Symbols
The coat of arms depicts a black bear with silver claws and collar on a red shield topped with a crown.
The flag of Samogitia depicts the coat of arms on a white background. It is a non-rectangular flag ending in two triangles, rather than the rectangular flag typically used. The only official non-rectangular flags are those of Nepal and of Ohio, USA.
Both symbols are assumed to have been in use for centuries, especially the coat of arms (differing claims assert it was first used in the 14th or 16th centuries). The symbols were used by the Eldership of Samogitia. These are the oldest symbols of the Lithuanian ethnographic regions.
Because Samogitia does not correspond to any current administrative division of Lithuania, these symbols are not officially used. However, they might come back into use if Lithuania undergoes administrative reform in the future.
On 21 July 1994 these symbols were recognized by the government of the Lithuanian Republic.
Read more about this topic: Samogitia
Famous quotes containing the word symbols:
“As usual I finish the day before the sea, sumptuous this evening beneath the moon, which writes Arab symbols with phosphorescent streaks on the slow swells. There is no end to the sky and the waters. How well they accompany sadness!”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)
“Luckless is the country in which the symbols of procreation are the objects of shame, while the agents of destruction are honored! And yet you call that member your pudendum, or shameful part, as if there were anything more glorious than creating life, or anything more atrocious than taking it away.”
—Savinien Cyrano De Bergerac (1619–1655)
“The use of symbols has a certain power of emancipation and exhilaration for all men. We seem to be touched by a wand, which makes us dance and run about happily, like children. We are like persons who come out of a cave or cellar into the open air. This is the effect on us of tropes, fables, oracles, and all poetic forms. Poets are thus liberating gods.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)