Coat of Arms and Flag
The coat of arms of the Duchy of Carniola dates back to the 13th century, when it most probably evolved as a combination of the coats of arms of the Bavarian Counts of Andechs in the Duchy of Merania (eagle) and the Rhenish House of Sponheim in Carinthia (red-white checkerboard). The eagle is also featured in the seal of King Ottokar II of Bohemia in his capacity as ruler of the Carniolan march in 1269. In 1463 Emperor Frederick III, having prevailed against the claims raised by his brother Albert VI of Austria, added the Imperial crown to the eagle and replaced the white in the shield and the checkered crescent with gold. In 1836 Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria restored the original white color to the shield and recognized the white-blue-red combination as the official Carniolan color scheme.
Under the Habsburg rule the white, blue and red from the Carniolan coat of arms (the shield, the eagle and the crescent) were confirmed as the official flag colors of the crownland in 1848. Since the Duchy of Carniola was the main Slovene-populated region of the Austrian Empire, the color scheme was subsequently accepted as the generic Slovene national tricolor by the inhabitants of other Slovene Lands.
As for the coat of arms, it was abandoned after 1918 with the passing of the Duchy of Carniola. The blue eagle of Carniola was, however, briefly resurrected from 1943 to 1945 as the symbol of the Slovenian auxiliary Axis forces, the Slovene Home Guard. It was also used in the Yugoslav House of Karađorđević coat-of-arms in the interwar period (and was replaced in the state coat-of-arms of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia by the three stars of the medieval Counts of Celje).
The insignia of the Duchy of Carniola have had an important and lasting impact on Slovene national symbols. Thus, the white-blue-red combination of the flag of the Duchy of Carniola is in use today as the official color scheme of the flag of the Republic of Slovenia. The Slovenian coat of arms is also a heraldic composite, incorporating the stars of the Counts of Celje, the Carniolan colors and the image of the Slovene holy mountain Triglav.
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“Our flag is red, white and blue, but our nation is a rainbow—red, yellow, brown, black and white—and we’re all precious in God’s sight.”
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