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Jesenice (Municipality, Slovenia)

Municipal flag of Jesenice - Images by Željko Heimer, 8 February 2006
Left, as prescribed in the Decision
Right, as shown by Gogala [gog02] and Stanič & Jakopič [j2s05]

Presentation of Jesenice
Municipal flag of Jesenice
Coat of arms of Jesenice

See also:

Presentation of Jesenice

Jesenice is an ancient ironwork town located in the highlands of Slovenia (Gorenjska).
Jesenice is also famous for its ice hockey team, holder of numerous titles of national champion, today named Hokejski klub Acroni Jesenice and since 2007 playing in the Austrian national league.

Željko Heimer, 23 July 2008

Municipal flag of Jesenice

The coat of arms of Jesenice is prescribed by Decision Odlok o grbu mesta Jesenice, adopted on 31 March 1992, published in the official Slovene gazette Uradni list Republike Slovenije 92/19 on 17 April 1992, with effect 15 days later.
The municipal statutes Statut Občine Jesenice, adopted on 26 May 1995, and published in the official Slovene gazette Uradni list Republike Slovenije, 38/1995, prescribes only the coat of arms.
The current statutes Statut Občine Jesenice, adopted on 21 December 2000, and published in the official Slovene gazette Uradni list Republike Slovenije, 2/2001, determines that the municipality has both a coat of arms and a flag.
The subsequent Decision Odlok o grbu in zastavi Občine Jesenice, adopted on 28 June 2001, and published in the official Slovene gazette Uradni list Republike Slovenije, 56/2001, defines the flag and the coat of arms.

The flag is in proportions 2:1, which means a vertical flag, with the field colour defined as silver (Pantone 877c). The coat of arms is set in the middle, offset towards the top of the flag. The width of the coat of arms is 1/3 of the flag width and distance from the top is 0.8 of that 1/3 of the flag width.
However, both Gogala and Stanič & Jakopič show the flag as being somewhat longer than 1:2 and ending triangularily (approximatley that the length without the trangle being 100:217 and the triangle adding aditional 13 units). In that flag the coat of arms is oversized in regard to the prescribed one, being well about 1/2 the width wide removed from the top about 12 units.

Željko Heimer, 8 February 2006

Coat of arms of Jesenice

Coat of arms of Jesenice - Image by Željko Heimer, 9 September 2004

The coat of arms of Jesenice is a semicircular shield with a cobalt-blue field and the silver medieval symbol for iron, somewhat similar to number 5 without the top bar, but with two bars crossing it instead.
The blue shade of the shield is described as cobalt blue in the 1992 decision. Blue represents the river Sava.
The iron symbol is on the coat of arms since there is long established medieval tradition of ironwork in the place.

The Decision adopted in 2001 does not supersede the 1992 Decision but adds some details to it. The coat of arms of the municipality is said to be identical to the coat of arms of the town of Jesenice. The colours are prescribed more precisely than "cobalt blue" and "silver":
- Dark blue: Pantone 2757cv / CMYK 100-80-0-10 / RAL 5003;
- Silver: Pantone 877c / RAL 9006. There is no CMYK for silver, since Pantone 877 is indeed for the metallic shiny paint that cannot be obtained by quadrichrome printing.

The coat of arms was designed by Janez Suhadolc, Professor at the Faculty of Architecture of the University of Ljubljana. The municipal website includes the following information by the designer:

After the [1991] war many municipalities were trying to establish arms. Some lacked one, others wanted a change for ideological reasons. I am thinking of Nova Gorica, Kranj, Tolmin, Brežice, Grosuplje, Novo Mesto... In spite of the professionalism of some of the new solutions, most did not "take;" they did not match the rest of traditional Slovene town and municipal arms. It was as though modern motifs and modern graphic design were unsuitable for the job.
Therefore I decided that my concept for the coat of arms of Jesenice would fit into the system of other Slovene town and municipal arms, and be a part of traditional heraldic communicativeness. As a design starting point it took the sign for iron from a collection of medieval signs for the then-known elements.
In this sign for iron, "I" reads also the letter "J" for Jesenice and the letter "H" for hockey. All three of these are fundamentally constitutive of life in Jesenice municipality.

The runner-up in the design contest was more popular, being more conventional: a shield with a green "V" for the Sava valley, with a black heraldic lion for ironworking.

The emblem formerly used by Jesenice, adopted in the 1970s, is most unheraldic, even as much that even Zalokar [zal90] does not use the term coat of arms. The emblem pictures partisans from Cankar's company (named after Ivan Cankar [1876-1918], a Slovene writer and political activist, usually counted as one of the most important Slovenian writers) on Obranca carrying battle flags, the date of the battle, 1st August, (1944) and symbols of industrial development.
I believe that the grayish emblem might have been the inspiration (possibly quite remote) for the gray flag currently used.

Željko Heimer & Eugene Ipavec, 23 July 2008