Carrying Your Cross: How the Russian Navy Got Its Flag
On December 11, 1699 the flag of St. Andrew became the flag of the Russian Navy. Since then, Russian sailors have been following it ever since. Details recalled "Izvestia".
The decree on the creation of the Russian regular fleet Peter I signed three years earlier, in October 1696. According to the correspondence of Peter the Great, we know that all his life he often dreamed of boats and frigates, sea voyages. This passion of the monarch turned to the benefit of the state. The country needed a strong fleet - both to protect the borders of the Fatherland and for trade. Peter broke through to the seas, built ports and shipyards, trained naval officers, skippers and shipbuilders. For this purpose he invited foreigners, but he also cared about the naval training of his compatriots.
The Emperor, who had the experience of "and navigator and carpenter", understood another thing. That a great cause needs relics - bright, honored by all. That is why Peter I brought up in his subjects a reverent attitude to the flag. And his favorite flag was St. Andrew's. After all, it is with him associated sea victories of the emperor, which turned Russia into a great power.
Apostle Andrew
At the end of 1698, the first Russian order was established - the Order of St. Andrew the Apostle. According to legend, the Apostle Andrew, the first of the disciples of Jesus Christ, preached in the land where, many years later, Ancient Russia arose. But not only there. He visited Thrace, Macedonia, Thessaly, Hellas and Scythia, on the territory of modern Abkhazia and Ossetia. Andrew became the first Christian preacher on the Black Sea coast. There his listeners and followers were fishermen and sailors. Andrew himself was a fisherman before he believed in Christ.
The apostle ended his days in martyrdom. In 67 he was crucified in Greece, in the city of Patras, on an oblique cross, which has since been called St. Andrew's Cross.
It is such a cross of blue sea color decorated the order. At first there were several variations of the flag of the Russian Navy. Their sketches were created by the indefatigable tsar-reformer. One of his projects provided for a blue St. Andrew's Cross on a background of horizontal stripes of white, blue and red colors. Under this flag the first line ship built in Russia, at the Voronezh shipyard, without the participation of foreign engineers and craftsmen, under the leadership of shipbuilder Fedosey Sklyaev - "Goto Predestinatsiya" ("God's Providence"). The ship joined the Azov fleet.
But very soon the classic white cloth with a blue cross was adopted. In 1720 Peter the Great once again approved the St. Andrew's flag in the Naval Statute. By that time, the four ends of the oblique cross in the eyes of the emperor symbolized the four seas on which the Russian Empire had established itself - the White, Baltic, Caspian and Azov Seas. "The flag is white, across this there is a blue St. Andrew's cross, by which Russia was christened by him," the emperor wrote.
Victories under St. Andrew's flag
The first major victory under the St. Andrew's flag the Russian fleet won in August 1714, attacking the Swedish squadron at Cape Gangut. Peter I then managed to impose experienced enemies boarding battle. The Tsar himself fought alongside his officers. Russian sailors captured one enemy ship after another until the Swedes lowered their banners.
Under the St. Andrew's flag our fleet won in the Baltic, Black and Mediterranean Seas, through the ice broke through to Novaya Zemlya. Victories of naval leaders Grigory Spiridov, Vasily Chichagov, Fyodor Ushakov, Dmitry Senyavin, Mikhail Lazarev, Pavel Nakhimov increased the glory of the St. Andrew's flag. The fleet became, without exaggeration, "a reliable wall of the Fatherland".
Battle of Gangut on August 7, 1714
On June 5, 1819, Emperor Alexander I established a special aft flag, badge and pennant for the Guards Naval Crew: "In memory of the battle of Kulm in the last French War, having granted for distinction to the Guards Crew St. George's Banner, I command: this insignia ... to be placed in the flag, broadsword and pennant and to use them... instead of the usual ones on ships and other vessels, also on boats, which will be manned by this crew".
St. George's aft flag was a St. Andrew's flag with a shaped red with gold border shield in the very center, at the crosshairs. There was placed the image of St. George the Victorious on a white horse, striking the serpent with a spear. This banner became the highest naval combat award.
