The exhibition “Rijeka Flags Through History and Today” by Željko Heimer was opened in the Pećine Local Committee.
The incentive for the systematic research of the city flag came from the Association of the Free State of Rijeka, which for years supported the initiative for the city to receive a historical tricolor as the official city flag. It achieved only partial success. Rijeka’s historical flag was adopted only for ceremonial occasions, as a historical city flag used on ceremonial occasions, while the official flag remained a light blue version with today’s official city coat of arms. Thus, today’s ceremonial flag of the City is the flag approved by the then City Council in 1870.
In addition to the displayed flags, the exhibition in the premises of the Pećina Local Committee presents on panels parts from the author’s book »Flags of Rijeka«, in which the flags that have been displayed in Rijeka since 1508 and the Middle Ages are presented, through flags that show the city coat of arms on variants of the national tricolor of Austria, Hungary and Croatia, until the idea and lengthy process of approval of the first real city flag in the colors of the coat of arms granted in 1659.
Few cities in the world can boast that their city flag was at one time also the national flag. From 1920 to 1924, the Free State of Rijeka was an internationally recognized city-state, something like today’s Vatican or Monaco, therefore the Rijeka flag was carried equally with the state flags of big and powerful countries at the time, Heimer points out.
Text translated from Rijeka Danas, 13.4.2023. (dš) https://www.rijekadanas.com/na-pecinama-otvorena-izlozba-o-rijeckim-zastavama/
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Video clip “Kanal RI” 12.4.2023. https://kanal-ri.hr/rijecke-zastave-kroz-povijest-i-danas/ odnosno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vpIM8P7J17w