A Gagauz quasi-state, the "Comrat Republic", was formed during the Russian Revolution of 1905, but its leaders only used the generic red flag, publicizing their loyalty toward the All-Russian Peasant Union.

Several ethnic and semi-official flags were recorded for Gagauz separatists during the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, generally featuring the grey wolf (Turkish: bozkurt).

The current "national flag" of Gagauzia has "a blue field bearing a narrow white and red horizontal stripes on the bottom and three yellow stars on the upper hoist.

"[1] Reportedly, the three stars stand for "the past, present and future",[2] or, alternatively, for the three constituent municipalities of Gagauzia: Comrat (Komrat), Ceadîr-Lunga (Çadır-Lunga), and Vulcănești (Valkaneş).

Folk tradition describes the Despotate as a Turkish "Uzi Eyalet", co-founded by the Seljuk ruler Kaykaus II and the Alevi mystic Sarı Saltık.

[8] Such records claim that the state switched to a Christian Kipchak dynasty, whose most notable exponent was Dobrotitsa, and whose main symbol was a "red flag with a white rooster at its center.

These colonists established villages in the Leova area, but were angered by the heavy taxes imposed on them, and resettled to the south, in the Ottoman-held Budjak (Silistra Eyalet).

[17] Gagauzia first expressed aspirations of becoming an independent nation in the wake of the 1905 Revolution: a small "Comrat Republic", or Gagauz Khalki, survived for some days in January 1906.

[22] The episode also brought Gagauz settlements under the influence of left-wing political parties, including most of all the Esers and the All-Russian Peasant Union (of which Galatsan himself was a member), but also an anarchist club established by Ferdinand Bragalia.

[23] Revolutionary pamphlets referred to the red flag as a central symbol, and carried the Esers' Russian-language slogan: Въ борьбѣ обрѣтешь ты право свое ("Through struggle you will attain your rights").

The community was allocated two seats in the RDM legislature, Sfatul Țării,[25] wherein Krste Misirkov, an immigrant from Macedonia, described himself as "elected by the Bulgarians and the Gagauz".

[30] Anti-communism and conservatism were introduced into this mix as a result of the Soviet anti-religious campaign: "This threat from communism was another crucial factor in the development of Gagauz religiosity and formed a significant component of [Ciachir's] 'national message'".

[31] The Christian ingredient, meanwhile, reduced compatibility with Kemalist Turkey, which barred the Gagauz from obtaining citizenship—while at the same time extending its definition of "Turkishness" to include Muslim Slavs (Bosniaks and Pomaks).

[35] Gagauz-inhabited regions were separated during the 1940–1941 Soviet occupation of Bessarabia: "The border between Moldova and Ukraine, delineated in 1940, arbitrarily crossed the compact area of Bulgarian–Gagauz settlement.

As a result of the latter, the Gagauz population dwindled, suffering through the great famine of 1946, and also through a wave of punitive deportations, primarily into the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic and Gorno-Altai.

"[39] Turkologist Astrid Menz observed that more and more Gagauz intellectuals "emphasized their 'Turkic' identity by means of [...] reconstructed history and an increased use of 'Turkic' motifs, especially from the great heroic past in the fine arts.

The emancipation movement used "a light blue field bearing a centered yellow disk charged with a black wolf's head",[1] reportedly designed by Petru (Pötr) Vlah, who first flew it on October 29, 1989.

[4] In parallel protests for the establishment of Comrat State University, Gagauz activists allegedly used a light-blue field defaced with a red wolf's head on a white disk, with a yellow motif running vertical near the mast.

[45] The latter vision was supported by scholar Mariya Maruneviç, who argued that the Republic was meant "not as a separation from Moldova as a whole, but as a guarantee of maintaining national equality in areas densely populated by the Gagauz.

Also in 2010, Governor Mihail Formuzal announced that he and his cabinet opposed the decree by Moldovan President Mihai Ghimpu, which ordered the flying of state symbols at half-mast on June 28—that is, for the commemoration of Soviet annexation.

[58] Public institutions in Gagauzia still displayed the flag of Europe, honoring Moldova's pro-enlargement policy, but the employees' mood was reported as sour on this issue.

"[43] Illustrations and videos published alongside such reports showed a return to the red wolf's head on a white disk, over a field of light blue.