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Gornji Milanovac (Municipality, Serbia)

Горњи Миланов&#x

Flag of Gornji Milanovac - Image by Ivan Sarajčić & Tomislav Todorović, 25 July 2006

Flag of Gornji Milanovac

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Flag of Gornji Milanovac

The flag field is blue, as is that of the shield of arms, which was adopted together with it. The white disc charged with the red cross commemorates the Second Serbian Uprising, which was raised in 1815 in Takovo, a village in the municipality of Gornji Milanovac, under a white flag charged with a red cross, and ended successfully with the founding of modern Serbian state. The garland around the disc stands for the Palm Sunday, which is called Flower Sunday in Serbian (Cvetna Nedelja), as on that day in 1815 the uprising was raised and so it is also the municipal holiday.

The flag makes a part of the achievement of arms of Gornji Milanovac: it is carried by the sinister supporter, a lion rampant or. The dexter supporter, a lion rampant gules, carries the flag of Serbia, as in many other coats of arms of the local government areas in Serbia. The shield of arms can be blazoned as:
Azure an oak tree eradicated leaved fructed or and charged upon its top with a cross gules.
The cross is the same as the one on the flag, and the tree represents the Takovo Oak, under which the Second Serbian Uprising was raised. The motto is: VREME I MOJE PRAVO ("Time and my right") and was originally used by the princely, later royal, house of Obrenović, whose founder Miloš Obrenović was the leader of the uprising and the first Prince of renewed Serbia. Beneath the compartment is the name of the municipality. The complete achievement of arms can be seen at the International Civic Heraldry website.

The coat of arms and flag were adopted in autumn 2001. In 2004, after a coalition led by the Socialist Party of Serbia won the local elections, the symbols were abolished and the previous emblem, a more realistic representation of the Takovo Oak, was reintroduced on 2005-05-20; the municipal holiday was also changed back into 23rd April, the date of the Palm Sunday in 1815, to give it a fixed date (see Danas newspaper, 21 May 2005). After the change of the local government in 2005, when the parties represented in the Municipal Assembly had formed a new coalition, without the Socialist Party of Serbia, the flag and arms of 2001 were re-adopted on 2006-03-09 (see Politika newspaper, 10 March 2006). It is generally thought that if the Socialist Party of Serbia ever wins the local elections again, it will also re-abolish the present symbols of the municipality (that party has a very pronounced anti-heraldic attitude and always favours the local pseudo-heraldic symbols which were adopted during the Communist era).

Tomislav Todorović, 25 July 2006