, 1410, reconstruction
Historical state flag The earliest known flags with a Lithuanian identity were recorded in the 15th-century
Banderia Prutenorum, written by
Jan Długosz. At the
Battle of Grunwald in 1410, two distinct flags were present. The majority of the 40 regiments carried a red banner depicting a mounted knight in pursuit. This flag, known as the
Vytis, would eventually be used as the Lithuanian war flag, and again in 2004 as the state flag. The remaining regiments carried a red banner displaying the
Columns of Gediminas. Those that bore the Vytis were part of the
Grand Ducal Lithuanian army, while those who bore the Columns of Gediminas were from
Lithuanian nobility. Until the end of the 18th century, when it
was annexed by the Russian Empire, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania used the Vytis as its flag.
Creation of modern flag in 1917 The birth of the yellow, green, and red tricolour occurred during a drive by other European republics to change their flags. One example that gave life to the idea of the tricolour was the
French blue, white, and red flag adopted after the
French Revolution. The only tricolour that existed for Lithuania before the yellow, green, and red flag was a green, white, and red flag used to represent
Lithuania Minor. At the
Great Seimas of Vilnius of 1905, this flag was favoured over the Vytis banner as the flag of the Lithuanian nation. The Vytis, strongly advocated by
Jonas Basanavičius, was not chosen for three reasons: the first was that as part of the drive for national identity, the Seimas wished to distance itself somewhat from the flag of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which also encompassed now-distinct nations such as
Belarus and Ukraine. The second issue was the choice of the colour red by revolutionaries who aligned themselves with
Marxist or
Communist causes. And finally, the flag with Vytis would be too complicated and could not be easily sewn. , 1927. Debates about the national flag occurred again in 1917 during the
Vilnius Conference. Two colours, green and red, were chosen based on their prevalence in folk art. Artist
Antanas Žmuidzinavičius decorated the conference hall with small red and green flags. However, the delegates did not like the design as it was too dark and gloomy. However, the delegates decided that the matter should be settled by a special commission, composed of Basanavičius, Žmuidzinavičius, and Daugirdas. On 19 April 1918, they submitted their final protocol to the
Council of Lithuania. The flag was supposed to be a tricolour (yellow at the top, green in the middle, and red at the bottom) with Vytis in the upper left corner or in the middle.
Restoration of modern flag During 1988, when the Lithuanian
movement towards independence was gaining strength, the
Lithuanian Supreme Soviet again recognised the tricolour as the national flag, by amending article 168 of the Constitution (Fundamental Law) of the Lithuanian SSR. The flag was defined as rectangular tricolour which consists of three equally sized horizontal stripes: the upper is yellow, the middle is green, the lower is red; the flag ratio was to be 1:2 (as that of
Soviet flags). This flag was confirmed by the Provisional Constitution of 11 March 1990 No. I-10. After independence from the Soviet Union, the tricolour flag was written into the new
Constitution of Lithuania, which was adopted by a
referendum in 1992. ==Design and symbolism==