Thyank you, dear David.
David Pritchard;62172 wrote:
Is the Order of the Eagle of Georgia and the Seamless Tunic of Our Lord Jesus Christ treated as a foreign order by the Georgian Government or as some other sort of order such as a Red Cross order?
I am afraid that its insignia were merely allowed to be worn, without further legal specification; at least I was told so about a year ago. It is not easy to establish, in a formal and official way, a commonly acceptable legal classification of awards and honourable communities of chivalry which are non-State but are somehow ‘equal’. After the Soviet legal devastation, it is even more difficult to prove the validity of this category of awards.
David Pritchard;62123 wrote:
How is this any different than the Kosovars using the Albanian flag for so many years as a symbol of ethnic identity? Just as with the Kosovars and Albanians, the North and South Ossetians are one people with a common symbol divided by an international border. What ever became of the often parroted (by the US State Department) concept of self determination? What has applied to one situation should apply to the other.
Exactely, David!
We’re just now witnessing the Kosovo and Metohija boomerang hitting the West in it’s face.
Nenad Jovanovich;62265 wrote:
Exactely, David!
We’re just now witnessing the Kosovo and Metohija boomerang hitting the West in it’s face.
Nenad,
I don’t get it. The tragedy of Georgia has nothing to do with Kosovo. Are you suggesting that the Russians invaded Georgia as some bizarre tit for tat for the NATO efforts to prevent ethnic cleansing in Kososvo? Sheesh. The poor people of Georgia should not be seen as some plaything of a major power like Russia or a symbolic revindication of anything that happened in the Balkans.
To bring this back to heraldry a couple of heraldically relevant pictures from this year’s Victory Day celebration in Moscow. I don’t understand the military’s attachment to red flags and hammer and sickle emblems associated with the system that killed tens of millions and enslaved many more. I know they are historical but for the most part the state has been able to shed the symbols of tyranny.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_C-7jylP6Cw0/SGhB1Os_WiI/AAAAAAAAAts/I2CpWrZDrdU/s400/Topol02.jpg
Why don’t they reintroduce Imperial military insignia like they did with the National Flag and coat of arms (with an alteration of colors). That era has a much ‘cleaner’ reputation, for lack of a better word, and produced many great leaders such as Peter I and Catherine the Great.
Cheers,
peter and catherine are historically debatable as to their benevolence. catherine, an enlightenment child, ordered the slaughter and quelled a rebellion of the poor in her own nation for questioning the authority of her crown. peter was even worse. i do like their crown though ^_^
MohamedHossam;62279 wrote:
Why don’t they reintroduce Imperial military insignia like they did with the National Flag and coat of arms (with an alteration of colors). That era has a much ‘cleaner’ reputation, for lack of a better word, and produced many great leaders such as Peter I and Catherine the Great.
Cheers,
Acctualy they are in the process of introducing new insignia many of which includes the dubbleheaded Eagle in the tradition of the Imperial Badges. New Colours that resemble the old Imperial Patterns are beeing introduced replacing the old Soviet Pattern Colours.
Marcus K;62289 wrote:
Acctualy they are in the process of introducing new insignia many of which includes the dubbleheaded Eagle in the tradition of the Imperial Badges. New Colours that resemble the old Imperial Patterns are beeing introduced replacing the old Soviet Pattern Colours.
All true, but a red flag (minus the Communist hammer and sickle) was specifically retained as one of the symbols of the Russian Army, for the very good reason that it was under a red flag that tens of millions of Russians fought, and millions died, in the war we know as World War II. In that context, it is a symbol of pride, sacrifice, and victory, even if in other contexts it is a symbol of tyranny.
Joseph McMillan;62301 wrote:
All true, but a red flag (minus the Communist hammer and sickle) was specifically retained as one of the symbols of the Russian Army, for the very good reason that it was under a red flag that tens of millions of Russians fought, and millions died, in the war we know as World War II. In that context, it is a symbol of pride, sacrifice, and victory, even if in other contexts it is a symbol of tyranny.
The Great Patriotic War started with the joint Soviet Nazi invasion of Poland and the mass murder and deportation of hundreds of thousands of Poles and continued with the subjugation of the Baltic States, the invasion of Finland, a brief period of joining the allies when the Nazis turned against their erstwhile Soviet partners and ended with the subjugation of much of Central Europe - a coercisve terror that did not end until the Soviet empire fell. I appreciate that millions of Riussians died in that war defending their country and I grieve that more than any other group it was the peoples of the Soviet ybion who were victims of the inhuman regime.
