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Оваа книга претставува докторска теза одбранета во јули 2018 година, на Универзитетот „Св. Кирил и Методиј“, Институт за национална историја. Комисијата за одбрана ја предводеше проф. д-р Тодор Чепеганов, проследено со менторот, проф. д-р Драгица Поповска, и членовите: проф. д-р Катерина Мирчевска, проф. д-р Билјана Ристовска-Јосифовска, проф. д-р Маја Ангеловска-Панова. Оваа книга ги истражува лавот и сонцето кои како симболи се појавуваат во материјалната и духовната култура во Македонија од памтивек, како и нивната употреба на знамиња и грбови поврзани со Македонија. Таа опфаќа два главни периода, периодот пред формирањето на македонската држава, до 1944 година и периодот до 2017 година. Темата е мултидисциплинарна, така што се земаат предвид етнолошките, историските, социјалните, социолошките, правните и политичките аспекти. Најнапред е дадена теоретската рамка за симболите и општеството, која опфаќа теоретски дел за семиотиката, грбот и знамето и нивната функција во општеството, како и процесот на избор на амблеми и примена на нивните грбови и знамиња. Исто така се воведени и принципите на хералдиката, вексилологијата. Понатаму е разгледан периодот до 1944 година, кој ги покрива сонцето и лавот како симболи во духовната и материјалната култура, како и во хералдиката и вексилологијата. Фокусот е на лавот во припишаните грбови и знамиња на Александар Велики во средновеков-на Европа и таканаречениот земски грб на Македонија во илирската хералдика, како и апликацијата на сонцето и лавот на знамињата за време на Националното движење во 19 век. По формирањето на македонската држава, во рамки на Југославија во 1944 година, се разгледани социо-политичкиот и културниот контекст на појавата на сонцето во државните симболи на СР Македонија, химната и грбот. Разгледана е и популаризацијата на лавот како симбол на Македонија и на сонцето и лавот како симболи што ги користи и македонската дијаспора. Во период по осамостојувањето 1991 година, се проучени социо-политичкиот контекст на изборот на симболите, и симболизацијата на политичките партии. Опфатен е парламентарниот процес за изборот на симболи на Република Македонија, вклучувајќи ги и предлозите за грб и знамето на државата. Тука се вклучени и симболите на сонцето и лавот на националното знаме и грбот во поединечни наративи, перцепции и емоции. На крај е разгледана современата македонска територијална хералдика и вексилологија и употребата на сонцето на грбовите и знамињата на општините во Република Македонија. Истражувањето вклучува анализа на изворите, описи и типизација на симболите и нивната категоризација. Ова книга, заедно со нејзиниот претходник, книгата „Симболите на Македонија“ ќе придонесе за збогатување на теоријата и практиката на македонската хералдика и вексилологија и поставување теоретска рамка за проучување на симболите како елементи на колективниот идентитет, што ќе станат државни симболи преку развојот на македонската државност. This book represents a doctoral thesis defended in July 2018, at the University of St. Cyril and Methodius, Institute of National History. The defense committee was led by Prof. Dr. Todor Chepeganov, followed by the mentor, Prof. Dr. Dragica Popovska, and the members: Prof. Dr. Katerina Mirchevska, Prof. Dr. Biljana RistovskaJosifovska, Prof. Dr. Maja Angelovska-Panova.This book explores the lion and the sun, which have appeared as symbols in the material and spiritual culture of Macedonia since time immemorial, as well as their use on flags and coats of arms associated with Macedonia. It covers two main periods, the period before the formation of the Macedonian state, until 1944, and the period until 2017. The topic is multidisciplinary, so that ethnological, historical, social, sociological, legal and political aspects are taken into account.First, the theoretical framework for symbols and society is given, which includes a theoretical section on semiotics, the coat of arms and the flag and their function in society, as well as the process of choosing emblems and applying them to their coats of arms and flags. The principles of heraldry and vexillology are also introduced. The period up to 1944 is further examined, covering the sun and the lion as symbols in spiritual and material culture, as well as in heraldry and vexillology. The focus is on the lion in the coats of arms attributed to Alexander the Great in medieval Europe and the so-called Land coat of arms of Macedonia in Illyrian heraldry, as well as the application of the sun and the lion on flags during the National Movement in the 19th century. After the formation of the Macedonian state, within Yugoslavia in 1944, the socio-political and cultural context of the appearance of the sun in the state symbols of the SR Macedonia, the anthem and the coat of arms, is examined. The popularization of the lion as a symbol of Macedonia and of the sun and the lion as symbols used by the Macedonian diaspora is also examined. In the period after independence in 1991, the socio-political context of the choice of symbols and the symbolization of political parties is studied. The parliamentary process for the selection of symbols of the Republic of Macedonia is covered, including the proposals for the coat of arms and the flag of the state. This includes the symbols of the sun and the lion on the national flag and coat of arms in individual narratives, perceptions and emotions. Finally, contemporary Macedonian territorial heraldry and vexillology and the use of the sun on the coats of arms and flags of municipalities in the Republic of Macedonia are examined. The research includes analysis of sources, descriptions and typification of symbols and their categorization. This book, together with its predecessor, the book "Symbols of Macedonia", will contribute to enriching the theory and practice of Macedonian heraldry and vexillology and setting a theoretical framework for the study of symbols as elements of collective identity, which will become state symbols through the development of Macedonian statehood.

