Flag of the Kuban: photo, meaning of flowers

The history of the Kuban, the Kuban Cossacks today is controversial among historians and among the bearers of this unique culture. There is no unity in the interpretation of symbols and attributes, such as the flag of the Kuban. Tricolor, which became the official state symbol of the Krasnodar Territory, was created on the basis of the historical flag of the Kuban Cossack army, but there is no clear and unambiguous explanation for the symbolic meaning of its flowers.

Kuban Region

The region of the south of Russia, named for the largest river of the North Caucasus, includes territories belonging to several constituent entities of the Russian Federation: most of the Krasnodar Territory, the whole of the Republic of Adygea and a significant part of Karachaevo-Cherkessia, the western districts of the Stavropol Territory and a small part of the south of the Rostov Region.

The capital of the region is considered to be Krasnodar, the administrative center of the province of the same name. The coat of arms of the Krasnodar Territory has historical roots connected with the Kuban Cossacks, and the flag of the province, approved in 1995, is the unofficial flag of the Kuban. In its basis - the flag of the Kuban Cossacks with a cloth of three horizontal stripes, the middle of which is crimson - was twice as wide as the other two: the upper one - blue, and the bottom - green.

The meaning of colors and their location has never been documented. There are several options that are associated with the existence of several ethnic groups that are part of the Kuban Cossacks.

Black Sea Cossacks

The legendary Zaporozhye Sich is considered one of the sources of the Cossacks. Since the XVI century the military valor of the Cossacks have been used for their own purposes by the rulers of many countries of the south of Europe, including Russian tsars. It was not destined to completely subordinate Cossack freedom to themselves. Cossacks were considered a threat to the merchant caravans that were passing by their settlements, rich landowners throughout the region suffered from their raids. But the main thing that the Russian empress Catherine II could not forgive them for is support for peasant uprisings, especially participation in the Pugachev riot. As a result, she ordered to pacify the Zaporozhye Cossacks.

The process of liquidation of the Cossacks, which was headed by Grigory Potemkin, was soon replaced by the use of Cossack military formations in the Russian-Turkish war. For their valor, the Cossacks were given lands on the territories reclaimed from the Turks along the Black Sea coast, and their settlements were called the "Black Sea Cossack Host". In 1792 the Black Sea Cossacks were allocated to the eternal and hereditary possession of the land in the Kuban. The Cossacks, the Black Sea, the descendants of the Cossacks, made up the bulk of the Kuban Cossacks, and, according to one version, it is they who represent the crimson color that the Kuban flag contains in the central part.

Linear Cossacks

The history of the linear Cossack army begins with the formation of a united front from strong points located along the Terek River. This front had to confront the mountaineers of the Caucasus. The Caucasian line was made up of villages that were inhabited by people from the Terek, Volga and Little Russian Cossacks, as well as from one-man servicemen who served on the southern borders of the Kursk, Orel and Voronezh provinces.

In the 1780s, when the formation of the Kuban Regiment began, it included lineians from the Caucasian troops, as well as part of the Don and Azov Cossacks. The Black Sea cordon line was formed along the right bank of the Kuban to the coast. The purpose of its creation was to protect against the raids of peoples who previously owned the lands of the Kuban region - Circassians, Adygeans, etc.

The Cossacks, according to one version, symbolized the blue color, which the flag of the Kuban contained in the upper part.

Pripyatnye aliens

From the second half of the XIX century in the Kuban began to settle state farmers from central Russia and retired soldiers enlisted in the Cossacks. Among the immigrants there were many cantonists - minors who are considered to be military by birth (children of soldiers, Jews, schismatics, rebels from Poland), as well as young orphans, vagabonds, gypsies, etc. They either settled in the existing stanitsas, or formed separate settlements.

According to the main version, the migrants-foreigners assigned to the Cossacks - a symbolic justification for the green color of the Kuban flag. On the other hand, it symbolizes the Muslim peoples that formed the original, "autochthonous" (local), indigenous population of the Kuban. They are mostly Adygs, Circassians and other highlanders.

