Flag of Albania
The flag of Albania depicts a silhouetted black double-headed eagle in the center of a red background. The red stands for bravery, strength, valour and bloodshed, while the eagle – traditionally the symbol of Albanians – represents the sovereign state of Albania. The flag was established as the national flag of Albania when the country gained its independence from the Ottoman Empire in 1912.
Origin
During John Hunyadi's campaign in Niš in 1443, Skanderbeg and a few hundred Albanians defected from the Turkish ranks; for twenty-five years he scored remarkable victories against the Ottomans. He adopted the similar Eastern Roman imperial flag, with the double-headed eagle and the red background, and his victories brought him the papal title Athleta Christi. The eagle was used for heraldic purposes in the Middle Ages by a number of noble families in Albania and became the symbol of the Albanians. The Kastrioti's coat of arms, depicting a black double-headed eagle on a red field, became famous when he led a revolt against the Ottoman Empire resulting in the independence of Albania from 1443 to 1479. This was the flag of the League of Lezhë, which was the first unified Albanian state in the Middle Ages and the oldest representative political body in the country with extant records.File:Doppeladler Albanien.jpg|thumb|180px|right|Double-headed eagle found in a mural inside the Shën Ndoji church in Rodon, possibly dating from the 15th century
The symbol of the double-headed black eagle on a red background was re-used by Albanian nationalists during the 19th and early 20th centuries as a symbol of their campaign for their country's independence from the Ottoman Empire. In Ottoman territory, the first time it was raised in possibly over 400 years is the Battle of Deçiq in the Albanian revolt of 1911. It was raised by the rebellion leader Ded Gjo Luli on the peak of Bratila after victory was secured. The phrase Tash o vllazën do t’ju takojë të shihni atë që për 450 vjet se ka pa kush has been attributed to Ded Gjo Luli by later memoirs of those who were present when he raised the flag. It was one of three banners brought to Malësia by Palokë Traboini, student in Austria. The other two banners were used by Ujka of Gruda and Prelë Luca of Triepshi.
The Albanian flag has gone through a number of changes over the years as different regimes have modified it. During the reign of King Zog, a crown was added to the flag and was replaced by two fasces during the Italian occupation of Albania. After World War II, the communist regime added a five-pointed golden star, which was removed on 7 April 1992 after the communist government in Albania collapsed.
Albania's maritime flags—the civil ensign and the naval ensign—are both different from the national flag. The civil ensign consists of three horizontal bands of red, black, and red. The naval ensign is similar to the national flag, except that the eagle is on a white field, and the lower portion of the flag has a red stripe. The eagle of the flag of Albania is depicted on the reverse of the Albanian five lekë coin, issued in 1995 and 2000.
Beginning in 1969, the flag of Albania was widely unofficially flown in Kosovo by the country's ethnic Albanian population. The flag was the symbol of the self-declared proto-state Republic of Kosova during the 1990s. Kosovo uses a different flag that was designed to avoid any symbols associated with a particular ethnic group, similarly to the flags of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Cyprus.
National flag
The national flag of Albania was standardized by Law Nr.8926, dated 22 July 2002 of the constitution and defined in articles II, III and IV.The color scheme laid out below, pertaining to the rules of heraldry, begins with the peripheral color followed by the nearest color.
