Encyclopedia

Kleinody

The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.

Kleinody

 

(from German Kleinod and Polish klejnot, “jewel,” “treasure”), regalia constituting army decorations in cossack armies and the symbols of power of the Polish and Ukrainian hetmans and the Ukrainian and Don Cossack atamans in the 16th through 18th centuries. The idea was borrowed from the Turks; the regalia were bestowed by Polish kings and Russian tsars (for the first time in the 1570’s by Stephen Báthory on the Ukrainian hetman and Zaporozh’e Cossacks). The kleinody consisted of a banner (gonfalon), long ornamented staffs with a horse’s tail affixed, the mace and its variants (cudgel, pernach), kettledrums, trumpets and drums, an army seal, and damascene staffs. The personal insignia of the hetman or army ataman was the mace.

The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
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