Millions of Germans died in that war - many of them defending their homeland. How would be feel if Germany retained the swastika emblem as a symbol of the sacrifices made by ordinary Germans? We would be appalled. Germans would be appalled as well because they have reconciled themselves that there was no glory merely exploitation in the Nazi regime - as there was no glory in Soviet imperialism 1939-1947 merely the exploitation of innocent people in a war between two criminal systems. World War II was fought in the west. A parallel war between criminal regimes was fought in the east. The allies and the communists took allied only on the basis of a common enemy but there were two different struggles. I fear the Russian military has not reconciled itself to its terrible past and has not chosen to make a clean break with a shameful tradition (goodness they apparently feel pride in the power of the Red Army) as the German Bundeswehr has. That is the basis of the attachment to the symbols of terror and oppression.
Ideology is expressed through heraldry. Russian military ideology is expressed through the retention of the Red flag - including the one with hammer and sickle (the second picture which doesn’t want to link includes this one from the 2008 Victory Day).
I was watching the Solzhenitsyn funeral and noted that the Russian military honour guard wore Red armbands edged in black just as in the good old communist days. Hmmm.
Dear George, Mohammed, Marcus and Joseph,
The replacement of the Communist army symbolism is, indeed, pretty slow in Russia. Yeltsin, this tragic great man, did very much to eliminate the Soviet-smelling emblems and insignia but he was not omnipotent (he did not wish to be omnipotent, his sincere aim being the democratic society). Meanwhile the faults of his social politics made his communist opponents stronger, and secured for them a considerable influence in the parliament. So it was partly because of democracy that the tyranny symbols persisted here and there.
The army, being deeply poisoned by the Communist notions and sympathies, also opposed the reforms. Thus there was no ‘counter-revolution’ in the military symbolism, but a controversial evolution instead.
The old Russian cockade was restored – but with distorted colours (this being a mere and silly mistake) – and with the five-pointed star (at least golden, not red) overall. Only the Presidential guard received the correct cockades – and such was the situation in these days that some of the guardsmen were arrested by the military patrols for wearing a ‘wrong’ cockade.—Now the emblematic de-Sovetisation is still a complicated and messy proceeding but it goes on indeed. The current official ideology is quite eclectic and so is the officious imagery; thanks God, the Soviet symbols, not being designed to coexist with others, usually do not fit well within any wider context.
Because of many factors, partly obvious (‘who won?’) and partly mentioned above, the Soviet legacy was not condemned in Russia as effectively as was the Nazi legacy in Germany. At least a considerable part of the Soviet legacy is quite effectively dying out.
Dear George,
If you permit – this simplifying comment hardly deserved your quill.
Why the ethnic aggression must be prevented in Kosovo, but not in the S.Ossetia? Why to ignore the strikingly Soviet way in which the Georgian regime is mistreating some of its ethnic groups? Why to leave these groups without international support, doomed to ask the selfish and irrational Muscovian regime for help? I shall not continue to avoid spoiling the thread – the rest will go as a private message.
Now as to the Victory day celebration; let us look on the only visible photo. There is nothing specifically Soviet on it. The small red flags are signal bayonet flags – this is an old practice, much older than the Soviet regime and its disgusting symbols. The background emblem with hammer and sickle is a badge of the Soviet “order of the Patriotic War”, which was widely awarded to the merited and became in the popular view – understandably if not naturally – one of the main symbols of the wartime mass heroism and the victory over Nazism. For me and for some, this badge is also a symbol of the victory being stolen from the people by the Stalinist regime, and I deplore its use anyhow – but at least it is not as if the hammer and sickle element is displayed separately.
BTW - you know, dear George, the past is the past and the present is partly the past, too. When the late NN. was proudly wearing a miniature of his Iron Cross during the ’96 Congress in Ottawa, I was talking to him as to a prominent Canadian heraldist and not an enemy (although I preferred not to ask him where and how did he earned the cross). This talk would not be possible if a fylfot would be worn alone (I presume NN. would not do that!).
Dear Alexander,
Catherine II the Great was a kind of a talented monster but in any case, Russia must be grateful to her for stopping the hideous rebellion led by Pugachev. As to heraldry, she granted more civic arms than any other Russian monarch – but she allowed the quality to be sacrificed to the quantity, and brutally ignored the earlier grants, making their status dubious, which wound is not completely healed yet. Peter I was at least much more human in all aspects. RIP :-|
George Lucki;62304 wrote:
The Great Patriotic War started with the joint Soviet Nazi invasion of Poland and the mass murder and deportation of hundreds of thousands of Poles and continued with the subjugation of the Baltic States [...]
Dear George, without any wish to advocate the Soviet, pro-Soviet or post-Soviet ideologies, I must remark that the joint aggression against Poland and the Baltic annexations were and are considered as events predating the war known here as Great Patriotic, not a part thereof. The term "the GPWar" does not cover all the WWII, and never did.
This does not makes the situation much more inspiring in general - but it partly explains why the GPWar is being recalled by the Russians en masse as a war for freedom, not against it, and why the bitter memories do not deprive the Victory celebration of its considerable popularity.
