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Osijek (Town, Osijek-Baranja County, Croatia)

Flag of Osijek, horizontal and vertical versions - Images by Željko Heimer, 1 November 2009

Flag of Osijek
Coat of arms of Osijek
Flags in the Osijek Slavonian Museum
- Flag of the Osijek Bakers' Guild (1800)
- Flag of the National Guard
Osijek Football Club

See also:

Flag of Osijek

The symbols of Osijek are prescribed by Decision Odluka o izmjenama Odluke o uporabi grba, zastave, imena i svečane pjesme Grada Osjeka, published in 1995 in the Town official gazette Službeni glasnik Grada Osijeka, No. 1.
The Decision was updated by Odluka o izmjenama Odluke o uporabi grba, zastave, imena i svečane pjesme Grada Osjeka, adopted on 21 July 2009 by the Town Assembly and published on 22 July 2009 in Službeni glasnik Grada Osijeka, No. 9. This Decision introduces minor changes to the original Decision wording, reflecting the change in the administrative organization of the town and granting more responsabilities to the Mayor.
The symbols are described in Article 5 of the Town Statutes Statut Grada Osijeka, adopted on 25 September 2001 by the Town Assembly and published in Službeni glasnik Grada Osijeka, No. 6. The amended Statutes Statut o izmjenama i dopunama Statuta Grada Osijeka, adopted on 22 April 2003 by the Town Assembly and published in Službeni glasnik Grada Osijeka, No. 3, introduce only very minor change, mentioning now also the symbols of the national minorities among other things (town coat of arms, seal, flag, chain, anthem) to be determined with a further Decision on their use, and adding Article 5a granting the right to the members of minorities to display their national symbols, provided that they display the national symbols of Croatia beside them.
I suspect that the symbols were adopted either by the 1995 Amendments to the 1994 Statutes or by some other 1995 Decision, which was followed by the aforementioned 1995 Decision regulating their use.

Article 5 of the Town Statutes describes the flag as follows:

The Town of Osijek has its flag. The colors of the flag are white and cobalt-blue. The ratio of the length to width of the flag is 2:1 and the colors are set perpendicularly to the staff, so that the white is at the top of the staff, and, if the flag is hoisted without the staff, then the white is on the left side, looking at the flag. In the center of the flag is the coat of arms of the Town of Osijek. The ratio of the height of the coat of arms to the height [length, indeed] of the flag is 1:4. The ceremonial flag of the Town of Osijek is made of white and cobalt-blue silk, and the coat of arms of the Town of Osijek in the flag is made in golden embroidery technique on both sides of the flag.

The horizontal and vertical versions of the flag are clearly mentioned, although the rotation of the coat of arms is not explicitly mentioned; both versions are reportedly in use in Osijek. The flag rotation for the vertical hoisted is properly prescribed ("rotate 90 degrees and flip"), following the heraldic tradition. The ceremonial flag is differing from the normal one only by the material and production techniques, while having the same design as the "normal" flag, as is the case for several other local flags in Slavonia.
The vertical flag is often used as a very long vertically displayed flag, occasionally without the coat of arms, too. The flag was used in such way much before the 1990s.

Željko Heimer, 1 November 2009

Coat of arms of Osijek

Coat of arms of Osijek - Image by Željko Heimer, 1 November 2009

Article 5 of the Town Statutes describes the coat of arms as follows:

The coat of arms of the Town of Osijek is in a stylized shield shape with height to width ratio 5:4. In its central part is highlighted a bridge with three arches over the Drava river. In the centre of it, a rectangular tower is raising with three embattlements, two windows and a single rectangular door. Above the central embattlement is a smaller shield containing an arm holding a sabre. The four basic colours of the coat of arms are cobalt-blue, vermilion-red, golden and silver. The area above and below the bridge and the tower is cobalt-blue. The hand in the smaller shield and the outline of the fist are vermilion-red. The outlines of the coat of arms and the fist in the smaller shield are golden. The bridge, tower, outline of the smaller shield and the sabre are silver.
[...] The prototype of the coat of arms is made in multicolur ceramo-plastics technique, 50 cm in height.

If you follow this description closely, you may notice that the color of the smaller shield is not mentioned and that would suggest that it should be blue; however, it seems that in all depictions this shield is shown with a white field. Of course, the description does not mention white at all, and the standard depctions, which may or may not be much similar to the mentioned prototypee, use both silver-grey and white colors to show varous elements of the coat of arms. The precribed detail of the fist to be golden with a red outline is, as a rule, so small that it is hardly possible to notice it. The golden outline of the shield is, of course, a heraldic nonsense, and even if it is shown with that outline on the flags as a rule, the coat of arms when shown on its own often omits that outline.

Željko Heimer, 1 November 2009

Flags in the Osijek Slavonian Mueum

Flag of the Osijek Bakers' Guild (1800)

The flag of the Bakers' Guild from year 1800 (image) was shown on the website of the Osijek Slavonian Museum.
There was no any other information on the flag there. Its shape is typical for the period, based on cavalry guidons. Blue colour may have been a reference to the town, whose traditional color is blue. The flag contains the painting of a saint, probably the patron saint of the guild. The reverse would probably have some other picture in that place. There is some kind of heraldic device in the lower hoist corner of the painted part.

Željko Heimer & Dov Gutterman, 25 August 1999

Flag of the National Guard

The website of the Osijek Slavonian Museum shows a swallow-tailed flag (image). On the white field there is Illyria's coat of arms with inscriptions in Croatian, "GLAVNA STRAŽARA NARODNE GARDE", and German, "HAUPTWACHE DER NATIONALGARDE" (National Guard Main Outpost). This flag was damaged by the weather.

Željko Heimer & Milan Jovanović, 29 April 2007

Osijek Football Club

Flag of Osijek FC - Image by Željko Heimer, 29 December 2000

The flag of NK Osijek (Nogometni klub Osijek, Osijek FC), as seen on Croatian TV news, 28 December 2000, is horizontally divided blue-white-blue, the club colors, with the club emblem in the middle.
The club emblem is, obviously, based on the coat of arms of Osijek-Baranja County.

Željko Heimer, 29 December 2000