9 Really Special National Anthems of European Nations
I made this slideshow to show a few really lovely anthems and beautiful places of 9
European countries. (No ranking intended!)
If you write comments, please be respectful with other people's patriotic feelings!
About the source of pictures & anthems: I found them on the internet, no copyright infringements intended.
Some information (I wanted to give you more but YouTube didn't let me!):
0:00
Malta -- a beautiful little island with a beautiful and great anthem :)
0:56
England -- an anthem as odd as the
British culture. :) 1) it is not a true anthem -- England doesn't have an official national anthem. 2) The lyrics are depending on whether England has a
King or a
Queen as
Monarch! Other: it references the name of God in the first line just like the anthem of
Hungary.
1:39 Hungary -- a beautiful slow paced anthem that was written by two men named Ferenc (
Ferenc Kölcsey -- lyrics,
Ferenc Erkel -- song)
3:54
Austria -- a slow-paced anthem with a
3/4 tempo --
Austrians have a waltz as their anthem! :) The original melody is often attributed to the great composer
Mozart (however, more likely it was written by Johann Holzer). The lyrics of anthems were usually written by men, but this one is an exception as they were written by a woman,
Paula von Predarović.
5:29
Netherlands -- has the oldest melody of anthems in the world.
Lyrics are composed as if the singer was
William of Orange-Nassau.
Fun fact: whenever the
Dutch sing this anthem they always say „
The King of
Spain I have always honoured" despite being independent from Spain for centuries now.
6:32
Germany -- composer:
Joseph Haydn (1797). Lyrics:
A. H. Hoffmann (1841) which originally had 3 verses. It was the anthem of the
Austro-Hungarian Empire until
1918. In Germany, because of historical reasons, only the third stanza („
Einigkeit und Recht und Freiheit") is sung today. It was played many times at
Formula-1 podium ceremonies, out of which 91 times in honour of
Michael Schumacher.
7:52
Slovakia --
Slovaks used to be an ethnic minority group living in the northern part of the former territory of my country, Hungary, for more than 900 years. This song „
Nad Tatrou sa blýska" originates in the
19th century when, unfortunately, the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire didn't realize they wouldn't be able to hold the
Empire together much longer if they didn't have respect for all nationalities living in the country
. In the 20th century, relation between
Hungarians and Slovaks was anything but friendly, despite living in
peace in the same country for a previous 900 years.
The anthem of Slovakia represents how many things we've got in common. Its melody is known as a
Hungarian folk-song too: „Azt mondják, nem adnak engem galambomnak" („They say they won't let me be my ducky's") (/watch?v=tYV714zDmuY&feature;=related). This song is beautiful so I put it on this list, and
I don't care about the senseless hate between our nations! :)
9:24
Russia -- This anthem may well be an aspirant for the title „the anthem that was changed the most times". This partly
European, partly
Asian, extremely big country has a history with lots of blood, violence and terror. They had numerous anthems and lyrics in the past two centuries. This current song „
State Anthem of the
Russian Federation" is the same tune as the former
Soviet anthem from
1944 to
1990 (written by
Alexander Alexandrov,
1939). It was replaced with another song during the 90's which didn't have official lyrics. Both the song and the wordlessness seemed to be uninspiring for
Russians.
President Putin started to press the restoration of the song and the adoption of new lyrics after
Russian athletes told him they were unconvenient standing on the podium, listening to the
Russian anthem but having no lyrics to express their patriotic feelings.
At the end of
2000, the song of the former Soviet anthem was restored and the
Duma chose new lyrics (written by
Sergei Mikhalkov).
Some people (especially the nations oppressed by the
USSR in
Eastern Europe until 1990) may have ambivalent feelings because this song reminds them of the dark past when they were forced to sing this anthem in respect of "the great"
Soviet Union.
12:00 Spain -- this
18th century anthem is not only a representative of the
Spanish temperament but it's a simple, merry march without any official lyrics. This song is so cool! If someone came from
Mars and asked me what an 'anthem' is, I would show him the
Marcha Real and that's it! :)
Please forgive me if I left out a nice anthem according to your taste -- all are special for some reason but I can't upload each and every one of them so I had to select!