Banners, Standards and Flags in the East of Russia during the Civil War

Pygmy Wars Notes

The original of this page is at kolchakiya.ru/vexillology_main.htm.

Russian distinguishes quite clearly between different types of flag in ways that English does not:

✦ A znamya is used for flags of the unit a soldier would have his allegiance to, and particularly regiments. These were of deep emotional significance and it was considered shameful if one of these fell into enemy hands. I have generally used the word "banner" to translate it.

✦ A flag is just a marker for some group. In military contexts it was used for the markers for divisions and the location of an officer, with no deeper significance. It is also used for country flags. I have used "flag".

✦ A shtandart is now largely obsolete, but was used for cavalry banners, ceremonial flags, and sometimes markers for senior officers etc, but much closer to banner than flag. I have used "standard".

✦ A styag a historical word for the standard of an entire army. This only appears once.

✦ A znachok (literally "badge") is used for very minor flags, such as squadron pennons and battalion and company markers. I have used "unit markers", "unit flags" or "pennons".

One way of looking at it is that a flag something you see; a znamya is what you believe in; a shtandart is for who you serve; and a znachok is for when you are trying to physically locate someone.

Cavalry units often had two flags, the regimental banner that stayed at HQ, and a flag that located the commander.

This section of kolchakiya is mostly for znamëni and shtandarty, with only one page on znachki. Note that because of this distinction, the "Symbols" section includes the government flagi and Kolchak's personal flags.

While I have tried to mostly keep true to the original text, I have sometimes used "flag" for banner in the body text, because otherwise search engines will not find any searches for "flag".