A Slavic flag was first flown over Slovakia in 1848 during a labor dispute between Slovakian workers and the management leaders of the Austro-Hungarian Establishment. This flag was identical to the modern Slovakian flag without the national crest incorporated today. The same flag was used as a provincial flag representing the Slovakian half of the multi-cultural state of Czechoslovakia. However, when the Czech half and the Slovakian half of this country separated during the "Velvet Divorce" of 1993, the new Czech Republic retained the old emblems of the former state. Slovakia naturally turned to the emblems that it had previously used, adding the Slovakian Coat-of-Arms to its flag in order to differentiate it from the flag of Russia.
The Patriachal Cross (or Double Cross) has been used as a national symbol of Slovakia since about the 9th century, when the symbol was used by the missionary apostles to the Slavs, St. Cyril and his brother St. Methodius. The Patriarchal Cross represented the evangelistic authority given to Cyril and Methodius by the Patriarch of Constantinople in their work among the Slavic peoples of Eastern Europe. Since then, the Patriarchal Cross - which was originally a symbol of the Byzantine Emperor's temporal and spiritual authority - became a symbol of the temporal authority of the state given to it by God through the Church. Today, in Slovakia at least, the Double Cross is a purely civil symbol directly representing the authority of the state without reference to spiritual suzerainty. The Double Cross is seen planted above three mountain peaks. These peaks represent the three mountains of Tatra, Fatra, and Matra that collectively represented the mountainous northern provinces of Hungary that became Slovakia. The Slovakian coat-of-arms was orginally used by King Ladislaus, an ethnic Czech who was the king of Hungary in the 14th century and whose homeland was in present-day Slovakia. |