Roots, trunk, branches

The most popular explanation of the symbols of the Kuban Cossack flag, including the location of the bands that make up the Kuban flag, the meaning of colors - finds an image explaining the interrelationships of its components in the form of a tree.

The state-forming, fundamental importance of the Black Sea Cossacks, or according to another version - of the entire Cossack population of the Kuban, is emphasized by the central location and twice the width of the crimson band. According to the terminology used in this explanation of the symbols of the Kuban Cossack flag, it is the "trunk" that forms the entire population of the Kuban.

"Roots" - the population of Muslim peoples who previously lived in the Kuban, they are represented by a green strip, located below. "Branches" are all the peoples who came here after those who lived there initially, settled in the Kuban after the formation of the Kuban Cossack army began. All this "tree", symbolizing the population of the region, can live, like a real plant, only in the complete interconnection of all its parts.

The Kuban People's Republic of 1918

After October 1917, a dramatic page began in the history of the Cossacks, including his Kuban part. It did not escape what constituted the essence of the main tragedy of the civil war - a fault that affected peoples, settlements and individual families. It is believed that the Cossacks in a large part of their hostile acceptance of the Soviet power, so in 1917 the Kuban Rada was established, at the beginning of 1918 proclaiming the independent Kuban People's Republic.

This state formation existed until the spring of 1920, becoming a victim of confrontation not only with the Red Army, but also with the Denikin Volunteer Army. But the main reason that the history of the Cossack republic in the Kuban was short-lived, there were disagreements in its leadership. With the unity of the hostile attitude towards Bolshevism, the leaders of the Kuban Cossacks were divided into supporters of different ways of existence of the PRC. Some suggested joining the Ukraine, others were counting on the help of foreign armies, while others suggested fighting for a great Russia to the victorious end as part of the White Guard troops.

At one time, the issue of the Kuban People's Republic joining the League of Nations was seriously considered. The republic also had heraldic attributes of the present state - the flag, the coat of arms of the Kuban. The blue-raspberry-green tricolor became from that time the unspoken symbol of the Kuban Cossacks. It became the basis of modern official symbols as well.

Flag of the Krasnodar Territory

Since the fall of 2004, the flag of the Krasnodar Territory was entered in the State Heraldic Register of the Russian Federation under the number 1503. Under the previous number, the coat of arms of the Krasnodar Territory was included there. It symbolizes one of the sections of the Caucasian line of military fortifications, created at the direction of the Russian emperors from Catherine to Alexander II, its right flank. In single-color (gold with orange contour) variant it occupies the central place on the flag of Kuban.

The flag of the Krasnodar Territory was approved in 1995. Three heterogeneous horizontal stripes - crimson broad in the middle, blue top, green from the bottom - migrated from the official symbol of the PRC during the Civil War to the flag of the Krasnodar Territory - the flag of the Kuban. Photo of the Legislative Assembly of the Krasnodar Territory, which was first raised June 1, 1995, the newly approved flag became a symbol of the continuity of the traditions of the Kuban Cossacks. In 2004, the appearance of the coat of arms of the Kuban was slightly changed (the ribbon of the Order of Lenin and the prince's crown were added), which was reflected in the flag of the region.

Revival of the Kuban symbols

The first attempts to revive the Cossacks were made even before the official fall of the USSR. In October 1990, the Kuban Cossack Rada was established in Krasnodar, followed by a congress that established the Kuban Cossack Host Society, and its symbols, including the blue-raspberry-green tricolor, the flag of the Kuban. The photos of the participants of the Constituent All-Kuban Cossack Congress became one of the earliest examples of official publication after a long break of the historical flag of the Kuban Cossack Army.

The qualitative composition of modern Cossacks is heterogeneous, although for most faithful heirs of traditions the symbols of the glory of ancestors are not just pictures. Flag of the Kuban - Cossack tricolor - the embodiment of the unity of the peoples inhabiting the region, glorious history and hope for a better future.