Last modified: 2005-02-19 by dov gutterman
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by Željko Heimer
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The coat of arms of Vinkovci is adopted on 22 September 1922,
and was designed by painter Mirko Rački after the idea of Mate
Medvedović, city councelor and founder of the civic museum. The
symbolic of the coat of arms is official explained like this -
the mural crown reminds to the Roman city of Cibaliae,
upon which Vinkovci was buid; three bunches of grapes in the
colours of the Croatian tricolour in golden field and three corn
ears in the red one represent the wealth of the region; in the
base blue field there is a stone table - the symbol of the part
that Vinkovci had in the national movement of 1848; three silver
storks are for the wealthy marshy area. The silver bars stand for
the river of Bosut with its tributary Ervenica (or Nevkoš,
according to another tradition).
The flag may have origin in the same period. It consist of a
field of white and golden-yellow lozenges and with the coat of
arms of the city in the middle. The ceremonial flag have the
lozenges in lower edge continue into tails, while the common
version is more traditionally rectangular. Between 1993 and 1997
Vinkovci was temporarily seat of the County.
Source: Vinkovci OnLine <www.gkvk.hr>
20 June1998.
Željko Heimer
I managed to get a copy of an article on the flags in the
Vukovar-Srijem County [sal95].
Regarding the city of Vinkovci, the coat of arms was adopted in
1922 (as we know) after Vinkovci was made into a city status in
1920 (5 November). Oddly the decision claims that the coat of
arms is from 1923: "Vinkovci OnLine <www.gkvk.hr>: o grbu i zastavi
grada Vinkovaca, 19. srpnja 1993, Službeni vjesnik, br. 4,
11. listopada 1993.
A book from 1964 is mentioned "Grb grada Vinkovaca" by
Matija Klajn. From there is mentioned that the design of the coat
of arms in 1920's was suprevised by Ivan Bojnicic, a leading
heraldist of the time (cf. his "Der Adel von Kroatien und
Slavonien", 1898). It was critically described by Isidor
Kršnjavi, an other prominent Croat. Apparently the coat of
arms is practically continually without any changes in use since
1920's, which is, let's say, unusual for the coat of arms in this
part of the world. The flag is designed by the same Dubravko
Matakovic I mentioned above. The source provides much details on
the lozenge construction: overall dimensions 100x200 cm. the
lozenge side is 17.5 cm long, the distance between paralel edges
is 15 cm. The top edge consists of 6 golden half-lozenges, the
bottom has full lozenges as tails. The coat of arms is set 30 cm
from vertical edges and 65 cm from top, The coat of arms is 40 cm
wide and 60.4 cm high. (This being copies from the decision).
Željko Heimer, 16 January 2005
I received answer to my e-mail to Dubravko Matakovic, very
kindly... Indeed the designer of the two flags in 1993 was one
and the same artist who is also the famous comics artist. He has
been commisioned to prepare the modernized versions of the Coat
of Arms of the Vukovar-Srijem County and the city of Vinkovci
(that were the temporarily capital of the county while Vukovar
was occupied 1990-1995). He did that without interfering much
into the historical patters he had, but it was apparently his
idea to change the cypress (or poplar) into an oak, which is
indigineous, while the other is not. He was asked to do the flags
too. The guidelines he received was to make the city flag
"similar to Bavarian" but with golden and silver
lozenges, so he came out with the adopted design. Also he then
decided the striped flag for the county to be kind of similar. As
he admits, he had no previous knolage of vexillology or the flag
design, and considering, it came out very nice - certainly these
are among more interesting local flags in Croatia (approved
before the ministry prescribed the one-coloured rule for the
civic flags in 1994...).
Željko Heimer, 16 January 2005
by Željko Heimer
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by Željko Heimer