Anthems and the Making of Nation States: Identity and Nationalism in the Balkans 9780755619443, 9781784531263

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PREFACE

This is a book about the lyrics of national anthems. It is specifically about the anthems of the new states in southeast Europe that have arisen from the disintegration of Yugoslavia. The book attempts to analyse the use of the poetic texts sung by national subjects to express their devotion to the (new) state in which they enjoy citizenship. A focus of attention is in the use (for better or worse) of poetic texts for an ideological purpose. We are interested in the use of poetry in shaping devotion to a nation state (or its proxy). We are also interested in the ways in which political movements (ideologies and parties) deploy poetic devices and imagery to evoke and maintain both the national identity and the sense of self of citizen-subjects. The key ideology in question is nationalism and it is essential to note that the resurgence of nationalist ideology in the Balkans over the past three decades has been a key world-development for the study of nations and nationalism. The idea of this book originated in Christopher (Kit) Kelen’s interest in ‘anthem quality’ – that is to say, the soul-stirring effect that certain combinations of music and lyrics achieve, most typically in the service of national affiliation. This is the subject of Kelen’s general study Anthem Quality (Kelen 2014) and a number of earlier papers, going back to the 1990s. Aleksandar Pavkovic´’s interest lies in the history of national ideologies of the Balkans and their impact on the recent creation of the new states in this area (Pavkovic´ 1997/2000, Pavkovic´ 1998). As the introduction of new national anthems preceded or followed the creation of new states in the region, our interests proved to be mutually supportive and resulted in a research project of which this book is the

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final outcome. To spell out the terms of the synergy more clearly: the Balkans seemed to be an ideal place to study the creation (and recreation) of anthem quality in the world today while the anthem seemed to be the ideal place to make a comparative study of nationalist sentiment in a place where it was being revived and renewed. Importantly, this interdisciplinary book brings together culture and politics as a single object of scrutiny. Nations, as ‘imagined communities’, require belief on the part of both their citizens and their neighbours. Nations need images, symbols and narratives in order to create this belief. Anthems are a key symbolic means by which the life of nations is asserted, maintained and sometimes challenged. Of course context of culture is a key to understanding what and how any text means, and so a large part of this book is about the history of the songs and poems from which the anthems concerned originate. It is also about competitor-texts and about the political context within which the anthems were introduced and sometimes re-introduced. The research project started while both authors were working at the University of Macau, in China, and when Aleksandar left Macau for Sydney in 2010, we continued writing the book together, letting technology (and modern transport) overcome the tyranny of distance. So this then is a book about the national songs of a corner of Europe by authors who live respectively in Asia and in Australia. Doubtless, the book would have been enriched by a study of the music accompanying the lyrics with which we deal. Certainly we touch on music and its composition along the way. Music has also much to tell us about the general and particular nature of national devotions. As is also the case with anthem lyrics, there are relatively few scholarly studies of anthem music. Among those few, Karen A. Cerulo’s (1989, 1995) studies are certainly outstanding. This is a fertile interdisciplinary field for further study of anthems and their role in evoking and maintaining national devotion.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Many people assisted us in the writing of this book. We would like to thank: Carol Archer, Natalie Chin, Dejan Djokic´, Misˇa Djurkovic´, Merima Dizdarevic´, Ivan Dodovski, Matthew Gibson, Goran Gretic´, John Hines, Dejan Jovic´, Csaba G. Kiss, Denisa Kostoviceva, Paisley Livingstone, Alexander Maxwell, Christine Meng, Milivoje Pavlovic´, Slađana Pavkovic´, Ruth Jordana Pison, Sarah Plant, Andrew Sewell, Bosˇko Stankovski, Glenn Timmermans, Andrija Tomasˇek, Zˇarko Trajanovski, Annemari Ulamec, Mitja Velikonja, Ivo Zˇanic´. Apart from those whose names we know, we would also like to thank the reviewers – who had to remain anonymous – of our essays on the Yugoslav anthem ‘Hey Slavs’ and the Serbian anthem ‘God of Justice’ (Nations and Nationalism, 2010), on the Croatian anthem ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ (Nations and Nationalism, 2012), and on the Slovenian anthem ‘The Toast’ (Nationalities Papers, 2014). Apart from people, a few academic institutions assisted in our research as well. The University of Macau provided research grants, which enabled the authors to travel to the Balkans and to engage research assistants, students of the University of Macau, who proved to be outstanding in their job. Macquarie University in Sydney provided travel funds for Aleksandar and the funds for the copyediting of the manuscript. Clare Hall, Cambridge and the Centre for the study of the Balkans at Goldsmiths, the University of London, provided an encouraging scholarly environment for Aleksandar to undertake the final revision of the manuscript.

GUIDE TO PRONUNCIATION

Cˇ, cˇ and C´ and c´ are pronounced as ‘ch’ in cheque or chew Dzˇ, dzˇ and Dj and dj (the latter two are alternatively written as Ð, đ) are pronounced as ‘dz’ jazz or joy. Lj, lj are prounced as ‘lj’ in million. Nj, nj is pronounced as nj in onion. Sˇ, sˇ is pronounced as ‘sh’ in she. Zˇ, zˇ is pronounced as ‘zh’ in leisure or treasure. Q, q in Albanian (as in ‘Mengjiqi’) is pronounced as soft ‘ch’ in mature. Gj, gj in Albanian (as in ‘Mengjiqi’) is pronounced as soft ‘dz’ in join.

NATIONAL ANTHEMS, NATIONAL IDENTITY AND NATION STATES: AN INTRODUCTION PART I NATIONAL ANTHEMS: THEIR THEMES AND ORIGINS

What is so interesting about national anthems? National anthems are songs that people sing gladly and repeatedly throughout their lives. In fact, such songs are sung even by people who are, in general, not inclined to sing songs at all. Those who would not vocalise in other circumstances, sing ‘their’ anthem willingly, without much effort and, usually, without much thought. The national anthem may well be the most popular of songs in the country in which it holds anthem status: it is sung by all generations, from children at pre-schools to residents of aged care homes. Anthems are sung with the least effort because they are the best remembered songs. They are popular and effortlessly repetitive: an anthem is the same unchanging song that one gladly sings from childhood to old age. Anthems lack novelty for those who sing them in unison, as ‘their own’ anthems, and, in the more politically stable states, they are the most permanent fixtures in the musical and poetic lives of the citizenry. From such unchanging songs, one does not expect entertainment. The state sanction of an anthem need not be accompanied by any intention to bring the pleasure with which music is more generally associated. The

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extraordinary worldwide popularity of this particular type of song sits strangely in its repetitiveness and lack of entertainment value. Anthems, as popular songs, are unparalleled in their popularity and longevity, in their appeal to a wide generational range and in the repetitiveness of the sentiments they express. Beyond this, anthems are, unlike most popular songs, political: they have a variety of roles to play within the life of a state. In the next section we shall look in some detail those roles. Some occasions – such as the official reception of foreign officials – do not require a population to sing, they do not even require singing at all. There are many other official rituals where anthems are played and not sung. In short, national anthems are political songs that are also performed during state or official rituals. Although national anthems are sung at many non-state occasions – situations not organised by a state bureaucracy – some of those are rituals or form part of a ritual. In that sense, national anthems appear to be primarily political songs that are used, in various ways, in state-organised or state-oriented occasions as well as other rituals. Their use in rituals and their consequent solemnity link them to the songs from which they originate generically and which they most resemble – to the hymns and anthems sung in Christian churches. It is the political and ritual aspect of anthems that distinguishes them as a genre and invites further study. What is it that allows a successful anthem to perform its ritual and political role in the service of a state?

Why are national anthems performed? The simple and obvious answer is found in the occasions when they are played or sung: anthems are performed at official state rituals, in schools, at international and national sporting events, and at political or cultural gatherings requiring the display of solidarity and/or mobilisation for a particular cause. There are three key state rituals that involve the performance of anthems. 1. The most conspicuous state ritual requiring anthem performance is that of reception of foreign state dignitaries, that is official visitors of high rank. These visitors are customarily greeted by the national anthem of their state followed by the national anthem of the host

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state. There is also a display of both national flags and commonly an honour guard, usually with its own flag, displaying arms. The anthems and flags signal and assert the sovereignty of the states to which they belong. These visible and audible symbols of state sovereignty are there to identify the states, to assert their sovereignty and in the case of the honour guard to signal protection and hospitality. In short, the anthem of the host state says: this is who we are and you are now under the sovereignty of the state that is welcoming you. The host’s anthem, flag and guard of honour invite the visiting dignitary to show respect, to stand to attention and thereby acknowledge the sovereignty of the nation and the state offering welcome and hospitality. It is worth noting that this ritual requires only a musical performance of the anthem. One may find some officials singing along with the music but this is not required. 2. National anthems are sung or played at the inauguration of heads of states – be those elected presidents or unelected monarchs. The role of the anthem here is similar to that of the reception of foreign officials: it recognises or asserts the sovereignty of the state and its highest official. However, unlike the reception of foreign officials, the singing of the anthem on these occasions is also a display of solidarity with the nation. The anthem displays the link between the ruler and the ruled. 3. Anthem singing is often but not always a part of the opening or inaugural session of state parliaments or assemblies. As was the case in the ritual of reception described above, in the ritual of the opening, the function of the anthem is to assert the sovereignty of the people represented and their representatives: the singing in unison expresses the representative legitimacy of the singers. In addition, performance of the anthem displays the loyalty of the representatives and their solidarity with the nation they represent. This demonstrated loyalty conveys legitimacy and sovereignty, and the performance reassures both the singers and the listeners that the represented and the representatives are one and the same nationsinging-in-unison their common song. The singing of the anthem symbolically brings together or unifies the nation. As we shall see in the case of anthems without lyrics the inability of individuals to sing is often deplored as a sign of a lack of unity and solidarity (see Chapter 7).

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In addition, the state funerals or funerals of ‘national celebrities’ also, at times, require the singing of the official anthem. This singing is a display of unity of the deceased with the people who mourn as well as demonstrating the solidarity of the mourners. In this symbolic act of unity, the mourners show respect and also reassure themselves – and notionally the deceased – of the deceased’s significance. Every independent state, that is member of the UN (and likewise those who aspire to such status), needs to have an anthem for the purpose of first two state rituals adumbrated above. These signal the sovereignty of the state or, in case of non-states, an aspiration to sovereignty. For non-states, singing of official anthem-like songs at state rituals signals aspiration: listen to us and see that we are like the internationally recognised states, we have the symbols of sovereignty too. Apart from the assertion of sovereignty or the aspiration to an assertion of sovereignty, another universal function of anthem is education: anthems are used to educate children about who they are. Anthems are played in schools – both private and government– from an early age. Teaching children how to sing an anthem is a means by which they are solemnly and officially brought into their nation. The children are not only taught the words and melodies, but also how to assume the appropriate posture and attitude for unison with their fellow citizens. They are taught the text, melody and body language plus the set of emotions that go with anthem singing. They are taught how to behave as members of their own named nation-singing-in-unison. The singing of an anthem also has a socialising role: those who sing are made members of the nation. These processes are all rolled into one. In singing the anthem an individual asserts membership in a manner appropriate for a citizen while at the same time speaking to oneself and to others listening (who may be citizens singing or others) the words which indicate citizenship. In some instances, children and/or their parents may resist or try to subvert this process of national identity socialisation because they do not feel they belong to that nation-singing-in-unison – perhaps because they belong to some other, not recognised, nation or ‘national minority’ – or because they do not identify with the regime that imposes the official anthem. When this happens individuals often teach other ‘national’ songs at home and through this are able to signal their belonging to a different nation.

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Whether it is the singing of national songs, official or unofficial, school-approved or home-based, the outcome of either circumstance is the child’s socialisation into a particular nation. Although the assertion of sovereignty through the singing of anthems is linked to children’s socialisation into a nation, a national anthem can also easily assert the sovereignty of a state without such socialisation. Anthems played or even sung at state rituals need not be widely shared among the population. For example, a regime that has just come into power may not yet have been able to impose a new anthem on the population. This was the case in Costa Rica, which had no anthem, and authorities had to produce one ex nihilo in order to greet US and UK dignitaries.1 This arbitrary property of anthems thus shows that some of the state ritual roles of an anthem can be performed regardless of whether the citizens are inclined to sing it or even accept it as their own. As long as there is an official state anthem to be performed when required it does not matter whether the state’s citizens participate or even accept that anthem. Some ritual performances of national anthems are, however, more dependent on the socialisation of its singers-citizens. One of these ritual performances of anthems takes place at sporting events: anthems are played and sung by both spectators and team participants at the start of international competitive team sports events. Anthems are also performed in the same way at the start of competitive team games that are not international, where the teams are purported to belong to the same state or national group. Further, anthems are played and sung at the ceremonies of prize giving at international sports events that do not necessarily involve team competition. The primary function here is not to assert sovereignty as was the case in the state rituals: these rituals are not state-oriented or organised. The primary function of the anthem at the beginning of national or international competitive team sporting events is to display the solidarity of the nation and its representative audience with the team. In addition, anthem singing appears to provide inspiration and motivation for the team. In the case of international sporting competitions, the playing of the national anthem of the guest team demonstrates respect for the other non-national team as an equal competitor. It recognises the competitor as a national representative on par with the host national team. It also provides an opportunity for the supporters of the guest team in the

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audience to show solidarity with their team and to provide the team with inspiration and motivation. The singing of anthems at sporting events requires the spectators to have learned the song, and to know the words. Although this learning need not have been carried out in schools, audiences at such events will have had to undergo an anthem socialisation process, usually prior to adulthood. They had to learn the anthem and accept it as their own before they were adults. In addition to national anthems, other songs are used for purposes of providing incentive, inspiration and motivation at sporting events. Indeed many non-anthem team or fan songs may be able to motivate teams even more than national anthems. In terms of providing incentive, inspiration, support or motivation for sporting teams, national anthems in fact face formidable competition – and may even be inferior to other songs crafted or intended for that specific job. Although the study of such songs is beyond the scope of this book it is worth mentioning that such songs are often considered, by analogy to be ‘anthems’. Their function is to express a kind of solidarity akin to that which national anthems inspire. Christopher Kelen’s Anthem Quality (Kelen 2014) explores the nature of that kind of identification and solidarity as expressed in songs most typically oriented towards national devotion. National anthems face similar competition in the political arena. Anthems are sung by participants at a variety of political gatherings. They may be sung in support of, or against a particular ruling regime or even a variety of policies or political and social causes. Despite intense legislative effort, no regime or political movement or cause has ever achieved a monopoly on the use of a national anthem. In terms of politics, the primary function of anthem singing is the display of solidarity in pursuit of the given cause: we are in it together and we signal that by singing an anthem which binds us together. As was the case with sporting events, the singing is also motivational: the singing of the anthem provides an incentive, motivation or inspiration for the pursuit of the political cause. Likewise, anthems are not the only songs that can perform these functions and political movements often make use of various other songs that aim to support their cause in a more direct way. In terms of evoking or bringing about feelings of political solidarity anthems appear to be well suited. Songs

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which survive in this function over long periods of time, and which survive regime changes, are exemplary for the genre. Wartime – whether on the battlefield itself or at the home front – provides further occasions for anthem singing. Solidarity, loyalty and motivation are the desired outcomes for anthem singing in wartime. The ‘marching’ anthems – in particular the primary model of the French ‘Marseillaise’ or in its original title ‘The War Song of the Army of Rhine’ – are crafted with the intention of getting singers and listeners to fight. In the French revolutionary wars the French military commanders found this particular function of anthems to be of singular tactical value in securing victory. As General Dumorouiez noted in his order of 4 March 1793: ‘If the enemy crosses the Meuse close ranks . . . fix bayonets, strike up the Maserollois [sic] and you will win’ (Eyck 1995: 43).2 Two national anthems of the South Slavs, discussed later in this book, had a similar fighting function, although, one of them ‘Hey Slavs’ was not originally written as a war song (see Chapters 1 and 6). Not all anthems are created as marching or fighting songs and yet they may be used to inspire and display solidarity in wartime. The inspirational role of anthem singing is difficult to disentangle from its role in the display of solidarity by the singers. As mentioned above, there are at least four distinct functions or tasks that anthem singing/playing can perform. The playing and/or singing of a national anthem can be used to: 1. Assert, announce or recognise the sovereignty of a state (reception of foreign officials, other state rituals); 2. Educate and socialise citizens or members of a nation so as to make them into a nation-singing-in-unison, into a self-conscious national collectivity of anthem-singers (pre-school and school, adult education); 3. Display and evoke the sentiments of group or national solidarity (at sporting competitions, political gatherings); 4. Inspire and motivate individuals belonging to a group, movement or organisation to participate enthusiastically in any group action or activity (sporting competition, political gatherings and during wartime). As we have suggested above, an anthem can perform role (1) without performing roles (2), (3) or (4): an anthem may be used for the

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announcement of state sovereignty even if it has not been used to educate children/citizens, to evoke sentiments of group solidarity or even to inspire individuals to act. However, an anthem is not likely to perform roles (3) and (4) unless it has already been used in role (2) to educate and socialise citizens. Using a song to display the solidarity of singers or to motivate them to act in a particular way requires a degree of previous socialisation, habituation in the singing of the song and at least a display of collective solidarity. Thus, while role (1) may be independent from the other roles an anthem may perform, roles (3) and (4) do not seem to be independent of role (2). Very few, if any, other songs perform so varied a set of roles or tasks. However, anthems also differ from other songs in yet another important aspect: rather than entertaining, their performance brings solemnity to an occasion, a solemnity that few other songs can achieve. Indeed, they are solemnity-producing songs primarily (but not only) because of the social and ritual functions outlined above. Anthems signal that an occasion is of national significance and is thus serious and not frivolous. Any occasion that is significant to a nation – to its mutual solidarity, to its state or, in wartime, to its survival – is a serious and solemn affair. In addition, the lyrics of the anthems are usually not light-hearted although they may express the themes of love and devotion. There are some exceptions of course: one of which is the current anthem of Slovenia (see Chapter 2). Serving as they do as conduits for emotional expression, national anthems thus express serious affect evoking solemnity. So how do the anthems then perform these distinct social functions/ roles? The core instrument of anthem functionality is their perceived expression of national identity: a national anthem serves as signaturetune. It tells us who the singers are as a nation. It tells the listener which nation is singing. For example, remember the case of the foreign dignitary welcome ritual. By playing their anthem the host nation is signalling to the guest and to everyone else: This is who we are, this is our signature tune known to everyone, and we are identifying ourselves while at the same time welcoming you. And who are you? You are a representative of another nation whose signature tune was played first, before ours, and thus you too are identified by your signature tune.

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The signature tune not only signals who is doing the singing or playing, it also brings together the singers, unites them in singing and differentiates them from similar – nominally equal groups – who are also entitled to sing similar identity-expressing songs. The identity expressed in anthem texts is, as we shall see, established or identified in different ways but mainly through the means of appropriation of landscapes, rulers, myths and other stories of national significance, evoked in a shorthand lyrical form. The identity expressed in anthems is also directly tied to the state sovereignty through legislation or established tradition – once again by means of appropriation.

The anthem singers: Who are they? Anthems are supposed to represent states and nations both to their own members and to those individuals who are not members but need to know and, more importantly, to recognise the nation. How do anthems perform this representational task? In representing a nation to its own members and to others, anthems need to tell us something about the nation, particularly about the singers-singing-in-unison. Anthems may tell us how good a nation is, how brave and persistent it is, how it has an admirable homeland, and how devoted and loving it is to the homeland, its flag, its symbols and its people. An anthem may also indicate that the nation is praying for the safety of its ruler and even itself and that it will fight for its freedom against anyone who is a threat. Although not all anthems have all of these elements, they do need to squeeze into just a few stanzas a potentially vast amount of important information, while also being emotionally stirring to both the singers and their audience. And yet, on many occasions, however stirring they may be, anthems are not very informative. Indeed, the information they provide may even fail to single out the singing nation from others providing similar information. The range of qualities and topics of national anthems is quite limited, and therefore potentially repetitive; the same descriptions occur in one anthem after another. Most anthems, particularly those that do not name specific pieces of landscape or items (such as flags), use a limited vocabulary of description and praise. This suggests that the qualities of the nations and their homelands, lauded in the anthems, do not differ

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much from nation to nation. This paradox of ‘the uniformity of differences’ is also discussed in Kelen’s Anthem Quality (Kelen 2014). As anthems tend to be written in languages unique to those singing (except, of course, for the anglophone states, all former British colonies plus Britain) the vocabulary used may actually differ in its associative and emotional connotations. However, despite these interpretive differences, the specific identity of each nation is not primarily brought out by the lyrics and the limited vocabulary. The information about the individual nation that each anthem conveys is not sufficient to differentiate one nation from another when considered outside the context of singing or playing the anthem. Of course, this is not particularly surprising when we consider that the purpose of the anthem is not to convey information to those who are not its assigned or appropriating singers. One of the primary aims of anthem-singing is to offer assurance or re-assurance to the singers that they belong the same nation and to inspire them to feel good about themselves and about each other. It is this sentiment of assurance of the group’s goodness that binds the singers to each other and to their nation. In this context, it is sufficient to identify the singers as members of the same nation. The singing of the anthem then brings about the sentiment in the singers and the audience that is sufficient to differentiate themselves from others who sing other anthems. We have already discussed the educative function of anthem singing and the need to educate citizens in the rituals and mysteries of national devotion that surround the anthem as a key symbol of the nation. However, even lifelong knowledge and practice is not always sufficient to produce the self-identifying sentiment in the singers mentioned above. Indeed, many people may just sing their anthem because it is socially expected of them. They may not necessarily feel that the song binds them to others, or even that it has the potential to make them feel good about themselves. They may sing it by rote because it is expected that, as citizens, they will sing their own national anthem. And yet even if someone sings their national in a routine way, without the sentiment of togetherness or assurance of goodness, they may sing another song with more of the ‘anthem-like’ sentiment, outlined above. While some singers might be quite detached from the emotions that anthems are supposed to evoke, singing other non-official and nonanthem songs may indeed evoke anthem-like sentiments. For the study

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of attitudinal and political effects of national anthems, situations in which anthems change as a result of violent or even non-violent political changes, are of particular interest. When anthems change, it is expected that singers’ attitudes to the new and old anthems will change too. In studying this change one could probably find out more about the attitudes that singers have towards anthems and anthem-singing. The Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) started to dissolve around 1989 through a process of secession of its federal units. At the beginning of the process of dissolution several of the federal units – future independent states – enacted legislation establishing their national anthems. These anthems thus gained primacy over the federal state anthem. Secession from the federal state involved the legislative separation of the new state’s anthem from any previous anthem and the self-proclaimed successor state, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, consisting of Serbia and Montenegro, retained the SFRY anthem. This is a clear example of anthem change as outlined above, which, as we shall, was in some cases (but not all) preceded by violent conflict. We shall examine some of the aspects of this process in chapters that follow later. These newly introduced anthems, which were in some cases not new national songs at all, led many of the citizens of former Yugoslavia to reexamine and alter their attitude towards both the anthem of the dissolving state and the anthem introduced to replace it. These changes in attitude – some forced and some not – open the door to an interesting and fruitful study of social psychology of national anthems and their performance. Changes in state anthems or national songs do not happen frequently in Europe. The anthem change in the former Yugoslavia thus presents a rare opportunity for this kind of study, particularly in its scale; the introduction of seven anthems to replace one. Was the disappearance of the old anthem a relief for some citizens? If so, for whom was it a relief? For whom it was not? Why was it a relief for some and not for others? What did those for whom it was not a relief feel and think? What segments of the population accepted the new anthems most easily and why? How do they describe the sentiments that the new anthems produced? How do they compare these sentiments with those experienced when singing or listening to the previous anthem? These are fascinating questions that can be only addressed through a survey-based public opinion type of study.

