Telšiai (county)

Heraldry of the World
Civic heraldry of Lithuania - Lietuvas Heraldika

TELŠIAI COUNTY

Origin/meaning

The arms were granted on December 24, 2004.

The early origin of Telšiai county is 1764, when two repartitions were established in Samogitia duchy: Raseiniai and Telšiai. In 1775 the administrative center of Telšiai repartition was moved to Šiauliai, and in 1790 the Telšiai repartition was re-established, so Samogitia was finally divided to three repartitions. In 1791 all three repartitions were renamed to districts (pavietas), uniforming them with the practice of whole country.

Initially, the National Arms were used on seals, and the Samogitian bear should appear in late 18th century, though the earliest known evidence is only from 1804-1805: the Russian eagle in the upper part and both the Lithuanian knight and Samogitian bear in the lower part.

In 1842 the Telšiai district was assigned to the newly established Kaunas province.

The first project of arms showed the arms of Kaunas province in the upper part and the Mercury's caduceus in front of two crossed horns of plenty. But the general-governor of Vilnius province Fedor Mirkovich striked through the project and wrote to keep only the caduceus, and the horn of plenty was attributed to Raseiniai.

Emperor Nicholas I granted the arms on April 6, 1845: the obelisk (arms of Kaunas province) in the upper part and on red field the golden Mercury's caduceus in the lower part.

In 1861 Bernhard Koehne designed new arms of Telšiai district: on a red field a golden stripe and three Byzantine coins. The arms of Kaunas province was moved to the free corner. The arms should have the silver three-tower mural crown and decoraion of two crossed golden hammers bent with red Alexander stripe.
This project was not adopted.

There was a choice among several symbols used in the Telšiai county when in the early 2000 new arms were designed. The most acceptable was the bear of Samogitia. Telšiai is considered the contemporary capital of Samogitia region, and the whole county consists only of Samogitian lands.

Therefore the arms of Samogitia was used as base for the county arms.