All Topics  
Coat of arms of the Soviet Union

 

 
   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link
 

 

Coat of arms of the Soviet Union
 
 
  Topics Coat of arms of the Soviet Union Topic Home

The state coat of arms
Coat of arms

A coat of arms, more properly called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short, in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways....
 of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 ( Gosuarstvennyiy gerb SSSR) was adopted in 1923 and was used until the break-up of the Soviet Union
History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)

The Soviet Union's collapse into independent nations began early in 1985. After years of Soviet Armed Forces buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth was at a standstill....
 in 1991. Although it technically is an emblem rather than a coat of arms, since it doesn't follow heraldic
Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning Coat of arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms....
 rules, in Russian it is called ???? (transliteration: gerb), the word used for a traditional coat of arms.

History
First version (1923-1936)
The project of the first version of the coat of arms was accepted on July 6, 1923 by the 2nd session of the Central Executive Committee
Central Executive Committee

The term Central Executive Committee refers to governing bodies with executive branch of various Political party, governments, or private organizations....
 (CIK) of the USSR and the version was completed on September 22 of that year.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Coat of arms of the Soviet Union'
Start a new discussion about 'Coat of arms of the Soviet Union'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


The state coat of arms
Coat of arms

A coat of arms, more properly called an armorial achievement, armorial bearings or often just arms for short, in European tradition, is a design belonging to a particular person and used by them in a wide variety of ways....
 of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 ( Gosuarstvennyiy gerb SSSR) was adopted in 1923 and was used until the break-up of the Soviet Union
History of the Soviet Union (1985-1991)

The Soviet Union's collapse into independent nations began early in 1985. After years of Soviet Armed Forces buildup at the expense of domestic development, economic growth was at a standstill....
 in 1991. Although it technically is an emblem rather than a coat of arms, since it doesn't follow heraldic
Heraldry

Heraldry is the profession, study, or art of devising, granting, and blazoning Coat of arms and ruling on questions of rank or protocol, as exercised by an officer of arms....
 rules, in Russian it is called ???? (transliteration: gerb), the word used for a traditional coat of arms.

History


First version (1923-1936)


The project of the first version of the coat of arms was accepted on July 6, 1923 by the 2nd session of the Central Executive Committee
Central Executive Committee

The term Central Executive Committee refers to governing bodies with executive branch of various Political party, governments, or private organizations....
 (CIK) of the USSR and the version was completed on September 22 of that year. This design was fixed in the 1924 Soviet Constitution
1924 Soviet Constitution

The 1924 Soviet Constitution legitimized the December 1922 union of the Russian SFSR, the Ukrainian SSR, the Belarusian SSR, and the Transcaucasian SFSR to form the Soviet Union....
:"The State Emblem of the USSR is composed of a sickle and a hammer on a globe depicted in the rays of the sun and framed by ears of wheat, with the inscription "Workers of All Countries, Unite!" in six languages - Russian
Russian language

Russian is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia, the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages, and the largest native language in Europe....
, Ukrainian
Ukrainian language

Ukrainian is a language of the East Slavic languages of the Slavic languages. It is the official language of Ukraine. In some areas of Russia there are dialects, Balachka or Surzhyk, which are the Ukrainianized versions of the Russian language....
, Belarusian
Belarusian language

The Belarusian language, or Belorussian is the language of the Belarusians and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland....
, Georgian
Georgian language

Georgian is the official language of Georgia , a country in the Caucasus .Georgian is the primary language of about 3.9 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad ....
, Armenian
Armenian language

The 'Armenian language' is an Indo-European language spoken by the Armenians. It is the official language of the Armenia as well as in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh....
, Turko-Tatar
Azerbaijani language

Azerbaijani is a language belonging to the Turkic languages language family, spoken in southwestern Asia, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran....
. At the top of the Emblem is a five-pointed star."

Second version (1936-1946)

According to the 1936 Soviet Constitution
1936 Soviet Constitution

The 1936 Soviet constitution, adopted on December 5, 1936, and also known as the "Stalin" constitution, redesigned the government of the Soviet Union....
, the USSR consisted of eleven republics. Hence the major new version's difference from the previous one were eleven ribbons bearing USSR State Motto inscriptions in eleven languages.

Third version (1946-1956)

The number of republics in the USSR became 16 shortly before the Great Patriotic War, but the coat of arms was changed to reflect this only after the war. By a Decision of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of June 26, 1946, all 16 constituent republics were represented on the coat of arms. The USSR State Motto was inscribed on 16 ribbons in 16 languages (Estonian
Estonian language

Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various ?migr? communities....
, Latvian
Latvian language

Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. Alternative names include Lettish and Lettisch. There are about 1.5 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad....
, Lithuanian
Lithuanian language

Lithuanian is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognised as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.96 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 170,000 abroad....
, Moldavian
Moldovan language

Moldovan , written in the Latin alphabet, is the name of the official language of the Moldova. The language spoken in Moldova is identical to Romanian language, sharing the same literary standard....
, Finnish
Finnish language