Three experiments tested whether the subliminal presentation of national symbols automatically elicited societally prescribed normative values in the New Zealand (NZ) context using a lexical decision task. Consistent with research in the United States, the presentation of the NZ flag (Study 1), but not another consensually validated NZ national symbol (The Silver Fern, Study 2), increased the cognitive accessibility of egalitarian value concepts. The NZ flag did not, however, activate values in a comparable sample of foreign nationals (Study 3). National flags, it seems, automatically activate normative values for ingroup members, and this effect is not limited to nations with a high frequency of flag-display behavior such as the United States.

Michael Billig's book, Banal Nationalism, published in 1995, has a significant international reputation and is one of the books most commonly quoted in Anglophone studies on nationalism. This article follows on from the various books and articles that were published for the 20th anniversary of the book and underlines the way in which the posterity of this thesis is partly based on a misunderstanding, or a misappropriation. In a context in which the end of nations seemed imminent, Banal Nationalism aimed to demonstrate that, on the contrary, nationalism was indeed spread massively and invisibly throughout the world, and particularly in established Western democracies. Yet today this book is considered one of the founding texts of the bottom-up approach to national identity, which puts individuals at the heart of the fabrication of nations. This article discusses how this interpretation has come about.

Artefacts containing national or ethnic symbols, such as flags and maps, are frequently used by 14-year-old youth in a multiethnic, suburban municipality in Stockholm. Appearing as ornaments or trinkets to outsiders, to the initiated they are distinctive group markers displaying multiple political and ideological affiliations. As visual symbols these artefacts invoke communicative, but non-verbal, processes: they interpellate viewers who answer with their reactions. Thus these objects serve to both banally reproduce nationalism and ethnicity and to serve as identity markers. These identities are primarily inclusive and non-aggressive. The symbols do not seem to be a sign of resistance to mainstream Swedish society in line with much work in the field of youth culture. Instead, they are used as a proud, visual display of additional identities complementing a Swedish identity. Ethnicity research often covers linguistic markers or ethnic and national identities. In contrast, the area of youthconsumptionof nationalism, in the form of objects featuring national, ethnic and religious symbols, is as yet not well documented. Based on a year-long fieldwork in a junior high school, this paper documents ways in which minority group students handle material artefacts and what these symbols involved mean to them.

Сонцето и лавот како симболи се појавуваат во материјалната и духовната култура во Македонија од памтивек. Предмет на истражување во оваа теза се лавот и сонцето како симболи, со посебен осврт на нивната употреба на знамиња и грбови поврзани со Македонија. Истражувањето опфаќа два периода, периодот пред формирањето на Македонската држава, до 1944 година и периодот до денес. Темата е мултидисциплинарна, па затоа се земаат предвид етнолошки, историски, социјални, социолошки, правни и политички аспекти. Целта на истражувањето е да се опише и класифицира типологијата на атрибутите на сонцето и лавот и на тој начин да се провери нивниот континуитет до денес, како симболи за идентификација на територијата и колективот, изразени на грбови и знамиња. Лавот како симбол се среќава на грбовите и знамињата, главно од средниот век до почетокот на 20 век, поврзан со припишаниот грб на Александар Македонски. Сонцето како симбол се наоѓа на грбовите и знамињата во Македонија од почетокот на 20 век, главно како симбол на слободата и новиот свет (систем). The sun and the lion as symbols appear in the material and spiritual culture in Macedonia from time immemorial. The subject of research in this thesis is the lion and the sun as symbols, with particular reference to their use on flags and coat of arms connected to Macedonia. The research covers two periods, the period before the formation of the Macedonian state, until 1944 and the period until the present. The topic is multidisciplinary, so ethnological, historical, social, sociological, legal and political aspects are taken into account. The purpose of the research is to describe and classify the typology of the attributes of the sun and the lion and thus to check their continuity to date, as symbols for identification of territory and collective, expressed on coats of arms and flags. The lion as a symbol is found on the coats of arms and flags, mainly from the Middle Ages until the beginning of the 20th century, connected with the attributed coat of arms of Alexander the Great. The sun as a symbol is located on the coats of arms and flags in Macedonia from the beginning of the 20th century, mainly as a symbol of freedom and the new world (system).

