What Was the Russian Empire’s Flag?
The Russian tricolor — white, blue, and red horizontal stripes — was the imperial merchant flag of the Russian Empire from 1705 and the de facto national flag from the early nineteenth century. It was suppressed by the Soviet government in 1918 and was not officially readopted as the state flag of Russia until 22 August 1991, three days before the formal dissolution of the Soviet Union. The tricolor was the third flag of the modern Russian state: it had been preceded, in the 1690s, by the tsar’s personal banner (a yellow flag with the double-headed eagle) and by the war flag of the poteshnye regiments (the toy army of Peter the Great, which carried a white-blue-red banner of the Dutch model) (see Obolensky, Russian Heraldry and the Flag, 2004).
The 1693-1705 origin
The Russian tricolor was created in 1693, when Peter the Great, then still a young tsar, was building a fleet on the White Sea at Arkhangelsk. Peter had travelled to Arkhangelsk in the summer of 1693 and had ordered a 12-gun yacht, the Svyatoy Pyotr, built in Dutch shipyards. The yacht arrived in 1694 with a Dutch flag, and the Russian flag that accompanied it was, in some sources, an early version of the tricolor. The first documented Russian use of the white-blue-red flag was in 1694. Peter issued the 1705 decree on 20 January 1705 (31 January new style) requiring the merchant marine to fly the tricolor; the 1693 yacht is the most widely cited origin of the symbol (Massie, Peter the Great, 1980).
The 1705 decree
The 1705 decree ordered all merchant ships, both in the Baltic and in the White Sea, to fly “flags of our manufacture, of three colours — white, blue, and red — in the order indicated.” The flags were made in the new Admiralty shipyard at Voron’ya Gora, near Arkhangelsk, under the direction of the Dutch master Jan van Sweering. The tricolor was, accordingly, the working flag of the Russian merchant marine throughout the imperial period. It was also the working flag of the Russian state in places where the imperial standard was not appropriate — for example, in the diplomatic presentations of the Russian ambassador in London, where the tricolor was the de facto Russian state flag from the early 18th century onwards (Massie, 1980).
The imperial standard
The imperial standard, a yellow flag with the double-headed eagle, was the personal flag of the tsar and the state flag of the Russian government. The standard was flown on the imperial palaces, on the state buildings, and on the imperial yachts. The tricolor and the imperial standard were used together: the tricolor was the working national flag, the imperial standard was the personal flag of the tsar. The tricolor’s use as the state flag of the Russian government, in the absence of the imperial standard, became more common through the nineteenth century, and by the early twentieth century the tricolor was effectively the de facto national flag (Obolensky, 2004).
The 1896 protocol and the symbolism
The 1896 coronation of Nicholas II was the first imperial coronation in which the tricolor was systematically used. Sergei Witte, the minister of finance, had been campaigning for a more visible use of the tricolor, and the 1896 protocol established a new visual identity for the Russian state in which the tricolor appeared at every major state ceremony. The 1896 protocol also set out the symbolism of the tricolor’s colours, in the Russian legal order, as “white-blue-red, signifying the unity of the Great, White, and Little Russians.” The symbolism was the official interpretation until 1917, and it remained a popular reading of the flag in Russian national mythology (Obolensky, 2004).
The revolution and the Soviet period
The tricolor was abolished by the Soviet government in 1918. The new state flag was the red flag of the RSFSR, the predecessor of the Soviet flag of 1924. The tricolor was, in turn, used by the various Russian émigré communities: the Association of Russian Emigrants, the Russian All-Military Union, and the post-1920 diaspora. The flag was, in particular, associated with the White movement of the Russian Civil War, although the Whites more often used the Russian tricolor with the imperial standard than the tricolor alone. The tricolor was the de facto symbol of the émigré Russian community until 1991.
The 1991 restoration
The tricolor was restored as the state flag of the Russian Federation on 22 August 1991, the day the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR adopted the tricolor as the new state flag of the Russian republic. The restoration was, in part, a gesture of separation from the Soviet Union: the Russian tricolor was the only flag raised over the Russian White House during the August 1991 coup. The tricolor was confirmed as the state flag in the Constitution of 1993 and in the Federal Constitutional Law of 25 December 2000. The 2000 law, in particular, set out the symbolism of the tricolor: “white — faith, purity, chastity; blue — constancy, loyalty, honour; red — courage, generosity, love” (Russian Federation, 2000).