Flag of the Republic of Karelia

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Flag of the Republic of Karelia,
aspect ratio 2: 3

The flag of the Republic of Karelia was introduced on February 16, 1993.

It was established in Article 12 of the Constitution of the Republic of Karelia .

It consists of 3 horizontal strips. The upper one is red, the middle one blue and the lower one green.

Historical flags

Since Karelia changed hands several times in the 20th century, territorial changes, the status within the Soviet Union changed and the Soviet flag regulations were also changed, various historical flags of Karelia were also produced.

1920–1922
1941–1944 (from a Finnish point of view)
Karelo-Finnish SSR
1940–1952
Karelo-Finnish SSR
1952–1956
Flag of the RSFSR until 1991
Karelian Autonomous Soviet Republic
1956–1991

Before the founding of the Soviet Union (approx. 1920–1922)

After the October Revolution of 1917 and Finland's independence , Karelia was divided between Finland and Soviet Russia . For a short time until the founding of the Soviet Union in 1922, a flag based on the Finnish flag was sometimes used.

During the Finnish occupation of the country as a result of the Continuation War (1941-1944) this flag was used again.

Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1922–1937)

With the establishment of the Soviet Union on December 30, 1922, the Karelian Autonomous Soviet Republic (Karelian ASSR) was formed within the Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic (RSFSR).

Initially, the Soviet Socialist Republics and Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics carried a red flag with a text in the upper left corner. The text consisted of the abbreviation of the country's name in Cyrillic and Russian and the language of the respective people in Latin .

Below that, the full country name appeared again in multiple languages. (Additional lines have been added for republics with several peoples or peoples using their own script.)

In the case of the Karelian ASSR, these were the 4 lines: (Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic)

  1. КАССР (КАССР stands for: Карельская Автономная Советская Социалистическая Республика ) ( Russian )
  2. KASNT (KASNT stands for: karjalan autonominen sosialistinen neuvostotasavalta ) ( Finnish )
  3. Карельская АССР
  4. Karjalan ASNT

Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1937-1940)

In 1937 the flags of the ASSR and the SSR were changed to the effect that the abbreviations were dropped and replaced by hammer and sickle .

The lines of text remained:

  1. Карельская АССР
  2. Karjalan ASNT

Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (1940–1952)

As a result of the Winter War , the Karelo-Finnish Socialist Soviet Republic was formed on March 31, 1940 from the Karelian ASSR and annexed former Finnish territories of Karelia , which was a direct member of the Soviet Union and no longer a part of the RSFSR .

Since there was no difference between flags of SSR and ASSR at this time, only the text part was changed accordingly:

  1. Карело-Финская ССР
  2. Karjalais-Suomalainen SNT

Karelo-Finnish Soviet Republic (1952–1956)

From 1948 the flags of the SSR were designed by Soviet artists according to historical and national specifications and the texts were replaced by colors and symbols. The ASSR carried the flag of the SSR with the text described above. The flag of the Karelo-Finnish SSR was a Soviet flag with a blue and a green horizontal stripe at the bottom and was introduced in 1952.

Karelian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic (1956–1991)

On July 16, 1956, the Karelo-Finnish SSR was transformed into the Karelian ASSR and incorporated into the RSFSR . According to the new Soviet flag regulations, the flag was formed from the flag of the parent SSR and the multilingual text from 1937:

  1. Карельская АССР
  2. Karjalan ASNT