Czech flag to celebrate 100 years of existence next month

Usti nad Labem, North Bohemia, Feb 17 (CTK) – The Czech flag will celebrate 100 years on March 30, vexillologist Ales Brozek, from Usti na Labem, has told CTK.

The red-white-blue flag was created as the state symbol of the Czechoslovak Republic, established in 1918. After its split in 1993, the Czech Republic kept the original flag, while Slovakia chose another one.

Now the Slovak Interior Ministry’s Archive Administration plans an exhibition on the former Czechoslovak and now Czech flag, though Slovakia gave it up when the federation collapsed.

There were other designs drafted for the Czechoslovak flag, for instance, five stars standing for Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, Slovakia and Carpathian Ruthenia (now part of Ukraine), which was part of the interwar Czechoslovakia, Brozek said.

“Experts in the history of flags and symbolism attending vexillology congresses list our flag among the most successful ones,” Brozek said.

According to experts, the Czech flag is unique, cannot be mixed up with another one, and besides, its colours are matching, he added.

However, the three colours do not symbolise bloodsheds, purity and skies as people often wrongly think. “Those are Slavic colours, Russians and Slovenians have these colours, too,” Brozek said, adding that their symbolism was created later.

White and red are the colours of the Bohemian Kingdom, while blue was added as a Slavic colour and the colour of Slovakia, Brozek noted.

The flag was designed by a group of authors Jaroslav Kursa, Antonin Valsik and Frantisek Kysela, Brozek said.

He recalled that the first Czechoslovak President Tomas Garrigue Masaryk (1918-35) had criticised the blue wedge on the flag and he preferred stars.

Brozek has studied the circumstances of the Czech flag creation for 55 years, since his childhood.