A summarized translation of the law is written below:
State flags
Flag raised on Independence Day">Albanian Declaration of Independence">Independence Day (1912)
According to researcher and art conservator Frederik Stamati and his colleague Ariola Prifti, an ethnographic fund specialist at the Center for Albanological Studies, there is no trace evidence of the original flag that was raised in Vlorë on 28 November 1912, the day Albania declared its independence. This viewpoint is reaffirmed in an editorial by news media Top Channel dated 1 November 2012 and titled "The mystery of the first Albanian flag". It concludes that "there is no definitive proof" on how the raised flag looked on the day Albania declared its independence, while providing ten hypotheses.A model of the flag often perceived as the original is seen in a 1913 postcard that shows alongside it a photograph of Don Aladro Kastriota in uniform. Eqrem bey Vlora writes in his memoirs, published posthumously as "Lebenserinnerungen", Munich, that sometime in 1909 while visiting Paris, he had the good fortune to meet Don Aladro, a wealthy spanish-basque diplomat and a strong supporter of the Albanian cause who at one point had announced his candidacy for the Albanian throne by claiming descent from the House of Kastrioti through his paternal grandmother, a noblewoman that lived during the era of Charles III. With his financial means and some propaganda, he made known the Albanian cause for independence in European political circles. During their meeting, Vlora asserts the following episode occurred:
More support is given to this thesis in the testimony of Syrja bey Vlora who in his book of memoirs titled "From the End of Ottoman Rule to the War of Vlora", writes in page 70 the following: "On 28 November, with the desire and consent of all, it was decided to raise the flag of Albania and declare National Independence. As it was not possible to prepare the flag that day, a flag was taken from our house, which my son Eqrem had been guarding with full respect since 1908. It rose amid the cheerful manifestations and cheers of the people."
File:Kartolinë e mirënjohjes nga Sp. T. Ilo.jpg|thumb|150px|This postcard by Spiridon Ilo, was printed as a sign of gratitude for the US assistance in reaffirming the legitimacy of the new Albanian State. The postcard came into circulation in 1920, the year when President Woodrow Wilson famously arbitrated his support for the independence of Albania at the Paris Peace Conference.
Historian Valentina Duka provides further insights into this argument in her book "History of Albania, 1912–2000", where she publishes authentic documents from the archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. From these documents, we learn of the efforts made by the government of Prime Minister Kostaq Kotta, to collect historical objects of this era and to house them at the National History Museum.
In 1930, the minister of foreign affairs Rauf Fico, began a correspondence with Eqrem bey Vlora, who at the time was serving as the ambassador of Albania in Athens. In these communications, Eqrem bey strongly emphasizes that the flag raised on the day of the declaration of independence is indeed the one that was given to him by Aladro Kastriota. He goes on to explain that the flag along with other personal possessions, were confiscated and burned during 1915, by the government of the so called Autonomous Republic of Northern Epirus in the home of a family friend in Delvinë. They had been transferred there for safekeeping from the rebel forces of Central Albania that had invaded Vlorë.
Kristo Floqi writes in the weekly newspaper Arbënia in 1936, that "the national flag that was raised for the first time had been "crafted" with her own hands by Marigo Posio from a cloth purchased by a local drapery merchant named Diamanti and based on the model drawn by Dom Mark Vasa and Petro Fotografi". In a later correspondence that Floqi writes to the editor of Drita Newspaper, dated 17 January 1937 and titled "The designer of the flag that was flown in Vlorë for the declaration of our independence", in response to Kol Rodhe, the flag is described as "a thin red woven cloth, 3 meters long and 2 meters wide and on which a black double-headed vulture was branded". Floqi may have had such knowledge of the flag as his brother Thanas was one of the signatories of the Declaration of Independence and Floqi himself was married to Urani Poçi, the sister of Marigo Posio.
This second hypothesis is also supported by Posio's assistant, Thina Ferra who claims the following:
Vinçenc Prennushi wrote in "Gjeth e Lule" his immortal romance "Grueja Shqyptare" which is thought to have been inspired by Marigo Posio.
Flag of the Provisional Government">Provisional Government of Albania">Provisional Government (1912–1914)
The weekly Albanian language newspaper Zër' i Popullit, based in New York City, published on the cover page of its 7th issue, dated 17 December 1912, a color illustration of the Albanian flag.It shows a striking resemblance to another illustration found on the cover page of the 16th issue of the 2nd annual edition of Perlindja e Shqipëniës newspaper, the official publication of the newly formed Albanian State, dated 7 March 1914.