Eagles and Eastern Europe

[Molybdeus]

The national symbols of Poland, Austria, pre-soviet Russia and Germany are eagles. Although eagles are powerful creatures that lend themselves to heraldry, it seems strange that almost all major central and eastern european states would choose an eagle as their symbol. Is there some reason for this?

 

[cybrxkhan]

the Romans liked eagles. when the Holy Roman Empire and Byzantines came about, as (whether legimtimate or not) sucessors of the Romans, they too wanted to show that they were powerful like Rome, so they adopted its symbol, the eagle. the HRE was influential on Western Europe, the Byzantines on Eastern Europe, so those states got the eagle too.

 

[Mirc]

Wallachia has an eagle too (and modern-day Romania too, as it's based on Wallachia).

Look up national bird on google/wiki. Most countries have some kind of bird on their symbols. It's not only Poland, Russia, Austria, Germany, Romania, etc.

But yes, I agree, I don't know why. Maybe the Roman thing is true, I don't know.

 

[silver 2039]

Incidentally the symbol of the Kingdom of Mysore in South India is also the double headed eagle.

 

[West 36]

Is there any connection between those and the US's bald eagle? It's North American, but it's still an eagle, but the US's influence was mostly Westeren Europe.
Maybe we just picked it cuz it was soo awesome

 

[burak]

Yes, ts all from Romans. Eagle was seen as a symbol of Roman Empire, and was used by states claiming succession of it. Therefore german kings used eagle as symbol of their Holy Roman Empire. it was also used by byzantine Empire. After Constantinople has fallen, Russia adopted it's double-headed eagle as the only independent eastern christian state it claimed to be successor of Eastern Roman Empire. Romanian and serbian eagles were probably copies of russian one. The origin of polish eagle is uncertain. Either it was a totemic animal of Polanie tribe, or it was copied from german one.

 

[Traitorfish]

It's hardly unique to Easter Europe- Germany and France both used eagles during their imperial periods, and the US uses them too. It's just the inevitable result of having this grand, "world-spanning" empire putting eagles on everything. The only major countries that didn't where the Netherlands and Britain; the Netherlands because they were technically part of the Holy Roman Empire, and so were not permitted to use eagles, Britain because both England and Scotland use lions in their heraldic emblems, so lions had more of a nationalistic appeal.
Admittedly, this tendency does seem stronger in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe, but I can guess we can put that down to the huge level of German/Byzantine influence on the region for most of the middle ages.

 

[Mirc]

Romanian and serbian eagles were probably copies of russian one.

I doubt it, I'd rather say it's from the Byzantines than the Russians - Romanians were incredibly anti-Russian (and still are), I think it's just like the colors of the national flag which are also related to the Byzantine empire (just not directly).

 

[TheLastOne36]

Albania also has an eagle... (double headed one)

Polish Eagle isn't a copy from th Romans, and as someone said here, it is uncertein where it came from, but i was taught in school that it originated in pre- Piast Dynasty time. So somewhere between the 6th-8th century AD if that is true. (bringing in the possibility of Polish City States that ran like the Greek city States, and the eagle being the symbol of a dominant city-state)

 

[Mirc]

Albania also has an eagle... (double headed one)

And as strange as it would seem for a modern European who knows Albania today isn't a very developed state, it's one of the symbols that greatly influenced the people around it. When I read the title, the first thing I thought of was the Albanian eagle.

 

[BadKharma]

Is there any connection between those and the US's bald eagle? It's North American, but it's still an eagle, but the US's influence was mostly Westeren Europe.
Maybe we just picked it cuz it was soo awesome

It is interesting that when the US was choosing their national emblem Benjamin Franklin fought against using an eagle and proposed instead a wild turkey.

 

[Tee Kay]

Roman and Byzantine influence.

Curiously, the Aztec legend also involved an eagle (eagle eating a snake at Tenochtitlan).

 

[Traitorfish]

Polish Eagle isn't a copy from th Romans, and as someone said here, it is uncertein where it came from, but i was taught in school that it originated in pre- Piast Dynasty time.

Quite possible, but I doubt the imperial connotations of the eagle were ignored as a factor. After all, it's unlikely that Poland happened to end up with the same heraldic symbol as half of Europe purely by coincidence.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Possibly, but then again, europe didn't know Poland existed into Mieszko I converted Poland to Christanity, that's why documents on pre- Mieszko Poland is so scarce. And the Eagle (as i was taught) originated from Pre-Piast dynasty Poland, so no more then a coincidence? Probably.

Edit: Actually, maybe documents about Poland may have been a bit earlier then Miezsko, some roman records of the czechs sending christian missionary's to us have been found.

 

[Verge]

It's worth remembering that the specific eagle in question is a double-headed eagle, a heraldic symbol that has its roots in the Byzantine empire. For them, a double-headed eagle represented two things:

1) The emperors' reign over both East and West.
2) The emperors' supremacy of both the religious and secular aspects of the kingdom.

I'm fairly sure the Byzantines considered the latter interpretation as the more important of the two.

 

[Traitorfish]

Possibly, but then again, europe didn't know Poland existed into Mieszko I converted Poland to Christanity, that's why documents on pre- Mieszko Poland is so scarce. And the Eagle (as i was taught) originated from Pre-Piast dynasty Poland, so no more then a coincidence? Probably.

I suppose I didn't explain myself properly... What I meant to say was that while it's quite possible that the origins of the symbol are coincidental, the fact that the eagle was retained as a heraldic symbol was probably, to some extent, influence by it's connotations of imperial power and Christian civilisation.

 

[Mongoloid Cow]

The eagle has also been a popular symbol in other parts of the world. For example the eagle has always been the symbol of the Kazakhs (AFAIK) and is on their modern flag.

My guess is that the eagle has been so popular on flags, heraldry and so forth around the world because it is a bloody big bird which flies. Trying to originate it to any common link, eg: Rome, is IMO wrong.

 

[Traitorfish]

My guess is that the eagle has been so popular on flags, heraldry and so forth around the world because it is a bloody big bird which flies. Trying to originate it to any common link, eg: Rome, is IMO wrong.

Why? It's a pretty much indisputable fact that Rome has had a greater influence on the development of European civilisation than any other culture, so why is it it unreasonable to say that the abundance of heraldic eagles in Europe is not rooted in that?
That's not to say that the "bloody big bird" idea is incorrect- I'm sure that's why the Romans originally selected the symbols themselves- it's just that, in the case of post-Roman Europe, there's more to it than that.

 

[TheLastOne36]

Ok so it's settled. All Eagles except for Poland's Eagle is all copied from Rome!

 

[warpus]

If you were going to use a bird as a symbol, what other bird would you use?

An eagle is so.. majestic.. do any other birds compare?