Poland flags

The legend is that three Slavic chieftains were migrating west with their people from the vastness of the Eurasian steppe. They came to rest and camp on the plain just short of the River Odra (Oder), when one of the brothers, Lech, spotted the white eagle launching from the nest in the crown of the tree and against the red background of the sky at the sunset. He was so moved by this sight and made the decision to settled down in this area and to call the settlement "Gniezno" (the nest). Thus, the Polish symbol of a white eagle on a red field is explained. ( Click Here to learn more about the white eagle symbol )

The other brothers, Rus' and Czech, didn't share Lech's affection for this land. Rus resolved to turn back east, and Czech to turn left, to the south, to look for the greener pastures. Thus began the story of three great nations - Lechistan (Poland), Czechia (Bohemia) and Rus (Russia, Belarus and the Ukraine).

Banner of Przemysl II

The first, documented, flag (war banner) comes from the time of the rule of the Piast King, Przemysl II (Premyslas-Premislaus), who was crowned in 1295. and then assassinated the next year in 1296. When Prince Przemyslaw II was crowned on June 26, 1295, he introduced the white eagle to the royal seal as an emblem of the united Kingdom of Poland, and according to the political and legal doctrine of the Middle Ages, the monarch symbolized the state. Consequently, the personal sign of the ruler became the symbol of the lands and people under his authority.

The attempts to reunify Poland's territories made by Przemyslaw II, no matter how short his actual reign, secured his personal sign of the the white eagle as the symbol of state unity. Przemyslaw II and those after him, Ladislaus the Short and Casimir the Great, would continue to placed their seals of a crowned eagle as a symbol of royal dignity. The feeling of national consciousness...