Medieval flags The son of King
Stefan Vladislav (reigned 1233–1243),
župan Desa, sent delegates from
Kotor to
Dubrovnik to bring back part of the king's treasury held at Ragusa, which they did on 3 July 1281; the inventory list included, among other things, "a flag of red and blue color". It is described as
vexillum unum de zendato rubeo et blavo—"a flag of fabric red and blue";
zendato () being a type of light, silky fabric. This is the oldest known attestation of colours of a Serbian flag; the oldest known Serbian flag was red and blue. But already in 1271 the flag colors of župan Desa were red and white. Although the color order is not known, the version with horizontal red and blue is sometimes used in medieval-themed events in modern Serbia. Hungarian King
Bela IV mentioned in his charter dated 8 April 1268, that his army had defeated King
Stefan Uroš I (reigned 1243–1276), and that when he hosted some foreign rulers, his magnates brought captured Serbs and "in the sign of triumph, the flag of King Uroš before the court of Bela IV, and erected it there". In 1326, king Stefan Dečanski sent a delegate to the
Mamluk Sultanate in Alexandria and sought a flag in yellow colour, to be used as a war flag. The Byzantines mention that there were several war flags hoisted by the Serbs at the
Battle of Velbazhd (1330), and the yellow one was likely one of those. The oldest known drawing of a Serbian flag is from the 1339 map made by
Angelino Dulcert; Serbia, at the time ruled by King
Stefan Dušan, is represented by a white flag of a red
double-headed eagle placed above the capital
Skopje (
Scopi). Stefan Dušan was crowned Emperor in 1346; Dušan also adopted the
Eastern Roman (Byzantine) tetragramme style with four fire-steels, which afterwards became an element of the Serbian flag until today (the
Serbian cross). A flag in
Hilandar, seen by Dimitrije Avramović, was alleged by the brotherhood to have been a flag of Emperor Dušan; it was a
triband of red at the top and bottom and white in the centre. Emperor Dušan also adopted the Imperial
divelion, which was purple and had a golden cross in the centre. Another of Dušan's flags was the Imperial cavalry flag, kept at the
Hilandar monastery on
Mount Athos; a triangular bicolor flag, of red and yellow. File: Flag_of_Serbia_(1281).svg|Flag of the
Serbian Kingdom, Venetian archives (13th c.) File:Flag and coat of arms of the Nemanjić dynasty Serbia Serbian Kingdom and Empire by portolano of Gabriel de Vallseca 1439.jpg|Flags of the Serbian Kingdom (one depicting
Serbian eagle while other
Serbian cross),
Gabriel de Vallseca map (14th c.) File:Flag of Serbia on the map of Angelino Dulcert.jpg|Flag of the Serbian Kingdom,
Angelino Dulcert map (1339) File:Flag of the Serbian Empire, reconstruction.svg|Flag of the
Serbian Empire Revolutionary flags During the
First Serbian Uprising, various flags were used. Among the early flags, the one described by
Mateja Nenadović could be connected with today's flag and the first Serbian flag: it was red-blue-red with three white crosses. Similar flags bearing only one
Serbian cross could also be found. Regular armies of the uprising usually had light yellow flags with various symbols, while
voivode flags were often red-white, and with a superimposed black
two-headed eagle. There were also flags of other colors, including red-yellow, red-white-blue and red-blue. This variety of colors was followed by variety of symbols on the flags, most often taken from
Hristofor Zhefarovich's book
Stemmatographia of 1741. The most common symbol on the flags were the
Serbian cross, followed by coat of arms of the
Timok Valley (Tribalia) and various other crosses. Most of the flags were made in
Sremski Karlovci, designed by Serbian painters Stefan Gavrilović, Ilija Gavrilović and Nikola Apostolović. These would carry over to the
Second Serbian Uprising as well, alongside its own flags, the most well known of which being the Takovo flag, a white flag with a large red
Greek cross in the center. File:Flag of Revolutionary Serbia.svg|Flag from the
First Serbian Uprising File:Serbian tricolor from the First Serbian Uprising.svg|
Triband from the First Serbian Uprising File:Flag used in Takovo at the start of the Second Serbian Uprising.svg|Flag from the
Second Serbian Uprising Modern flags The 1835 Sretenje Constitution described the colors of the Serbian flag as bright red, white and
čelikasto-ugasita (that could be translated as
steelish-dark). The constitution was criticized, especially by
Russia, and the flag was specifically singled out as being similar to the
revolutionary flag of France. Soon afterwards,
Miloš Obrenović was requesting to the
Porte that the new constitution should contain an article about the flag and coat of arms, and subsequent
ferman allowed
Serbs to use their own
maritime flag, which will have "upper part of red, middle of blue, and lower of white", which is the first appearance of the colors that are used today. The colors of the current flag of Serbia are based on the symbolism of those of the
flag of Russia since 1835, but these colors are the reverse of those on the
flag of Russia, and various popular stories exist in Serbia which seek to explain why. An example: Serbia used the red, blue and white tricolor as a national flag continuously from 1835 until 1918, when Serbia ceased to be a sovereign state after it joined the
Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, later known as
Yugoslavia, the tricolor was a used as a Serbian civil flag, from 1918 to 1945. Also in 1918, a Serbian flag
was flown over the
White House in
Washington, D.C. as a show of solidarity by the U.S. towards Serbia during
World War I. File:Flag of Serbia (1835-1882).svg|State flag of the
Principality of Serbia (1835–1882) File:Civil Flag of Serbia.svg|Civil flag of the Principality of Serbia (1835–1882) File:Flag of Serbia (1882–1918).svg|State flag of the
Kingdom of Serbia (1882–1918) File:Civil Flag of Serbia.svg|Civil flag of the Kingdom of Serbia (1882–1918) After
World War II, Yugoslavia was reformed into a socialist federal republic, composed of
six republics, one of which was Serbia. Each republic was entitled to its own flag on the condition that it contained the socialist
red star. The standardization of the
flags of the Yugoslav Republics meant that the flag of
SR Serbia was identical to that of
SR Montenegro, as they continued the use of the tricolours of the
Kingdom of Serbia and the
Kingdom of Montenegro respectively. Following the
breakup of Yugoslavia, Serbia initially continued using the flag of Serbia as a Yugoslav republic; the 1990
Constitution of Serbia stated that flag and coat of arms of Serbia can only be changed by the same procedure used to change the constitution itself, which required an absolute majority of voters to support it. The
1992 Serbian constitutional referendum asked the voters to choose between the flag with and without the star, with red star gaining the majority of votes, however not the absolute majority of voters. The red star was nonetheless removed from the flag in 1992 by a recommendation by the Serbian parliament; however, the coat of arms remained unchanged. In 2004, however, the National Assembly of Serbia issued a recommendation on use of the flag and coat of arms that preferred using different symbols from the ones in the constitution. The 2006
Constitution of Serbia sanctioned that national symbols would be regulated by law; the recommendation remained in use until 2009, when the actual Law on National Symbols was enacted. On 11 November 2010, a visual redesign of the coat of arms was enacted, which is currently used on the state flag. ==Design==