State Flag Day of Ukraine ( Ukrainian. The Day of the Sovereign Prapora of Ukraine ), which is celebrated annually on August 23 and is a public holiday, is established by Decree of the President of the country № 987/2004 of August 23, 2004.
The national flag of Ukraine — the flag of two equally large horizontal stripes of blue and yellow with the ratio of the width of the flag to its length 2: 3.
The use of yellow and blue ( with different shades ) on the flags of Ukraine is traced from the adoption of Christianity. Subsequently, these two colors acquired the value of state. In the mid-17th century, after the accession of the Getman to the Russian state, blue ( blue ) panels with gold or yellow images of crosses and other signs are gaining distribution. Since the time of the Cossacks, the yellow-blue combination of flowers is gradually beginning to dominate Ukrainian lorodles, flags and dumplings.
After the tradition of the Cossack symbols was interrupted, for a long time in Ukraine, which was part of the Russian Empire, the question of national symbols did not rise.
The first attempt to create a yellow-blue flag from two horizontal stripes, approximately as it is now, was made by the Main Russian Rada ( organ, which represented the national movement of the Ukrainian population of Galicia ). In June 1848, the yellow-blue flag was first raised on the city hall of Lviv.
The impetus for the spread of such symbols in Ukraine was the February Revolution of 1917 in Russia. On March 22, 1918, the Central Council adopted the Law on the State Flag of the Republic, approving the yellow-blue flag with the symbol of the Ukrainian People's Republic. On November 13, 1918, this flag became the state symbol of the West Ukrainian People's Republic. It was approved on Podcarpathian Rus, and in 1939 — in Carpathian Ukraine. In the period 1917 — early 1919, the Bolsheviks also used the blue-yellow flag in Ukraine.
On August 24, 1991, the Act of Independence of Ukraine was proclaimed, and a blue-yellow flag rose above the Verkhovna Rada building. On September 18, 1991, by a resolution of the Presidium of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine, it was approved by the official symbol of the country.
The blue-yellow combination of flowers finally took shape as a single-national at the beginning of the 21st century. According to the popular modern interpretation, yellow color symbolizes ripe wheat niva as a symbol of prosperity, and the blue — clear sky above them.
In recent years, a complex of solemn and educational events dedicated to the history of the flag and other state symbols of Ukraine, thematic conferences, and round tables has traditionally been timed to coincide with the Day of the State Flag.