Presentation of Publications on the Occasion of Croatian Flag Day 2022
In the Tower above the Stone Gates, the seat of the Society of Brethren of the Croatian Dragon (DBHZ), in the traditional slot of draconian events on Wednesday, 8 June 2022, and on the occasion of the Croatian Flag Day on 5 June, a presentation of several publications related to that occasion.
Namely, four years ago DBHZ together with three other national institutions that deal with the research and preservation of national symbolic heritage, each in its own way: the Croatian Historical Museum (HPM), the Croatian Institute of History (HIP) and the Croatian Heraldic and Vexillological Association (HGZD), declared 5 June as Croatian Flag Day in memory of that day in 1848, when Ban Josip Jelačić was presented with his installation ban flag, as the first officially used Croatian tricolor, during the enthronement ceremony. In commemoration of that event, the four institutions jointly published the Commemorative Book of the 170th Anniversary of the Croatian State Flag June 5, 1848 – June 5, 2018 See more about the book here.
The other two publications that were presented on the same occasion are thematically connected. These are two editions of the monograph of Dr. sc. Mario Jareb, the Dragon of Jurjevgrad in Tribunj, one in Croatian and the other in English, entitled From Checkerboard to Tricolor: Development and Use of the Croatian Coat of Arms and Flag Throughout the Centuries. Both editions are jointly published by the Croatian World Congress and HIP. Each of them, on 144 pages, presents the history of the Croatian coat of arms and flag in a concise but scientifically based way. See more about these monographs here.
Presentation of Publications on the Occasion of Croatian Flag Day 2022
At the presentation of these editions in Tower above the Stone Gates, the presenters were Dr. Mario Jareb, Matea Brstilo Rešetar, Dr. Željko Heimer and Dr. Gordan Ravančić, current director of HIP. Dr. Jareb reminded those gathered about the procedures and events that followed the Proclamation in 2018 and the efforts to include Croatian Flag Day in the official state calendar of memorial days. HPM director Brstilo Rešetar spoke about the efforts to preserve Jelačić’s flag and his other legacy, reading passages from his testament, i.e. his will from 1857. Dr. Ravančić highlighted the details of the creation of the Commemorative Book, which due to circumstances was published almost four years after the formal academy, in which earthquakes and the pandemic played a significant role, as well as about the cooperation with the Croatian World Congress in the publication of Jareb’s monograph. Lt-Colonel Heimer emphasized that it is particularly important that both editions are also available in English, which offers facts about the history of Croatian national symbols to the numerous Croatian diaspora in the world, including those from the third or fourth generation who no longer speak Croatian, but have retained their national awareness and these books can help them in that awareness. On the other hand, these editions actually present to the international professional community for the first time a unified view of the history of these symbols devoid of the ideological frameworks of the 19th and 20th centuries.
Finally, it should be mentioned that the organizers of this event, in addition to the presentation of books, also arranged a small exhibition of historical Croatian flags from the collections of Dr. Jareb and Dr. Heimer, which visually clearly showed the continuity of the Croatian tricolor from the era of Jelačić through the ideological changes of the 20th century, until the Homeland War and today.
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