Quote:
Originally Posted by Levin
Was the symbol originally connected only to central-European Croats and carried to the south, or was it common Slavic symbol of the area?
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It would seem that, outside Croatia, red and white chessboards were used only in parts of the old White Croatia (which included parts of today's Poland,Czech Republic and Slovakia), mentioned by the Roman emperor Constantine VII.
One theory says that the Croats were Iranian tribe, and Iranians used colors to describe 4 parts of the world. For example, they used white color for north and red for south. So the White Croatia was marked as white because it was north of their former homeland.
And while their former homeland was on the south, they created red and white chessboard as their symbol.
But it's just a convenient theory, and it's hard to prove due to lack of historical data.