Emblem of the Estonian SSR was adopted by the Stalinist authorities after the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

had occupied and annexed Estonia in August 1940. The

emblem An emblem is an abstract or representational pictorial image that represents a concept, like a moral truth, or an allegory, or a person, like a king or saint. Emblems vs. symbols Although the words ''emblem'' and '' symbol'' are often us ...

features a

sunrise Sunrise (or sunup) is the moment when the upper rim of the Sun appears on the horizon in the morning. The term can also refer to the entire process of the solar disk crossing the horizon and its accompanying atmospheric effects. Terminology A ...

accented by sunbeams, the hammer and sickle for the victory of

communism Communism (from Latin la, communis, lit=common, universal, label=none) is a far-left sociopolitical, philosophical, and economic ideology and current within the socialist movement whose goal is the establishment of a communist society, a ...

and the "world-wide socialist community of states", and the red star to represent the affiliation to communism. The emblem consists mainly of the colors red, yellow and green. In the lower part the interlaced text reads, in Estonian Eesti NSV (for ''Eesti Nõukogude Sotsialistlik Vabariik'', ''Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic''). To the right, rye stalks encircle the center of the coat of arms, and to the left arcs a branch of a

coniferous tree Conifers are a group of cone-bearing seed plants, a subset of gymnosperms. Scientifically, they make up the division Pinophyta (), also known as Coniferophyta () or Coniferae. The division contains a single extant class, Pinopsida. All exta ...

. The banner bears the USSR State motto ("

Proletarians The proletariat (; ) is the social class of wage-earners, those members of a society whose only possession of significant economic value is their labour power (their capacity to work). A member of such a class is a proletarian. Marxist philo ...

of all countries, unite!") in both Estonian (''Kõigi maade proletaarlased, ühinege!'') and

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

(Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! ''Proletarii vsekh stran, soyedinyaytes′!''). The official usage of the Soviet emblem was discontinued in Estonia in 1990, as the country switched back to the original coat of arms of independent Estonia along with other national symbols, display of which had been banned under the Soviet rule.

References

Estonian SSR Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic Estonian SSR Estonian SSR Estonian SSR Estonian SSR Estonian SSR Symbols introduced in 1940 {{Soviet-stub

See also

References