Meanwhile it is a good question: what is more irritating - a bad government using naughty symbols, or a bad government using really good symbols :( ?!
George Lucki;62278 wrote:
Nenad,
I don’t get it. The tragedy of Georgia has nothing to do with Kosovo. Are you suggesting that the Russians invaded Georgia as some bizarre tit for tat for the NATO efforts to prevent ethnic cleansing in Kososvo? Sheesh. The poor people of Georgia should not be seen as some plaything of a major power like Russia or a symbolic revindication of anything that happened in the Balkans.
To bring this back to heraldry a couple of heraldically relevant pictures from this year’s Victory Day celebration in Moscow. I don’t understand the military’s attachment to red flags and hammer and sickle emblems associated with the system that killed tens of millions and enslaved many more. I know they are historical but for the most part the state has been able to shed the symbols of tyranny.
http://bp1.blogger.com/_C-7jylP6Cw0/SGhB1Os_WiI/AAAAAAAAAts/I2CpWrZDrdU/s400/Topol02.jpg
It has everything to do with Kosovo and Metohija, as you know George.
The Pandora’s box is wide open and we only have to wait and see who is next.
Pridnestrovie, Crimea, Vojvodina, Rashka, Republika Srpska, Basque, Transilvania, Flanders, Tibet, Xinjiang, Scotland, Cyprus, Kurdistan - have your pick!
I agree that Georgia should not be made ‘‘some plaything of a major power’‘, but the same should have applied to Serbia, yet I didn’t hear you protesting when it was made ‘‘some plaything of a major super-power’‘.
This awful and illegal pecedent is what has made South Ossetia and Abhazia possible today, and if you don’t realize that, well I can’t help you.
BTW, not only that the NATO didn’t prevent ethnic cleansing in Kosovo and Metohija - but it has rather made it more effective (not to say - possible), as the Province has lost half of it’s non-Albanian population…
Another thing - the Soviet symbolism might cause some unpleasent emotions to you (I don’t care too much for it either, let me tell you), but for many it remains to be packed with a much deaper and non-ideological significance. For many it just symbolises the great Victory against the Nazi Germany.
For example, for us, Serbs, the Croatian ’’shahovnitza’’ will allways be a painful reminder of the terrible war crimes comitted in Nazi Croatia (1941-1945), and of almost a million of our compatriots brutally slaughtered in concentration camps like Jasenovatz. But, for Croats, it will always be a source of their national pride, and a most cherished national symbol…
It’s as simple as that!
Michael Y. Medvedev;62307 wrote:
Dear George, without any wish to advocate the Soviet, pro-Soviet or post-Soviet ideologies, I must remark that the joint aggression against Poland and the Baltic annexations were and are considered as events predating the war known here as Great Patriotic, not a part thereof. The term "the GPWar" does not cover all the WWII, and never did.
A fscinating historical disconnect.
Quote:
Meanwhile it is a good question: what is more irritating - a bad government using naughty symbols, or a bad government using really good symbols :( ?!
A bad government is irritating on its own. Much as I love symbols they are secondary and gain meaning good and bad from what they point toward. The fylfot is a good example of an ancient symbol that has gained unfortunate associations.
Nenad Jovanovich;62322 wrote:
It has everything to do with Kosovo and Metohija, as you know George.
...
This awful and illegal pecedent is what has made South Ossetia and Abhazia possible today, and if you don’t realize that, well I can’t help you.
I think you may find that this has older roots - see the creation of the autonomous republics in the early days of communism and the history of the kingdoms of these parts even earlier than that. It is not all about Serbia.
Quote:
Another thing - the Soviet symbolism might cause some unpleasent emotions to you (I don’t care too much for it either, let me tell you), but for many it remains to be packed with a much deaper and non-ideological significance. For many it just symbolises the great Victory against the Nazi Germany.
How does one separate the one from another? Can the swastika or teh red banner and hammer and sickle be a symbol of anything other than a symbol of tyranny. History is full of military victories won by tyrannts.
David Pritchard;62172 wrote:
An excellent article Michael! Somehow you managed to explain a very complicated historical and genealogical matter in a short article. This was no simple task to accomplish. Is the Order of the Eagle of Georgia and the Seamless Tunic of Our Lord Jesus Christ treated as a foreign order by the Georgian Government or as some other sort of order such as a Red Cross order?
Good article indeed.
It should make many of the puzzles people are having clearer.
But it seems to me that the matter of succession to the Throne of Georgia is really not disputable after all: http://www.czipm.org/skoro.html (for those who read Russian).
George Lucki;62326 wrote:
It is not all about Serbia.
And, yet, some things are…
George Lucki;62326 wrote:
How does one separate the one from another? Can the swastika or teh red banner and hammer and sickle be a symbol of anything other than a symbol of tyranny. History is full of military victories won by tyrannts.
So, would that apply to the Croatioan ‘‘shahovnitza’’ too?