This article discusses examples of mediated and mediating symbols used to build trust in Europe as a shared transnational project. It starts with a general discussion of globalisation and transnational mediation, and then briefly exemplifies how money, flags, anthems and other symbols work to suggest identifications. The five key European symbols ratified by the Council of Europe and the European Union are introduced, presented and analysed, indicating how the EU and other pan-European actors have chosen to express a sense of shared identity and meaning. Each of these key symbols is then scrutinised as multi-layered mediating tools in creating loyalty and reinforcing faith in collective societal institutions of markets and states, and in the corresponding imagined supra-national community. These dominant European symbols are shown to reflect a balance between homogenisation and fragmentation. The analysis locates a core identifying formula of "an ambivalent desire for communication with others". However, it also finds a major set of tensions around this thematic core, understanding European identification as a dynamic process of mediation rather than as a limited and limiting object.

In this chapter, Michael Billig re-assesses the strengths and weaknesses of Banal Nationalism, responds to some of the arguments put forward in the other chapters in this collection and outlines some possible ways in which research on the topic might proceed.

This introduction considers the significance of Michael Billig's (1995) Banal Nationalism to geographers, and how this fits into broader trends of nationalism research in the social sciences. Through an analysis of Web of Science citation trends for the book, we illustrate its spatial and temporal reach in terms of the countries where it has been cited and how its impact has developed since 1995. We also briefly examine how political geographers have engaged the concept of banal nationalism in their research, and what sort of questions it has raised for those conducting research on nationalist discourses and territorial identity narratives more broadly. Considering how political geographers might creatively advance this scholarship, we introduce the individual papers included in this special issue and conclude with a brief gesture to future directions for research beyond Banal Nationalism.

Accounts of the relationship between flags and the law have focused on a narrow strain of contentions drawn from debates about political expression. This essay seeks to bridge the gap between cultural studies’ insight into nationalism and its symbolics, and the flag’s legal status, to better understand the unique position occupied by national flags. Flag ‘waving’ has become more prevalent in many liberal democracies. In such societies, flags occupy not a religious role, but a quiet and quotidian place in what Billig terms ‘banal nationalism’. As a cipher for the whole, a particular flag’s design is relatively unimportant; what lends it power is a mix of the gravity bestowed by its official designation and the easy commodification lent by a flag’s easy reproducibility and portability. Unlike other state symbols such as the currency, coat of arms and honorifics, the state does not seek to monopolise the flag’s use, let alone define its meaning. An analysis of the laws in several countries governing flag designation, observance and ‘desecration’ reveals that the law accords the flag distinct status yet only equivocal protection. While the state may crave its citizens’ fealty, a flag is not a symbol of some distant governmentality. Rather, it is gifted to ‘the people’ and relies for its relevance on its organic proliferation. As both object and image, people attribute a power to the flag – a power they recognise over themselves and others with whom they share a body politic. A key source of this fetishisation is its official, legal designation. Though it embodies no particular values, a flag is valued, even fetishised, by flag-wavers and flag-burners alike.

