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Jaroslav Jares' flagproposals (Czechoslovakia)

Designer of the Czechoslovak/Czech flag

image by Željko Heimer, 30 Mar 2003
adopted 28 Oct 1918; design: Jaroslav Jares

Flag designs of the artist Jaroslav Jares (1919)
Jaroslav Jares (1919) proposals
five more proposals by J.Jares

See also:

Flag designs of the artist Jaroslav Jares (1919)

In "Flags in South Africa and the world" (Proceedings of the XVIIth International Congress of Vexillology), a paper by Ales Brozek, entitled "Several unpublished proposals for the design of the Czechoslovak national flag" (pp. 142-147) gives interesting details on the genesis of the Czechoslovak (now Czech) national flag.

Flag designs of the artist Jaroslav Jares (1919), found by A. Brozek in archives of the Jares family. There is no text with the original drawings so it is not known whether all the proposals were meant for the national flag or for other types of flags. All proposals use the pan-slavic colors (blue, white and red). The black triangle with a red chalice or sun may refer to the Hussite movement (XVth century) named after the reformist Jan Hus, whose flags were thought to contain these colours and devices.
I have numbered them <cz!jj1.gif> to <cz!jj12.gif> There is no <cz!jj4.gif> in the series because this proposal matches exactly the Czechoslovak national flag, Displaying this proposal in exhibitions was the source of an urban legend according to which Jares created the national flag by winning a flag contest in 1920. Jares can probably be credited with the idea of the triangle at the hoist (in one of his earlier proposal from November 1918) but could not have influenced the Arms Committee in 1919-1920 in the definitive choice of the national flag.
Ivan Sache, 14 Feb 2000

Jaroslav Jares (1919) proposals

image by Ivan Sache, 14 Feb 2000

The chalice was/is a major symbol of the Hussite reformers. One of their chief grievances against the Roman Catholic Church was its insistence that the laity could receive only bread in the Eucharist, the wine being reserved to the clergy. The Hussites or Utraquists (from the Latin word for "both") demanded that communion be given in both species - hence their use of the wine chalice as a symbol of the movement. The chalice is carved on the front of at least one of the main Hussite (or maybe formerly Hussite) churches in Prague. Using the chalice as a symbol of Czechoslovakia might have been anathema to Slovak Catholics of the 1920s, many of whom considered Bohemian and Moravian Catholics to be at least tainted by the heresy of the Hussites.
Joseph McMillan, 14 Feb 2000

Today, a burning chalice is used by the (Boston-based) Unitarian Universalist Association and by Unitarians and Universalists elsewhere too. It appears that the UUA uses the burning chalice in a flag.
Ole Andersen, 14 Feb 2000

image by Ivan Sache, 14 Feb 2000

five more proposals by J.Jares

image by Eugene Ipavec, 10 Aug 2009

I visited Czeck Army Museum and took several photos of old flags and proposed flags: here are five proposals by J.Jarese (1919). (Probably the same as Jaroslav Jares).
Nozomi Kariyasu, 24 Jul 2009

image by Eugene Ipavec, 10 Aug 2009

This one contains a charge I can't identify; something like an anchor (?).
Eugene Ipavec, 10 Aug 2009