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The present book does not address these questions. Ours is not a study in social psychology of anthems and their singing. We do not know of any such study conducted in the former Yugoslavia or elsewhere. Instead, this book offers a textual analysis of anthems. We analyse the lyrics of the new anthems in the former Yugoslavia in the political and historical context in which they were written and introduced. In our textual and historiographical study of anthem lyrics we aim to address the following two questions: . .

What do the lyrics tell us about the nation-singing-in-unison – who the singers/audience are as well as to what they aspire? What was political role and the political message(s) of these songs, in particular, once they were proclaimed state anthems.

In exploring these two questions we discuss how poetic images of nations’ identity are used in the processes and discourses of nationbuilding and state-creation. The state anthems carry a peculiar type of political authority: these are the songs selected by the citizens’ representatives to render in poetic images all their constituents, all the citizens, both to others and themselves. Anthems open a window into the world of national self-presentation and self-understanding. They can be used to identify how citizens and political leaders like to think of themselves and how they would like to present themselves to others, outside their group. Anthem lyrics thus may well offer a compact and poignant expression of attempts at collective representation on a national scale.

What is national about national anthems? Mutual belonging – of a nation to its anthem and the anthem to its nation – is a relation framed by the modern national ideology which, as a general political doctrine, known as ‘nationalism’. Nationalism is grounded in the idea that human populations are segmented into clusters called ‘nations’. These segmented clusters are said to possess bounded territorial habitation (homelands), a common past (even a common descent), common cultural practices, often a common language and a common set of symbols. In possessing these attributes, these clusters have a common political organisation and, according to this

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kind of political doctrine, also deserve to have a sovereign territorial political organisation, known as the state (Breully 1982: 340–4). Modern political ideologies separate clusters of population in terms of the series of salient characteristics, which are intended to separate them from other similar clusters, and then claim that these salient characteristics and the separateness of the cluster from others entitles the cluster to sovereignty over its assigned territory. Sovereignty is thus conceived as the final seal of separateness and uniqueness, the seal that gives the right to that cluster of population to use lethal force against those who may potentially threaten its separateness. Apart from its symbolic significance, the resort to violence is definitive: the sovereign state was famously defined by Max Weber as entitled to the monopoly of the use of force over its bounded territory (Weber 1978: 53). National anthems at present can perform the various social functions we noted above only within the framework of a national ideology of this kind or a general political doctrine of nationalism. Only in the realm of segmented populations, separated one from another in physical and cultural space and historical time, can anthems make sense both as a significant and constituent element of the unique cultural space of each nation and as an instrument of appeal and mobilisation aimed only at that bounded population cluster. Prior to the advent of modern national ideologies – roughly prior to the French revolution – popular songs that aimed at political mobilisation did not appeal to specific culturally and territorially segmented groups, now known as nations. One can see this best in the example of early songs that later became state anthems: for example the Dutch ‘William of Nassau’ (1582) and the British ‘God Save the King’ (1745). These songs, at the time of their creating, did not address territorially and culturally separate clusters, that is modern nations as they are currently perceived. The focus of the singers’ self-identification in the songs was loyalty to a single person, the monarch. This focus is almost completely absent from later national songs dating to the nineteenth century, which was the golden era of national songs and European nationalism in general. The national indeterminacy of the object of loyalty, that is, the King or Queen, in the British anthem makes it a song that could be appropriated by any other nation. Its widespread imitation throughout the nineteenth century shows how this indeterminacy aids its dissemination among allegedly unique and separate nations.

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National anthems, within the framework of nationalism, not only address these segmented clusters, but also become important defining cultural markers of the nation. National ideologies dictate that modern nations are separated by culturally unique markers and national songs are a useful and often powerful cultural marker of this kind. Each population cluster whose members are aware of themselves as forming a nation should have a national song, in addition to a national flag and other national symbols such as a coat of arms. If the nation in question has no state-like or proto-state institutions (that is its own legislature, local government officials or educational curricula), this national song is sung often in defiance – asserting the separate nationhood and its currently unfulfilled political entitlements. The national song, or rather the singing of the national song, thus signals the existence of the political aspirations expected of a nation. Where a nation has achieved its own proto-state institutions, its national song is often recruited for performance in institutional rituals, thus signalling the national ownership of these institutions. In proto-states (regional or federal units) or states in which there are several recognised nations, the state anthem can become a contested song – primarily because it is most commonly a cultural marker of a single and separate nation. Each self-aware nation, whether a stateowner or stateless, is supposed to have a national song that no other nation can own. One way to avoid the contestation (and the resulting potential refusal of a nation to sing) is to remove the lyrics from official state anthems. States that have adopted a strategy of evasion by adopting a musiconly anthem, include: Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Republic of Kosovo and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (1992– 2003), as well as the Kingdom of Spain. The European Union, as an organisation of European states rather than a single nation and an entity committed to an evercloser unity of its peoples (nations), has also selected a lyrics-free ‘official’ song in Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’. The relative national indeterminacy of anthem music can also be seen in the number of national anthems that use or have used the same or similar melodies. The music of an anthem, unlike its language, does not always give away the identity of the nation singing or even which nation has ownership. As per the paradox of the uniformity of differences, the music of an anthem does not appear to carry on its own the weight of cultural or national ownership, or at least

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not obviously; it is the anthem lyrics that function as primary national or cultural markers. The lyrics of anthems mark the nation-singing-in-unison as distinct from other such anthem- or national song-capable nations. In separating one nation from another, the anthem identifies those it addresses as of a nation-in-particular, one that is putatively unique. In this way nations may be considered to resemble individuals and just as each person is considered to have a unique identity so too is it possible for every individual to experience a breakdown or crisis in their own identity. Some nationalism theorists or adherents of national ideologies allow a degree of change of national identity, but argue that a complete change probably requires assimilation into another nation, or dispersal or elimination of the members of the nation. However, both of those options are unacceptable from a nationalist viewpoint: according to modern national ideology no member of a nation willingly assimilates or allows themselves to be ‘dispersed’ among others. Of course, some nations do change their principal national songs or anthems without changing their identity – that is without becoming another nation or assimilating into another. Such change is sometimes a result of a national trauma that is then used both to explain and justify the change: for example, a nation is liberated from its oppressor or from an oppressive (but still national) regime. Sometimes the change is not a result of any trauma but instead comes from a desire to change the image that the nation projects to itself and to outsiders. This appears to be the situation with the change of Slovenian anthems in 1989, discussed in Chapter 3. Why then do national anthems change and what impact does such a change have on the national identity of the singers? This is one of the principal questions we will address in the context of the dissolution of SFRY and the creation of new states in its former territory.

What is national identity: A few theoretical suggestions The subject of national identity has been approached from various disciplinary points of view. Each discipline, whether it be social psychology, sociology or political science, emphasises a different aspect of national identity. We have decided to start with a rather wide definition of national identity offered by Anthony D. Smith. According to him, the ‘fundamental features of national identity’ are:

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an historic territory, or homeland common myths and historical memories a common, mass public culture common legal rights and duties for all members a common economy with territorial mobility for members. (Smith 1991: 14)

These are all features that define the identity of ‘a named human population’. This ‘working definition’ as Smith calls it is then used in his own general sociological explanation of how modern nations evolve or are created from an earlier type of ‘human population’, called ‘ethnic community’ or ‘ethnie’. Each of the features listed above is linked to similar features of the ‘ethnie’. In this type of explanation, the nation’s self-awareness of itself, as a nation, is not a variable or factor to be explained, since ethnies already have a degree of self-awareness. Nonetheless, it is curious to note that, according to the above definition, for a nation to have an identity, it does not appear to be necessary for its members to be aware of each other as members of the same nation. Perhaps this aspect of self-awareness is subsumed under feature 3, ‘a common, mass public culture’. If there is a common mass culture, then through participating in such a culture, members of a nation become aware of each other as participants or sharers of the same common culture. If anthems are part of the common mass culture, then through joint singing as well as learning of an anthem, members of a nation become aware of their common nationality. Music and song have been found to be important instruments in the dissemination, particularly in culturally and linguistically diverse populations, of a sense of belonging as well as the concept of a common nation.3 However, participation in a common culture on its own is not enough to foster the sentiment of belonging. For example, although there is particpation in the culture of current global or transnational pop music this does not promote any such sentiment or conception. On the contrary, while participants – the listeners and those who sing the ‘global’ pop hits – do feel part of a common music culture that crosses national borders, they do not appear to view themselves as members of the same nation. Participating in a common culture does not therefore, by itself, lead to self-identification as a member of a common nation or even to an awareness of a membership of a nation.

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In contrast to Smith, Perry Anderson argues that national identity ‘always possesses a reflexive or subjective dimension’. He notes: [national identity] is a self-conscious projection. It always involves a process of selection, in which the empirical mass of collective living is distilled into armorial form. Subjectivity is here inseparable from symbolization. The symbols capture the past and announce the future. Memory is crucial to identity . . . So too is mission – the raison d’etre of a specific contribution to the world, rather than the mere etre of a particular existence within it. Together these two give the idea of national identity its eminently normative force (Anderson 1992: 268). For Anderson then, the creation and understanding of national symbols are central to the creation of national identity. Symbols capture the past (for example the nation’s historical myths) and project the mission of the nation in the future, including the future to which the nation aspires. The creation and subsequent understanding of the national symbols is an exercise of subjectivity and self-awareness. National symbols are created and understood by members of a nation who are aware of themselves as being members of the nation. According to William Bloom: National Identity describes that condition in which a mass of people have made the same identification with national symbols – have internalised the symbols of the nation – so that they may act as one psychological group when there is a threat to, or the possibility of enhancement of, these symbols of national identity (Bloom 1990: 52). Explaining this process of identification, Bloom continues: ‘[f]or national identity to exist, the people en masse must have gone through the actual psychological process of making that general identification with the nation’ (Bloom 1990: 52). According to Bloom, members of a nation become aware of their nation and their belonging by internalising the symbols of the nation. This internalisation is necessary for the ‘general identification with the nation’. When an individual internalises the symbols they firstly see those symbols as representing the nation and then secondly take the

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symbols to represent themselves as members of the nation or perhaps to represent the nation as their own. Through a reversal of the metonymic process that gives the Unknown Soldier national significance, the internalising individuals appropriate the symbols and makes them their own. As a consequence, those who died for their nation and the citizen who sings the anthem today enjoy a reciprocal relationship of national belonging. However, national anthems do not spring up as ‘ready-made’ or ‘selfevident’ symbols. Instead, they need to be accepted or understood as such, which is part of the internalisation process. In this book we shall explore the following two aspects of this process in the context of the dissolution of Yugoslavia: . .

How do the lyrics and the word images create the symbolic nexus that represents the nation of the anthem-singers? How does the political and social context of the song’s adoption as the national anthem confer on the song the status and function of a national symbol?

Illocutionary acts and classification of anthems Despite the above insistence on the identity expression and demarcation offered by national anthems, anthems are not actually texts written with the explicit purpose of defining the identity of a nation. They are not definitional texts that aim to answer, explicitly, the question: who are the singers? Instead they tell us who the singers are through a series of images and allusions while ostensibly doing something else. What is that something else? A cursory investigation of world anthems gives us three answers to the question: 1. Anthems offer prayers for the ruler’s safety. 2. Anthems congratulate the nation singing the anthem. 3. Anthems exhort the nation to march and, ultimately, to fight.4 In most cases, anthems do two or more of these things, for example, they commonly both offer prayers and congratulate the nation. Anthems most commonly congratulate the nation. There are two principal methods of national self-congratulation via anthems:

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A. Expressing devotion – love, pride, admiration, metaphoric subjugation – to a nation. B. Describing the nation’s qualities and possessions that are worthy of congratulations. The latter include homelands, landscapes, flags, glorious deeds and glorious individuals. These two ways of congratulating the nation are far from exclusive and are often found together. Most self-congratulatory anthems in effect say ‘We love our homeland and/or the people living there because of its beautiful features which we shall briefly list for you’. In congratulating their homeland, the singers congratulate the people of their homeland and thus themselves. Why do we claim here that A. and/or B. constitute congratulation? Can one just express love for one’s nation/homeland without congratulating it? This indeed is possible: but to do so, one would not sing one’s national anthem. Anthems are intoned in unison, in groups, and on occasions such as those outlined above. In expressing love we are singling out the object of our emotion as a special and indeed, appropriate, object of our emotion. We are thus congratulating ourselves both for experiencing such a special emotion and also for having so special an object to which to devote such emotion. Our putative uniqueness as national subjects and as singers of a particular anthem enjoins our devotions in a tautological circle that may be thought of as mutually self-congratulatory. It is the national quality of the metonymy here – our representing the nation (speaking for the nation, being spoken of as the nation) – that makes it possible for singing subjects to express pride which would elsewhere be seen as hubris. In addition, it is the religious quality of devotion to the nation that allows pride in something temporal to appear as devotion on a higher plane.

Classification of anthems Self-congratulatory anthems usually offer a rather non-specific description of the homeland and its people, and allude to its glorious history, with the aim of singling out the most praiseworthy features. However, this list of descriptions and allusions does not constitute an exhaustive repertoire of self-congratulatory devices: for example, the Slovene anthem ‘A Toast’ (discussed in Chapter 3) introduces the novel device of congratulating one’s own nation for being a nation that loves and

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embraces others who are not Slovenes. This is indeed a unique feature demonstrates an altruism and devotion that is praiseworthy. An early example of the self-congratulatory anthem is ‘Denmark, Denmark – Sacred Sound’ by Adam G. Oehlenschlaeger published in 1823 which begins with: There is a lovely country Where the mighty beech trees grow. ... Hail every Dane, Who works as best he can (Eyck 1995: 30) Since 1920 this song has been used as the state anthem of Denmark together with the older and monarchical song ‘King Christian’, which belongs to the category of marching songs. It should be noted that there are many others, including the Czech, Luxemburg and Swedish anthems, that belong to this category. Among the anthems covered in this book, the most numerous are the self-congratulatory kind. These include the anthems of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina (with the proposed but rejected lyrics), Montenegro, Slovenia and Kosovo. So why is this kind of anthem so popular in a region that has been subject to more frequent warfare in the past 150 years than any other part of Europe? Perhaps the nations which are getting their states for the first time need to lift their self-esteem through self-congratulatory verse. The prayer for the ruler’s safety is the earliest form of the national anthem, as in the case of the English anthem ‘God Save the King [or Queen]’. That particular anthem has become a model for a series of later anthems, for example the national anthems of Russia, Austria-Hungary, Serbia and Norway. Such prayer songs, offering prayers for the safety and long reign of the ruler, are also prayers for the peace that such a long reign would bring. The act of singing is in fact the act of offering a prayer for divine protection. The singers are thus asking for their own peace and safety under the guise of entreating the safety of the ruler/ sovereign. A variant of the prayer anthem – ‘The God of Justice’ – was resurrected as the state anthem of the Republic of Serbia in 2004–6.

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However, unlike the British anthem, this anthem has significant selfcongratulatory elements similar to other non-prayer style anthems. The original marching/fighting anthem is the ‘War Song for the Army of the Rhine’, which later became known as the ‘Marseillaise: it was originally made popular by a revolutionary volunteer regiment from Marseille. Composed and written by a captain of the royal engineering corps of the French Army of the Rhine, Rouget de Lisle, during the night of 25 April 1792, it starts: The children of the Fatherland, let’s go. The day of the glory has arrived . . . The second stanza, the refrain, then becomes an exhortation to march and fight: To arms, citizens Form your battalions, Let us march, let us march. In its call to arms, this anthem has become the model for a variety of national anthems, the Belgian ‘Brabanconne’, the Portuguese ‘A Portuguesa’, the Italian ‘Inno di Mameli’, the Russian republic’s ‘The Workers Marsaillaise’, and finally the international workers’ anthem, ‘The Internationale’, which served as the state anthem of the USSR from 1922 until 1944. Interestingly, the ‘Marseillaise’ has not provided the model for any of the current anthems of the states formed out of the SFR Yugoslavia. In consequence, the current anthems of the new states do not call on their singers to march and to fight. One reason for this may be that warfare seems to no longer be necessary; another possible explanation is perhaps that the international organisations, such as the EU, of which these states are members or aspire to become members, may not look kindly on such themes among its new or aspiring members. The national anthem of Macedonia (Former Republic of Yugoslavia of Macedonia), ‘Today over Macedonia’, is a marching song from World War II. However, it does not call upon its citizens and co-nationals to march and fight but instead simply and proudly proclaims the fact that they were fighting when the anthem was composed (see Chapter 6).

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‘Forward, the Flag of Glory’ was an unofficial national anthem of Slovenia when it was a federal republic in the SFRY and is currently the anthem of the Slovenian military (see Chapter 2). This is also a marching song and calls upon the citizens to follow the ‘flag of glory’ and fight. In addition, ‘Hey Slavs’, the anthem of the SFRY from its inception in 1942 until its dissolution in 1991, is also a call to fight the enemies of all the Slavs, including those of the South Slavs (see Chapter 1).

The genesis of anthems Anthem lyrics belong to the genre of occasional verse, that is verse written for a particular occasion or in response to a particular demand. The three kinds of anthems outlined above would have been written on different occasions and in response to different demands. The most common source of self-congratulatory verse is poetic national awakening: an occasion in which a poet discovers his or her awareness of own belonging to a nation. In this sense, he or she awakens from a state of non-recognition or ‘sleep’. In awakening, she or he recognises that they belong to a nation and that they share its language, history, symbols and landscapes. Following the French Revolution in 1789, a large number of societies – or rather their literate strata – throughout Europe experienced such a national awakening. By dethroning the sovereign and replacing the monarch with a form of nation, the French revolution and its Declaration of the Rights of Men and Citizens, created an awareness of the centrality of nation and inspired individuals to search for its specific character. This differentiating character as Perry Anderson notes (Anderson 1992: 267–8) was later called ‘national identity’. In the vanguard of the search for national identity were, perhaps predictably, the national poets. As the German philosopher Herder explained at the time, poets are inextricably tied to nations: Thus we must not blame any nation for preferring their poets to all others and for not wanting to relinquish them in exchange for foreign ones; after all, they are its poets. They have thought in its language, have exercised their imaginations in its context; they have felt the needs of the nation within which they were raised and have answered them in turn. Why then should the nation not feel

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with them, too, since a bond of language, of thoughts, needs, and feelings firmly ties them together? (Herder 1797: 5) How shall we [the Germans, A.P.] acquire patriotism and love of our fatherland, if not through its language, through the most excellent thoughts and sensations, expressed in it like a stored-up treasure? (Herder 1797: 6) The poets of the best known self-congratulatory national anthems – Danish poet Adam Oehlenschlaeger (1823) and the Norwegian writer (and nationalist) Bjørnsjterne Bjørnson (1859) – both felt the need to write a national song to exhibit their love and devotion to their country and explain why their country was worthy of such love and devotion. In the case of the Danish anthem, the occasion was a competition in 1818 for a Danish national song, initiated by the commander of the Danish occupation forces in France. The prize-winning poem never gained acceptance (and the Danish forces withdrew from France). This gave Oehlenschlaeger the opportunity to offer his belated contribution which, in much shortened versions, won widespread acceptance (Eyck 1995: 29). The Bjørnson poem, initially entitled the ‘National Song’, was not provoked by a popular failure of a competitively selected anthem but by a happy holiday in ‘pastoral scenery’ at Hope near Bergen in Norway (Eyck 1995: 150). It starts with words similar to those found in many a self-congratulatory anthems: Yes, we love with fond devotion This our land that looms The circumstances in which Antun Mihanovic´ wrote his ‘Croatian Homeland’ in 1835 are not known. And there is no indication that there was any turmoil (let alone a national trauma) in the life of this civil servant and aspiring poet, which preceeded or provoked the writing of that self-congratulatory poem, which starts with: Hail, our beautiful homeland In contrast, marching songs are most commonly written and composed in response to the trauma of war or violent conflict or the threat thereof.

