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League of Social-Democrats of Vojvodina (Political party, Serbia)

Liga socijaldemokrata Vojvodine - LSV

Flag and logo of LSV - Images by Tomislav Todorović, 14 February 2009

Flag of LSV
Flag of LSV, 2003
Blue-yellow-green flags used by LSV
- Use, proportions and shades of the flag
- Origin of the flag

See also:

Flag of LSV

The symbols of LSV are mentioned in the party statutes, Article 6, as follows (kindly translated from Serbian by Tomislav Todorović):

LSV has its sign, emblem and flag. Form and use of these symbols are arranged by a special rule book which is to be adopted by the Main Board of the LSV.

The design of the present-day party flag, which was introduced in 2008, is losely based on that of the logo. It has a large dark red field, charged with white letters LSV (same typeface as in the logo) in its center, and blue, yellow and green vertical stripes at the fly. The proportions of the flag are 1:2.

The LSV has adopted its logo in 2003. Its first appearance which I have recorded was on the party posters from October that year. The logo is in the shape of a square in dark red colour. Its bottom left part is charged with party name abbreviation LSV, inscribed in white. Its bottom right part is charged with three shapes, looking like short bars with semi-circular endings, in oblique position, their axes being parallel with those of the letters; the shapes are blue, yellow and green, respectively from left to right, and outlined in white. The logo is shown here as it appears on the flags, but as a stand-alone emblem it is often shown with a much darker shade of red and with the white outllines only around the three shapes and not between them. The latter feature is probably an error, because it is appearing less as the time passes, and must have been inspired by an earlier logo (1990-1992), which had three similar shapes (with more irregular forms, looking like three brush strokes) in contiguous positions, each of them charged with one of party name initials in black (the same typeface as nowadays), all on white background. Later on (1992-2003), the initials themselves served as the logo, each of them in one of party colours, sometimes with a white dove overall, sometimes without it. The design of the present-day logo is thus based on those of its predecessors.

Variant of the flag of LSV, 2006 - Image by Tomislav Todorović, 14 February 2009

A previous variant of the present-day flag was introduced in late 2006 (first recorded use in December), during the campaign for the parliamentary elections held on 21 January 2007. It differed from the present-day design in the proportions, which were 2:3, the red field having had a square form. The design of this variant of the flag was more obviously based on that of the logo. The flag was replaced with the present-day variant during 2008.

Unofficial variant of the flag of LSV - Image by Tomislav Todorović, 14 February 2009

An unofficial flag which is sometimes used has the complete logo as the charge. Its proportions are 1:1, the field is dark red, and the charges are four large squares which leave only narrow red fimbriations between and around them. The squares in the bottom hoist, top hoist and top fly are blue, yellow and green, respectively, and the one in the bottom fly is charged with the logo outlined in white. According to the photos from the party website which served as the source (no longer available online), the shades of red, blue and green are lighter and that of yellow is darker than on the other flags.

Tomislav Todorović, 14 February 2009

Flag of LSV, 2003

Flag of LSV, 2003 - Image by Tomislav Todorović, 6 April 2009

This is the first flag which the party had adopted as a flag of its own. It was adopted in 2003, together with the current logo, which appears as the charge in the hoist. Central and fly parts of the flag are charged with the party name inscribed in six official languages of the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina: Serb, Hungarian, Slovak, Romanian, Ruthenian and Croat (listed in the top-down order). Each line of text is underlined with a narrow line. The text and underlinings are black and the flag field is white. The flag was replaced with the succeeding design in 2007, after a period of several months during which both flags were used together.

Tomislav Todorović, 16 February 2009

Blue-yellow-green flags of LSV

Former flag of the League of Social-Democrats of Vojvodina
Left, early version (1996) - Image by Tomislav Todorović, 18 March 2009
Right, late version (2000) - Image by Ivan Sache & Tomislav Todorović, 28 January 2009

