Filed under: Know Your Flags | Tags: asturias, covadonga, flag, pelayo, reconquest, spain, victory cross
Flickr user picqero
The historical significance of the Asturian flag belies its simplicity. The gold Cruz de la Victoria (Victory Cross) represents the primitive oak cross that Pelayo carried during the pivotal Battle of Covadonga in 722. This victory, coupled with the earlier Moorish defeat in the Battle of Toulouse, gave impetus to the Christian reconquest (Reconquista) of Muslim Spain that would eventually be completed in 1492. The Muslim caliphate never seriously threatened this small northern Christian enclave after the battle, allowing the formation of the Kingdom of Asturias that was instrumental in the Reconquista. Perhaps Spain is never reconquered by Christians without Pelayo’s victory. The New World is “discovered” first by another European power, forever changing the landscape of the Western Hemisphere. However, these are overstatements as the Christians and Muslims were unaware of any significance the battle would come to have; Muslim historians looked at the Asturian resistance with scorn and ridicule even after Covadonga.
Filed under: Know Your Flags | Tags: bandera, Camino, cantabria, espana, flag, lábaro, saint james, santiago, spain
My eighth Camino etapa finally ushers in a new installment of Know Your Flags. I started April 18th, 2009 in the Basque Country but ended in Cantabria, the second of four Spanish autonomous communities on the Camino del Norte. Cantabria’s flag does not have its own name or nationalist meaning as the Basque Country’s but is deserving of a blog post nonetheless.
photo by santacrucero
Filed under: Know Your Flags | Tags: basque, bilbao, biscay, flag, france, franco, gernika, guernica, ikurrina, soccer, spain
This week’s installment of Know Your Flags represents a region spanning two countries and hundreds of thousands of emigrants across the world. The Ikurriña is the official flag of the Basque Country Autonomous Community of Spain and the unofficial national symbol of the wider Basque Country that spans north-central Spain and southwestern France.
Santo Tomás 2008
Banned for nearly 40 years, the Ikurriña was designed by the founders of Basque nationalism, Luis and Sabino Arana. The Basque separatist group ETA began displaying it in public places as an act of defiance. Much like the Basque language, the only safe haven for the Ikurriña during Franco’s reign were soccer stadiums.
Ikkuriña at San Mamés, home of Athletic Bilbao
Almost identical in design to the Union Jack, The red bottom symbolizes the Biscayan people; the green represents the Oak of Guernica; and the white cross, Basque Catholicism.
Ikkuriña balkoian