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They attempt to overcome the trauma by calling for organised armed resistance and by reassuring the singers and their audience of their ultimate victory. They are calls, in song, for collective solidarity in the face of threat or danger and they offer collective reassurance again in song, in deflecting threats. The most famous of the marching anthems, the ‘Marseillaise’ was composed upon the declaration of war with the monarchical coalition. It arose from the sound of drums and marching, from singing recruits and soldiers preparing for war. The lyrics of the Portuguese anthem ‘A Portuguesa’ (‘The Portuguese women’) were written in 1890, amidst the violent demonstrations in Lisbon and Porto protesting against the British ultimatum to the Portuguese government (which requested the withdrawal of the Portuguese forces from contested parts of Africa) reinforced by the British naval presence close to Lisbon (Eyck 1995: 73). Its refrain echoes the call of the ‘Marseillaise’. To arms, to arms! Over land, over sea, To arms, to arms! For the Fatherland, fight! Like these two marching songs, ‘Today over Macedonia’ was written and composed in the midst of turmoil – the turmoil of the Axis defeat and occupation of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1941. Like the ‘Marseillaise’ it was composed, among a people preparing for war against the Axis occupiers of Macedonia. In addition, ‘Hey Slavs’, although written in the early nineteenth century, became in World War II a song of civilian defiance and resistance to the German (nonSlav) occupier and was the fighting song of the Communist-led guerrilla forces throughout the country. The original prayer anthem ‘God Save the King’ was probably first performed in two principle theatres in London on 25 September 1745 in response to a violent trauma. The Scots were in rebellion against the Hanoverian dynasty in Great Britain and following a victory in Scotland by the Young Pretender, Charles Edward, there was an apparent threat of his army’s march to London (Scholes 1942: 6 – 7). The lyrics of the song were published in a collection of songs in 1744 without any indication of their author and were put to music for the

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above theatrical occasion by the famous British composer Thomas Arne (Scholes 1943: 8 – 9). The song prays for the safety of the present king and for the defeat of his enemies (in this case the Scottish rebels), as well as for the safety of all of the royal subjects, the audience and the singers of the anthem. Unlike the marching songs that call the citizens to arms and to fight the enemy, the prayer song only prays to a deity to ensure that the enemies of the crown (who are also enemies of the audience and the singers) be defeated and peace maintained. This is a different, ostensibly a more passive, response to the threat itself or the trauma. The Serbian prayer anthem was performed for the first time in the principal theatre of Beograd, the capital of the princedom of Serbia, in 1872. However, its performance was not staged in response to any threat to the monarch or his subjects but rather was commissioned by the monarch. Having removed the regency and proclaimed himself prince, the underage prince Milan Obrenovic´ commissioned the director of the National Theatre to write and stage a play (with ‘singing’) that would offer a sort of historical/dramatic justification for his self-enthronement. The play ended with a prayer-in-song for the safety of the newly enthroned prince. This song, later named ‘God of Justice’, in a revised and expanded version, became the anthem of the Kingdom of Serbia after Prince Milan proclaimed himself king in 1882 (see Chapter 4). The lyrics of anthems are thus written in a variety of different circumstances and for a wide variety of reasons. In some cases, they are written in response to the trauma of conflict while in other cases they are written in contemplative circumstances or in the pursuit of literary fame. In many instances their authors or initial performers did not intend them to be used in the way our contemporary national anthems are used. In the case of the original prayer anthem, ‘God Save the King’ or its close contender the Dutch monarchical ‘William of Nassau’ (1572), the first performers had no conception of many of the roles that our contemporary national anthems perform although they may have been aware of an anthem’s power to display of collective solidarity of the audience and singers. In summary then, anthem lyrics are occasional verses penned on diverse occasions and for diverse but most often patriotic reasons which have then been put to a variety of political uses. They are primarily used

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for the mobilisation of singers/audiences and as a part of established state and non-state rituals. The nineteenth-century origins of the majority of Europe’s current state anthems has brought about a curious chronological reversal of states and their anthems: most national songs of Europe predate the birth or international recognition of the very state whose anthem they were later to become. The national songs of Norway, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Poland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, the Czech republic, Slovakia, Greece, Macedonia, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary, Ukraine, Albania, Croatia and Slovenia were all written or composed before these states had gained independence or international recognition of their independence. Given that all but one of their national songs/future anthems were written in the nineteenth century, this was to be expected: of the above 19 states, 13 were created in the next, twentieth, century. More importantly, most of these national songs that later became state anthems were actually used in the nation-building of their respective nations. They were used to disseminate the idea of the separate nation, addressed and extolled, and to mobilise popular support for its political independence. The self-congratulatory and marching/fighting features of what we may call the Ur-anthems (for example, ‘God Save the King’, ‘La Marseillaise’), and of the nineteenthcentury anthems that descended from these songs, were eminently suitable for that role. The virtues these songs identified and extolled were used to convince the singers and the audience – who spoke or at least understood the language of the song – of their own uniqueness as well as goodness and, if necessary, to organise them for a potential struggle (‘march, march . . . form your battalions’!). They singled out the singers and their audience as a group worthy of, and deserving, political independence. Once independence was gained the same song could continue to offer reassurance of goodness and uniqueness to the same group, recognised as a state-deserving nation. Self-congratulation is thus a useful device for mobilisation of the self-congratulating group for independence as well as for any other cause based on the enhanced sentiment of self-worth or self-esteem. Self-congratulation also has no set or plausible use-by date. This kind of normative progression, from liberation song to nation building song to state anthem while widespread in Europe did not, perhaps surprisingly, occur all that frequently in the Balkans. Only two

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of the anthems of the new post-Yugoslav states, the Croatian and Macedonian state anthems, had a role in their respective nation-building and national movements. The Croat ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ followed this pattern of progression most faithfully: it was undisputed national song of the Croat national movement from the late nineteenth century until Croatia gained independence in 1992. ‘Today over Macedonia’, the World War II marching song, was first an unofficial national anthem of the federal unit of Macedonia from 1948 until 1989 when it gained official status and then, in 1992, became the state anthem of independent Macedonia. In contrast, the new anthems of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo – both without official lyrics – had no role to play in nationbuilding for a simple reason that in these two regions there was no single nation to build. Bosnia and Herzegovina has three constituent peoples or nations who cannot agree on the text of any state anthem (see Chapter 7). The majority population of Kosovo are Albanians who already have a national song or anthem in use, that of their neighbouring country Albania (see Chapter 8). The Serbian state anthem – a prayer for the safety of the Serbian prince or king –was written and composed in the already semi-independent Serbia to promote not the nation but its ruler. Montenegro also gained semi-independence in the early nineteenth century and was internationally recognised as an independent state from 1878 to 1919: during and preceding its independence the current anthem was not even a national song, let alone the state anthem. A version of the current official Montenegrin anthem became the song of a small political party in Montenegro that, between 1920 and 1941, unsuccessfully demanded the autonomy (but not independence) of Montenegro within the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. Prior to 1989, Slovenia’s national anthem was a marching song and the current six-line selection from a longer nineteenth-century poem ‘A Toast’ was rarely sung, but was better known as a classical poetic text in the Slovenian canon. Although various routes have been followed in the search for state anthems, the regimes of the new states in the Balkans have looked primarily to the nineteenth century and taken national songs from that golden era – if, of course, there was a national song from that era to found at all. In the case of the three states that did not adopt nineteenthcentury songs, there was no national song from that era which would be uniquely attributable to the population of the new state and that had not

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already been appropriated by the national groups of other states– be those Bulgarians, Albanians from Albania or Serbs from Serbia. These three states also started their search for a national song-candidate much later than the other states under discussion.

The vocabulary of nationhood in the anthem lyrics In spite of their uneven historical paths to anthemhood, all of the anthems of the new states of former Yugoslavia tell us something about the singers and their audience. Anthems in general tell us something about their singers – about the nation-singing-in-unison. They attribute to the nation two characteristics, one relational and the other qualitative. Let us start with the qualitative characteristic. The anthem or national song outlines the qualities of the nation. The most common quality displayed is that of courage or bravery: the nation displays its bravery primarily in the defence of its own freedom or its own way of life. This bravery is primarily martial and evident on the field of battle or in some form of warfare. In addition to bravery, the nation often exhibits perseverance or persistence in its striving after freedom or other ideals. Although these are probably the two main attitudinal qualities or attributes expected or displayed by the singers-in-unison, there are others which are emotional or affective. The nations are usually identified as loving and the object of love is almost always the homeland/ motherland/fatherland, sometimes portrayed as the parent of the singers. In addition to love, nations are credited with feelings of fellowsolidarity. Co-nationals feel solidarity among themselves and as a group they display cohesiveness or togetherness. In contrast to the expression of solidarity with the members of the same nation feelings of compassion for non-nationals is very rarely attributed to the nation singing the anthem. Indeed, rarely do the singers of anthems display compassion or mercy or even hospitality to others, non-nationals. These seem not be praiseworthy qualities even in peace-loving nations. Perhaps this is because anthems are nation-centric; they are addressed to fellow nationals and thus a display of empathy towards non-nationals is simply not of much thematic interest. While there is no empathy, an expression of negative emotion towards non-nationals is often a characteristic of anthems. Hate and contempt for the nation’s enemies are often present, particularly in

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marching songs but even prayer songs. After all, these songs are often aimed against putative enemies. A notable exception is the current Slovenian anthem ‘A Toast’, which in its six lines (selected from a much longer poem) speaks only of love for all brother-nations (see Chapter 3). More surprisingly perhaps is the fact that nations are not lauded in anthem lyrics as possessing much in the way of intellectual or cognitive qualities: they are not wise – although some of their national leaders may be – nor are they intelligent or even clever. Intellectual qualities thus do not appear to be anthem-praiseworthy. Indeed, perseverance as a quality appears definitely to be more praiseworthy than cleverness. Why the singers are not attributed any intellectual qualities is not entirely clear. Perhaps anthem writers assume that their target nations have a predestined goals or ideals and, in view of their predestined status, neither wisdom nor cleverness is going to be of much help in achieving them. Yet, all of these are generic qualities that provide little, if any, ground for differentiating one nation from another: if all nations are brave, persevering, solidarity-imbued and homeland-loving, how is one to distinguish one from another? The aim is therefore obviously not identification or identity-construction of particular nations but instead a form of self-congratulation. The anthem thus allows the nation to laud its own praiseworthy qualities. The relational qualities of the singers may indeed be of more help in differentiating one nation from another. These are the qualities that identify relations of nations to a variety of inanimate objects or animate subjects.

Identification through appropriation In describing the relational qualities of the nation-singing-in-unison, we find that the dominating relation is of possession: nations possess or claim ownership of things or persons and thus construct their identity in terms of possession or ownership.

Homelands The most essential thing that a nation possesses is a homeland that is identified either as a fatherland or a motherland. The relation here is of mutuality: if a place is a homeland, it is someone’s homeland. This is a relation of mutual possession: nations have homelands but homelands

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also have nations – territories without nations are not homelands. In addition to the nation’s possession of a homeland, the homeland itself is also a place of the birth of the nation and therefore stands in a relation of motherhood and/or fatherhood to the nation. Homelands are thus conceived both as symbolic spaces that nations possess as homes and as symbolic wombs from which those nations have sprung.

Landscapes A homeland may be described by reference to a physical landscape, usually a non-inhabited landscape of mountains, forests, plains, gorges, meadows, fields, seashores, sea, rivers and lakes. Rivers often provide convenient boundaries and thus fix the homeland geographically and perhaps politically. The landscape that constitutes a homeland very rarely includes cities. Anthems occasionally refer to the homeland/ fatherland/motherland in general and abstract terms and thus fail to link the song to any specific landscape or seascape. In such cases, it is more the idea or the ideal of homeland that is on display rather than the physical landscape. In such a non-physical representations, the homeland is created by the homes of its brave peoples or individuals rather than any use of landscape imagery. Leaders/rulers Apart from homelands, nations also possess leaders, either founders of states/nations or royalty. Anthems can be prayers for their safekeeping, long life and protection from evil or enemies – the evil and enemies are often indistinguishable. The anthem may also be a eulogy or songs of praise for leader. Such leaders may be portrayed in the midst of battle or extolled as examples of bravery, virtue and/or prescient wisdom (they knew beforehand, for example, that their chosen nation would end up with a state of its own). At times the prayers for and eulogies of leaders are combined in a seamless whole, extolling virtues while at the same time praying for long rule and safety. The singer’s rulers and homelands are sometimes named and these names provide the most effective identification for the nation. Histories/myths Nations singing anthems possess more than rulers, landscapes and homelands, they also have their preferred histories (or rather historical

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myths) that not only uniquely identify the singing nation but sometimes also define it. These myths are usually claimed to be unique although other nations may well happen to have similar if not identical histories or myths. Their uniqueness arises from the fact that in the myth narratives it is the nation that is the principal or even sole actor. Myths and legends give nations an historical and metaphorical stage on which to enact their unique and praiseworthy acts. These are acts through which nations gain glory of the kind that is anthem-worthy, glory that sets them, allegedly, apart from other nations. However, nations often also have national traumas such as invasions, defeats, prolonged warfare or loss of people and territory, which are, for obvious reasons, less frequently the thematic content of anthems. Anthems are not to to extol the losses but rather the glory of nations. And yet these traumas may serve as triggers, perhaps leading to the composition of the text of the future anthem. The French ‘Marsaillaise’, the American ‘Star-Spangled Banner’, the Greek ‘Hymn to the Liberty’ and many other current anthems are the result of war traumas suffered by both their authors and their audiences. Allusion to these traumas within the lyrics identifies the nation much more clearly than unnamed landscapes or discussion of generic great glories that almost all nations claim for themselves. In glory, all nations are the same – simply glorious – but in trauma or misfortune each nation is quite different. Each of the conflicts or loss of people or land that may trigger an anthem is a unique event identifiable in historical space and time. Nations may be thus said to resemble families, which Tolstoy finds are the same in their happiness but sharply different in their misfortune. As many families strive to hide their misfortunes and unhappiness, so anthems gloss over the trauma that brought them into being. The purpose of the anthem is to reassure and to publicise glory rather than to dwell on misfortune. Notable exceptions are the national anthem of Peru and one of the current two official Hungarian anthems, ‘The Hymn’ (1823), which while praying to God for the good fortune of Magyars, does dwell on their misfortunates and traumas. Anthems may however, acknowledge the result of trauma, especially victimhood. Mention of victimhood exposes the injustice that the nation has suffered and enables it to rectify injustice by either performing a just deed or by an exemplary and just display of suffering. It must be mentioned here that no anthem admits that its singers/audiences’ nation inflicted injustices or unprovoked harm on others: the singing nation can

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only appear on the receiving end of historical injustices. Victimhood thus provides yet another stage prop for the display of bravery and for the acquisition of the required glory.

Symbols Nations often appropriate items that take on a particular symbolic role. A piece of coloured cloth on a stick is a favourite symbol of anthems: a flag. Flags represent nations: first, through the nation’s martial virtues such as bravery; second, as an object of a nation’s veneration and loyalty; and third, as the rallying point of the nation. Because flags rally the nation in battle or other pursuit of glory, they come to explicitly represent bravery and perseverance. Sometimes in anthems flags are described so as to clearly identify their owners, for example ‘the star spangled’ in the American anthem. In other cases, the flag around which the nation rallies is just called a flag and is then appropriated as ‘ours’. This is the situation in the Albanian ‘Hymn to the Flag’ (see Chapter 8) and in the current anthem of the Slovenian army ‘Forward the Flag of Glory (see Chapter 2). One may argue that all these relations, appropriating and acting on the stage set up by historical myths, result from the central illocutionary act of anthems: self-congratulation. Anthems are there to congratulate those who sing as the nation-in-unison and the reasons for congratulation can, indeed be various. A nation can congratulate itself on its beautiful landscape, a good or right father/motherhood that is its homeland displayed, an exemplary ruler(s), its brave or glorious or in some other way laudable deeds, and for its just response to an unjust victimhood. A nation does not congratulate itself for its domination, exploitation or subjugation of others or for killing others in pursuit of its own interests, for its greed or even for its hatred and contempt for others. A nation does not congratulate itself for cleverly exploiting every opportunity history or chance offered it to increase its wealth or prestige or territory. A nation does not congratulate itself for assimilating others and making them part of the nation. A nation does not even congratulate itself for its superior knowledge or intelligence – for the number of its Nobel Prize winners or for the great individuals of science, literature or art among its citizens. Thus the reasons for congratulation appear to be selected according to an unstated ethical principle and not according to the self-interest of the nation or even a principle of self-promotion.

PART II CREATING NATION STATES AND NATIONAL ANTHEMS IN SOUTHEAST EUROPE 5

National liberation ideologies: Towards the nation states in the Balkans From the fifteenth until late nineteenth century the Balkan Peninsula (southeast Europe) was divided between two competing empires, the empire of the Catholic Habsburgs ruling from Vienna and the Islamic empire of the Ottomans ruling from Istanbul. Until the end of the eighteenth century the two empires fought frequent and devastating wars over the territory of the Balkans, primarily the regions of the present day Serbia, Macedonia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia. In the nineteenth century other empires became interested in the region. First, Napoleonic France briefly occupied parts of present-day Croatia and Slovenia and used the name of the pre-Slav inhabitants, Illyrians, as the name of the newly established province. Already in the eighteenth century the Russian Empire had started expanding at the expense of the Ottoman Asian possessions and in the nineteenth century it repeatedly went to war with the Ottomans while endeavouring to expand its control over the Balkan Peninsula. As a result, the Russian Romanov Empire became the principal adversary of the Ottomans and in its expansionary quest sought to present itself as the protector of the Christian populations of the Balkans living under the Islamic regime.

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The Habsburgs in the nineteenth century attempted to contain the Russian expansion into the Balkans and to avoid further conflict with the Ottomans. In this quest the Habsburgs were supported by Great Britain, which was at the time engaged in its own containment of Russian expansion in South Asia. The Habsburg Austria-Hungary became the main European ally of the Ottomans until late the nineteenth century when Germany took up this role. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, new actors, partly independent of the competing empires and their territorial ambitions, started to emerge. These were actors native to the region and were primarily local notables and peasant masses. National ideologies, which flourished in the whole of Europe, became the primary instruments of mass mobilisation in the Balkans as well. In southeast Europe these were national liberation ideologies: they aimed at liberation from foreign rule, first from the rule of the Ottomans and, later, from the Habsburgs or their local representatives. These ideologies, constructed and later spread by the native intelligentsia, focused on the following three markers that differentiated the target populations from their rulers: language, religion and the myth of a lost national state. In the twenty-first century, these three markers are still used to differentiate groups and their nation states from each other. A national liberation ideology sets quite clear historical goals for the language/religion group it targets: the recovery of the long-lost state and the achievement of its independence through the overthrow of foreign rulers. The foreign rulers are portrayed as having established and maintained their rule by force and thus the use of force against them is the only possible way to remove them. National liberation ideologies in the early nineteenth century were thus often ideologies of liberation by the force of arms. In order to affect national liberation, national ideologies needed to establish who the individuals and groups requiring liberation were and what territories needed to be liberated. In comparison with the overall goal of national liberation through war, these were much more daunting tasks. The great majority of the target populations were small-holding or share-cropping peasants who were for the most part illiterate. Their basic unit was the extended family and their identity was village or region-based. How could the idea of a wider community, that is a nation, be inculcated among such peoples, in the absence of a

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universal education system and without print media in a language they could understand? The language spoken at home and read and written in school was often sufficient to mark the ruled from the rulers. In the cases in which the lower rungs in the state administration use the same vernacular and where the contact with the state administration and its upper echelons was very rare, such as in the Ottoman provinces, religion and religious customs proved to be a key marker. It must be remembered that the Ottoman state was not only controlled by Muslims but was a state with an Islamic judicial and political system that treated non-Muslims as second class citizens. Religion and language separately or jointly were, during the nineteenth century, sufficient to demarcate the ruled from the rulers but neither religion nor language could define the boundaries of emergent national groups and the territories over which they made claims. This showed the inherent limitations of Balkan national liberation ideologies as nation- and state-building instruments. By appealing to these two markers, language and religion, those seeking a new order were able to demarcate in a general way those whom they were aiming to liberate. However, in order to determine the identity of the people whom they wanted liberated, they had to appeal to other, much fuzzier notions. Among these notions were the historical myths of medieval states that had been lost during the Ottoman or Habsburg military conquest or incorporation. These myths became the principal sources for separate national ideologies of Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslim), Macedonians and Bulgarians.6 Each group, through its ideology, appropriated a medieval state or a medieval dynasty as the origin of its nationhood or statehood and on the basis of such an appropriation made claims for the recovery of the putative territories of the medieval state. Not only were the boundaries of these states little known (if at all), but the very concept of a demarcated landline border was unknown in the Middle Ages. Not surprisingly then, the maps of ‘national’ territory to which the medieval states laid retrospective claim clashed with each other: for example, the short-lived empire of Stephan Urosˇ IV Dusˇan (1346 – 55), from a Serb dynasty, extended over the southeast European territory of the medieval states appropriated by Macedonian, Bulgarian, Bosniak and Montenegrin national ideologies.