Chapters: What is American civil religion?; America: the name, the concept, and the word; Jamestown and its anniversaries; The Mayflower Compact ; Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrims, and the Indians; City on a hill: from Jesus to Winthrop, Kennedy, and Reagan; The Freedom Trail and Boston Common; The Liberty Bell, Independence Hall, and the slave quarters ; The flag; The Declaration of Independence; The Great Seal and the dollar bill; The Constitution; Washington, D.C.: the city, the Capitol, and the White House; The Star-Spangled Banner; The Washington Monument; The Battle Hymn of the Republic; Gettysburg and the Gettysburg Address; Lincoln's second inaugural address; Arlington National Cemetery; The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island; America the Beautiful; The Lincoln Memorial; Mount Rushmore in the Black Hills; God Bless America ; This Land is Your Land; The four freedoms; Iwo Jima: the picture, the monuments, and the battle; Disney parks; The Kennedy inaugural; Kings' speeches: the Mall (1963) and Memphis (1968); Vietnam Veterans Memorial; Transforming the National Mall; Ground zero, martyrdom, and empire; Conflict, consensus, and the future

A letter to the editor is provided in response to an obituary for American vexillologist Whitney Smith in the December 10, 2016 issue.

An obituary for American flag enthusiast and vexillologist Whitney Smith, Jr. is presented.

This thesis focuses on the preservation and interpretation of Alabama Confederate battle flags, mainly those at the Alabama Department of Archives and History. I study the complex history of Confederate flags, along with the now almost singularly known ‘Rebel flag’, in order to better understand modern day preservation and interpretation attempts both at the ADAH and other historic venues across the United States. This thesis explores the society that existed before the Civil War in the southern United States and how that unique culture was eventually tangibly embodied within those flags. I also research the wartime use of Confederate flags to understand what they meant in the context of those times and how they were used as utilitarian military objects in combat, but took on greater meaning and developed in to a source of pride for the men who fought under them. I then explore the post war history of the flags, from their repatriation to archival repositories across the South, to their use by the KKK, and their place in Southern culture. Finally, I briefly explore contemporary issues concerning the flags and how those factors influence their preservation and interpretation. Lastly, I discuss the latest trends at the ADAH concerning the preservation and interpretation of Alabama Confederate flags.

The Australian national flag is the primary symbol of the nation. The flag produces and reproduces national identity through its presence in all spheres of the public domain. This thesis is an examination into the national flag’s representational force. It focuses on how the flag makes meaning in accordance with dominant discourses of nation and nationhood through an analysis of its uses and applications across a range of institutional sites. The thesis also takes into consideration the meaning-making potential of the national flag for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. This work deploys a wide-range of historical and contemporary sources that include art and literary responses to the flag. The thesis also draws on a range of theoretical works on nation alongside the use of vexillology as a focused study of flags. A critique of the messages and meanings that the Australian national flag transmits raises important questions pertaining to the way the nation is constructed and maintained. While the thesis does not proffer a definitive solution to the many complexities surrounding Australian national identity, it offers the opportunity for further study as debates about changing the flag continue to circulate in the public sphere.

During the last two centuries the authenticity of Francisco Pizarro’s Banner of Arms preserved by the National Museum of Colombia has been under discussion. The Banner collected in 1825 by General Sucre, has been catalogued as an unique object part of the history in the reunion of two societies, the Old and the New World. By first time a multi-analytical research is done to the Banner. Chromatographic, spectroscopic and microscopic techniques are combined with radiocarbon dating to characterize the different material components of the object and clarified it age and provenance. The analytic results with the historical documentation, allow to postulate that the Banner comes from an European manufacture, around the 16th century, arriving to America’s lands possibly by Pizarro’s expedition. Nevertheless, the Banner does not represent to Pizarro. In contrast, by the Banner manufacture, elements (weaved degummed silk, natural dyes (brazil wood, cochineal, indigotin and luteolin base) and silver gilded threads) and the coat of arms present on it, it is possible to postulate that the Banner represents the Royal Banner of the America’s Conquest under the Crown of the King of Spain Charles V to symbolize his Realm in the New World.

This thesis provides an analysis of the history of the new South African flag of 1994. It presents an overview account of the South African flag legacy from the early colonial period through to the first national flag of the Union of South Africa in 1928. Its main concern however is the process which culminated in the raising of a new national flag on 27 April 1994. It shows how the flag issue was integral to the negotiations aimed at addressing South Africa’s political future and it is within this context that it sets out the steps taken to address the matter. It also recounts how the process initially floundered before the current design - which has become one of the primary graphic symbols of identification for the new South Africa and its people - finally came into being. Despite the initial reaction to the design, it unpacks the extent to which the flag has been embraced by the South African population at large which has far exceeded expectation. Apart from its visual success, the flag is symbolic of the convergence and unification which is inextricably linked to the freedom and democracy which the new political dispensation encapsulated.