Литовский триколор мог быть совсем другим: эскизы

However, the Lithuanian flag looks the way it does purely by chance. Few people know that another design was prepared in 1940, but it was not approved by law in time.

«When I was in , I traveled to Burma and saw the Lithuanian flag there. The colors are the same. Our tricolor was created by three people. , Antanas Žmuidzinavičius and Tadas Daugirdas. They sat down together and decided what the flag would look like. I think Žmuidzinavičius dictated, as his artwork has many colors like that,» said collector and historian Vilius Kavaliauskas.

The other version of the Lithuanian flag was green, white, red. The historian explained the logic behind these colors. Yellow was considered the color of during the Tsarist era. The Lithuanian regiment in the Tsarist army had yellow chevrons.

But even then, there were talks about the need to adjust the flag. In 1933, Antanas Smetona was visited by the living in artist . He was an authority, an artist with a worldwide reputation. He said that there were three reasons for change. Firstly, the colors of the flag were not heraldic. Such colors are difficult to find on flags in the world. Secondly, the arrangement of the colors was bad, chaotic. If yellow was in the center, the appearance would be cohesive. The third reason was that the colors of the flag did not correspond to the colors of the coat of arms. Usually, this aspect is taken into account.

«Dobuzhinsky convinced Smetona to change the flag, but in 1939 he went to Britain. The President, however, remembered the artist’s words. On May 8, 1940, the Heraldry Commission headed by Žmuidzinavičius gathered to review the flag colors. The meeting lasted 4.5 hours and during the meeting, they approved the replacement of the color green with white. However, to do this, the Constitution, which included the flag colors, had to be amended. We all know what happened in June 1940. Nothing changed,» Kavaliauskas said, adding that after World War II, during the resistance movement, when they fought in the forests under this flag, it was too late to change it.