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Armenia: Alishan's flag proposals (late XIXth century)

Alishan's proposals, c. 1885 - Images by António Martins, 29 March 2008
Left, as reported by the Armenian Heritage Organisation
Right, as reported by Crampton

Alishan's proposals

See also:

Armenia

Alishan's proposals

The Armenian Heritage Organisation presents Armenian nationalist flags from the XIXth century as follows:

The question of the Armenian flag came up in 1885, when the Armenian Students Association of Paris, desirous of joining the funeral of Victor Hugo with a national flag, appealed to Father Alishan for the true colors of the flag.
Father Alishan, without any historical proof, composed the "Armenian Flag" which later was adopted as the official flag of the Hunchak party. The flag was based solely on data from the Armenian Church calendar according to which the first Sunday of Easter is called "Red" Sunday, the second, "Green" Sunday, and selecting an arbitrary color of his own, the white completed the color combination.
Thereafter, Father Alishan created a second classification of colors: yellow, red and green or blue, red, and green, taking it from the colors of the rainbow based on the premise that God gave the Armenian flag on the very day when the colors of the rainbow bathed the Ark of Noah on Mount Ararat.
The yellow, red, and green flag was adopted by the Armenians and used during the First World War.

Jakub Grombír, 19 March 2008

The nationalist Armenian flag designed by Father Ghevont Alishan was vertically divided red-green-blue. It was inspired by the French national flag. Crampton [cra90] shows a picture of such a miniature flag. The word ARMENIA written in white on the flag from lower hoist to upper fly does not seem to be part of the flag.
I have also seen those colours on a decorative licence plate: an unidentified badge on white, with vertical stripes on each side: blue-red-green and green-red-blue.

Luc Baronian, 5 June 1997