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Galatasaray (İstanbul, Turkey)

Galatasaray SK (Galatasaray Spor Kulubü)
- Official flag
- Unofficial flags
- Galatasaray Sailing Team (Galatasaray Yelken Şubesi)
Galatasaray High School (Galatasaray Lisesi - Lycée de Galatasaray)
Galatasaray University (Galatasaray Üniversitesi)

See also:

Galatasaray SK

Official flag

Official flag of Galatasaray SK, horizontal and vertical versions - Images by António Martins, 4 July 2004, and Ivan Sache, 29 July 2019, respectively

The club's (all branches) official flag is horizontally divided red-yellow with the club's emblem in the center. It is used:
- during the presentation of new players (photo, photo, photo, photo, photo, photo);
- on and inside the club's premises (photo, photo, photo);
- by athletes during competitions and medal ceremonies (photo, photo, photo, photo).

The flag is also hoisted vertically at the entrance of the club's social seat (photo).

The club's emblem, indeed the Galatasaray High School emblem, was designed in 1923 by student Ayetullah Emin, who used a complicated mathematical formula to draw the emblem. The Ottoman letters gayn - qin were changed to the Latin letters "G" - "S" in 1926. The Galatasaray Sports Club, founded in 1905 within the High School, adopted Emin's emblem, charged with the foundation year of the club.
[Galatasaray High School website]

Ivan Sache, 29 July 2019

Unofficial flags

Unofficial flag of Galatasaray - Image by Onur Özgün, 27 June 2003

A similar flag (photo) with four horizontal, red-yellow-red-yellow stripes appears to be of more limited, unofficial use.

Ivan Sache, 29 July 2019

Today, while I was sitting on the sidewalk across the street from my building, a man pedaled by on a special bicycle designed for disabled people. His vehicle was flying a variant of the Galatasaray flag. The differences with the official flag are:
- There were eight red and yellow horizontal stripes instead of two;
- The object in the center was a white circle instead of a white ellipse;
- The insignia on the circle was the third of the four variants shown on the Galatasaray High School website:
- The "1905" was at the bottom of the circle.

Lewis Nowitz, 24 April 2004

Graeme Souness' flag - Image by Ivan Sache, 4 June 2017

The Intercontinental Derby that opposes Galatasaray (Europe) to Fenerbahçe (Asia) is considered as among the hottest derbies in the world.
In 1966, the final of the Turkish Cup opposed the two rival clubs, Galatasaray won the first leg at home (1-0) and eventually won the cup on 24 April 1996 in their rival's stadium (1-1 after extra time). To celebrate the victory, Galatasaray's hot-headed Scottish coach, Graeme Souness (b. 1953) ran to the central circle of the field and planted there a giant red and yellow-striped flag (video). This is considered as one of the most emblematic events in the Intercontinental Derby, and, generally, in Turkish football.
Souness' act of bravado nearly sparkled a riot in the stadium; how he managed to safely leave the stadium is still a part of the legend. Souness was soon nicknamed "Ulubatlı Souness", for the Turkish hero Ulubatlı Hasan (1428-1453) who planted the Ottoman flag on the walls of Constantinople and defended it until death.
The giant flag is horizontally divided into ten stripes, in turn red and yellow.

Ivan Sache, 4 June 2017

Galatasaray Sailing Team

Flag and burgee of Galatasaray Sailing Team - Images by Ivan Sache, 29 July 2019

The flag of Galatasaray Sailing Team (photo, photo, photo, photo, photo) is white with the team's emblem, made of the "GS" monogram crossed by a blue seabird. The team's burgee (photo, photo, photo, photo) is the matching triangular flag.
On both the flag and burgee, the emblem is slightly different from the official, stand-alone version: the bird's wings are displayed horizontally instead of slanted.

Ivan Sache, 29 July 2019

Galatasaray High School

Flag of Galatasaray High School - Image by Ivan Sache, 29 July 2019

Galatasaray High School (Galatasaray Lisesi - Lycée de Galatasaray; website) is the mother of Galatasaray Sport Club, and, most recently, of Galatasaray University.

The institution known as Galata Sarayı Humayun Mektebi (Galata Palace Royal School) brought up highly educated superior officials to the Palace. The Palace was then a complex establishment set up in a large garden where the educational units, the library and the treasury were founded.
There, persons knowledgeable in different areas were in service from whom the palace officers and the Sultan himself before anyone could seek advice. The education of those personalities were provided in the Foundation of Galata Serail that continued its function from the end of the 15th century (1481) to the beginning of the 18th century (1715).

As reported by Evliya Çelebi, Sultan Bayazid II (1481-1512) saw a small, shabby hut in a very large and well maintained garden. Meeting the hut’s owner Gul Baba, the Sultan wanted to reward him of the care he gives to the garden and has a school and a hospice built in it.
While the story explains us that the school was founded upon a wish, we know that Mehmet II, the Conqueror of Istanbul researched the older cultures and read classics translated after his instructions in order that the state he would have found in the city carrying the traces of antique culture could be permanent, and that it live a thousand years as Byzantine Empire. One of those classics, Plato's “Republic” emphasizes that the state could only be run by philosophers. Then how, in the era when the Ottoman Empire started to rise up, could the philosophers to run this state be raised? There was a Palace school, but where would the primary and middle school education of those students be realized? As a result of these remarks, creating the ideal school of his father Mehmet II under the name of "Galata Serail Foundation", Bayazid II. has brought together an important part of the Ottoman palace education.
One of the most important institution of the Ottoman Empire, The Galata Serail Madrasa was used as medicine school and a military base.

The school became a symbol of the westernization era and the practices in Tanzimat. There is, in fact, the need to intellectual officers who will put into practice the reforms realized in judicial, political and social spheres and to raise them, an educational institution that will comprehend western programs alongside with the traditional ones. The institution was reformed on 1 October 1868 with the name Mekteb-I Sultani (Royal School) with an inauguration ceremony attended by Sultan Abdulaziz. Thanks to the efforts of the Paris ambassador Cemil Pasha and External Affairs Minister Fuad Pasha, the school instructed students in par with French high school education. Among those students were also those of Catholic, Orthodox and Jewish faiths.
The school took the name of Galatasaray Lisesi (Galatasaray High School) in 1924 and started to provide education in line with the Republican revolutions. The humanities starts to be taught in Turkish. In 1965 girl students are accepted to the school. In 1968 French President Charles De Gaulle visited the school for its 100th anniversary of the school. In 1975 the school was named as an Anatolian High School. Finally, Galatasaray Instruction and Education (Galatasaray Eğitim ve Öğretim Kurumu - GEÖK) that also comprises elementary and university education got enacted with the protocol signed by Presidents François Mitterrand and Turgut Özal.

The flag of Galatasaray High School (photo, photo, photo, photo, photo, photo, photo, photo) is diagonally divided yellow-red with the school's emblem in the center, which was designed in 1923 by student Ayetullah Emin, who used a complicated mathematical formula to draw the emblem. The Ottoman letters gayn - qin were changed to the Latin letters "G" - "S" in 1926

Ivan Sache, 29 July 2019

Galatasaray University

Flag of Galatasaray University - Image by Randy Young, 29 July 2019

The Galatasaray Instruction and Education Institution became the Galatasaray University by Law No. 3,993 (text) published on 6 June 1994 in the Turkish official gazette, No. 21,952. Although the institution took the status of University, it kept its peculiarity of being an integrated instruction and education and the Galatasaray high school and the elementary school in conjunction with it remained educational units attached to the rectorate.

The flag of Galatasaray University (photo, photo, photo) is white with the university's emblem.

Ivan Sache, 29 July 2019