical (and most likely, the British borrowed the dahlias from the Genoese), and the sea arose at the sea, because of this, because of this. In the XIX century, and then in the twentieth century, some European flags became variations on the theme of the French flag (for example, Italy, Romania, Ireland), others focused on the Russian tricolor (Bulgaria, Serbia, Montenegro), this was quite consciously and did not see anything shameful in this.
Photo on the cover: Yuri Kushevsky, 2009, Wikimedia Commons
Most of the untruth
Read on the topic:
- Is it true that the state symbolism of Ukraine is borrowed from other countries?
- Is it true that recently the Ukrainian military burned the Netherlands flag, confusing it with the Russian?
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