- For the Radiohead song, see "The National
Anthem".
A national anthem is a generally patriotic musical composition that evokes and
eulogizes the history, traditions and struggles of its people, recognized either by a country's government as the official national song, or by convention through
use by the people.
Anthems rose to prominence in Europe during the nineteenth century; the oldest national anthem is "Het Wilhelmus", the Dutch national anthem, written
between 1568 and 1572 during the Eighty Years War. The Japanese anthem, Kimi ga Yo, has its lyrics taken
from a Kamakura period poem, yet it was not set to music until 1880.[1] God Save the
Queen/King, the national anthem of the United Kingdom, was first performed in
1745 under the title "God Save the King". Spain's national anthem,
the "Marcha Real" (The Royal March), dates from 1770.
La Marseillaise, the French anthem, was written in 1792
and adopted in 1795.
During the rise of the nation-state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, most
remaining nations adopted an anthem upon attaining nationhood. Because of European colonial influence, many were influenced in a
similar way to adopt a national anthem, and thus several anthems outside Europe are in the European style. Only a handful of
non-European countries have anthems rooted in indigenous traditions, including India,
China, Japan, Costa Rica, Iran,
Sri Lanka, and Myanmar.
An anthem can become a country's national anthem by a provision in the country's constitution, by a law enacted by its
legislature or simply by tradition. The majority of national anthems are either marches or
hymns in style. The countries of Latin America tend towards
more operatic pieces, while a handful of countries use a simple fanfare.
National anthems are usually either in the most common language of the country, whether de
facto or official. India's anthem,
Jana Gana Mana, is a highly Sanskritized version of
Bengali. States with more than one national language may offer several versions of
their anthem: For instance, Switzerland's anthem has different lyrics for each of the
country's four official languages (French, German, Italian and Romansh).
On the other hand, South Africa's national anthem is unique in that five of the eleven
official languages are used in the same anthem (each language comprising a stanza). Another
multilingual country, Spain, has no words in its anthem, La Marcha Real, although in 2007 a national competition to write words was launched[2]. Former military dictator
General Francisco Franco replaced the original words with words considered fascist,
which were dropped after his death.
Composers
Among the very few countries with a national anthem written by a renowned composer are:
Several national anthems were written by little-known or unknown composers:
Lyrics
A few anthems have been composed by Nobel prize winners. India and Bangladesh adopted two songs written by the Nobel prize winner and noted poet/author Rabindranath
Tagore as their national anthems, Jana Gana Mana and Amar Shonar Bangla, respectively. Nobel prize winner Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson wrote the lyrics for the Norwegian national
anthem Ja, vi elsker dette landet.
Some national anthems have no official lyrics at all, including Bosnia and Herzegovina, Spain, and San Marino.[3]
Usage
At the commencement of international sporting events, or occasionally (such as in the United States, here pictured) at domestic
events, spectators customarily stand for the duration of the national anthem.
National anthems are used in a wide array of contexts. They are played on national holidays and festivals, and have also come
to be closely connected with sporting events. During sporting competitions, such as the Olympic
Games, the national anthem of the gold medal winner is played at each medal ceremony. National anthems are also played
before games in many sports leagues. The use of a national anthem outside of its country, however, is dependent on the
international recognition of that country. Thus, entities such as Taiwan which is
not recognized by the Olympics as a separate nation but must compete as
Chinese Taipei, its National Banner Song is
used instead of its national anthem.[4]
In some countries, the national anthem is played to students each day at the start of school as an exercise in patriotism. In
other countries the anthem may be played in a theatre before a play or in a cinema before a movie. Many radio
and television stations have adopted this and play the national anthem when they
sign on in the morning and again when they sign off at
night.
Nations in the cultural sense or subnational units may also have royal anthems,
presidential anthems, state anthems, or anthems for
officially recognized constitutive parts of federal or confederal states. These may be better described as "regional anthems", as
in the case of the regions of Belgium.
Multinational countries such as the United Kingdom and Denmark compete in sporting events with multiple teams, such as England,
Scotland, Wales and Northern
Ireland soccer teams for the former and a distinct Faroe Island side in addition to the national team in the case of the latter. This poses problems with the
tradition of pre-match anthems, since neither England nor mainland Denmark have regional anthems and use the national anthems,
God Save the Queen and Der er et yndigt
land respectively.
Larger entities also sometimes have anthems. There are a handful of multinational or international anthems. The Internationale is the anthem of the socialist movement, the
world communist movement, the Comintern and for a time by
the Soviet Union. The tune of the Ode to Joy from
Beethoven's Symphony No. 9 is the European
anthem; the United Nations[5] and the African Union[6] also have unofficial anthems.
See also
References
External links
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