Double-headed eagle in the context of "Erzurum"

The eagle is used in heraldry as a charge, as a supporter, and as a crest. Heraldic eagles can be found throughout world history like in the Achaemenid Empire or in the present Republic of Indonesia. The European post-classical symbolism of the heraldic eagle is connected with the Roman Empire on one hand (especially in the case of the double-headed eagle), and with Saint John the Evangelist on the other.

L'Aigle à deux têtes is a French play in three acts by Jean Cocteau, written in 1943 and first performed in 1946. It is known variously in English as The Eagle with Two Heads, The Eagle Has Two Heads, The Two-Headed Eagle, The Double-Headed Eagle, and Eagle Rampant. The title refers to the double-headed eagle of heraldry. Cocteau also directed a film of his play which appeared in 1948.

Cocteau said that he took his inspiration for the play from the separate stories of Ludwig II of Bavaria and of the Empress Elisabeth of Austria. Ludwig was found drowned in Lake Starnberg in Bavaria in circumstances which have never been satisfactorily explained. Elisabeth was stabbed in the heart by an assassin while out walking in Geneva. For his portrait of the Queen, Cocteau drew upon the portrait of Elisabeth given by Remy de Gourmont in his Promenades littéraires. He was also concerned to create characters which called for a grand style of acting in a tradition which he saw as being in decline in French theatre. The performances of Edwige Feuillère and Jean Marais in the first French production were an essential part of Cocteau's conception of the play.

The Albanians (Albanian: Shqiptarët) and their country Albania (Shqipëria) have been identified by many ethnonyms. The native endonym is Shqiptar. The name "Albanians" (Latin: Albanenses/Arbanenses) was used in medieval Greek and Latin documents that gradually entered European languages from which other similar derivative names emerged. Linguists believe that the alb part in the root word originates from an Indo-European term for a type of mountainous topography, meaning "hill, mountain", also present in Alps. Through the root word alban and its rhotacized equivalents arban, albar, and arbar, the term in Albanian became rendered as Arbëreshë (Gheg Albanian: Arbëneshë) for the people and Arbëria (Gheg Albanian: Arbënia) for the country.

Contemporary Albanian language employs a different ethnonym, with modern Albanians referring to themselves as Shqiptarë and to their country as Shqipëria. Two etymologies have been proposed for this ethnonym. One connects it to the verb 'pronounce' (shqiptoj), deriving from Latin excipere. In this instance, the Albanian endonym, like many others, would originally have been a term connoting "those who speak [intelligibly, the same language]"; that is, "those who speak shqip," with shqip referring to the Albanian language itself. The other one derives the name from the Albanian word for eagle (shqiponjë). The eagle was a common heraldic symbol for many Albanian dynasties in the Late Middle Ages and came to be a symbol of the Albanians in general; for example, the flag of Skanderbeg, whose family's symbol was the black double-headed eagle, as displayed on the Albanian flag.

The three-headed eagle, also called triple-headed eagle, is a mythological or heraldic bird, as it were an augmented version of the double-headed eagle.

A three-headed eagle is mentioned in the apocryphal Latin Ezra, featuring in a dream by the high priest Ezra. In a Chechen fairy tale, a three-headed eagle figures as a monstrous adversary to be killed by the hero. Öksökö (Өксөку) is the name of an eagle with either two or three heads in Yakut and Dolgan folklore.

The flag of the Holy Roman Empire was not a national flag, but rather an imperial banner used by the Holy Roman Emperor; black and gold were used as the colours of the imperial banner, a black eagle on a golden background. After the late 13th or early 14th century, the claws and beak of the eagle were coloured red. From the early 15th century, a double-headed eagle was used.

In 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte declared the First French Empire. In response to this, Emperor Francis II of the Habsburg dynasty declared his personal domain to be the Austrian Empire and became Francis I of Austria. Taking the colours of the banner of the Holy Roman Emperor, the flag of the Austrian Empire was black and gold. Francis II was the last Holy Roman Emperor, with Napoleon forcing the empire's dissolution in 1806. After this point, these colours continued to be used as the flag of Austria until 1918.

The coat of arms of Russia derives from the earlier coat of arms of the Russian Empire. Though modified more than once since the reign of Ivan III (1462–1505), the current coat of arms is directly derived from its medieval original, with the double-headed eagle having Byzantine and earlier antecedents. The general tincture corresponds to the fifteenth-century standard.

An Imperial Eagle beaker (German: Reichsadlerhumpen), or eagle glass, was a popular drinking vessel from the 16th until the late 18th century in the Holy Roman Empire. The enamelled glass was decorated with a double-headed eagle, usually in the shape of a Quaternion Eagle. The Reichsadler means "Imperial Eagle" or double-headed eagle which was the emblem of the empire, while "humpen" refers to a cylindrical drinking glass. These beakers became the essential medium to represent the most popular explanatory model for the emergence of the Empire: the quaternion theory as represented by Hans Burgkmair.

The Imperial Eagle beakers showed the solidarity between the owner and the Empire and were very popular because of their decorativeness and luminous colors. But these drinking vessels were also valued for their generous size. Equally popular were the electors' beakers, which were decorated with illustrations of the emperor and electors as the most important representatives of the Empire.

Moscow, third Rome (Russian: Москва — третий Рим; Moskva, tretiĭ Rim) is a theological and political concept asserting Moscow as the successor to ancient Rome, carrying forward the legacy of the Roman Empire. The term "third Rome" refers to a historical topic of debate in European culture originating in Eastern Orthodox circles: the question of the successor city to the "first Rome" (Rome, within the Western Roman Empire) and the "second Rome" (Constantinople, within the Eastern Roman Empire).