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The appeal to the idea of medieval statehood primarily had a nationally uplifting and mobilising role: its aim was to portray the target group as politically equal to its rulers (and later other potential competitors) in possessing the right to statehood and thus to lift the national self-esteem. However, given that the maps of ‘national territory’ of medieval states clashed with each other, the overt and covert claims to territory made in this way often resulted in conflict between the separate national ideologies and eventually between the newly established states. What started as an exercise in boosterism of national self-esteem ended in some cases in violent conflict among new nation states, as for example in the wars between Serbia and Bulgaria in 1885 and 1913. However, not all national ideologies in southeast Europe appealed to myths of medieval states and not all sought independent statehood. An ideology that attempted to construct the national identity solely on the basis of a linguistic marker, that is a common language, was the Illyrianism of the poet Ljudevit Gaj in Zagreb, Croatia, growing from the 1830s. The aim of Illyrianism was to create a common cultural space for the speakers of one South Slavonic dialect – sˇtokavian – which appeared to have speakers stretching from the present day Slovenia to Bulgaria, thus straddling the divide between the two empires and three major religions: Roman Catholicism, Eastern Orthodoxy and Islam. This credo reappeared again in Zagreb in 1860s under a native label of Yugoslavism (‘jugo’ being the common word for ‘the south’). In the age of the major national unifications in Europe (the Italians in 1861 and Germans in 1871) this was the ideology of national unification of the South Slavs. The unification was at first planned to be carried out within a reformed and expanded Austria-Hungary but when that turned out to be unrealistic, within an independent state. Yugoslavism, in its call for an independent state for the South Slavs, thus avoided any reference to the recovery of states or to the differences in religion. As it was aiming at a state common to several groups with distinct history and religion, as well as distinct literary traditions, it proved to be incompatible with the national ideologies and programmes aiming at separate national states for each of the distinct groups. However, since both the separate and unifying national ideologies aimed at national liberation from foreign rulers, this ultimate goal seems to have blurred their incompatibilities. Moreover, Yugoslavism aimed at a creation of a modern European parliamentary state and thus appealed to

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the same segment of population – the literate strata – to which separate national ideologies appealed. Yet separate national ideologies at times had a wider appeal, particularly among the illiterate peasantry because they used the historical traditions transmitted through religious ritual and oral poetry and story-telling. By the end of 1918, the unifying Yugoslav ideology appeared to be winning: its program for a common independent state seems to have been embodied in the newly founded Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The creation of the kingdom in 1918 was one of the results of World War I. Without the victory of the Entente forces (including the Serbian army and its volunteers from South Slav lands) over the Habsburg and other Central power forces in this war, the Yugoslav idea probably would not have been realised in any form. Nonetheless the creation of a common state appears to have once again created a sharp cleavage between the ruling and the ruled; those ruling were Serbs who had a relative majority in the kingdom and whose dynasty took over the role of the sovereign, and the ruled were all other nations and national groups. From 1918 onwards the separate national liberation ideologies, in particular those of the Croat, Macedonian and Montenegrin groups, gained a new target, the Serb-ruled kingdom. The aim of their liberation efforts was thus the dismantling of the new kingdom and the creation of independent nation states. The Axis occupation of the kingdom in April 1941 brought an illusory liberation to the Croats (in the form of the Axis-controlled state of Croatia) but to no other group. The victor of World War II in Yugoslavia, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, re-constructed the state on the model of the USSR, creating six federal units and two sub-federal units, each federal unit with the full trappings of statehood. This federal state was presented as the ultimate national liberation of all the nations and ‘nationalities’ (national minorities). Each recognised national group – Serbs, Croats, Montenegrins, Macedonians and Slovenes – and the two largest ‘nationalities’ – Hungarians and Albanians – were each to have a single homeland of their own in the form of a republic or a sub-federal unit, that is a province. From the point of view of separate national ideologies this was, of course, not an ultimate aim, rather at most it was a good starting point. The new units in the federation could indeed provide the ground for the

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creation of independent nation states. And in June 1991 first two federal units in the SFRY, Croatia and Slovenia, were transformed into nation states by the act of ‘disassociation’ (secession) from the federation. From 1991 until 2008 further five new states were created, one from each of the remaining federal units and one from the sub-federal unit of Kosovo. Separate national programmes originating in the nineteenth century thus came to fruition in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century on the basis of the territorial division imposed by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1945 as a division into federal and sub-federal units. The communist federal blueprint was imposed in 1945 by the force of arms of its National Liberation Army and the Partisan Detachments. All the new nation states created from 1991 to 2008, except Montenegro and Macedonia, were also created by force of arms.

National liberation struggles and wars The national liberation of southeast Europe started with the First Serbian Uprising of 1804. The Serb peasants of the Beograd pashaluk, under their local leaders, rebelled against the renegade Ottoman officers who took control of the Beograd province from the Ottoman government. The rebels received Russian support. However, the Russian–Ottoman peace agreement of 1813 led to their defeat and huge civilian losses. In 1815, the Second Serbian Uprising had no Russian support and the rebel leader was able to negotiate a de facto autonomy under his rule in the Beograd province. In 1830, Serbia was formally granted autonomy. As we shall see later, this was an indirect effect of the first European military intervention in a Balkan war of national liberation, that is the Greek war of independence (1821–8). The Greek national liberation, unlike that of the Serbs, was planned by a pan-Greek national organisation, Filiki Etaria, and based on the large Greek diaspora community. The programme envisaged a general uprising of the Balkan Christians but the initial rebellion in present-day Romania, again supported by Russia, was easily crushed. The Greek rebels in central Greece received both financial help and volunteers from western Europe, in particular Great Britain, where they were seen as continuing the freedom-loving tradition of the Ancient Greeks. They were initially successful against weak Ottoman forces but, as fighting broke out among the rebels and the Ottomans landed large military

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forces from Egypt, the rebellion soon found itself in grave danger. At this point Russia, Great Britain and France offered to mediate an armistice. When the Ottoman government refused, these states acting in a joint naval action at Navarino in Greece in 1827 sunk the Ottoman fleet. After long negotiations, in 1830 the three powers decided to create an independent Kingdom of Greece with a foreign monarch. The kingdom was created by a treaty, signed in London, in 1830, between the three powers and the Ottoman government. The latter was thus forced by military action by European powers to cede territory for the creation of the new nation state. In previous agreements, the Convention of Ackerman of 1826 and the Treaty of Adrianople of 1829, the Ottoman government had agreed to the autonomy of Greece as well as of Serbia (Jelavich 1983 vol 1, 240– 1). The limited autonomy that the three powers gained for Serbia, in negotiating the end of the Greek war, was further extended and confirmed by an order ( firman) from the Ottoman emperor in 1830. Serbia thus gained extensive autonomy under a native prince in the same year that Greece got independence under a foreign monarch. The Greek war of independence displayed a pattern of interaction of native rebellion and outside intervention that persisted into the twentyfirst century. Thus native rebellion against rulers who are considered foreign often starts with little or no support from the outside powers, which prefer a status quo. However, once the rebel forces are in danger of losing the war, the outside powers, sometimes under the pressure of public opinion, intervene with their military forces in support of the rebels. This intervention is often presented as a way of securing peace. The intervening powers then establish independent states or recognise the independence of the new states and provide them with military and financial support. Violent conflicts with the Ottoman forces in Serbia and Montenegro did not, however, trigger outside military interventions. Unlike Serbia, Montenegro never had an Ottoman governor or administrator effectively in control over its core mountainous territory. The Ottoman government claimed sovereignty over the region and extracted tribute throughout the eighteenth century. The mountainous and impoverished country, divided into tribes and clans, in the absence of the direct Ottoman rule, came to be ruled by its Orthodox bishop-princes from the monastery of Cetinje and the main source of revenue for the fledgling state were subsidies from the Russian court. The principal policy of the

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bishop-princes (who later divested themselves of ecclesiastic office) was the expansion of their territory into the adjoining Ottoman-ruled regions. In this they had support at first of the Russian Empire and later other European states. Like the Greeks in the early nineteenth century, the Montenegrins were, in the second part of the nineteenth century, presented in the Romantic imagination of the Europeans as fighters for freedom: O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years, Great Tsernogora! never since thine own Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers. (Lord Tennyson, ‘Montenegro’ 1877).7 However, unlike the native rebellions in Serbia and Montenegro, the native rebellion in Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1875 resulted in a military intervention and its occupation by the Habsburg Austria-Hungary. As the Greeks had in 1821, the Bosnian Christian rebels in 1875 received aid and volunteers, primarily from Montenegro, Serbia and Russia. An uprising broke out in Bulgaria as well, which was suppressed with great brutality and much loss of civilian lives. Outraged public opinion in the European states, in particular in Great Britain (‘The Bulgarian horrors’) called for an intervention against the Ottomans. The intervention came swiftly in 1877 when Russia invaded Ottoman territories, advancing quickly towards the Ottoman capital in Istanbul/Constantinople. The Russian peace settlement with the Ottomans that followed envisaged the creation of a large Bulgarian state that would be under Russian protection. This was unacceptable to Great Britain and Austria-Hungary and thus at the Congress of Berlin, in 1878 the European powers, Great Britain, AustriaHungary, Germany, France and Russia, with no participation from the Balkan governments or national movements, divided the Balkans. Bulgaria was greatly reduced in size and split into two autonomous but not fully independent entities, Bosnia and Herzegovina was handed over to Austria-Hungary to administer and occupy (as well as a strip of the territory separating Serbia and Montenegro), Cyprus was ceded to Great Britain while the Ottoman Empire retained control over the territories in

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the present-day Thrace, Kosovo, Macedonia and Albania. In addition to gaining new territories, ceded by the Ottomans again, the de facto states, Serbia, Montenegro and Romania, were recognised as independent states. The Congress of Berlin may be regarded as an attempt by the European powers to contain the national liberation movements in the Balkans. One set of foreign rulers, the Ottomans, were replaced by another, the Habsburgs and the British. The replacements were expected to be more efficient in controlling the local Christian populations than the Ottomans. The military occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina by Austria-Hungary was, as expected, resisted by the local Muslim forces and this led to an exodus of the Muslim population to the Ottoman-held territories. At the Congress the European powers exercised once again their power to divide and allocate territories of the militarily defeated state, this time the Ottoman Empire, and to create independent states, autonomous entities and de facto protectorates (such as Bosnia and Herzegovina). As expected, the Ottoman authorities faced national liberation movements and armed rebellion of native populations in the territories they had been left with. In 1903 they faced a large rebellion (the Ilinden insurrection) by the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO) and in 1910 a rebellion by an equivalent Albanian organisation. The Macedonian rebellion led to the proclamation of the Krusˇevo republic but was soon crushed. Although the Albanian revolt was crushed quickly as well, the Albanians rose in revolt again in 1912 and took Skopje (Uskup), the present-day capital of Macedonia. In addition to the armed rebellions, by 1912 the Ottomans faced a military alliance of their former dependencies, now independent states: Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Greece. In 1912 the alliance went to war with the Ottoman Empire and quickly conquered most of the remaining Ottoman territories in the Balkans. The European powers, in particular, the Habsburg Austria-Hungary, opposed the Balkan states’ military action but did not even threaten to use military force to end it. Under pressure from the European powers in June 1913 the belligerents signed a treaty dividing the conquered territory among the Balkan states. The Bulgarian government, dissatisfied with the division, attacked Serbia and Greece in the hope of conquering a large part of the present-day Macedonia. Bulgaria was quickly defeated and the consequent Treaty of Bucharest (August 1913) left to the Ottomans the

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land in Thrace around Istanbul/Constantinople and created yet another independent state, Albania. Although the European powers did not intervene militarily in this round of national liberation, they nevertheless exercised the power to create an independent state, Albania, out of the territories of the defeated Ottomans, in spite of the protests from the newly established states of Serbia, Montenegro and Greece. The Balkan wars thus completed the national liberation from the Ottoman Empire. This national liberation was achieved mostly by war although there was also military and diplomatic intervention by the European states. However, this was not the end of the national liberation wars. In 1913, the German-speaking Habsburgs still ruled over the Slavspeaking populations Bosnia and Herzegovina (annexed in 1908 to Austria-Hungary), as well as the present-day Croatia and Slovenia. Macedonians – Slav speaking inhabitants of the present-day Republic of Macedonia – came under the rule of Serb and Greek states. Albanianpopulated areas of the present-day Kosovo came under the rule of the Serbs. The populations of these areas were to be liberated from their foreign rulers in World Wars I and II and in a series of wars from 1991 to 1999. In 1914, the Habsburg government had good reasons to fear that Serbia, which in 1913 doubled its size by military conquest, intended to overthrow Austro-Hungarian rule of Bosnia and Herzegovina by supporting national liberation organisations in the country. AustriaHungary’s declaration of war on Serbia in August 1914 can thus be regarded as a somewhat desperate attempt to pre-empt or contain national liberation of that disputed territory. However, by 1914 this kind of military action, particularly when not directed against the Ottoman Empire, had found scant support among other European states. Russia, in particular, held that its influence in the region was seriously undermined by the Habsburg action against Serbia. In addition, the Austro-Hungarian attack on Serbia led to the expansion of Serbia’s national liberation goals. In December 1914, with World War I in full swing, the Serbian government proclaimed for the first time, as its war aim, the liberation of its ‘brethren’ Croats and Slovenes from the Habsburg rule. As result of the Entente’s defeat of AustriaHungary and its allies, this war aim was eventually attained. The state of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which seceded from the dissolving AustriaHungary in October 1918, in December 1918 united with Serbia and

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Montenegro into a new South Slav Kingdom ruled by the Serbian king. A variety of political parties and groups from non-Serbian territories opposed the unification and the Macedonian IMRO, Montengrin Greens, various Albanian groups in Kosovo as well as a Croatian regiment of the Habsburg army took up arms against the new kingdom. The opponents of the unification believed in 1918 that they were given a set of new foreign rulers, the Serbs, from whom they would also need liberating. The Communist Party of Yugoslavia and its controller, the Sovietbased Communist International (Comintern), from 1936 onwards promoted a national liberation ideology that combined ideas of the liberation of the ‘subjugated’ nations with that of the ‘oppressed’ peasant and working classes. All of those were to be liberated from the Serbian bourgeoisie and allied oppressors. Among all the groups fighting for national liberation, only the Communists fought for the liberation of all the national groups, even the national minorities (excluding Germans). The other national liberationists promoted the liberation of one group only, the one from which they drew most support and were often hostile and murderous towards other competing groups. The Communist liberation ideology thus became an instrument for the mass mobilisation of the peasantry from various national groups for resistance against the Axis occupation of the kingdom in 1941. The victory of the Communist-led Partisan forces in 1945 was only in part due to their wider appeal. A key element in the Communist victory was the Allies’ military and logistic support. From 1943, their forces were equipped by the British and their headquarters protected by the Allied fleet and air force, and in 1944 – 5 the Soviet Red Army, in a wide sweep from the southern Ukraine, liberated the northern part of Yugoslavia. The liberations in Yugoslavia in World Wars I and II were thus the result of the military victories of extra-regional powers (the Entente and the Allies respectively) to which the native liberating forces were allied. Success in liberation in the Balkans thus crucially depended on military engagement of the states outside the Balkans. The Yugoslav Communists, in keeping with their ‘equal nations’ liberation ideology, endeavoured to construct a political system in which no single nation dominated (or ‘oppressed’) the others. Not only were the five (later six) constituent nations and the two largest national minorities each given a ‘homeland’ and state-like institutions (including

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tertiary education in their language and their Academy of Sciences) but they tried to ensure that the constituent nations/nationalities were all represented in the highest party and government bodies. The Yugoslav president-for-life Tito was presented as leader of all citizens, not of any nation in particular. Both the Yugoslav Communist elites and some US and European scholars believed that in this way the national question in the Yugoslav space was resolved once and for ever. They were wrong. In the late 1960s the communist elites in each republic and province started to build their powerbase within their ‘own’ national group. In the early 1970s, the ‘national question’, in the form of the distribution of income and political power among the republics and provinces, re-emerged as the central question of Yugoslav politics. Separate national ideologies, confined at first to the dissident circles, reemerged on the political scene in various forms in the 1970s and 1980s. As before, these ideologies aimed at an independent state for the target nation, be that the Croat, Slovene or Serb nation. The Albanian ideology was, understandably, initially irredentist and aimed at the unification of Albanians into a common state incorporating Kosovo and the Albanianpopulated part of western Macedonia with Albania. In the early 1980s, the death of the president-for-life Tito, a severe economic crisis (partly due to huge foreign debt) and a popular revolt of Kosovo Albanians, demanding the establishment of their own federal unit (republic), severely undermined the legitimacy of Communist Party rule in Yugoslavia and its effective control over the country. With the end of Cold War and increasing withdrawal of the USSR from Eastern Europe from 1985 onwards, an alternative to the Communistruled Yugoslavia became a possible political scenario. From 1986, when the Serbian Academy of Sciences Memorandum was leaked to the Communist media, a public discussion of an alternative – the dissolution of the federation into independent nation states – became possible for the first time since 1945. Any attempt to establish independent nation states in Yugoslavia faced interrelated structural and ideological problems. Since their creation in the nineteenth century, ideologies of nation states in the Balkans had competed over the same territory. Two or more of them would claim the same territory, either on the grounds of historical myths (medieval states) or on the ethnonational belonging of its population (or sometimes both). In particular, the Albanian and Serb ideologies

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competed over the territory of Kosova (Kosovo and Metohija in the Serb nomenclature). Croat and Serb ideologies competed over territory of Serb-populated lands of Croatia and over Herzegovina in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bosniaks (Bosnian Muslim) and Serb and Croat ideologies competed over various parts of Bosnia and Herzegovina and over the whole of the federal unit which Bosniak ideologues claimed to indivisible. Albanian irredentist ideology competed with the Macedonian over the Albanian-populated areas of western Macedonia. Further, in Bulgarian national ideology, Macedonians were considered to Bulgarians who by historical accident became detached from Bulgaria. The Greek government, following an ideological template, objected to the use of the terms ‘Macedonia’ and ‘Macedonian’ claiming these terms referred exclusively to the northern province of Greece. In the late 1980s, these ideologies were used to mobilise target groups for regime- and state-change. In particular, Serb populations in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina were mobilised in support of a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia or, failing this, in a Serb-dominated state consisting of Serb-populated areas. The Serb national ideology and mobilisation presented a major threat to the political elites, both Communist and anti-Communist, in Slovenia. It raised the danger of a Serb-dominated Yugoslavia similar to that of the pre-1941 kingdom (Slovenia had no Serb or any other significant minority population). In contrast, to the elites and populations of Croatia and of Bosnia and Herzegovina the Serb mobilisation presented a more immediate territorial threat. It was a threat of partition of these two federal units into Serb and non-Serb parts and a loss of large segments of territory. Once the Slovene and Croat assemblies declared independence in June (reiterated in October) 1991, the Bosniak and Bosnian Croat deputies in Bosnia and Herzegovina assembly followed suit. Following the Slovene model, the Kosovo Albanian elites aimed, at least initially, at the creation of an independent Kosovo, not at the unification with Albania. The independence of Slovenia was opposed by the Yugoslav federal government, which led to a brief war in June 1991. The independence of Croatia was at first contested by the Serb political parties in Croatia that wanted to remain with Serbia. This led to a protracted armed conflict in which the remnants of the Yugoslav People’s Army (the federal forces) invaded Croatia in 1991 and fought with the Croatian Serb military for the expansion of the Serb statelet, the Serb Republic of

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Krajina that seceded from Croatia.8 The independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina was also contested by the principal Serb party, which seceded from Bosnia and Herzegovina and, inheriting the heavy weapons and officers from the federal forces, fought from 1992 until 1995 against the allied Bosnian Croat and Bosniak forces in an attempt to expand and hold the territory it had conquered. In 1998, the Kosovo Albanians staged a mass armed rebellion against Serb rule, initially liberating large areas in western Kosovo. However, they proved unable to take any urban centres. The Serb military finally withdrew from Kosovo in May 1999 after 78 days of NATO air bombing of Serbia. Of all the seven states’ secessions, only those of Macedonia in 1991 and of Montenegro in 2006, did not lead to armed conflict. The EU member states’ policies and the UN and NATO military interventions in the 1991– 9 period showed some striking similarities to their interventions and their role in the creation of nation states in the nineteenth century. These powers militarily intervened only when the groups they were supporting in the first place were in danger of losing the war(s) and they established or recognised the boundaries of the new nation states regardless of their ethnonational composition and without regard to the preferences of various non-majority groups. Thus in the period 1991– 2008 NATO and EU member states chose which independent states they would recognise regardless of the preferences of various national groups. As in 1877– 8, 1912, in 1995 and 1999 this lead to the mass exodus of various national groups from the new entities. Finally, at the Berlin Congress in 1878 and at the Paris conference in 1995 (ending the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina), the same set of great powers, France, Great Britain, Germany and Russia plus the United States (in Paris), established a foreign administration (in effect a protectorate) in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Obviously there are also many significant differences between the great power involvement in the state creation in the nineteenth century and in the 1991– 2008 period. The most obvious difference9 is found in Russia’s role in the creation of new states. In 1995, four years after the dissolution of the USSR, its successor state, the Russian Federation, had no interest in creating or keeping client-states in the region nor did it have the power to do so. As a result, the United States and its European allies incorporated almost all the new states in their own structures – NATO and the EU – and thus made them militarily and politically

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much more dependent on the Western powers than ever before. Most of the new states are now members of NATO or have applied to become so and in effect can no longer undertake unilateral military action as the Balkan states did in 1912–13 against the Ottomans and against each other. All the new states are now either members (Croatia and Slovenia) or have applied to become members of the EU. This severely constrains their capacity for unilateral political action. Partly as a result of this incorporation of the new states into NATO and the EU, the great powers are now both more committed to, and more capable of, preventing any further conflict in the region than their equivalents were in the nineteenth and early twentieth century. In that sense, in the early twenty-first century, the United States and its European allies, through their international organisations, have a greater capacity to control political and economic developments in the region (and thus any future national liberation) than outside powers had previously. This is only one of the paradoxes of national liberation and the creation of nation states. National liberation in recent times therefore did not necessarily lead to a significant empowering of national subjects so liberated. Nevertheless a state-of-its-own has always been an alluring prize for those groups that consider themselves to be statedeserving nations.

New states and their old national songs Acquiring a nation state of one’s own has always had an important symbolic role. By gaining a nation state, the state-owning-nation is admitted, as a notionally equal member, to the club of nations, some of which appear much older and some of which are indeed more powerful than the newly admitted ones. Having a state anthem is a necessary prerequisite for exercising the duties and rituals of an independent state, in particular in engaging in mutual visitations of state dignitaries and ritual recognition of sporting achievements of the nation at international competitions. A state anthem is thus necessary for any state to perform its prescribed role in the inter-state arena. State anthems also express a national self-understanding. They tell us what their singers think of themselves as a collectivity. Although the states created in the latest round of national liberation are mostly new, the anthems they have chosen date mostly from the nineteenth century.

