The flag of Gagauzia (, , ) has served as an official symbol of the Gagauz Territorial Unit since 1995, and is recognized as a regional symbol by Moldova. Popularly known as the "Sky Flag", it is a triband of blue-white-red, with a wider blue stripe, charged with three yellow stars arranged in triangular pattern. The overall symbolism is debated, but the stars may represent the three Gagauz municipalities within Moldova. The tricolor is reminiscent of the Russian flag, which is also popular in Gagauzia; the issue has created friction between Gagauz and Moldovan politicians.
Before their mass migration into Bessarabia and the Budjak, Gagauz people were associated with several polities—including the Despotate of Dobruja—which, according to Gagauz tradition, had a rooster flag. The emergence of Gagauz nationalism dates back to the 1860s, when the Gagauz and the Bessarabian Bulgarians rejected both Tsarist autocracy and Romanian nationalism. A Gagauz quasi-state, the "Comrat Republic", was formed during the Russian Revolution of 1905, but its leaders only used the generic red flag, publicizing their loyalty toward the All-Russian Peasant Union. Separate symbols for the Gagauz and their territory are comparatively new, first emerging as marks of the resistance to Russification in the Soviet Union. Several ethnic and semi-official flags were recorded for Gagauz separatists during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, generally featuring the grey wolf ().
The self-proclaimed Gagauz Republic adopted wolf symbolism in various forms; the device was featured on its official flag, which reportedly existed in only one copy. Despite their initial popularity, grey-wolf flags were tainted by controversy, being read as references to Pan-Turkism and the eponymous far-right group. They fell out of use in 2000–2010, but reemerged as popular in the following decade. In 2017, Governor Irina Vlah proposed the introduction of a flag bearing the wolf's head in red as a "historical flag" with official status. If adopted, this resolution would not replace the "Sky Flag".
Symbolism The current "national flag" of Gagauzia has "a blue field bearing a narrow white and red horizontal stripes on the bottom and three yellow stars on the upper hoist."Minahan, p. 630 Reportedly, the three stars stand for "the past, present and future", or, alternatively, for the three constituent municipalities of Gagauzia: Comrat (Komrat), Ceadîr-Lunga (Çadır-Lunga), and Vulcănești (Valkaneş).Bulut, p. 62 Writer Ștefan Curoglu was an early proponent of a triband arrangement, which was to attest the ancestry of Gagauz people. In this interpretation, each color represents an ancestral contributor to Gagauz ethnogenesis: the Pechenegs, the Kipchaks, and the Oghuz Turks."Nové vlajky. Gagauzsko", in Vexilologie. Zpravodaj Vexilologického Klubu při okd Praha, Issue 81, 1991, pp. 1602–1603
The triband replaced earlier designs with a grey wolf (bozkurt) or wolf's head. These were notably in use under the self-proclaimed Gagauz Republic of Governor Stepan Topal (served 1990–1995). According to reports of the time, the imagery recalls "a myth of the Gagauz people's founding", when "a wolf led [the Gagauz] to freedom."Quinn, p. 24 Writing in 1990, Curoglu linked the wolf's head with another tradition, that of "nine mourners", or "nine wolves", guarding the Gagauz nation, or with the folkloric depiction of the pole star as a wolf. Other readings describe the bozkurt as a Pan-Turkic symbol, namely as "the legendary grey wolf that led the Turks across the mountains onto the steppes."Smith Albion, p. 6 Journalist Àlex Bustos quotes Gagauz tourism expert Vera Garciu, who links that symbolism with "pagan aspects [that] are still used in our culture. [...] We have festivities that we dedicate to wolves: we simultaneously fear and respect them."Àlex Bustos, Gagauzia: Turkic, Orthodox Crossroads between Moldova, Russia and Turkey, Nationalia (CIEMEN), January 12, 2022 Researcher Anatol Măcriș claims that the ancient Gagauz flag had "a wolf on a green field", and proposes that it may derive from the Dacian Draco.Măcriș, p. 58
History Emergence of Gagauz nationalism The Gagauz report their origins as linked to the high-medieval Despotate of Dobruja, and see themselves as a Turkic Christian people which resisted the spread of Islam. Folk tradition describes the Despotate as a Turkish "Uzi Eyalet", co-founded by the Seljuk ruler Kaykaus II and the Alevi mystic Sarı Saltık.Karanfil, pp. 61–62. See also Menz, p. 127 Such records claim that the state switched to a Christian Kipchak dynasty, whose most notable exponent was Dobrotitsa, and whose main symbol was a "red flag with a white rooster at its center."Karanfil, p. 61 The Despotate was conquered by the Ottoman Empire, but the main branches of the Gagauz stayed behind in the Dobrujan and Ludogorian areas of Rumelia. According to Gagauz sources, in the 18th century they established a republic centered on, and named, the town of Vister; it also comprised some 100 Dobrujan villages.Karanfil, pp. 62–63 Some Ludogorian Gagauzes moved to Moldavia in the 1780s, settling in its eastern regions—later known as Bessarabia. These colonists established villages in the Leova area, but were angered by the heavy taxes imposed on them, and resettled to the south, in the Ottoman-held Budjak (Silistra Eyalet).Karanfil, p. 63