After the battle in the Navarino Bay of the Ionian Sea, this flag was given to the line ship Azov, which destroyed five Ottoman ships, including the flagship.
May 14, 1829 18-gun brig "Mercury" under the command of Lieutenant Captain Alexander Kazarsky took an unequal battle in the Black Sea with two Turkish line ships, from which he emerged victorious. Ivan Aivazovsky dedicated a famous painting to this feat. And Emperor Nicholas I not only ordered to put in honor of this feat a monument in Sevastopol, but also awarded the brig the flag of St. George.
To the last drop of blood
In the Naval Statute of 1885 about the St. Andrew's flag said poignantly: "It is honored on the ship as a banner in the regiment, and all serving on the ship must protect this flag to the last drop of blood as the flag of the Russian sovereign. During the battle at the post near the flag was bound to be a "special reliable non-commissioned officer". No one had the right to touch the flag during the battle! If the non-commissioned officer saw that the flag was in danger, that it could be damaged or knocked down, he immediately had to raise a new cloth aft. So that the enemy "could not assume for a single moment that the flag in front of him was lowered".
Only twice in history Russian ships voluntarily lowered the St. Andrew's flag. During the Russian-Turkish campaign of 1829, the frigate "Raphael", commanded by captain of the second rank Semyon Stroynikov, was surrounded by a Turkish squadron of 15 ships.
The Battle of Sinop, November 18, 1853
To save the lives of the crew, the captain decided to surrender and lowered the St. Andrew's flag. Having learned about it, Emperor Nicholas I demoted the captain to sailors and even forbade him to marry, so that "a coward did not give offspring". And the frigate "Raphael" in case it could be repulsed, it was ordered to burn. Almost a quarter of a century passed - and in the Battle of Sinop Admiral Pavel Nakhimov executed the order of the Emperor. The frigate "Raphael", named "Fazi-Allah", was destroyed by Russian naval artillery in that battle.
The second time the sad story was repeated at Tsushima, when Russian sailors suffered a heavy defeat. Then Rear Admiral Nikolai Nebogatov gave the order to lower the flags on several ships surrendered to the Japanese. When after captivity Rear Admiral returned to Russia, he was tried and even sentenced to death. However, he was pardoned.
The Battle of Tsushima. May 1, 1905.
In this case, even on the revolted battleship "Potemkin" in 1905, raising the red flag, the sailors did not lower the St. Andrew's flag. The respect for this flag was too great.
During the tragic for the Russian Navy Tsushima battle sailors performed miracles of selflessness, so that the St. Andrew's flags did not go to the enemy. Lieutenant Nikolai Nozikov, who served on the cruiser "Vladimir Monomakh", in the midst of the battle wrested the St. Andrew's flag from a Japanese officer. In the unequal battle he found an opportunity to pierce the cloth with his saber and together with it threw it into the sea, so that the St. Andrew's flag was taken by the waves.
The cross of the color of the sea
Russian ships sailed under this flag for more than two centuries. For some time, despite the abolition of other pre-revolutionary symbols, it was preserved in the RSFSR, and then in the USSR, although with changes: in particular, in the center of the cloth was placed a red star with a hammer and sickle. The new naval flag of the Soviet Union, which had nothing in common with the pre-revolutionary one, appeared only in 1935. On the white cloth with a blue stripe was a five-pointed star, as well as a hammer and sickle. But sailors never forgot about the St. Andrew's flag, it remained their native, "father's" flag.
Paratroopers of the Pacific Fleet with the naval flag of the Soviet Union. 1945
The St. Andrew's flag again became the flag of the Russian Navy in 1992. But the symbolism connoisseurs of the time did not follow the strict historical tradition. The St. Andrew's Cross turned from blue to blue. The mistake was corrected in 2000, and now the cross on the flag of the Russian Navy is blue, as in Petrine times.
The author is the deputy editor-in-chief of the magazine "Historian"
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
