Austria has a long and difficult history of the struggle for independence, 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 developed. The flag and coat of arms of this country are united by one color scheme 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?
History tour
To understand what symbolism the Austrians use and why, it’s worthwhile to understand some historical facts. The German name of Austria in translation means "eastern state."
He formed it, having conquered this territory from Bavaria, the emperor Otton the First. This happened in 955, and two centuries later, in 1156, the land was completely freed from Bavarian power and transformed into a duchy. By 1453, local rulers officially became Archduke. The Austrian throne was occupied by representatives of the Habsburgs, who later turned out to be their permanent owners until the very bourgeois revolution in the twentieth century. Therefore, the family emblems and flags of those in power served as national symbols, and there were practically no directly national symbols, such as that of the revolutionary French.
The appearance of state symbols
The official flag and coat of arms of Austria first appeared in wide use in 1918, when a 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 a new capacity 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 top and bottom were bright red, and the center was white. In the middle was depicted the state emblem in the form of a black crowned eagle with a flag-colored shield on its chest and with a sickle and hammer in its paws. The national flag differs from the state flag in the absence of such an image.
Type of coat of arms after the Second World War
After the victory over the Nazi invaders, changes were made to the state emblem of Austria. To remind of release, the image of the broken chains on paws was added. Thus, such a picture does not apply to communism, which some people think about when they see a sickle and a hammer in the claws of an eagle. The coat of arms of Austria, photographs of which demonstrate its modern appearance, began to be used from May 1, 1945. It was finally approved a little later - on March 28, 1984. According to the law, the flag was adopted as a red-white-red cloth with a length one and a half times the width, and the coat of arms of Austria retained the image of a black eagle with a gold sickle, a hammer and a silver torn chain on its paws.
The meaning 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 goes back to the distant Middle Ages. Austria, whose flag and coat of arms were officially absent due to the use of the Habsburg family symbols, used the red-white-red combination already in 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. Silver-scarlet-scarlet banners are associated with the fact that the Duke Leopold the Fifth fought with the Saracens at Accra so cruelly that his whole cloak was saturated with enemy blood. Only a narrow white stripe remained. The duke’s clothes became the prototype of the image, which now shows the coat of arms of Austria.
What does the eagle mean? He is also associated with the Babenberg dynasty. Henry the Second used the eagle for printing, and at Leopold the Fifth, the knights went on crusades under the banner with the indicated image. It is interesting that the motif with such a bird was used at the Habsburgs, in contrast to the flag. But then the coat of arms was executed in black and yellow colors, which were attributed to this dynasty. The Habsburg family coat of arms depicted a red lion on a golden shield, but a black double-headed eagle was also used in those days.