Chased out of Dobruja during the Russo-Turkish War of 1806, many Gagauzes were accepted by the Russian Empire, which now occupied Bessarabia and the Budjak, regrouped as the Bessarabia Governorate. Their colonization helped "fill the gap that occurred with the forced exile of the Tatars who had formerly lived in this region."Menz, p. 125 Part of the Budjak was returned to Moldavia in 1856, together with its Gagauz, but re-annexed by Russia with the 1878 Berlin Treaty.Kapaló, pp. 47–53, 58–83; Karanfil, pp. 62–63; Măcriș, pp. 5–74, 96–99, 117–119, 149–195; Menz, p. 126; Minahan, pp. 631–632. See also Jorma, pp. 143–145 During the first decades of their presence, they were officially designated as "Bulgarians/Greeks of the Turkish tongue", or as "baptized Turks";Duminică (2017), pp. 13–14 opinion gravitated toward them being an "ethnographic group among the Bulgarians".Skrukwa, p. 293 Into the 1860s, they remained closely aligned and confounded with the Bessarabian Bulgarians. In 1842–1844, inspired by the Minkov family of Bolgrad, the two groups bonded in rebelling against the Russian administration, who had formed a habit of using the colonists as cheap labor.Duminică (2017), pp. 19–20 Like the Bulgarians, the Gagauz opted for incorporation with the United Principalities, but were disappointed to discover that Moldavian and Romanian laws would not prolong their regional autonomy; in 1861, Bulgarians and Gagauz staged a rebellion against conscription into the Romanian Land Forces, and thereafter organized waves of emigration into Russia.Sever Mircea Catalan, "Principiul integrității teritoriale în politica românească în vremea lui Alexandru Ioan Cuza", in Revista Istorică, Vol. 3, Issues 7–8, July–August 1992, pp. 762–765. See also Kapaló, pp. 51–52; Menz, p. 126
Gagauzia first expressed aspirations of becoming an independent nation in the wake of the 1905 Revolution: a small "Comrat Republic", or Gagauz Khalki, survived for some days in January 1906.Bulgar, pp. 304–305; Bulut, p. 63; Kapaló, p. 54; Karanfil, pp. 63–64; Minahan, p. 632; Romanova, pp. 201–201; Tufar et al., passim It formed a government, with Andrey Galatsan serving as the "Comrat President" (Komrat Cumhurbaşkanı),Karanfil, pp. 63–64 and "took a decision to abolish all taxes on its territory".Bulgar, p. 304 Although cited as a precedent and "the world's first Turkish Republic"Karanfil, p. 64 by later nationalists, this polity was mainly concerned with land reform, rather than ethnic self-determination.Kapaló, p. 54. See also Basciani, pp. 61–62 The episode also brought Gagauz settlements under the influence of left-wing political parties, including most of all the Esers and the All-Russian Peasant Union (of which Galatsan himself was a member), but also an anarchist club established by Ferdinand Bragalia.Bulgar, p. 302. See also Tufar et al., passim Revolutionary pamphlets referred to the red flag as a central symbol, and carried the Esers' Russian-language slogan: Въ борьбѣ обрѣтешь ты право свое ("Through struggle you will attain your rights").Tufar et al., pp. 27, 48, 49
A second statehood was established following the February Revolution of 1917, with hopes of joining the Moldavian Democratic Republic (RDM) as an autonomous unit. The community was allocated two seats in the RDM legislature, Sfatul Țării,Basciani, p. 89 wherein Krste Misirkov, an immigrant from Macedonia, described himself as "elected by the Bulgarians and the Gagauz".Vlado Treneski, Deyan Tanchovski, Erlin Ago, Ivan Nikolov, Iliya Stoyanovski, Metodiy Ivanov, Rumen Srebranov, Spas Tashev, White Book about the Language Dispute Between Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia, pp. 46–47. Sofia & Toronto: Orbel, 2021. Invaded by the Ukrainian People's Republic and the Odessa Soviet Republic, the Gagauz polity sought protection from the Kingdom of Romania, and eventually supported the union of Bessarabia with Romania.Minahan, pp. 632–633 This decision was fought against by Tighina's "Bulgarian-and-Gagauz committee", which sought to achieve union with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.Gheorghe Brătianu, Basarabia. Drepturi naționale și istorice, p. 56. Bucharest: Editura Semne, 1995. In 1921–1924, a Gagauz guerilla force, established by the Bessarabian Communist Party, engaged the Romanian Gendarmes in skirmishes, culminating as a Gagauz participation in the larger Tatarbunary Uprising.Romanova, pp. 201–202. See also Kapaló, p. 55
Turkic symbols