Corsica flag
The flag of Corsica was designed by the General of the Nation Pasquale di Paoli in 1755 (other sources say 1760). In 1762 the Mohrenkopf with headband was designated by Paoli and the Consulta, which he led, as the official coat of arms and symbol for the Corsican's struggle for freedom.
description
The flag was based on a traditional flag that was used before. The flag shows a Moor's head . The black man wears a white headband tied around his forehead. The background is white. In older coats of arms the headband was tied around the eyes. Paoli redesigned the crest and had the headband wrapped around his forehead. A necklace was also removed from the old coat of arms. This should symbolize the liberation of the Corsicans.
«Les Corses veulent y voir clair. La liberté doit marcher au flambeau de la philosophie. Ne dirait-on pas que nous craignons la lumière? »
“The Corsicans want to see clearly. Freedom must be illuminated by the light of philosophy. Won't people think we fear the light? "
The Corsican Republic, which existed between 1755 and 1769, used this flag. When the French took power by buying Corsica from the Republic of Genoa , the flag was banned.
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During this phase of French rule (1769–1789), the flag served as an expression of resistance among Corsican patriots. However, the blindfolded version was used again.
During the time of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom (1794–1796), the version with the blindfolded eyes was used alongside the British coat of arms. After the French regained power, the flag was not officially used until 1980.
origin
The Mohrenkopf is already used in the Armorial Gelre . Here he is attributed to the Crown of Aragon . Corsica was the scene of the struggle of the Christians against the Saracen Moors in the 9th and 10th centuries. A legendary figure of the Christian resistance was Ugo Colonna . Colonna is said to have defeated the Moorish King Nugalon and forcibly baptized the Muslims .
According to legend, this symbol goes back to a fight between an Arab ruler, a Moor, and a Corsican over his fiancée, who was kidnapped by the Moor. The Corsican was victorious in the battle, and he cut off the Moor's head, impaled it on a lance and stretched it high into the sky. The headband, on the other hand, goes back to another legend. After the victory of the Pisans and Genoese over the Moors, a Moorish prisoner was to be executed by being blindfolded with a white cloth. The Moor wanted to die with seeing eyes and therefore pushed the cloth up to his forehead.
When the German Baron Theodor von Neuhoff made himself the first and only king of Corsica on March 12, 1736 , he carried a portrait of himself on his triumphal procession through Corsica, on which a coat of arms was depicted below, which on the shield followed right-facing head of a Moor with blindfolded eyes and a chain around his neck.
Individual evidence
- ↑ Description on paradisu ( Memento of the original from November 4, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Coat of arms of Corsica, Paoli ( Memento of the original from March 5, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ Peter Adam Thrasher: Pasquale Paoli: An Enlightened Hero 1725-1807 . Archon Books, Hamden, CT 1970, ISBN 0-208-01031-9 , pp. 178 .
- ↑ Desmond Gregory: The Ungovernable Rock: A History of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom and Its Role in Britain's Mediterranean Strategy During the Revolutionary War, 1793-1797 . Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, London 1985, ISBN 0-8386-3225-4 , pp. 84 .