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In this sense, the anthems of the new states do not acknowledge, let alone celebrate, the novelty of the national/state entity to which they are dedicated. These anthems make claims to authority based on past rights and past glories. They claim that these nations are much older than their newly established states and that, correspondingly, they have been long deserving of statehood. Moreover, none of the new states anthems refer to current origins or to the struggle/war through which their states were recently created. This is in sharp contrast to the anthems of neighbouring Balkan states: the Greek ‘Hymn to Liberty’ originated in the Greek national liberation war of 1821– 8, the Bulgarian ‘Dear motherland’ from the 1885 Serbian – Bulgarian war and the Albanian ‘Hymn to the Flag’ from the period of the mass Albanian rebellion against the Ottoman rule of 1912. These were originally all marching or fighting songs, although the Bulgarian anthem in its current version had the fighting stanzas removed. This made it a self-congratulatory song about the motherland. In fact, of the seven new states created after 1991, only one – Macedonia – has chosen a song originating in and referring to an earlier national liberation struggle, the Communist-led liberation 1941–5 from the Axis (Italian and Bulgarian) occupation. Macedonia’s choice of this anthem did not stem from a desire to glorify or highlight the national liberation struggle. Rather the selection of this anthem resulted from the absence of an older alternative: there appear to be no distinctly Macedonian (as opposed to Bulgarian) national poems or songs from the nineteenth century that would be suitable. Out of seven, four Balkan nations chose nineteenth-century songs. Three states, Croatia, Slovenia and Montenegro, selected nineteenthcentury songs that belong or are close to the ‘budilica’ genre – that is the ‘national awakening’ song. These songs originate in the early stages of national ideology construction: at the time when poets and other cultural entrepreneurs are attempting to make their listeners aware of their own national identity and to stir in them the required pride in national qualities, possessions and achievements. These three songs were not written as future national, let alone state, anthems: the Croat and Slovene authors of the poems written in 1835 and 1844 respectively did not envisage the independence of their homelands. The first two stanzas of Montenegro’s current anthem originate from a festive folk song (possibly used in a patriotic musical as well) that was also sung during

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the time when Montenegro was an independent state and had a different official state anthem (see Chapter 6). One state, Serbia, is currently using its original nineteenth century royal anthem (with a minor modification) based on the model of the British ‘God Save the King’. Two states – Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo – currently have state anthems without lyrics. These anthems were chosen by public competition and their authors are still alive. Both states have been created or reconstructed as international protectorates, introduced following NATO military intervention. In addition, in both countries there are minorities – primarily Serb minorities – that still do not want to belong to the state in question. In a sense, these are not single nation states or at least not conceived as such. And this is one putative reason why their anthems have no words to be sung: there is no single nation to participate in the necessary unison singing would involve. The choice of nineteenth-century poems and songs thus suggests that, at least in the view of those making the choices, the states that were created in the 1990s were lengthy in their genesis. However, it is also clear that these nineteenth-century poems are still the best expressions of the state-yearning and state-upholding emotions of the respective nations and their members today, although this view of their capacity to express the best of such emotions has been, as we shall see, at least in some cases, contested. This book explores the reasons why each of these anthems has been chosen and how, in particular circumstances, each anthem projects images and ideas of nationhood and national identity.

CHAPTER 1 `

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LIVE, LIVE THE SPIRIT OF THE SLAVS' (1834): HEY SLAVS' FROM 1942 TO 2006 The anthem ‘Hey Slavs’ became the state anthem of the Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY) on 25 November 1988, under Amendment IX to the Constitution of 1974, which replaced Article 8 of the same Constitution. The amendment has only one clause: ‘The anthem of the SFRY is “Hey Slavs” (Pavlovic´ 1990: 260)’. The change was part of a series of amendments that both chambers of the SFRY Assembly passed on that day aiming to strengthen federal control over economic and financial policies of the Yugoslav federation and its federal units. From 1942 until 1988 the song served as an unofficial anthem of Yugoslavia under the rule of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia. These amendments constituted an attempt to resolve a protracted economic and political crisis that had gripped SFRY since the early 1980s. In spite of these and other emergency measures, its federal units, primarily Croatia and Slovenia, had been steadily taking over the functions of the federal government, including its armed forces. Finally, in June 1991 the parliamentary assemblies of Slovenia and Croatia proclaimed independence (or ‘disassociation’) from the SFRY and in a few months the assemblies of Macedonia, Kosovo, and Bosnia and Herzegovina followed suit. Further fragmentation followed as the Serb-populated parts of Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina seceded from these federal units. The Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, established in August 1991, by the European Community (EC), in its Opinion No. 1 proclaimed that the SFRY to be in

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the ‘process of dissolution’ and then in July 1992, in its opinion No. 8, that ‘the SFRY no longer exists’. However, the end of the SFRY did not end the career of ‘Hey Slavs’ as a state anthem. The new federation, the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY) formed in April 1992 out of its two federal units, Serbia and Montenegro, continued to use both the musical score and the name, without the lyrics. In 2003, this state was transformed into a highly decentralised federation called the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro. In the absence a more suitable song, the state union continued using ‘Hey Slavs’ without lyrics until it was dissolved in 2006 by the secession of Montenegro. The disappearance of this last South Slav federal state1 signalled the end of this piece’s service as a state anthem. In spite of its apparently brief lifespan as an official state anthem – from 1988 until 2006 – ‘Hey Slavs’ is in effect the longest serving state anthem of all the state anthems discussed in this book. Its first use as an unofficial anthem of an as yet unrecognised state was in November 1942 at the first session of Communist-dominated parliamentary assembly – the Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia in Bihac´ in Bosnia and Herzegovina. It then served continuously as the anthem of three different states for the next 64 years. The next in line by its length of service is the Serbian royal anthem ‘The God of Justice’, which served as a state anthem from 1882 until 1918 (with a six-year suspension from 1903 to 1909) and then from 2006 until the time of writing (2014), in total 37 years of discontinuous use to date (see Chapter 4). The other anthems to be examined in this book have had a much shorter career as anthems of sovereign states, reflecting in part the relative youth of the states to which they are connected. Not only is ‘Hey Slavs’ the longest serving state anthem in the region to date, but it is also the oldest song of all the anthems to be examined in this book. It was written in 1834 a year before the second-oldest, the poem ‘The Croat Homeland’, from which the current Croatian anthem originates, was published. The song was not intended to be the anthem of any one state or nation because at the time no poet could even imagine a state called ‘Yugoslavia’. Only very few national anthems were not written in the language of their own nation but ‘Hey Slavs’ is one of them. It was written by a

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Slovak in a version of Czech or Slovak. Its Yugoslav version – in Slovene, Macedonian and Serbo-Croat – was a translation from the original, which was then further modified to suit the political needs of the Communist-ruled state.

From Slovaks to Slavs – and then only to South Slavs? The song was written in 1834 by Samuel (Samo) Tomasˇik, a Lutheran minister of Slovak origin, who became a well-known writer and ardent promoter of Slav culture and unity. Originally written in Czech2 (at the time the boundaries between Czech and Slovak were not yet firmly established), it was first addressed to the Slovaks and thus it celebrates the Slovak or Slav ‘word’ that is, their language. Na Slowany3

To the Slavs

1. Hej, Slowacy, gesˇte˘ nasˇe slovanska´ rˇecˇ zˇige, pokud nasˇe we˘rne´ srdce pro na´ˇs na´rod bige. Zˇige, zˇige duch slovansky´, bude zˇı´t na we˘ky!

1. O Slovaks, our Slavic language still lives As long as our loyal hearts beat for our people. Live, live, O Slavic spirit, you will live for ages!

2. Hrom a peklo! marne´ wasˇe proti na´mgjsou wzteky. Gazyka dar swe˘rˇil na´m Buh, Buh na´s hromowla´dny´ Nesmı´ na´m ho tedy wywrat na tom sveˇteˇ zˇa´dny´! I nechat je, kolik lidı´, tolik cˇertu w sweˇteˇ: Buh je s na´mi, kdo proti na´m, toho Perun zmete

2. Thunder and hell! All your endeavours against us are in vain. God, our master of thunder, gave us the gift of language, No one on this earth must take it away from us. And even if in the world there were so many people as there were devils, God is with us, and Perun will sweep away all who are against us.

3. I nechze sa aj nad nami hrozna bura vznesie, Skala puka, dub sa lame a zem nech sa trasie; My stojime stale pevne, ako mury hradne Cierna zem pohltni toho, kto odstupi zradne!

3. Let the terrible storm rage around us Let the rock break up, the oaks uproot, let the earth shake, Yet we stand still firmly like castle walls, May the earth engulf the traitor who deserts us

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So why was Tomasˇik telling the Slovaks that their Slavic language would live forever? The answer is found in Tomasˇik’s detailed account of the writing of this song from his diary. On 2 November 1834 while he was visiting Prague he was taken to a Czech theatre performance, which he greatly enjoyed and approved of. However, he was later shocked to hear German and not Czech spoken by the audience, in the restaurants and cafes, and on the streets of the Czech cultural capital. Worried about the preservation of the Slovak as well as the Czech language in this sea of German speech, he was reminded of Josef Wybecki’s patriotic song ‘Poland Has Not Yet Perished’; and so he went back to his hotel and, by candlelight, wrote the whole song. Originally he left the instructions that ‘It be sung as: “Poland Has Not Yet Perished”’ (Pavlovic´ 1990: 33 – 4). The Polish marching song was written in July 1797 by Wybicki, a friend of the Polish general Jan Da˛browski, and entitled ‘The Song of the Polish Legions in Italy’. Later it became known by its first verse ‘Poland Has Not Yet Perished’. General Da˛browski was commander of the Polish volunteers fighting under General Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy against the Habsburgs. The marching song urged Da˛browski and his volunteers to march on and liberate Poland. However, Poland was only finally liberated in 1918, at same time as the South Slav lands of the Habsburg Empire. ‘Poland Has Not Yet Perished’ attained the status of an official state/national anthem in the newly independent Poland in 1926, some 16 years earlier than ‘Hey Slavs’ did in Communist Yugoslavia. The first stanza of the song was probably on Tomasˇik’s mind when he was writing the first version of ‘Hey Slavs’. The Song of the Polish Legions in Italy (in translation) Poland has not yet perished While we still live. What the alien power has seized from us, We shall recapture with a sabre. March, march, Da˛browski, To Poland from the Italian land. Under your command We shall rejoin the nation.4

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The first stanza of ‘Hey Slavs/Slovaks’ also asserts the persistence of the Slav language as long as ‘we’ – the Slavs including Slovaks – live. Yet, apart linking the persistence of the preferred language/nation to its living speakers/members, there is no other thematic resemblance between Tomasˇik’s lyrics and Wybecki’s song. The most important link between the two is instead found in their actual music. Wybecki’s music is based on the lively folk melody of a mazurka while in Tomasˇik’s song, although the mazurka melody is preserved, its original liveliness disappears. The song is thus a paean dedicated to allegiance to a language. In the original version of Tomasˇik’s song, the addressee of the first verse appeared to be Slovaks (‘Slowacy’) although the ‘word’ in the same line later appeared to be ‘Slavic’ (‘Slowane’). In the version sung by the patriots in the Czech and Slovak lands of the Habsburg Empire, ‘Hey Slovaks’ soon became ‘Hey Slavs’, and in the last authorised version, published in 1888, the author changed both the title and the first words to ‘Hey Slavs’, noting in a footnote that in its first publication the first words were, indeed, ‘Hey Slovaks’ (Pavlovic´ 1990: 37– 8). The first translation of the Tomasˇik’s song into Croatian was published in December 1837 in the Ljudevit Gaj’s ‘Illyrian’ newspaper Danica Ilirska (with the original ‘Hey Slovaks’ in the first verse) and the first translation into Serbian was published in Novi Sad, then in Hungary, in the Serbska pcˇela in 1839. While keeping the ‘Hey Slovaks’ of the first line, the Serbian variant removes the reference to the highest Slav deity Perun (in the second stanza) and refers to him simply as to God (Pavlovic´ 1990: 43 –7). Further translations brought even more striking modifications and additions to the original. The closest to the version used as the state anthem appears to be the translation/ modification published again in Novi Sad in 1887. In this version there were only three lines that corresponded in full to the original while all the others had undergone significant modification and additions (Pavlovic´ 1990: 47 –8). Before becoming the state anthem of Yugoslavia, ‘Hey Slavs’ in its various versions also served as a celebratory song of Slav unity at banquets and pan-Slavic meetings throughout the Slav world. During World War I it was sung in the trenches by Slav soldiers in the Austro-Hungarian army in order to signal their unwillingness to fight their fellow Slavs in the Russian and Serbian armies, as well as their

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readiness to surrender.5 It became the song of the pan-Slav Sokol youth and sport movement, which flourished in Czech and other Slav countries, including those of the South Slavs. The Sokol movement, with its stress on physical fitness as well on Slav cultural education was originally intended to parallel and counter the German mountaineering and physical fitness organisations in Austria-Hungary and Germany. Founded in 1862 in Prague by a romantic nationalist Mihal Tyrs, the Sokol movement was conceived on the model of the German Turnverein (established in 1811). In the late nineteenth century the Sokol movement spread to other Slav-populated countries including Slovenia, Croatia and Serbia. In the new unified kingdom in 1918 there were 254 Sokol branches with 40,000 members (Pavlovic´ 1998: 45). World War II transformed the Sokol anthem into a song of Yugoslav national resistance. In particular, the German occupation of Yugoslavia in April 1941 and the Nazi policies of reprisal and mass murder of civilians made ‘Hey Slavs’ a pan-Yugoslav song of resistance to German military might. According to the story it was first sung as a song of resistance by Serb civilians, including high school students, facing the Nazi machine guns at the large-scale massacres of Kragujevac in October 1941. The song, with its full three stanzas, appeared among other patriotic songs in the first collection of revolutionary and patriotic songs published by the Communist-led Partisan authorities in the Serbian town of Uzˇice in October 1941. In November 1942, the Communist-led resistance movement then appropriated the song as the anthem of their emergent state. ‘Hey Slavs’ was sung at the opening and closing of the first meeting of the Communist-dominated Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation in Bihac´, Bosnia and Herzegovina. In November 1943, the second meeting of this assembly in Jajce (again in Bosnia and Herzegovina) elected a Communist-dominated government in Yugoslavia, laid down the blueprint for a federation modelled on the USSR and, perhaps most importantly at the time, prohibited the king (then in exile in London) from returning to the country. At that meeting the general secretary of the Communist Party of Yugoslavia, Josip Broz-Tito, was also given, by acclamation, the title of marshal – a title that had not existed before in Yugoslavia. ‘Hey Slavs’ was sung again at the opening and closing of that meeting that established both the Communistruled federation in Yugoslavia and the personal rule of Tito, which lasted until his death 1980. The song then served as the state anthem of the

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federation until its demise in 1991 although its role as the state anthem was enshrined in its constitution only in 1988, on the eve of the demise. The reason for this late, and perhaps desperate, constitutional recognition was simple: the Yugoslav Communist leaders did not want this song to be the anthem of the state they created and ruled, probably because it so obviously failed to express their preferred values or ideas. Less than a month after the establishment of their government in Jajce, in December 1943, the deputy chairman, veteran Communist Mosˇa Pijade, wrote of the urgent need to hold a competition to choose the lyrics and music of the new anthem of Yugoslavia (Pavlovic´ 1990: 58). However urgent the need, the competition still had to wait for the end of the war. It was therefore not until 1946 when the Communist-controlled Presidency of the National Assembly of Yugoslavia, following the adoption of the first Communist Constitution, opened the first public competition for the new anthem. Out of 446 submissions, the selection committee could not find any one worthy of their choice. Instead they proposed to invite 28 of the best known, and politically approved, poets to submit their proposals (Pavlovic´ 1990: 67). The Committee recommended the poem of a young Communist poet Cˇedomir Minderovic´, which was promptly declared to be the anthem of the Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. After several attempts to get the best and again politically approved composers to put the text to music, the music selection committee declared in 1948 that none of the submitted musical scores ‘has the expressive qualities which are essential for the State anthem’ (Pavlovic´ 1990: 83). And so Minderovic´‘s anthem was abandoned leaving ‘Hey Slavs’ as faute de mieu.6 A second public competition was held in 1968 by the Association of Composers of Yugoslavia and yielded a musical score that was accepted as the musical score of the state anthem. However, the public competition for the lyrics, held in 1973 did not yield any acceptable lyrics, in spite of the 506 entries. In 1977, still having no official anthem, the SFRY Assembly passed a law on anthems and other symbols which prescribed the ‘temporary use’ of ‘Hey Slavs’ as the state anthem until the Assembly found a new anthem. In 1984, the Assembly held a third public competition for the anthem (lyrics and music together), but its selection committee again could find no suitable candidate among the 726 submitted entries (Pavlovic´ 1990: 347). And so it was in 1986 that parliamentary deputies from several federal units proposed that

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‘Hey Slavs’ become the official state anthem. Their proposal was then adopted in 1988. Apart from public competitions, the Yugoslav Communist leaders considered, in private, a number of different anthem-like songs, some of which had already gained a degree of popularity, but eventually rejected all of these ‘privately’ considered anthem-candidates. During their rule the Communist leaders and their approved experts failed to agree both on what their preferred anthem should express and how it should do so. Using a temporary anthem that they found unsatisfactory was thus easier for them than trying to forge a consensus around the ideas that a ‘permanent’ anthem should express. Perhaps this reflects an aspect of the Yugoslav Communist ideology that has been explored in Dejan Jovic´‘s Yugoslavia: The State that Withered Away (Jovic´ 2008). Many of the Yugoslav Communist leaders believed that, according their preferred reading of Marx, the state should disappear (‘wither away’ are Marx’s own words) and should be replaced by ‘free associations of working people’. According to this doctrine, since the Yugoslav state is only a temporary construction, its state symbols should only be temporary as well. Having a temporary anthem – an anthem faute de mieux – may thus be viewed as yet another application of Marx’s doctrine of the withering away of the state in socialist Yugoslavia. Until the late 1980s most Yugoslav citizens appear to have preferred to retain ‘Hey Slavs’ as their national anthem. Public opinion polls conducted in 1974 and 1984 showed that 65 and 86 per cent, respectively, of the people interviewed preferred to retain this anthem. Only 7 and 4 per cent of the population definitely preferred a change of the anthem. In 1984, even in Slovenia, which opted for independence only five years later, 90 per cent of the people interviewed wanted the anthem to remain unchanged (Pavlovic´ 1990: 331).7

The anthem Below is the official version of the anthem in Serbo-Croat, one of the three principal state languages of the SFRY. The transformation of a celebratory song into a national/state anthem required some changes in the text. However, in this case only two lines of the original song are preserved. These are the first two lines of the third stanza of the original song, which became the third stanza

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Hej Sloveni

Hey Slavs!

Hej Sloveni, josˇte zˇivi Duh nasˇih dedova Dok za narod srce bije Njihovih sinova Zˇivi, zˇivi duh slovenski Zˇivec´e vekov’ma Zalud preti ponor pakla Zalud vatra groma Nek se sada i nad nama Burom sve raznese Stena puca, dub se lama Zemlja nek se trese Mi stojimo postojano Kano klisurine Proklet bio izdajica Svoje domovine!

Hey Slavs, there still lives The spirit of our grandfathers While for the people the heart beats Of their sons Live, live, the spirit of the Slavs You will live for centuries Futile is the threat of Hell’s abyss Futile is the fire of thunder Even if there above us Storm now shatters everything Stone breaks, tree shatters Earth quakes We stand steadily As the river gorges Damned be the traitor Of his homeland.8

of the anthem. The second stanza of the original song, mentioning God and Perun, the Slav deity, was removed and the wording of the remaining verses of the two stanzas of the original song was changed. Although the two songs share a common theme and associated sentiment – resistance to enemies with hostile intent – these are in effect two different songs. In particular, Tomasˇik’s song is about the language and the gift of language; it is a song proclaiming an allegiance to language. In contrast, all references to language have been removed from the Yugoslav anthem. The anthem attempts to address all citizens of Yugoslavia, ostensibly regardless of the language they spoke. As a result of these changes the anthem became primarily a song of defiance and resistance, not of allegiance to a language. Already by 1941, in the first printed Yugoslav Communist version of the song, the very focus of celebration – the word ‘language’ in the first verse of the original song – had been replaced with ‘spirit’ and ‘the gift of language’ had been replaced by ‘the gift of freedom’ (see below). This change was understandable in view of the changing context and function of the song. When the country was faced with the Nazi conquest, it was not the language that was primarily considered to be

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under threat and thus in need of celebration. Instead, it was something less tangible but more significant, that is the spirit/freedom of the people that required preservation. That spirit was understood in terms of defiance and resistance. The Communist version of 1941 still retained the following stanza, which originated from, but was not identical to, the second stanza of Tomasˇik’s original: The gift of freedom [language] gave us god The mighty one who wields the thunder No one must ever take away This treasure from us.9 The god of Tomasˇik is not a Christian God, but the highest deity of the pre-Christian Slav pantheon. He is the god Perun, the thunder and lightning wielding equivalent of Zeus. Appropriately, the top Slav god bestows the gift of language on the Slavs and stands in their defence against all the world, particularly when the world is intent on robbing the Slavs of such a precious gift as their language. By 1941, in the Communist version, the word ‘language’ was aptly replaced by ‘freedom’ and Tomasˇik’s explicit reference to Perun was omitted by removing the last line of Tomasˇik’s second stanza. The idea of a God/god-given freedom (or language) is, of course, incompatible with an atheist Marxist-Leninist world view. However, during the war against the Axis forces occupying Yugoslavia, the image of a god bestowing freedom and wielding his thunder and lightning may have had its uses even for a resistance movement led by avowed atheists. With the Communist victory, the efficacy of the god would perhaps be diminished, with the consequence of the above stanza’s disappearance in 1945 from both the printed and the sung version the anthem. The central theme of Tomasˇik’s original song is resistance and defiance – resistance against those who want to take the precious gift (be that language or spirit, the essence of the people) and defiance against a world of enmity or indifference. This has been preserved in the anthem version above. As with some other anthems discussed in this book, the anthem lyrics above offer a description rather than an overt exhortation. The resistance and defiance are described in a highly symbolic form, using similes and imagery direct from nature. The description is

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intended to have the effect of an exhortation. This exhortation is to ‘do as our forefathers did, and so preserve our collectivity, by means of their immortal spirit’. The unspoken assumption is that the forefathers themselves resisted and would therefore expect contemporary people to continue resisting. The function of the song then is to remind the singer of a sacred duty. ‘Hey Slavs’ is a serviceable anthem for such an amorphous purpose. The song does not, of course, raise the question of why this is necessary. Why must there be resistance and defiance? The context of the singing provides an obvious answer to this in the following form: because X is threatening to rob us of Y. ‘X’ in this schema is a placeholder for any enemy or adversary whose identity may change over time. ‘Y’ is a place-holder for anything of value that is under threat. First, it was the native language of Slovaks, under the threat from the ubiquitous German; then it was the native language of any one Slav group, under the threat from any other group; and finally, in the Yugoslav Communist version, it became the spirit of freedom, under threat from the foreign invaders and their ‘domestic lackeys’, that is the local quislings. Eventually, at the end of the war and following the victory of the Communist Party, there was no longer any threat to freedom, and so the whole stanza about the gift and the enemies who are threatening to steal the gift, disappeared. In short, the anthem relies on context to provide a necessary identification of foe/adversary and of the specific threat posed. Moreover, its description of resistance and defiance is highly general and symbolic. In its final anthem version, the song describes more a spirit of resistance and defiance then any particular act. In the anthem we are not told how to resist or how we may actually be resisting the threat, we are just told that we are consistently and persistently offering resistance. Amorphous context dependence makes ‘Hey Slavs’ an almost universal song of national liberation or national resistance for any group that identifies itself as Slav. The indeterminacy of the national identification of the addressee of the song proved to be crucial in the multinational setting of wartime Yugoslavia. Yugoslav Partisans were resisting not only their foreign foes who invaded Yugoslavia (Germans, Italians, Hungarians, Bulgarians) but fighting a series of civil wars with several movements and armed organisations that were appealing to and drawing their support from particular national groups in Yugoslavia

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such as the Serbs (the royalist Chetniks), Croats and Bosnian Muslims (the pro-fascist Ustashas) and Albanians (the pro-Italian Bali Kombatar). Appealing to any one national group groups would, in such a setting, turn the other – allegedly opposing – national group against the Partisans. This is what the Partisan leaders wanted to avoid at all costs. It was not only their Marxist internationalist ideology of international proletarian solidarity but the practical needs of recruitment of personnel and fighters that required them to appeal to all the nations and nationalities of Yugoslavia under the slogan of ‘brotherhood and unity of the peoples of Yugoslavia’. The addressee of this song suited this purpose well enough. Although the non-Slavs of Yugoslavia (in particular Kosovo Albanians) were left out, this song appears to successfully address the widest range of the population of Yugoslavia. For all these reasons, the Yugoslav Communist Party found the song very useful as a song of national resistance. Even when its efficacy in mobilising the population to fight was no longer an issue, the spirit of resistance that the song celebrated became entrenched in the personal identification of many inhabitants of Yugoslavia regardless of their national or political position. This may explain the widespread popularity of the anthem, at least among those citizens who spoke one of the Slav languages. The imagery of this song, while sharing the drama of the other anthems such as ‘God of Justice’ (see Chapter 4), is notably narrower in scope than in the Serbian and most other anthems discussed below. The song begins with the abstraction of spirit, the heart of the people. No concrete imagery is evident until the second stanza where we find Hell’s abyss and futile thunder. Things are more concrete still in the third stanza where we find storms, earthquakes, breaking stones and shattering trees. This is the Romantic sublime in full swing and, as is also the case in ‘God of Justice’, the outside of civilisation may be regarded as something essentially German. The struggle of the Slavs against Germanic culture and militancy is like a struggle against threatening nature. Does that make it a futile struggle? Ultimately no, because in the last stanza we see that nature is on the side of the Slavs as well. In this case, what is witnessed in the anthem is no longer the sublime alien power of distant gods (as in Tomasˇik’s original song); rather it is the well-behaved nature of the river gorges that provides a homeland of the majestic kind and one deserved by only those who are not traitors.

