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Still in the Ukraine Ministry of Defence, now onto a batch of awards handed out by the Chief of the General Staff rather than the Minister of Defence. Today’s batch: the Badge “Glory and Honour”, Medal “For valiant military service to the Motherland”, and Medal “For services to the Armed Forces of Ukraine”.
This is very much a work in progress, I keep finding new awards and am trying to figure out where they all fit in!
It’s very warm today! To the extent that the household computers are sending alerts “Ooof, it’s hot!”.
Just 2 medals today, sorry, more of the Chief of the General Staff series… Medal “For Achievements in Military Service” (which seems to be an educational award) and the Medal “For Merit in Emergency Response” (this may be a rather loose translation as it says “For merit in eliminating the consequences of an emergency situation” on the reverse).
I have made friends with a Ukrainian medal enthusiast and he’s proving very helpulf. More next time!
OK so I got sidetracked. Today I added (most of) the National Order of Tchad. There’s very little information about that, so I hope the notes will change that a bit.
Today I have added a new Ukraine state award, the Medal “For the Defence of Ukraine”. It was only instituted on 5 August 2022, so it’s not surprising that I haven’t found any good images yet – just sketches lifted from the decree establishing it. I’ll update in due course when the real thing starts to show up.
In the meantime I got sidetracked again, this time towards Brazil and the Order of Merit for Labour Getúlio Vargas. Due to a beautifully organised Brazilian legal database I’ve managed to track down all the decrees relating to this order, starting with original thoughts in 1950 about how it would be nice to have a means of recognising people to improve working life (but with no indication how!) and moving through two more conventional decrees laying out firstly the original 3-class order and then a more conventional 5-class order… and then in 2007 a name change to tack on the name of Getúlio Vargas, who was influential in reforming labour laws and conditions during the first part of last century (and changing the insignia to include his name and portrait)… something I’ve not seen anywhere else! However, the Brazil section is a mess and will need some tidying up before I settle down to add this order… and no doubt some more. For a country who when they first established themselves as a republic said “We don’t want any Orders” (then set up one to award to foreigners only as that seemed expected), they now have a fine and colourful array of orders to award to their own citizens as well.
More Icelandic medals, the Medal of Recompense (from the time pre-1944 when Iceland belonged to Denmark) and the Cross of the Icelandic Red Cross. I’ve some more to come, as I’ve just updated that section of my site… with help from the webmaster of our sister society, the Orders and Medals Society of Denmark!
Not much today, from Iceland the Medal of Achievement of the Republic of Iceland, which despite its name is awarded for lifesaving, and the President of Iceland’s Medal of Honour, which is awarded for services to the Icelandic President during their term of office.
A bit distracted at the moment with all that’s going on here in the UK at the moment. I suppose in due course there will be some new versions of UK medals to share with you all.
Couple more of Icelandic medals, both marking anniversaries and both sparingly awarded – hence images are hard to find as well! They are the Commemorative Medal for 1000th Anniversary of the Althing and the Commemorative Medal on the Restoration of the Republic.
Rather busy with all the activities involved in the start of the new academic year, freshers in last week and term proper starts tomorrow.
Right, that’s Iceland done! Finished off with the Commemorative Medal for the first President Mr Svein Björnsson, the Commemorative Medal for the Inauguration of Skálholt Church 1963, and the Icelandic Crisis Response Force Medal… I need more information and decent pictures of the last!
A nice rest after giving a lecture on computer systems to 406 Computer Science freshmen on Friday!
Been scratching my head all week as to what to do next (as well as dealing with hordes of students), so decided to sort out the German Democratic Republic (i.e., East Germany) section next. Due to having several active collectors in this area, the database is relatively well-populated, but you know my passion for reorganising each section into a systematic display… and when I got there, I found we didn’t have any images of the senior order, the Order of Karl Marx! This omission has now been rectified.
Still in the German Democratic Republic, I’ve updated the entries for the Hero of the DDR and Hero of Labour honour titles, adding the early versions as well as the better known later ones. Started looking at the Order of the Star of Friendship of Nations, but I need to get my images sorted out… next time, perhaps.
Got the Order of the Star of Friendship of Nations done, anyway… plenty more to come from East Germany who seemed to have had a medal for absolutely EVERYTHING!
OOOps… spent all afternoon delving into the minutae of the East Germany Fatherland’s Order of Merit – and a few other related rabbit holes – and never actually got round to posting anything!
Got the first two types of the Fatherland’s Order of Merit up. Some of the differences are quite small so I have to peer at my images to put them in the right place. More next week!
Still in East Germany, today I added the Distinguished Scientist of the Nation and the National Prize of the German Democratic Republic – this second being remarkable in that it was created (as the German National Prize in the Goethe Year 1949) before the German Democratic Republic actually existed! Like many East German awards, in the mid-1970s there was a switch from the use of solid gold to gold-plated non-ferrous metal in the manufacture of both these awards.
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