Manuchar Guntsadze

Caucasus University

Invited Lecturer

Tbilisi, Georgia

https://orcid.org/0009-0003-2954-8221

mguntsadze@cu.edu.ge

For the issue of the flag of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federative Republic

A short but interesting period of the new history of Georgia is the era of the existence of the Transcaucasian Democratic Federal Republic. In-depth research of the mentioned period has been started in recent years and interesting works have been devoted to it. Nevertheless, actual filling in of historical aspects is still needed.
The said state has existed for a little more than a month and managed to bring three states with distinct characteristics into one political system. Therefore, it is interesting what visual characteristics united such a state.
When we talk about the visual characteristics of the state, one of the first things that may come to mind is the flag, which should be the carrier of ideological unity.
There is not much information about the flag of the Transcaucasian Federation, and very often its image goes to the visual on Wikipedia: a unity of yellow, black and red horizontal lines.
The visual is interesting, and it is attributed to the content explanation, but it is interesting where this visual comes from and how reliable it can be.
The purpose of the report is to discuss the unity of the sources that we have regarding the mentioned flag and to follow the line of research in several aspects:
1. The visual idea of the flag;
2. The so-called sources about the flag construction of a timeline;
3. Reliability of sources;
4. Consideration of the extent to which the mentioned flag could be a real symbol of the Transcaucasian Federation.

Keywords: Transcaucasian democratic federal republic; visual characteristics; flag symbolism; historical sources.