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The song ends with a curse. This is not quite the opposite of a prayer (as found in the ‘God of Justice’) but is similar. Traitors to their homeland will be damned. Those who are against the people will be smitten if God heeds the prayerful aside and thus the inside and outside of the unison – the people-singing-in-unison – is foregrounded. This seems entirely apt for a song sung before a firing squad by unrepentant people. There also appears to be a curious kind of negative theology at work in the anthem. God is not there after 1945 but hell is and people can be cursed. Cursed for what? Are they cursed for abandoning or betraying the purported bonds of blood/spirit/land? The exhortations of the song are necessarily ambiguous. Who is the enemy? What do we actually have to do? What the song teaches is that struggles against nature are ultimately futile, but that, despite this, there remains the hope of a peaceful homeland in which attitude will be all important; hence the song’s zero tolerance of traitors. In this text pagan and materialist fatalism (to which at least some Communists subscribed) meet. Superior forces will neither be placated nor exhorted by prayer in the conventional sense and so it is better then to curse on one’s own level.

Which nation is singing ‘Hey Slavs’ in unison? The short and not very informative answer to this question would be: no single nation is addressed by the song nor is supposed to be singing it either. ‘Slav’ is primarily a linguistic marker identifying someone whose mother tongue belongs to the Slavic family of languages. Slavs are not a nation in the modern sense of the word: they are not a group, settled on a bounded territory and defined by a set of national markers, striving for a state or state-like institutions. There was never a nation of Yugoslavs either in this sense of the word. In the SFRY, Yugoslavs were not recognised as a nation or a nationality; indeed the very label ‘Yugoslav’ in post-1960 documents and census data was printed with quotation marks. In the 1981 census, 1.2 million citizens of Yugoslavia declared themselves as ‘Yugoslavs’; in 1991 their number was reduced to 710 thousand (Pavkovic´ 2000: 50). In 1991, SFRY had around 23.5 million inhabitants; and the state anthem was to be the anthem of all of them. And yet if no single nation is singing the anthem, what does the anthem tell us about the singers? First, unlike all other anthems

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examined in this book, ’Hey Slav’ does not identify the singers by reference to any national markers – historical myths, landscapes, rulers or symbols. It does not even identify the singers’ homeland nor where they come from; they are only identified by the language in which they are singing the anthem, which is supposed to be a Slavic language. Second, it tells us that the singers are resisters like their forefathers and that, like their forefathers, they are currently resisting or are at least ready to resist the foreign enemies. Third, it tells us that the singers are steadfast and fearless resisters who persevere in their resistance under any and all adverse circumstances. The anthem tells us that the singers are fearless resisters and also that they are Slavs or identify as Slavs. This is a presentation that fits almost all the nations whose languages belong to the Slavic family. However, by identifying themselves as Slavs, the singers in Yugoslavia are distinguished from their primary foes in World War II, people who were not Slavs. These earlier foes were primarily German, Italian and Hungarian. As an anthem ‘Hey Slavs’ is primarily an exhortation to fight for something worth defending. It is thus a fighting song although, unlike many fighting songs, it does not exhort the singers to actually go out to fight and kill and/or die. For the purposes of this exhortation, it is not necessary to define the nation that is singing the anthem. In the context of Yugoslavia this proved to be a definite advantage, as there were, officially five (later six) nations, that were expected to sing and identifying all of them would be long and tedious as well as unnecessary. In addition, the anthem is also self-congratulatory: it praises the resisting spirit of the singers, their steadfastness and their fearlessness. The two aspects – exhortation to fight and self-congratulation – are intertwined in the anthem. The anthem exhorts those whom it praises and congratulates at same time. This strategy of self-exhortation is a common strategy in many fighting anthems. In order to get people to march, fight and potentially die you need to tell them that they can do it because they are so good at it, that they are as good, if not better, than their ancestors. Such combinations of self-congratulation with exhortation are found not only in the model fighting song the ‘Marseillaise’ and variety of anthems that follow its model (see Introduction Part I) but also in the only other fighting song, ‘Today over Macedonia’ (see Chapter 6). ‘Hey Slavs’ is thus an illustration of the portability not only of national songs but also of the common devices national songs and

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anthems deploy to exhort and congratulate the singers. It started out as a song of national devotion to a native (Slav) language, exhorting the native speakers of Czech and Slovak to resist any foreign encroachments under any circumstance and praising them for their ability to resist. It then became a celebratory song of an athletic and sports movement in several Slav regions in Europe before World War II transformed it into a song of national resistance. The victorious Communist liberators, in the absence of any acceptable alternatives, used it as the state anthem of their multinational (predominantly South Slav) federation, and after 128 years of being sung-in-unison by various Slav peoples, with the end of the last federation of South Slav peoples in 2006, ‘Hey Slavs’ ended its public career as an anthem.

CHAPTER 2 LOVING ONE'S HOMELAND: CROATIA 1835

The state anthem of Croatia ‘Lijepa nasˇa domovino’ (‘Our Beautiful Homeland’) is the oldest national song in Croatia. Its title, text and the manner of singing is defined by the Law on the Coat of Arms, Flag and Anthem of the Republic of Croatia and of the Flag and Sash of the President of the Republic of Croatia passed on 21 December 1990 by the three chambers of Sabor (Diet or Parliament) of the Republic of Croatia.1 On the following day, 22 December 1990, the Croatian Sabor passed the Constitution of the Republic of Croatia, which in its article 11 states that the anthem of the Republic is ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’. Since Sabor issued Croatia’s declaration of independence on 25 June 1991, the legalisation of the anthem preceded Croatia’s proclamation of independence by more than six months. In April 1990, in the first multi-party elections in post-1945 Croatia, the Croatian Democratic Union (CDU; in Croatian: Hrvatska demokratska zajednica, HDZ) a populist centre-right party won the majority in all three chambers of the Sabor. In consequence, the CDU formed the first post-Communist government in Croatia and elected its leader Dr Franjo Tudjman the President of the Republic. In passing the above law, the party introduced for the first time, not ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ as the state anthem of Croatia, but the institution of the sash of the President of Croatia. The song first became the anthem of the Socialist Republic of Croatia as early as 1972, in the amendment I, article 4, to the Croatian Constitution (Blazˇevic´ 1972: 45). In 1974, the

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new Croatian Constitution, incorporating the amendments, retained the same anthem. The song thus became the official anthem under the rule of the Communist Party (the League of Communists) of Croatia while Croatia was a federal unit of the SFRY. As we shall see in Chapters 3 and 6, Slovenia and Macedonia also legalised their anthems while they were still federal units of the SFRY under the rule of their respective Communist parties. Their legalisation occurred in 1989 on the eve of the SFRY’s dissolution, and can be regarded as part of the process of their secession or ‘disassociation’ from the Yugoslav federation. The constitutional amendments of 1972 in Croatia resulted, in part, from the demands for economic reform and increased autonomy of Croatia advanced during the 1971 nationalist mass mobilisation campaign. Led by the Communist leaders of Croatia, the campaign initiated a period of public discussion on a wide variety of political and nationalist demands, which is often called ‘the Croatian Spring’. The Yugoslav president-for-life Tito ended the campaign (and the ‘Spring’) in late 1971 by removing these Croat Communist leaders from power (Goldstein 1999: 174 – 80). Apart from the constitutional amendments, this political campaign resulted in a significant decrease of the power and influence of the Serbs from Croatia over the Communist Party of Croatia and its government. One could argue that the Croats, as a nation, thus recovered control over their homeland. The official adoption of the anthem, which celebrates love for a Croat homeland, can be viewed as a symbolic expression and celebration of the renewed control of the Croats over their homeland. Be that as it may, the legalisation of the Croatian anthem in 1972 had no role to play Croatia’s later process of ‘disassociation’ from the SFRY. This disassociation started in January 1990 with the walk-out of its Communist Party delegation from the congress of the Communist Party (League of Communists) of Yugoslavia and the subsequent disintegration of the Yugoslav Communist Party. As we shall see below, since its initial publication as a song in 1862 ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ has contributed to the shaping of belief in the separateness of Croatia as a national homeland of the Croats and thus to the formation of a Croat national self-consciousness. But before we look at its history and origins, we shall first offer a brief account of the anthem as it is sung at the time of the writing.

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Love for one’s homeland and its borders The title of the anthem is in the vocative case, ‘Lijepa nasˇa domovino’; hence a better translation would perhaps be ‘Hail, Our Beautiful Homeland’. In this chapter we shall use the official translation ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’. The title also comprises the first line of the national anthem, which addresses the homeland and calls it ‘ours’ and ‘beautiful’. The first two stanzas continue in this mode of speech, addressing the homeland, listing a few of its attractive attributes, wishing her happiness, and telling her of the singers’ consistent affection. While it is not unusual for an anthem to deal anthropomorphically with the national entity to which it is devoted, what is unusual is the shift in the nature of the address and likewise the shift in the party addressed. This is not the only feature that differentiates this anthem from many others. The lyrics are reproduced here, as set by the 1990 law, but their official translation is modified to be closer to the Croat original.2 Lijepa nasˇa domovino, Oj junacˇka zemljo mila, Stare slave djedovino, da bi vazda sretna bila!

Our beautiful homeland, Oh so brave [fearless] and dear [gracious].3 Our grandfatherland’s [fathers’] ancient glory, May you be fortunate [blessed] forever.

Mila, kano si nam slavna,

Dear because you are ours and glorious [you are our only glory], Dear, you are our only one, Dear, to us wherever you are flat [we love your plains], Dear, wherever your mountains stretch [we love your mountains].

Mila si nam ti jedina. Mila, kuda si nam ravna, Mila, kuda si planina!

In the third stanza one sees the addressee is changed unexpectedly. Instead of the homeland, those apostrophised are the three rivers and the dark blue sea. These rivers are then advised to communicate to the world the Croat love of homeland. This revelation is contained in the last line of the third stanza and further elaborated through the fourth stanza.

LOVING ONE'S HOMELAND: CROATIA Teci Dravo, Savo teci, Nit’ ti Dunav silu gubi, Sinje more svijetu reci, Da svoj narod Hrvat ljubi. Dok mu njive sunce grije, Dok mu hrasˇc´e bura vije, Dok mu mrtve grobak krije, Dok mu zˇivo srce bije!

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Sava, Drava, keep on flowing, Danube, do not lose your vigour, Wide blue sea, tell the world, That a Croat loves his people [homeland]. Whilst the sun warms [kissed] his fields, Whilst his oaks are whipped by a [wild] wind, Whilst his dead [dear ones] are hidden in the grave [go to heaven], Whilst his live heart beats!

Thus the third stanza for the first time identifies, albeit indirectly, the singers as Croats and the homeland as Croatia. The content, quality and duration of the central emotional attitude (love) is then contained in a series of descriptive statements in the fourth stanza. Apart from their locutionary role, these statements are almost certainly intended to have perlocutionary force to evoke or incite (Austin 1962: 109– 19) love in the singers. The principal theme of the anthem – the nation’s adoration of the homeland – and the praise of the homeland, place the anthem in the category of self-congratulatory anthems. This is the same category to which the Czech anthem ‘Where is My Home?’ as well as the Australian anthem ‘Advance Australia Fair’ belong. The anthem contains no call to arms nor exhortation to fight. It refers to no rulers, nor does it pray for their safety. Thus it can be argued that ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ is a very pure example of a self-congratulatory anthem. Out of the four stanzas of the anthem, the last three deal exclusively with the love that the Croats feel for their people and their homeland. As we shall see in the next section, this focus on just one theme was not the aim of the original poem published in 1836. Instead, the anthem’s focus on love for the homeland is a result of the selection of the above four stanzas out of the original poem of 14 stanzas. This lyric has a further feature that is relatively rare among anthems. This is the command to communicate love of homeland to the world beyond the borders. This is the song’s second theme and an important second intention behind this song is to communicate the Croat love of homeland to the wider world. According to the anthem the

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communication is to be carried by the three named rivers and the unnamed dark blue sea. Why this communication has to be made to the world and exactly how are both left unclear. However, this mysterious command to water – to flow and tell the world of our love – does in fact communicate more than may at first appear. The first three lines of the stanza give us the geographical essentials that are here conveyed in a command mode. The command implies that three rivers Sava, Drava and Danube flow through the homeland and that the homeland is possessed of a littoral bounding the sea. While this would presumably be already known to those singing, others as audience would need to infer from the poem that these are geographical features of the Croatian homeland. Naming and describing geographical features is a common anthem device for identifying the homeland and, indirectly, the singers as inhabitants and lovers of this homeland. The same device is used in the Montenegrin anthem (see Chapter 5) and also in the anthems of Slovakia and Hungary (in the full text). The latter two were written around the same time as the Croatian anthem in the early nineteenth century (Kiss 2002: 332). Moreover, at that time Slovakia and Hungary together with Croatia, all belonged to the one empire, Austria (later Austria-Hungary), under the rule of the Habsburgs.4 The naming of geographical features of the homeland in anthems has a specific political aim – demarcating a territory claimed, in this case by the putative nation-in-the-making, which had, at the time it was written, no nation state of its own. The anthem thus tells the world not only that the Croats love their people but also places their homeland within the boundaries set by the three rivers and the sea. So why assign to the anthem the task of demarcating the boundaries of the homeland? And why sing of the borders unless you want the borders to matter? The answer is that in singing about the borders you clearly want to distinguish your homeland from the state in which you are currently placed. We need only look to the previous two centuries of Croatian history, to distinguish at least two distinct reasons why this would be important. The initial reason is to do with nation building. In Croatia’s case, this would be the formation of a new nation from existing constituent parts. For most of the nineteenth century the Croatia of the Habsburg Empire did not constitute one political or administrative entity but rather three

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separate administrative units (Goldstein 1999: 54 –8). Thus, at the time the song became a candidate for the national anthem of Croatia, singing about the rivers and the sea would have been understood, at least among the nationally conscious singers/listeners, as an expression of a desire to unite Croatia into one polity, demarcated by the three rivers and the Adriatic. Once Croatia was united in one polity, singing of the three rivers and the sea would have changed its potential political signification. At this time it could then have signalled the desire to separate Croatia within these borders, at least as an object of Croats’ love, from the new state. In 1918, Croatia became the homeland of the Croats within the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed Yugoslavia in 1929) and after 1945, Croatia became a separate federal unit in the Federative People’s Republic of Yugoslavia. The political implications of such a separation depends, of course, on the context of singing. At least on some occasions the singing of the anthem can be understood as signalling the desire for actual political separation from the overarching state. For example, the deputies of the Croatian Sabor and members of the public sang the anthem in unison upon the Sabor’s proclamation of Croatia’s secession from Austria-Hungary on 29 October 1918 (Tomasˇek 1990: 87). On this reading, the rivers and the sea assume a function that goes beyond mere description of geographical features of a homeland. Singing about the rivers may be used to acknowledge or even to trigger a desire for political separation of Croatia. Love for Croatia and the gentle command to its rivers and the sea thus may, in suitable contexts, express the ultimate nationalist aspiration for an independent nation state. Singing so long and so emphatically about one’s love for one’s people and homeland within particularly defined boundaries also has an additional function. This song suggests that the Croats love their homeland as it is bounded by the three rivers and the sea, that the so demarcated Croatia is the object of their unconditional and endless love. The implication is clear – love for the country so bounded will not allow them to see the homeland diminished or divided. Their love makes the homeland inviolable as a territory as demarcated in song. The perlocutionary force of this anthem may also offer, inter alia, reassurance to the singers that the borders of the homeland are made

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inviolable by their love. By singing the song, the singers tell themselves and the listeners that their love makes the borders of their homeland secure. It reinforces the idea of the political efficacy of their love. It also sends a message to other-than-Croatian listeners that the unassailable power of the Croats’ love of Croatia stands in the way of any who would tamper with the inviolable borders of the homeland. Whether we regard ‘Lijepa nasˇa domovino’ in a prophetic light or otherwise, Croatia’s borders and its territory have indeed expanded and contracted throughout the nineteenth and twentieth century until they assumed their present shape in 1946 under Communist rule, demarcated (in part) by the three rivers and the Adriatic.5 The last challenge to these borders was from the Serb inhabitants of Croatia in 1991. Following Croatia’s secession from the SFRY in June 1991, the Serb minority, supported by the Milosˇevic´ regime, several nationalist parties in Serbia and the remnants of the Yugoslav federal army in December 1991 attempted to secede from Croatia and establish the Republic of Serb Krajina, taking a third of Croatia’s territory. Their armed rebellion was crushed, with US assistance, in 1995 and then most of them left Croatia en masse. Since then Croatia’s borders have been uncontested (Goldstein 1999: 198–238). Given the history of contestation, it is understandable that the national anthem should combine an expression of love for the homeland with a demarcation of the borders. The song thus tells an important, indeed crucial, story about Croatia and the Croats. The song reiterates that this love is of the patriotic kind and carries with it a concomitant readiness to sacrifice life that maintains Croatia’s borders as they should be. However, the poem from which the anthem was drawn, ‘The Croatian Homeland’, was not originally intended as a national anthem. Instead, it was a ‘national awakening’ (‘budilica’) poem. It was intended to awaken (‘buditi’) national sentiment and love for one’s homeland among the Croats living at the time in a state many regarded as foreign. For example, the original text of the poem did not employ names of rivers as territory-demarcating devices, for the simple reason that the original poem was not attempting to demarcate the territory of the homeland. In fact, the original poem mentions only two rivers – Sava and Danube. Drava and the dark blue sea were added a few decades after the poem was first published.

