26 June the Day of the National Flag of Romania

Law no. 96 of 20 May 1998 proclaimed 26 June as the Day of the National Flag of Romania. It was on this day in 1848 that Decree no. 1 of the Wallachian Provisional Government was issued, making the red-yellow-blue tricolour the national flag. On Flag Day, public authorities and other state institutions are obliged by law to organize cultural/educational programs and events, with a patriotic or scientific character, devoted to Romanian history, as well as specific military ceremonies, organized within units of the Ministry of National Defense and the Ministry of the Internal Affairs.

BRASOV CODLEA

History of the Romanian flag Red, yellow and blue were found on late 16th century royal grants of Michael the Brave, as well as shields and banners. During the Wallachian uprising of 1821, they were present on the canvas of the revolutionaries’ flag and its fringes; for the first time a meaning was attributed to them: “Liberty (sky-blue), Justice (field yellow), Fraternity (blood red)”. The tricolour was first adopted in Wallachia in 1834, when the reforming domnitor Alexandru II Ghica submitted naval and military colors designs for the approval of Sultan Mahmud II. The latter was a “flag with a red, blue and yellow face, also having stars and a bird’s head in the middle”. Soon, the order of colors was changed, with yellow appearing in the center.

In 1848, the flag adopted for Wallachia by the revolutionaries that year was a blue-yellow-red tricolour (with blue above, in line with the meaning “Liberty, Justice, Fraternity”). Already on 26 April, according to Gazeta de Transilvania Romanian students in Paris were hailing the new government with a blue, gold and red national flag, “as a symbol of union between Moldavians and Muntenians” emblazoned with the words “DPEПTATE ФPЪЦIE” (Dreptate, Frăţie or“Justice, Fraternity”)

From 1859 until 1866, the United Principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia had a red-yellow-blue Romanian tricolour, with horizontal stripes, as national flag.

During the communist era in Romania, the state flag had the emblem of the country in the middle of the yellow stripe, and for the first time the 2:3 proportion was regulated by law. Until 1989, no less than three coat of arms were changed.

Starting on 17 December 1989, during the revolution at Timişoara, the coat of arms of the Romanian Socialist Republic began to be ripped off the flags, being perceived as a symbol of Nicolae Ceauşescu’s dictatorial regime. These flags were called “the flag with the hole”.

From 27 December “the national flag is the traditional tricolour of Romania, with the colors laid out vertically, in the following order, starting from the flagpole: blue, yellow, red”.