Flag of Vojvodina

The flag of Vojvodina is based on the Serbian flag. In the Flag of Serbia, all three coloured stripes are of equal width, but in the Flag of Vojvodina, the blue field (in the middle) is much wider. Its use of the colours of Serbian flag marks that Vojvodina is a part of Serbia.

It has three yellow stars which are representing: Bačka, Banat and Srem, parts of Vojvodina, but they also resemble the flag of EU, which signifies that Vojvodina is a European region, and that Vojvodina hopes to become a member of the EU sometime, as part of Serbia.

Historical flag

The historical flag of the Serbian Vojvodina was introduced in 1848. Originally, it was a flag of Sombor volunteers' regiment from 1848 and 1849, but it was also used as an unofficial flag of Serbian Vojvodina.

The coat-of-arms used on this flag was essentially the Austrian Habsburg imperial arms, with the coat-of-arms of the Serbs (Serbian cross, with four "ocila" (firesteels) on the chests of the black eagle. The bearer of the Serbian arms was the Austrian black eagle, instead of the Serbian white one, in order to show the fidelity of the newly established Voivodship to the Imperial Court in Vienna.

The coat-of-arms was simply added to the Serbian national tricolour. Thus the flag differed from the flag of the Principality of Serbia, which had a different arms in the middle of its state flag.

¹"Leksiklopedija" (column), TV Novosti magazine, Belgrade, 1991.

1990s Proposed unofficial flag

The blue-yellow-green flag (vertical and horizontal) was used by some regionalist political parties such as League of Social Democrats of Vojvodina (LSV), Vojvodina Coalition (KV), etc. as the province's unofficial flag. This flag was introduced during the 1990s (at the time when Vojvodina did not have its official flag) with the proposal that it become the future flag of Vojvodina. Since the adoption of the official Vojvodina flag in 2004, the proposed flag has mostly been abandoned as an unofficial symbol of the province, and is today only sporadically used as the LSV party flag.The proposed 1990s flag is based on the similar flag that dates back to 11 May 1848, when it was adopted as the flag of the Serb revolutionaries from Šajkaška (central part of Vojvodina, east of Novi Sad). More precisely, that flag was used by the Šajkaš Battalion that belonged to the Germanic-Illyric Regiment of the Banatian Military Frontier. However, the original flag had a brownish colour instead of green, and there are horizontal variants of the flag as well.

The statement of those who proposed the flag during the 1990s is that blue, yellow and green colors represent sky, corn and grazing land (pasture), respectively. Another statement is that those colors represent sky, sun and fertile land of Vojvodina, respectively.

During the 1990s, this flag was one of the symbols of Vojvodinian regionalist movement that was opposing Milošević's regime in Belgrade. Today this flag symbolizes the policy that Vojvodina should become a constituent republic of the new regionalized and federalized Federal Republic of Serbia.

ee also

*Coat of arms of Vojvodina
*Flag of Serbia