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From a national awakening song to the state anthem The four stanzas of the current anthem were selected as the text of a song and set to music in the mid-nineteenth century. Vatroslav Liechtenneger, a teacher of singing at the Zagreb music school, noted down the melody in the early 1860s from his students’ singing and published it in the second volume of his collection of choral music in 1862 (Tomasˇek 1990: 47– 8). The song was published under its original title ‘Hrvatska domovina’ or ‘Croatian Homeland’ and the author of the lyrics was identified as Antun Mihanovic´. There was no mention of the composer. The oral tradition, passed on by the first Croatian musicologist, Franjo Kuhacˇ, attributes the musical score to Josif Runjanin, a cadet in an Austrian regiment in Glina.6 According to this tradition and based on the reports and letters of Runjanin’s family and friends, the music was composed in 1846, 11 years after the publication of the original poem (Tomasˇek1990: 30– 5; Ocˇak 1998: 345–50). Whether the author of the musical score selected the four stanzas out of the 14 of the original poem we do not know. It is certain that the author of the poem, Antun Mihanovic´, did not make the selection. It is unlikely that he even knew the selection had been made or that his poem had been transformed into a song. In summary, we do not know who the ‘composer’ or ‘selector’ of the text of the anthem was, nor do we know the date when the selections were made.7 Antun Mihanovic´ (1796–1861), was a Zagreb-born lawyer, an employee of the Austrian military and, later, civil service, and an ardent advocate for the use of his native Croatian language. When and where he wrote the poem is not known. The manuscript, now lost, was sent by Mihanovic´ from Rijeka to Zagreb and published in the literary and cultural magazine Danitza Horvatska, Slavonska y Dalmatinska (the Croatian, Slavonian and Dalmatian Morning Star) on 14 March 1835. The same magazine, under a changed title, Danica Ilirska (the Illyrian Morning Star) published a Croat translation of Tomasˇik’s ‘Hey, Slovaks [Slavs]’only two years later in 1837 (see Chapter 1). This magazine was edited by Ljudevit Gaj, the intellectual leader of the national awakening movement in Croatia, which was at the time a part of the Kingdom of Hungary within the Habsburg Empire. In order to refer to the national group or groups that the movement targeted Gaj used the term ‘Illyrian’. The name originally referred to the inhabitants of the northern part of the Balkan Peninsula before the

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Roman conquest of the region in 168 BCE . Gaj’s ‘Illyrians’ were, of course, not the original Illyrians. Instead they were speakers of various South Slav dialects and languages that had not yet been either described or standardised, and included the inhabitants of today’s Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Serbia, Macedonia and Bulgaria. Gaj advocated the standardisation of all these dialects on the basis of the single dialect –Sˇtokavian – spoken by the majority of these populations. He then used the standardised language to create a vibrant literature and press (Despalatovic 1975: 79–95). In 1850, partly as a result of the Illyrian movement’s advocacy, the leading men of letters and linguists from these areas signed an agreement in Vienna establishing a standardised language based on the dialect selected by Gaj. In keeping with the Gaj’s Illyrian programme, Mihanovic´’s ‘Croatian Homeland’ was written in Sˇtokavian using the alphabet conventions pioneered by Gaj, although Mihanovic´’s native dialect – the Zagreb dialect – was Kajkavijan. In this respect, the poem is one of the pioneering literary works of the Illyrian movement. It was also a pioneering work in its aim to awaken the feelings of allegiance and love among literate Croatians (who were an Illyrian ‘tribe’) for their homeland. As the post-primary education offered to inhabitants of the Croatian lands was at the time in Hungarian or German, continuing education beyond the primary level called for cultural and linguistic assimilation to nonCroatian and non-Slavic cultures. By creating a literature and press in a widely understood Slavic language, the Illyrian movement aimed at preventing and resisting cultural assimilation as well as creating a large literate public of Croatian and Slavic speakers. As we shall see below, Mihanovic´’s ‘Croatian Homeland’ fulfilled the aims of this programme admirably. It extolled the beauty of the homeland and the virtues of its inhabitants, while also emphatically asserting and evoking their love for their homeland. It also asked the outside world, including presumably other peoples and rulers in the Habsburg Empire, to recognise the everlasting love of the Croats for the territory that was theirs. The poem asserts the distinctness of Croatia from other homelands in the Balkans and of Croats from other peoples in the Habsburg state. In the second stanza, the poem explicitly calls upon the Croats to recognise this as their only homeland: Dear to us as you are the only one

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However, in 1835, this was not a call for the political separation of Croatia from the Habsburg Empire. As a civil servant (soon to be appointed the Consul-General in Serbia) Mihanovic´ maintained his allegiance to the state in whose service he had spent most of his life. Like most literate Croats at the time, he was a loyal subject of the Habsburg Emperor and King. Yet in this poem he enjoined Croats to recognise the virtues of the land of their birth and urged them to make Croatia their cultural homeland. In any case, Gaj’s Illyrian programme of national awakening which Mihanovic´ wholeheartedly advocated did not envisage an independent Croat nation state. The Illyrian programme did envisage the creation of a common cultural and linguistic space for the South Slavs, at least the speakers or readers of the soon-to-be-standard Sˇtokavian dialect. This common cultural space, where literature and exchange of information could flourish, is, in a sense, the common, cultural, homeland of the Sˇtokavian speakers and readers. Perhaps in line with this idea, the ‘Croatian Homeland’ was also published in 1837 in the literary magazine Uranija in Beograd, the capital of the semi-independent principality of Serbia8 (as speakers of Sˇtokavian, the Serbs were an Illyrian ‘tribe’). The title of the poem in that publication was changed. Instead of ‘Croatian’ the title became ‘Our – my – homeland’ (‘Nasˇka – moja – domovina’). Although it was printed in Cyrillic, the alphabet in use in Serbia, little was changed in the text of poem: the poem was still clearly about Croatia and the Croats’ love for their homeland. However, the change of the title and the use of the familiar form of ‘our’ (‘nasˇka’) suggest that what the poem says about Croatia could also be said of other lands where the Sˇtokavian dialect was understood or spoken. Presenting his accreditation letters in 1836 as the Austrian Consul-General, to the reigning Prince Milosˇ Obrenovic´ of Serbia, Mihanovic´ said in his native Croatian: I am a Croat and I am happy and honoured to be appointed as the first consul of the Emperor and King to the heroic people in a glorious state whose blood, language and glory is very close to me and to our only prince of an Illyrian tribe.9 (Pavlovic´ 1990: 118, italics added here) This was probably the first public statement in Serbia of the vision of Illyrian solidarity and the publication of Mihanovic´’s poem in

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Beograd, a year later, was probably intended to further promote this Illyrian vision. Mihanovic´’s poem, which differs in some respects from the official anthem, starts with the invocation of the positive attributes of the homeland and lists the reasons for ‘our’ affection.10 Leˇpa nasˇa domovino, Oj junacˇka zemljo mila, Stare slave deˇdovino, Da bi vazda ˇcestna bila!

Hail, our beautiful homeland, Oh dear brave land, The grandfatherland of old glory, Be honourable11 for ever.

Mila, kano si nam slavna, Mila si nam ti jedina, Mila, kuda si nam ravna, Mila, kuda si planina!

Dear Dear Dear Dear

to us because you are ours and glorious, to us you’re the only one, to us wherever you are flat, wherever your mountains stretch.

The first two stanzas list the reasons why the homeland is so dear to the ‘us’, those implied in the unison but who are not explicitly identified in the poem until its penultimate stanza. Only in the penultimate stanza of the poem (and also the anthem), do we learn that the person who feels the love or affection is a Croat. From this we can infer that ‘we’ are the Croats and have been since the beginning of the lyrics. The homeland is asserted to be different from any other country or land that may claim our allegiance as Croats. Yet the poem itself does not tell us how to identify the Croat homeland, how to distinguish or demarcate it from other lands. Either this demarcation from other lands is not important or perhaps, more likely, those who love this homeland can easily identify it without the need for the poem to do that for them. This is indeed what any patriot is supposed to do – they know, without having to be told, what their homeland is. The fact that the declaration of identity comes late in the lyrics, suggests an interesting covert complicity within the group of patriotic readers, who presumably from the outset know who they are and understand the lyrics in the light of a declaration of what is held in common. The second stanza offers a vague description of the landscape (flat and mountainous) – a description that this homeland might indeed share with many others. The third and fourth stanzas offer an equally vague

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descriptions of the climate and physical features of the homeland, juxtaposed with the physical characteristics of the people. Vedro nebo, vedro cˇelo, Blaga persa, blage noc´i, Toplo leˇto, toplo deˇlo, Bistre vode, bistre ocˇi:

Clear skies, clear forehead, Gentle breasts, gentle nights, Warm summer, warm deeds Clear water, clear eyes

Vele gore, veli ljudi, Rujna lica, rujna vina, Silni gromi, silni udi; – To je nasˇa domovina!

Large forests, big men Fine countenance, fine wine, Mighty thunder, mighty limbs; – This is our homeland!

One striking juxtaposition is that of the human countenance with fine wine.12 The function of all these endearing associations should be read in the light of an effort to illustrate how the people of the homeland find harmony with its physical landscape. This harmony is found in the analogous beauty of both the people and the landscape, as consistently and emphatically asserted in these stanzas. From an observation of the beauty of bodies and the landscape, in the next two stanzas we move to the beauty of work. Zˇenju serpi, masˇu kose, Deˇd se zˇuri, snope broji, Sˇkriplju vozi, brasˇno nose, Snasˇa preduc´ ma´lo doji: Pase marha, rog se cˇuje, Oj, oj zvencˇi, oj, u tmine, K ognju star i mlad sˇetuje; – Evo t’ nasˇke domovine!

Sickle cut, scythes wave through Grandfather in a hurry counts the bundles [of hay], The wagons squeak, carrying flour, A wife breastfeeds the small one while spinning The cattle’s on pasture, the horn is heard, Hoy, hoy, the little bells, hoy, in darkness, To the fire walk both old and young; – Here is our homeland!

Here the genre is clearly that of a paean to the tilling of land, to agricultural labour and its patriarchal distribution. It is worth noting that in these idyllic stanzas, no other type of work is mentioned. The

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only work unrelated to agriculture that Croat women perform is spinning and breastfeeding. And, as Zecˇevic´ (1988: 19 –20) has noted, in the poem only the women perform these two tasks simultaneously. The patriarchal conception of woman’s work (work that always demands both hands to be employed) is thus, Zecˇevic´ argues, well exemplified in this single line dedicated to women. From work, the next two stanzas move on to play. Lucˇ iz mraka dalko sija, Po veseloj livadici, Peˇsme glasno breˇg odbija, Ljubni poje k tamburici:

The light out of the darkness shines from afar, Throughout the joyful meadow, The hill loudly resounds with songs, The enamoured sing with the tamburica13

Kolo vode, zˇivo kolo, I na berdu, i v dolini, Plesˇu mladji sve okolo; – Mi smo, pobre, v domovini!

The kolo14 is being danced, a lively dance On the hill and in the valley, The young dance all around; – We are, brother, in [our] homeland!

Play consists of singing, playing the national instrument, and dancing the national dance – the kolo. Like work, play is an outdoor activity, taking place in nature and without mention of any dwelling or built surrounding. In Mihanovic´’s homeland, it seems, work and play are all outdoors and thus activities that take place in a natural or rural setting. The only possible exception is that of breastfeeding and spinning which might imply a dwelling of some sort. Apart from this presumption in favour of homebound breastfeeding, the homeland appears to be bereft of any human habitation, let alone any towns or cities. In summary, this is a highly selective view of work and play both in terms of both content and context. It perhaps suggests that Croats like to work and play in nature and that they are creatures of nature. The homeland presented may thus easily be read as a hypostatisation, and therefore it is the natural right of the Croats to occupy their territory. Naturalness should certainly be taken as implying the purity of the entity inspiring the devotion these lyrics seek to inspire. Benedict Anderson writes of ‘the celibate vocabulary of all nationalisms and the taboos that lurk beneath it’:

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For the mother (motherland) who makes claims on the lives of young males is the woman who gave them all birth and whom they all have in common: she is also, in a direct sense, the woman they cannot/must not have, even think of having, sexually. It is her complete inaccessibility that makes any ‘sibling competition’ unimaginable (Anderson 1999: 200). Sibling competition is a convenient analogy for the kinds of conflict-inprospect, the series of wars in twentieth century that erupted in Croatia and other South Slav lands among the members of various national groups (Gaj’s Illyrian ‘tribes’). And indeed, the next topic dealt with in Mihanovic´’s lyrics is that of war. Magla, sˇto li, Unu skriva? Ni l’ to nasˇiu jauk turobni? Tko li molec´ smert naziva Il’ slobodni, il’ su robni?

What conceals the river Una? Is it fog? Or is it our somber cry? Who is thus calling, begging for death? Are they free, or are they slaves?

»Rat je, bratjo, rat junaci, Pusˇku hvataj, sablju pasˇi, Sedlaj konjcˇe, hajd pesˇjaci, Slava budi, gdi su nasˇi!«

“The war, brothers, the war is on, the brave ones, Grab a rifle, put on the sabre Saddle the horse, come on the infantry, Let glory be where our [people] are!”

Bucˇi bura, magla projde, – Puca zora, tmina beˇzˇi, – Tuga mine, radost dojde, – Zdravo slobost, – dusˇman lezˇi!

Roars the storm, the fog lifts – The dawn breaks forth, the darkness flees, – Sadness is gone and the joy arrives, – Greet the freedom – the oppressor is down!

Veseli se, tuzˇna mati, Padosˇe ti verli sini, Ko junaci, ko Horvati, Ljasˇe kervcu domovini!

Be joyful, sad mother, Your virtuous [upright] sons fell As heroes, as [true] Croats They shed the blood for the homeland!

In the poem, war occupies as much space as labour and play put together: four stanzas. However, it is not clear whether, in Mihanovic´’s view, war is as important or as time-consuming in the life of the Croats as labour and play put together. As was the case with the labour and play,

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the picture of war the poem gives is highly selective. There are only two scenes from the war: first, the call to arms and the arming and, second, the outcome of war, the freedom won and the enemy killed. The war sequence starts with a mysterious call from the borderlands of Croatia (where the river Una flows) begging for death. This stanza introduces the theme of freedom: the issue of the coming war is the freedom of the Croats. The sequence ends with a sad mother being told to be joyful because her children have fallen as heroes of the homeland. Warfare itself – the clash of arms and the battlefield strewn with the dead and dying – is absent from this account. While avoiding any treatment of the clash of arms, the war sequence highlights two aspects of war – on the one hand, the fight for freedom, and on the other, the heroism and the courage that are part and parcel of such a struggle. Croats are portrayed as fighting for freedom and, in fighting and winning freedom, they are heroic. Equally heroic are no doubt the sad mothers capable through their faith in the homeland of transforming their grief into joy. The war sequence thus appears to have a single purpose: to show how heroic all the Croats are in their commitment to and their fight for freedom. This demonstrates how important the freedom of the homeland is for them. The winning of freedom through the ultimate sacrifice is yet another proof of the Croat’s love of homeland, a topic immediately re-emphasised once war and freedom have been dealt with in the text. Teci, Sava hitra, teci Nit’ ti Dunaj silu gubi, Kud li sˇumisˇ, sveˇtu reci: Da svog’ doma Horvat ljubi,

Keep on flowing rapid [quick]15 Sava And you Dunaj do not lose your force Wherever you whirr, tell the world: The Croat loves his home.

Dok Dok Dok Dok

Whilst Whilst Whilst Whilst

mu mu mu mu

njive sunce grije, hrastje bura vije, mertve grob sakrije, zˇivo serdce bije!

[as long as] the sun warms his fields, his oaks are whipped by wild winds, his dead are hidden in the grave, his live heart beats!

In contrast to the first two stanzas of the poem, the last two do not deal with the reasons for, or the content of, the Croat’s affection for his homeland. The first of these last two stanzas proclaims the Croat’s love to the world and identifies the one who loves as Croatian. The proclamation

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is to be disseminated metaphorically by the two largest rivers that flow through Croatia to reach other lands and ultimately the sea (although the sea is not mentioned in the original poem). The last stanza describes the time-span or rather the timelessness of that love. The description is, however, both temporal and spatial because the mention of the sunwarmed fields, oaks and graves of the Croats offers us a spatial demarcation. The temporal aspect is defined both by natural and human phenomena – the sun, the storm, the graves and their dead, and the beating of the Croats’ hearts. Love will thus last as long as the world of nature and humankind will last. The hypostatisation of Croat devotion to Croatia is thus enjoined at the last stanza through a sanctification delivered by way of reference not only to nature and its sublime manifestations, but also to the sanctity of those national subjects and heroes of the nation who are no longer with us. The love for homeland lives on longer beyond the lifespan of humanity reading the poem; presumably it extends beyond the lifespan of the very poem that proclaims it to the world.

From poem to anthem: The choice of the people? We shall probably never know why the anonymous selector, ten or more years after the publication of the poem, chose the first two and the last two stanzas of the above 14 and put them to music. Whatever his motives (and it was very likely a he), this act of selection and musicsetting launched the poem, in its song form, onto the path to anthemhood. However, we can surmise that he had at least two good reasons for his selection. First, these are the only four stanzas that describe affection and love for the homeland. Love is an eminently ‘singable’ emotion. Indeed, it is an emotion that has been expressed through song and music probably since the inception of human song. Love is thus a clearly preferable theme, particularly when compared with work, play or war (the three other themes of the original poem). A second reason is that identification with the emotion of love is easier than identification with the rural pursuits of work and play or even the poem’s bloodless and metaphorical account of freedom fighting. It should also be noted that, under the influence of Croatian Romanticism, love for homeland had by then become a popular subject for poetry and patriotic lyrics were the dominant genre in Croatian

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literature of the period (Jelacˇic´ 1996: 106–14). The four stanzas selected would have provided a most suitable vehicle for the expression of this easily identifiable emotion. As discussed above, love for one’s homeland is also an anthem-quality emotion. National anthems and national songs should at the very least stir this emotion. And what better way of stirring an emotion than expressing it in the strongest terms and proclaiming it to be everlasting? Mihanovic´’s four stanzas perform this role impeccably. Arguably, they do so better than the songs that were their competitors for the title of Croatian national anthem, songs such as Ljudevit Gaj’s ‘Croatia Has Not Perished As Yet’ (‘Josˇ Horvatska ni propala’, 1835) or Hugo Badalic´’s ‘Croatian Anthem’ (‘Hrvatska himna’, 1891) (Pavlovic´ 135: 138). Apart from these two songs, there were another two competitors for the title of the national anthem in the late 1880s: ‘We are Brothers, Illyrians’ (‘Mi smo brac´o ilirskog’, 1840) by Mate Topalovic´ and ‘God Long Live’ (‘Bozˇe zˇivi’, 1867) by Petar Preradovic´, the leading Croatian poet of Serb Orthodox origin (Tomasˇek 1990: 77). These four, as well as a few others, were popular national songs whose main function was celebratory. They were performed at popular gatherings, such as fairs, and at banquets celebrating historical events or anniversaries and birthdays of rulers or cultural entrepreneurs. On such occasions, these songs were competitors to ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ for the role of the principal national song. During a large Croatian exhibition of artefacts in Zagreb in August and September 1891 (organised by the Association for Economy of Croatia and Slavonia) the principal candidates for national anthemhood, including a few of the above national songs as well as ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ were publicly performed and duly acclaimed. Both the public and the media appear to have preferred ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ to all the others and a few newspapers proclaimed ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ to be the national anthem of the Croatian people (Tomasˇek 1990: 79– 85; Ocˇak 1998: 351). Franjo Kuhacˇ then argued that ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ was in effect proclaimed, by popular acclamation, to be the national anthem of Croatia at this very exhibition-fair (Tomasˇek 1990: 77). In 1905, the Association of the Croat Singing Societies (Savez hrvatskih pjevacˇkih drusˇtava) decided to propose to the Croatian Sabor that ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ be officially proclaimed the Croatian

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anthem. The Diet never considered this proposal, but on 29 October 1918, having heard the official proposal to dissolve Croatia’s ties with Austria-Hungary, the deputies and members of the public all stood up and sang ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ in unison, giving the anthem its first official performance and recognition as the national anthem (Tomasˇek 1990: 85 –7). In December 1918, following the creation of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, the first stanza of ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ became the second stanza of the composite state anthem of the kingdom. The first stanza of the Serbian royal anthem ‘God of Justice’ served as the first stanza of the composite anthem and its third stanza was the first stanza of the Slovene national song ‘Forward the Flag of Glory’ (in Slovenian). The composite anthem thus reflected the order of the nations or ‘tribes’ in the Kingdom: Serbs, Croats and Slovenes. The anthem ended with the second stanza of ‘God of Justice’, praying for the safety of the king. In 1929, by royal proclamation, the three-named-kingdom changed its name to Yugoslavia. After the creation of the Independent State of Croatia in April 1941, the pro-fascist Ustasha regime proclaimed ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ Croatia’s state anthem. Ustasha’s principal adversary – the Communistled Partisan movement in Croatia – also used the anthem as its own national song or unofficial anthem (Tomasˇek 1990: 89– 90). This is similar to the situation in Slovenia during World War II when the same national song/anthem was used by both the resistance and the quisling authorities. It was then in 1972 that the song regained its official status as the anthem of the Socialist Republic of Croatia and has since held this status without interruption.

From a poem to the anthem: Selection, modification and addition In the path to official anthemhood, the original lyrics of Mihanovic´’s four stanzas have undergone several modifications which, arguably, have made it more suitable as an anthem. In the standard version of the song that the Association of Croat Singing Societies recognised in the late 1890s the world ‘honourable’ (first stanza, last line) was changed to ‘fortunate’ (sretna, in the current official translation or ‘blessed’) (Tomasˇek 1990: 68). Perhaps by the late nineteenth century, it was

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widely assumed that any homeland worth singing about would be honourable but that not every one need be fortunate. Perhaps the singers and the current authorities thought that if one were to wish a homeland to be honourable now, one might actually be suggesting that it has not been honourable in the past (a potentially blasphemous thought). To avoid any such implication, it may well have been safer to wish the homeland to be fortunate or blessed. The second stanza did not undergo any alteration, but the third has undergone significant changes and additions. The original ‘Keep on flowing fast Sava’ became ‘Keep flowing Drava, keep flowing Sava’. Already in the first written version of the song in 1862, a new river-name was added, ‘Drava’, and the adjective ‘rapid’ was deleted (Tomasˇek 1990: 69). During the rule of the pro-fascist Ustasha regime in 1942, the third river name ‘Drina’ was added: the state of Croatia then included Bosnia and Herzegovina and its border with Serbia was marked by the river Drina. This addition was abandoned after 1945 in line with the shift of Croatia’s borders within the Communist-ruled Yugoslav federation. In the third line, ‘wherever you whirr’ was also replaced by ‘dark blue sea’ (sinje more, translated in the official version as ‘deep blue sea’). In consequence the line, ‘Wherever you whirr, tell the world’ became in the anthem ‘Wide blue sea, tell the world’. In the 1862 version, in the last line the word ‘home’ was replaced by ‘people’ (narod) (Tomasˇek 1990: 69).16 The word ‘narod’ later came to be translated as ‘nation’ but in the 1860s the word had not as yet become firmly associated with the modern concept of nation as a source of state sovereignty. Thus, the original ‘The Croat loves his home’ became ‘The Croat loves his people’. These changes have modified the meaning of the original text in some obvious ways. The singers now wish the homeland to be fortunate while Mihanovic´ wished it to be honourable. He wanted only two rivers to tell the world of the Croat’s love while the anthem recruits another river and the dark blue sea to perform this task. Most importantly perhaps, the object of love has changed. In Mihanovic´’s poem the Croat loves his home, that is, his homeland. His homeland is an idyllic place where people and landscape fit together; his love for his homeland, patria, is a love for the idyll of a simple but freedom-loving people working, playing and fighting in purely natural setting, uncontaminated by anything urban (and anything political). In the anthem, the Croat loves his people. The people,

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in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, were understood to be a nation, bounded by its ‘natural’ borders. Those natural borders marked a politically demarcated national territory, symbolising the unity of the Croat nation. If the love of one’s idyllic patria equates to patriotism, the love of one’s nation, grounded on a demarcated national territory, signifies nationalism. Has this change of the object of love transformed a patriotic poem into a nationalist anthem? The changes also introduced a new reading of the original lyrics. The two rivers, Sava and Danube, were introduced in the poem as the messengers to the world of the Croat’s love. Adding the third river and the sea to the anthem changes the role of these geographic features. These rivers and the sea demarcate most of the international borders of today’s Croatia. In the anthem, the rivers and the sea are no longer merely messengers of love, and that role would appear to be the exclusive province of the sea. Rather, the rivers assume a new role, that of the demarcators of the borders of the homeland. In this way, the penultimate stanza becomes the focal point of the anthem – it demarcates the borders of the beautiful homeland and concomitantly proclaims the love of the Croat for his people who inhabit the territory within those borders.