Use, proportions and shades of the flag

When this flag was introduced in 1996, the proportions 2:3 were used almost exclusively. Such flags I saw in late 1997, on a pre-election convention of the Vojvodina Coalition (whose member the LSV had been then) in Zrenjanin; these small flags were made of paper and distributed to the people who attended the convention. The flag design with the same proportions was also appearing on some shoulder patches sewn onto the jackets, obviously worn by members or supporters of the LSV or the Vojvodina Coalition, which I saw during the same year. The flag images on some of those shoulder patches were visibly less oblong, sometimes nearly squarish, so they were obviously not standardized. The flag image which made part of the printout for the T-shirts which were advertised in the magazine Nezavisni during summer 1997, was also with proportions 2:3; this image was accompanied with the inscription "Vojvodina Resistance Movement".
The flag, having no official use, obviously was not standardized, so other proportions were sometimes used, 1:2 having been among them. However, the 1:2 flag variant seems to have prevailed only after 2000, when it came to be used by the LSV only: the Vojvodina Coalition seems to have never used this variant. The only copies of this flag which I am still able to observe are used in Novi Sad, at the party headquarters and sometimes also outdoors, during different party activities in the public. These flags are with proportions 1:2. Otherwise the flag fell out of use almost completely since the LSV began adopting its own flags and especially after the current flag of Vojvodina was adopted, as it took the place which the LSV had wanted to put the vertical tricolour to. Probably no new flag copies were made during last several years.

Tomislav Todorović, 18 March 2009

Yesterday night BBC World News illustrated its headline on the anti-Milošević demonstrations in Yugoslavia with an image of demonstrators waving large vertically-divided (dark)blue-yellow-(dark)green flags; there were at least about five of them, apparently identical, so they did not seem to be home-made.
I wonder whether the shot actually showed a demonstration in Vojvodina. The flags were identical to that shown in above, but with both the blue and the green a bit darker. The flag proportions appeared to be 2:3.

Santiago Dotor, 22 September 1999

The shades of blue and green were originally not very dark but, the flag not having been standardized due to its unofficial status, very dark shades were also appearing sometimes. They are appearing on the flag copies still in use, but it is not easy to say if these were the original shades or they were darkened by age and/or weather. In my opinion, the latter was the case with most of the flags, because I do remember the flag hoisted from the party headquarters as having the shades only a bit darker than on the above images in 2002 and having very dark shades nowadays, blue being almost indistinguishable from black in the night if not under the direct lighting, and even yellow has darkened a bit so far.

Tomislav Todorović, 18 March 2009

Origin of the flag

The vertical blue-yellow-green flag dates from the year 1848, more exactly from 11 May 1848 when this flag was adopted as the flag of the revolutionaries from Sajkaska [region of Vojvodina around Novi Sad], more precisely by the Sajkaska Batallion (with only a difference in the last colour which was brownish). The League of Social-Democrats of Vojvodina after its establishment on 14 July 1990, adopted this flag (somewhat modified, namely in place of brown there is green) as its party flag, with the proposal that this shall be the future flag of the Republic of Vojvodina.
At that time this flag becomes one of the symbols of Vojvodina resistance movement against Milošević's regime in Belgrade, and appears in several countries of European Union and in the USA, as the official flag of the Republic of Vojvodina.
At that time it was also accepted also by the citizens of Vojvodina as a recognizable symbol of our party.

Zoran Petakov, 25 March 1999

The claims that the blue-yellow-green flag originates from 1848 is dubious. At that time, the Hungarians used their national flag that has just been designed, just as well as the Serbs used their tricolour, so there would hardly have been space for a blue-yellow-green flag. The Serbs proclaimed Srpska Vojvodina (Serbian Vojvodina) on a session in Sremski Karlovci, 1-3 May 1848. The Serb tricolour was proclaimed the flag of that state/crownland. Srpska Vojvodina was disbanded on 1863, and the old counties were reintroduced. All other flags would have been of secondary importance at that time.
The statement that blue, yellow and green colors represent sky and corn and wheat crops, respectively, is just a popular belief which has never been officially confirmed. Another such belief is that these colors represent sky, sun and fertile land in Vojvodina, respectively. Apart from all this, these colors happen to be main colors of the coat of arms of the Backa region, which occupies the dexter chief portion of the coat of arms of Vojvodina: blue field, green base and gold nimbus of St. Paul and hilt of his sword. Even the brown color, which is said to have occupied the place of green on some 1848 flags, appears there as the color of St Paul's toga (which should have been red, but it seems that the designers of the coat of arms made it after some old image on which red has changed into brown due to bad storage conditions). There has been no proof yet that this might be more than a coincidence, but still this makes the color combination more convenient for a would-be flag of Backa than for that of the Vojvodina as a whole, because the coats of arms of the other two regions have different main colors (Banat - yellow and red, Srem - green, white and blue).

Tomislav Todorović, 17 February 2004