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Philippeatbay -> RE: Historical Flags and Symbols mod version 1.0 (11/25/2015 1:48:53 PM)
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ORIGINAL: Crossroads
quote:
ORIGINAL: Philippe at bay
Historical Flags and Symbols mod version 1.0
[SNIP]
Finland:
The mod uses the Finnish warflag from WW II. The Finnish warflag is unusual in that it uses a medieval swallowtail design with the national coat of arms mounted on the intersection of the two arms of the cross.
The national icon for Finland is the national coat of arms (gold lion rampant on a red shield).
The alternative would have been to use the airforce symbol. The Finnish airforce began using that symbol when the country was becoming independant during the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. A Swedish nobleman whose ancestor had gone crusading in the Baltic donated a personal airplane to Finland, the first airplane in what was to become the Finnish Air Force. To show their recognition Finland adopted part of the nobleman's coat of arms as their aircraft symbol. In the Middle Ages, if you had gone crusading in the Holy Land, you often added a Jerusalem Cross to your coat of arms. But if you hadn't gone all the way to the Middle East and had only crusaded with the Teutonic knights in Prussia or the Baltic, you removed half of the crossbars from the Jerusalem cross before you mounted it on your coat of arms. So that is why the Finnish Airforce was using a symbol that we now think of as a swastika long before the German Nazi Party came into existence. The Finnish Air Force swastika isn't really a swastika, it just looks like one. I didn't want to use the Finnish Air Force symbol as the national ID symbol because I always prefer to use national coats of arms instead, and on top of that I find it very confusing to see a swastika on Finnish units, even though I know where it really comes from.
Hello Philippe, thank you for your attention to detail, it is mods like these with attention to histroic detail that really make the games shine!
As a Finn I can only conclude what you wrote is spot on. The Finnish Warflag continues to be the same as what you depicted here, as does the national coat of arms.
As for the light blue Finnish Air Force swastika of 1918-1945, it is as you wrote. However it was practically never used outside Air force, albeit it appeared shortly in some tanks as a national symbol before the armored vehicles were standardized to use what is known as the Liberty Cross, a black short-armed swastika designed in 1919. Liberty Cross continues to be used to this day in some areas, for instance in President's flag.
So as for the various swastika-like symbols, they've been used in the folklore for ages, and had nothing to do with Nazi symbols. For obvious reasons, they are shunned today, and for a good reason too.
Then, should you look for another symbol besides the warflag, I'd probably recommend the use of the white-blue-white roundel that has been used in Finnish Army hats and caps from early on, although by conscripts and reservists only as the professional officers wear a red-golden lion roundel instead. However, it is the white-blue-white roundel that is in use in modern Airforce and AFV fleet as well, so it is instantly recognizable and would serve well as a generic symbol, dating back to time periods covered here.
But as far as the flags go, again what you used here is spot on. Thank you! [:)]
Most welcome.
I had considered using the circular blue roundel for the national symbol, and even made one at one point, but couldn't find any documentation that it was used during the '40's. Which strikes me as odd, because I would have thought it would date back to the Russian Civil War period. I suspect not being able to find documentation has more to do with a lacuna in my sources than anything else. I guess I should spend some more time squinting at photographs from the Winter and Continuation Wars and try to decipher what they had on their forage caps.
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