Finnish is the language spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by Finnish people outside of Finland. It is one of the official languages of Finland and an official minority language in Sweden....
 languages were added to the previous version). Inscriptions in Azerbaijani
Azerbaijani language

Azerbaijani is a language belonging to the Turkic languages language family, spoken in southwestern Asia, primarily in Azerbaijan and northwestern Iran....
, Turkmen
Turkmen language

Turkmen is the name of the national language of Turkmenistan. It is spoken by approximately 3,430,000 people in Turkmenistan, and by an additional approximately 6,000,000 people in other countries, including Iran , Iraq , Syria , Afghanistan , and Turkey ....
, Uzbek
Uzbek language

Uzbek is a Turkic languages and the official language of Uzbekistan. It has about 23.5 million native speakers, and it is spoken by the Uzbeks in Uzbekistan and elsewhere in Central Asia....
, Tajik
Tajik language

The Tajik language, or Tajik Persian, or Tajiki, is a modern variety of the Persian language spoken in Central Asia. An Indo-European languages language of the Iranian languages language group, most speakers of Tajik live in Tajikistan and Uzbekistan....
, Kazakh
Kazakh language

Kazakh is a Turkic languages language closely related to Nogai language and Karakalpak language.Kazakh is an agglutinative language, and it employs vowel harmony....
, Kyrgyz
Kyrgyz language

Kyrgyz or Kirghiz is a Turkic languages and, together with Russian language, an official language of Kyrgyzstan. It is most closely related to Altay language and more distantly so to Kazakh language....
 languages were updated due to the transfer from the Latin alphabet
Latin alphabet

The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. It evolved from the western variety of the Greek alphabet called the Cumae alphabet, and was initially developed by the Ancient Romes to write the Latin....
 to Cyrillic alphabet
Cyrillic alphabet

The Cyrillic alphabet is a family of alphabets, subsets of which are used by five Slavic languages national languages as well as non-Slavic . It is also used by many other languages of Eastern Europe, the Caucasus, Siberia and other languages in the past....
 of respective republics.

Fourth version (1956-1991)

In 1956 Karelo-Finnish SSR
Karelo-Finnish SSR

The Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic was a short-lived Republic of the Soviet Union that was a part of the former Soviet Union. The republic existed from 1940 until it was merged back into the Russian SFSR in 1956 ....
 was transformed into Karelo-Finnish ASSR and soon this was reflected on the USSR coat of arms. By a Decision of Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of September 12, 1956, a ribbon bearing the USSR State Motto in Finnish was removed.

One more minor change was introduced into the USSR State Motto in Belarusian language
Belarusian language

The Belarusian language, or Belorussian is the language of the Belarusians and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, and Poland....
 by a Decision of the Presidium of Supreme Soviet of the USSR of April 1, 1958.

Description

The coat of arms shows the traditional Soviet emblems of the hammer and sickle
Hammer and sickle

The hammer and sickle is a part of communist symbolism and its usage indicates an association with Communism, a Communist Party, or a Communist state....
 and the Red Star
Red star

The five-pointed red star, a pentagram without the inner pentagon, is a symbol of communism as well as broader socialism in general. It is sometimes understood to represent the five fingers of the Labour hand, as well as the Continent#Number_of_continents....
 over a globe, and two wreaths of wheat
Wheat

Wheat , is a worldwide cultivated Poaceae from the Levant region of the Middle East. Globally, after maize, wheat is the second most-produced food among the cereal just above rice....
 covered by the USSR State motto
USSR State motto

The USSR State motto is a quotation from Karl Marx's and Friedrich Engels' Communist Manifesto, meaning Workers of the world, unite!....
 ("Workers of the World, Unite
Workers of the world, unite!

The political slogan "Workers of the world, unite!", one of the most famous rallying cries of communism, comes from Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels's The Communist Manifesto....
!") in the official language
Official language

An official language is a language that is given a special legal status in a particular country, state, or other territory. Typically a nation's official language will be the one used in that nation's courts, parliament and administration....
s of the Soviet Republics
Republics of the Soviet Union

The Republics of the Soviet Union were, according to the Article 76 of the 1977 Soviet Constitution, Sovereign Soviet Socialist states that had united with other Soviet Republics to become the Soviet Union....
, in the reverse order they were mentioned in the Constitution of the Soviet Union
Constitution of the Soviet Union

The Soviet Union was governed by three versions of its Constitution, following the 1918 Soviet Constitution established by the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the immediate predecessor of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics....
.

Each Soviet Republic (SSR) and Autonomous Soviet Republic
Autonomous republics of the Soviet Union

Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republics of the Soviet Union were administrative units created for certain nations. The ASSRs had a status lower than the republics of the Soviet Union of the Soviet Union, but higher than the autonomous oblasts of the Soviet Union and the autonomous okrugs of the Soviet Union....
 (ASSR) had its own coat of arms
Coats of arms of the Soviet Republics

The coat of arms of the Republics of the Soviet Union of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics all featured predominantly the hammer and sickle and the red star that symbolised communism, as well as a rising sun , surrounded by a wreath of wheat ....
, largely inspired by the coat of arms of the Union.

Footnotes