A minor but persistent theme in Estonian nationalism – spanning over a century – has been the notion that Estonia should discard (or at least partially depart from) its traditional
blue-black-white tricolour flag, opting instead for some variation of a Scandinavian-inspired cross flag, which was believed to more accurately embody and represent Estonia’s Nordic identity. This article examines the various iterations of this proposal in the early years of Estonian independence, starting from when the cross flag first entered public debate in newspapers in the spring of 1919 until the final enactment of the Estonian national flag law in 1922. That law effectively marginalised the cross flag idea for the remainder of the interwar period.

In particular, the article highlights how discussions of the cross flag intersected with political aspirations for Estonia to join a Great Baltic League or a Nordic-Baltic federation. Such a union would have included all the smaller states around the Baltic Sea, providing tangible political manifestation of the notion of Estonia’s Nordic identity, which had been part of Estonian nationalist discourse since the turn of the century. There is an observable correlation between the emergence and decline of the idea of an Estonian cross flag and the perceived achievements and setbacks impacting the union idea, until both were ultimately abandoned in 1922.

The article also discusses the variety of cross flag proposals, which included some forms of a red cross flag, intended by its advocates to draw attention to the close connection between the birth of Estonian independence and the 1917 Russian revolutions. The article also presents the various forms of criticism levelled against cross flag proposals – which were frequently hard to refute for the idea’s proponents. Finally, it discusses the compromise proposal of separating the national flag (in the ethnonational sense) from the state flag, which was problematic due to its incompatibility with the idea of the nation’s inseparability from the nation state.

This study is part of my broader research program that explores the concept of Estonia’s Nordic identity, examining its various manifestations and political implications in the early decades of the 20th century.