ERR News – Events across the nation on June 4 marked the 127 birthday of Estonia's blue, black and white flag.
The tricolor emerged at sunrise, as always, atop the medieval tower called Pikk Hermann on the capital's Toompea hill. Orchestras and choirs accompanied its hois-ting.
At noon, schoolchildren and the Defense Forces carried 127 flags to the historical Endla Theater in Pärnu – where the Republic of Estonia was first declared independent in 1918.
The Estonian flag was originally that of the Students' Society at the University of Tartu in the 1880s. It was consecrated in the pastorate of the southern town of Otepää on June 4, 1884. The original is preserved in the National Museum.
A famous interpretation for the meaning of flag's colors is that from a poem by Martin Lipp. Blue stands for the sky; black symbolizes the soil and a dark past; and white represents hope, as the white sails of ships.
In 2001, former chief of government press bureau Kaarel Tarand suggested that the tricolor design of the Estonian flag be switched out for a Scandinavian-style cross, arguing that Estonia has more in common culturally and historically with its northern neighbors than its southern ones. The argument was not enough to overturn the long tradition of three horizontal bands.
