Sewn to measure. On time. Every time.
Sewn to measure. On time. Every time.
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Spetses Flag

SKU: G01 Category: Portfolio:

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33,70 €
each.incl. VAT
Shipping to Italy · 00187: calculating…
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At your door Monday 9 November — Standard

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60 days
return
24 months
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Configuration

Delivery

ExpressWed 4 Novat your door
StandardMon 9 Novat your door
EconomyFri 20 Novat your door

Specifications

Description

Spetses Flag

Light blue with a red border, a red cross and the words Freedom or Death: the flag of Spetses

This flag has a light blue field with a wide red border. In the centre a red cross stands on an inverted crescent, with a snake coiled round it, a bird above it, and an anchor and a spear beside it. Around the emblem, in red Greek capitals, runs the motto ΕΛΕΥΘΕΡΙΑ Η ΘΑΝΑΤΟΣ.

Freedom or death

The motto is Eleftheria i thanatos, «Freedom or death», which English Wikipedia also lists as the national motto of Greece. Wikimedia Commons files this design in its category of flags carrying that motto.

The island that raised the flag first

According to English Wikipedia, Spetses was the first of the Greek islands to raise the flag of the Revolution, on the morning of 3 April (Old Style) 1821. Wikimedia Commons describes this design as the flag of the island during the Greek War of Independence of 1821, and says that the inverted crescent symbolises the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

A fleet of merchant ships

The island's fleet, made up of merchant ships, played a key role in the war: it took part in raids on the Turkish coast and in the sieges of the fortresses of Nafplion and Monemvasia, and in the naval battles of Samos (1824) and Kafireas (1825). Spetses was also the home of the war heroine Laskarina Bouboulina, whose life-size statue stands on the main dock, and its captains were so wealthy that, with those of nearby Hydra, they tapped their hoarded gold to fund the war of liberation.

The island today

Spetses is an island of the Saronic group, in Attica, and an independent municipality; the town of Spetses is its only large settlement and no private cars are allowed within the town limits. Every year, on the second weekend of September, the island commemorates the naval battle of 8 September 1822 with a re-enactment in the harbour.

Who chooses it

For anyone from Spetses or with roots on the island, for the many who sail and holiday in the Saronic Gulf, for Greeks at home and abroad who remember 1821, for philhellenes, history lovers and collectors of flags of the Greek War of Independence, and for a taverna, boat or hotel that wants to show where it belongs. We sew it to order, in the size and fabric you choose above, and you see the delivery date before you pay.

Flag facts

Official name
Σπέτσες
Validity
Historical
Years in use
from 1821 · period 1800–1899
Type
Civic
ISO code
GR-I

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