What does the anthem tells us about the singers? The anthem thus tells us more than the poem does. It tells us that the Croats love not only their homeland – which is beautiful, heroic and glorious – but that they love their people too. Moreover, it tells us where the borders of today’s Croatia lie. The anthem thus becomes a text about a specific territory, demarcated by rivers and the sea, and about a specific people living in this land. All this helps the singers to identify more closely with the bond between the land and the people. The added specificity of the anthem assists self-recognition as well as identification of the singers and the object of their singing. Whoever joins with others to sing these words, makes common claim with regard to the identification of a particular people, the Croats, with a particular tract of land. In brief, the anthem moves from addressing the homeland and proclaiming one’s affection to addressing the rivers and sea and gently commanding them to impart information to the world about the Croats’ love for their people. If we see the homeland as consisting of – inter alia – rivers, then we might say the rhetorical motion here is synecdoche

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(that is, an address to the whole shifts to become an address to the parts). Love may then be seen as directed to a nation as constituted by anthropomorphised entities of landscape: to love these familial rivers is to love the nation they comprise. We can thus see the nation is comprised of visually immediate elements (i.e. rivers and sea). This visual immediacy of an anthropomorphised landscape can be read as a common thread through the lyrics of ‘Lijepa nasˇa domovino’. Those who sing ‘Lijepa nasˇa domovino’ tell the homeland first why they love her and then tell the blue sea (and perhaps the three rivers as well) that they in turn should tell the world that the singers love their people now and forever. Although the theme itself is certainly a staple among anthems, few national anthems are quite so singularly focused on love towards homeland and people. In addition, in this anthem, other staple themes of anthemhood are entirely missing: these typically including prayer or hope for victory or safety, description of the glorious past or radiant future, calls for unity and steadfastness in the struggle against current or potential enemies, or description of the superior qualities of those in unison. A few of these staple themes are however hinted at. Firstly, at the very beginning the glorious and heroic past is suggested by application of the epithet ‘heroic’ to the homeland (‘fearless’, in the official translation) and by its denomination as ‘the grandfatherland of ancient glory’ (‘our fathers’ in the official translation). These attributes are assigned to the homeland and both the singers and the audience are assumed to understand the references to ancient glory and heroism. Secondly, the beauties of homeland are in the second stanza again hinted at, albeit in a non-specific way: the homeland is both flat and mountainous. The second line of the second stanza indicates that this homeland is the only one the singers have known thus highlighting the relationship between the singers and the land. Thirdly, the last stanza gives us further nonspecific but also non-evaluative information about homeland – that the sun shines on its fields and the wind rustles its oaks. This immediate kind of place visualisation is among the most common of Romantic imagery found in anthems. The singers’ love is extrovert and focused on their homeland. There is no mention of any other possible object of love. Yet, in spite of focusing their love so exclusively, the singers do not want to keep their love to themselves, instead they want their love, great as it is, to be

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known to the world. Why is it that the Croatian people want to make their love so widely known and why choose the rivers as messengers? Perhaps the answer may be found in the connection between expressing love and defending its object: ‘The Croat loves his home . . . Whilst his live heart beats!’ As laudable and congratulatory as this may be, it is not very informative. The anthem does not tell us much about the singers, in spite of their alleged extrovertedness. After all, most anthem-singers are supposed to love the homeland of which they sing, even if they are not as emphatic as the Croats are in singing about it. Instead, the Croatian anthem reveals most about the homeland itself – where it is located and how beautiful it is. Perhaps the most striking feature of the Croatian anthem is the Croats’ extrovert attitude to their love: few if any other anthem-singers command their rivers to spread to the world the message of their love.12

CHAPTER 3 A TOAST TO A COSMOPOLITAN NATION: SLOVENIA 1844

On 27 September 1989, the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia, (a federal unit of the SFRY), passed amendment XII to its Constitution, proclaiming the poem ‘Zdravljica’ (‘A Toast’) by the Slovene poet France Presˇeren, to be the anthem of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia. This amendment replaced clause 10 of the Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Slovenia of 1974 which asserted that the Republic had an anthem without specifying what that anthem was (Pavlovic´ 1990: 209). The wording of the anthem was further determined by the Law on the Anthem passed on 29 March 1990 (Bozˇic´ 2010). In the following chapter, in addition to ‘A Toast’ we will discuss its predecessor ‘Naprej zastave slave!’ (‘Forward the Flag of Slava/Glory’) which is the anthem of the Slovenian armed forces. The complete lyrics of the present Slovenian national anthem are what previously was the seventh stanza of France Presˇeren’s famous mid-nineteenth century paean to drink. This is a self-congratulatory anthem, although one of a special kind. The seventh stanza celebrates the affection of the singers for other nations – a cosmopolitan feeling of a kind – without naming the singers or even the state/country they come from. In this sense, the unnamed singers are congratulating themselves on sharing cosmopolitan sentiments towards non-singers who are potentially everyone else in the world. This sentiment appears to be unique among state or national anthems, although it may be argued that this is also the intention behind the EU’s use of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’, in which the ideas of

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Schiller’s absent lyrics must be taken as implied. Presˇeren’s whole poem does include a couple of ‘fighting’ stanzas that were not included in the official anthem. In contrast, its predecessor ‘Forward the Flag of Slava/ Glory’ is a marching or fighting song and one of the most bellicose of European anthems. It is this shift from a bellicose fighting song to a peace-loving and cosmopolitan anthem that makes the Slovene anthems of particular interest for any inquiry into the dynamics of national anthems and national identity construction.

A new anthem as a prelude to independence The adoption of ‘A Toast’ as the Slovenia national anthem was, one can argue, a prelude to Slovenia’s independence in 1991. Before the song was proclaimed the official national anthem, it was popularised as a pop song by an alternative rock band Lacˇni Franz (Hungry Franz). The band’s television and video rendition of the song in 1987 was actually a parody of a national song (‘Zdravljica – Lacˇni Franz in prijatelji’). In 1989 ‘A Toast’ was then transformed from a rock band parody into a national anthem; the rock band version as an anthem-parody was thus a prelude to its career as Slovenia’s national anthem. However, this change from rock band anthem-parody to state song is not the only extraordinary aspect of this anthem. Amendment XII which introduced the new anthem of Slovenia was one of 60 constitutional amendments that entrenched the supremacy of Slovenia’s laws and state organs over the federal laws and federal organs of SFRY and removed the word ‘Socialist’ from the name of the Republic. The amendments and the new anthem thus initiated the process of secession of Slovenia from the SFRY. These constitutional changes were carried out by the League of Communists of Slovenia (the Communist Party of Slovenia) which at the time still had a complete monopoly of power in Slovenia. However, in January 1990 that same party left the League of Communists of Yugoslavia at its extraordinary congress in Beograd and changed its name to the ‘League of Communists of Slovenia – the Party of Democratic Reform’. The party abandoned not only the SFRY but also Marxism and opted for the European Community (EC) as the only future for Slovenia. In April 1990, in spite of the change of name and policies it lost the first post-1945 multi-party parliamentary elections to the coalition of

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anti-communist parties called ‘DEMOS’. Its candidate, Milan Kucˇan, however, did win the presidency of Slovenia. On 25 June 1991, under the DEMOS government, Slovenia, in a coordinated action with Croatia, unilaterally declared independence from the SFRY. This was followed by a ten-day war with the Yugoslav People’s Army, the federal military forces stationed in Slovenia, which was ended by the intervention of the European Community (EC). Following an EC-negotiated moratorium, Slovenia reiterated its declaration of independence in October 1991 and applied for recognition by the EC. In January 1991 the EC member states recognised its independence, followed by the United States and others (Pavkovic´ 2000: 135–41). On 23 December 1991, under its first non-communist government since 1945, the Assembly of the Republic of Slovenia passed a new constitution which, in its Article 6, defined the coat of arms, the flag and proclaimed, once again, ‘Zdravljica’ to be the anthem of Slovenia. The Article did not specify which stanzas of the long poem were to be used. It was a different government that on 22 October 1994 passed the Law on the Coat of Arms, Flag and the Anthem of the Republic of Slovenia; in its Article 5 the Law proclaimed the seventh stanza of the ‘Zdravljica’ to be the anthem of the republic with the music score of Stanko Preml (Ministry of Public Administration 2003). As we shall see below, the absence of the stanza specification in the Constitution eventually led to public controversy as to what the anthem actually contained or should contain.

The origins: A drinking song of a Romantic poet France Presˇeren is Slovenia’s key contribution to Romanticism and to Europe’s dawning age of national aspiration. He was writing at a time when his homeland, divided into several provinces, was part of the Habsburg Empire with its capital in Vienna. Presˇeren’s place as Slovenia’s national poet is undisputed and his statue at the centre of Ljubljana could easily be argued to be the focal point of Slovenian life and culture. Presˇeren was born on 3 December 1800 in the village of Vrba in the province of Kranjska (Carniola) to a well-to-do family of farmers. This enabled him to go to the Gymnasium in Ljubljana (Laibach) and to study first philosophy and then law in Vienna. This is where he became

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acquainted with modern Romantic poetry as well as the West European poetic cannon. Renaissance poetry, in particular that of Petrarch, was a major influence on his work. Upon gaining his doctorate in law in 1828 he returned to Ljubljana. Because of his free-thinking outlook and his free-thinking acquaintances he was not given a licence to practise as an independent lawyer-advocate until 1846. In 1833, in an exclusive social club in Ljubljana he met a high society lady for whom he developed a life-long but unrequited love. She was the inspiration for his first masterpiece the Wreath of Sonnets (Sonetni venec), which she apparently did not like very much. This work was closely followed by the Sonnets of Misfortune (Sonetje nesrecˇe) both published in 1834. The two cycles of sonnets as well his epic Baptism on the Savica (Krst pri Savici) published in 1835 are now acknowledged to be unsurpassed masterpieces of Slovene poetry. In 1836, he started a stormy de facto relationship with a seamstress Ana Jelovsˇek with whom he then had three children (Paljetak 1982: 325–8). Presˇeren’s composition of the poem ‘Zdravljica’ (‘A Toast’) in 1844 foreshadows the coming elevation of Slovenian pan-Slavic sentiment into a national programme. In 1844, such sentiments were anathema to the cultural and political hegemony that the Austrian-based Habsburg dynasty imposed on the many peoples of its empire and which was enforced through press censorship. Because of this censorship Presˇeren agreed to omit the third stanza from the original version of ‘Zdravljica’ to be published in his 1847 collection Poezije dr. Franceta Presˇerna (The Poems of Dr France Presˇeren), thinking in this way to save the rest of the poem. That stanza contains the poem’s most strident pan-Slavic sentiment, invoking the deity to break those chains binding Slovenes and inhibiting the freedom of the Slovene people. The Habsburg censor in Vienna also objected to the somewhat milder fourth stanza, suggesting that a more honourable outcome would be obtained if Slav children were able to get along ‘hand in hand’. Believing the poem mutilated with the omission of both stanzas, Presˇeren went ahead and published his collection Poezije without including ‘Zdravljica’. Following the revolution in Hungary (and throughout Europe) and the forced resignation of the pillar of the absolutist state, Count Metternich, the poem in its entirety was then first published on 26 April 1848 in the newly established newspaper Kmetijske in rokodelske novice (Farmer and craftsmen news).1 However, only a few months later a lifetime

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of drinking would catch up with the poet. In February 1849, he died in Kranj from alcohol-induced liver disease. At the time he was a practising lawyer-advocate, the profession from which he had been excluded until 1846 (Paljetak 1982: 328, 335). ‘Zdravljica’ is a ‘budnica’ or ‘budilica’, a poem of national awakening. As in the case of its Croatian counterpart, ‘The Croat Homeland’ (written only nine years earlier; see Chapter 2), it aims to awaken national sentiments in its readers or audience by lifting their self-esteem and instilling a pride in their nation, its history, its members and their achievements. Here is the ‘Zdravljica’ in its present-day literary variant and standard orthography2 translated by the authors. Zdravljica

A Toast

Prijatlji! Odrodile so trte vince nam sladko´, ki nam ozˇivlja zˇile, srce razja´sni in oko, ki utopi vse skrbi, v potrtih prsih up budi!

Friends, again the vines bore well! Let sweet wine liven our veins And clear our hearts and eyes, Drown cares. Let it waken the hopes In sad breasts!

Komu´ narpred veselo zdravljico, bratje! cˇmo zape´t’! Bog nasˇo nam dezˇelo, Bog zˇivi ves slovenski svet, brate vse, kar nas je sinov slovecˇe matere!

To whom shall we raise joyfully the first toast? To whom shall we, brothers, sing first? God let our land live! God let the the whole Slovene world live! We are all brothers as we are sons All of a Slav mother!

V sovrazˇnike ‘z oblakov rodu´ naj nasˇ’ga tresˇi gro´m; prost, ko je bil ocˇakov, naprej naj bo Slovencov dom; naj zdrobe´ njih roke´ si spone, ki jih sˇe tezˇe´!

Let lightning out of clouds strike down All our people’s foes. Let the home of the Slovenes be as free As once it was for our fathers. God break the chains That still them hold fast!

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Edinost, srecˇa, sprava k nam naj nazaj se vrnejo; otro´k, kar ima Slava, vsi naj si v ro´ke sezˇejo, de oblast in z njo cˇast, ko pre´d, spet nasˇa boste last!

Let unity, happiness, harmony come back to us. Let all children of Slavdom go hand in hand So that power and with it Honour will be all ours as it was before!

Bog zˇı´vi vas Slovenke, prelepe, zˇlahtne rozˇice; ni take je mladenke, ko nasˇe je krvi dekle; naj sino´v zarod nov iz vas bo strah sovrazˇnikov!

God, let your Slovene girls bloom More beautiful than precious roses. There are no maidens more comely than The girls of our blood. Let the sons you bear be the terror Of our enemies!

Mladencˇi, zdaj se pije zdravljica vasˇa, vi nasˇ up; ljubezni domacˇije noben naj vam ne usml´ti strup; ker zdaj vas kakor nas, jo sl´cˇno bra´nit klicˇe cˇas!

And young men now, your toast is raised. There isn’t a poison to kill Your love of country When the hour strikes, You and all of us so shall Defend the homeland With all our hearts!

Zˇive´ naj vsi naro´di,3

Long live all folk everywhere who long to see the day When wherever sun may roam Strife holds none under its sway. Then all people everywhere will be free, Not enemies but dear neighbours. At last friends shall we lift a glass Each to toast us now as brothers? Good in our hearts Let it long live! Long live who think aright!4

ki hrepene´ docˇakat dan, ko, koder sonce hodi, prepir iz sve´ta bo pregnan, ko rojak prost bo vsak, ne vrag, le sosed bo mejak! Nazadnje sˇe, prijatlji, kozarce zase vzdignimo, ki smo zato se zbratli, ker dobro v srcu mislimo; do´kaj dni naj zˇivı´ vsak, kar nas dobrih je ljudi!

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With or without the accompanying tune, ‘Zdravljica’ is clearly a drinking song, written by a drinker and for the benefit of others who will imbibe. This does not, in any way, impede its potential national awakening role. It is also foremost a poem for heterosexual males who are drinking together (the ‘brothers’ of the third and of the final stanzas and those who collectively admire the comely maidens of the fifth stanza). The poem’s sentiments are mixed and mercurial, as the thoughts of drinkers and drunks often are. Perhaps one might even say that there is a rambling distractedness, true to genre, in these lyrics. To gloss them in their spirit the idea is more or less this: Let’s drink up, forget your cares/don’t be sad. Drink to whom? To us of course! We’re Slovenes. Let lightning strike anyone who gives us trouble. Let’s be free, as our ancestors were. Let’s all love each other and live in peace; that way there’ll be honour. And our girls our matchless! And their sons will be brave! Young men – you’ll defend the land! We’re all brothers. Let’s have a drink! As is common in the case of anthems, reference to events or situations is suitably vague and open to interpretation. Thus an archetypal gravitas is assured. Yet the question arises: when was the land free? Presˇeren’s Baptism on the Savica (1835) suggests, indirectly, an answer by referring to the mists of the eighth-century Slovene past when: Blood flows like a river flows A Slovene is here killing a Slovene, a brother How horrible is human blindness?5 The narrative of this poem is placed in the aftermath of the battles between indigenous Slovene warlords as well as between Slovene warlords and German (Bavarian) invaders around the Castle of Ajdovac in 772 CE (Paljetak 1982: 349). Although these battles and defeats are thought to mark the end of indigenous Slovene religion and the advent of victorious Christianity brought by the German invaders, this poem does not paint the pre-Christian (and pre-eighth century) Slovene past as that of glorious freedom. The quasi-historical setting of the poem provides only a framework for a tragic and very personal story of unconsummated love and self-sacrifice – the central themes of many of Presˇeren’s lyrics.

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And yet the idea in ‘Zdravljica’ of a glorious past of freedom to hark back to conforms closely to the expectations of the anthem genre in general and to the optimistic and/or patriotic phase of the drinker’s enthusiasms: both require of time memorialised that it be a past of glory and freedom absent in the present. National awakening poems and anthems are often demands, framed in a poetic language, for a variety of devoutly wished abstractions from the past that the becoming nation seeks to embody – freedom, honour, power or glory. The past offers a ready-made and universal backing for those often urgent demands. The singers’ ancestors are seen to have rightfully possessed all or any of those things and in virtue of the previous possession, the singers themselves now deserve and have a rightful claim to the same. When compared with canonical anthems of the Western world, ‘Zdravljica’ impresses us with the range of tone and mood. There are lyrical and bellicose passages. There is also admiration of beauty both of the season as represented in the vines and Slovenian womanhood. There are sad thoughts to put aside and there is the image of enemies vanquished. There is the promise of neighbourly fellowship (as modelled by the circumstances in which the song is ideally sung). No matter your mood or politics on the day, there is something for every Slovene, although the poem is obviously targeted at males of drinking age. At every turn and for every purpose, there is an inducement to drink. Indeed, one is tempted to draw an analogy between the stages of drunkenness and the moods of the nation as portrayed in the song. The lyrics, with very little substitution of phrases, could be used to reference any nation because this is a song that could be sung by drinking age males of just about any European country with a few grapes to harvest. Nor would Stanko Premrl’s tune be out of place elsewhere. This is of course true of many anthems. Witness the pan-European popularity of ‘God Save the King’ and its many variants such as prayer-for-the king anthems in Serbia, Montenegro, and in Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Nevertheless, as noted above, like many marching and fighting anthems, ‘Zdravljica’ makes an appropriate call upon the martial valour of its readers or drinkers-in-common. In the fifth stanza, the sons whom the blooming and matchless maidens are to bear, are called upon to strike terror in the enemies of Slovenes. Then in the sixth stanza it is explained how, or rather when, the young ones will have do this – when the hour strikes, they will be called upon to defend their home. There is a

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suggestion of inevitability here, a sense that the homeland will have to be fought for at some time in the future. Compared to many fighting anthems – in particular, the Slovene anthem ‘Forward the Flag of Slava/ Glory’ which preceded this anthem – this is all very mild. There is no mention of death or the blood of one’s enemies or even of one’s martyrs.4 More importantly, there is no call to hate. Instead, the dominant sentiment of the sixth stanza is that of joyful hope and trust in the love of the youth for their homeland, a love that will motivate them to defend their home. These sentiments of hope and love dominate the whole poem; even the calls for martial valour are enveloped in this warmth of feeling. The usual elements of fighting or marching anthems are here rather subdued by the joy and universal affection that this drinking song exudes. As a drinking song, ‘Zdravljica’ is a rare anthem brimming with the joy of apparently borderless fellow feeling. What makes ‘Zdravljica’ decisively different from any other anthem is that the final stanzas essentially contain no national sentiment at all; rather they are transcendent of the national world view. It is of further interest that the most cosmopolitan stanza in the song, the seventh, is the one the Slovenian government, in 1990, chose to stand alone as the lyrics of the national anthem. One may be tempted to see the singing of ‘Zdravljica’ as something in the light of a parody of national sentiment. And yet we may be sure both that Presˇeren’s intention was sincere (and patriotic in its way) and that those who sing the song today do so to sincerely express their devotion to Slovenia as the sovereign state in Europe which it has become. Every anthem is an address to, or display for, both the self and others. It is an expression of solidarity among those who sing together. In the case of ‘Zdravljica’ the address of the seventh stanza is clearly to the world beyond Slovenia’s borders. To those beyond the now national frontier, the friendly invitation is to imbibe. Although the collective persona selfaddressed by those singing is the male of drinking age and inclination, this is not to say that others might not wish to join in. The act of drinking in convivial celebratory mode suggests in outline an essentially patriarchal rite of self-recognition. So the becoming nation defines itself, perhaps not as, but from the point of view of, those who drink. Its outward address suggests a friendly overture: the thing we could do together, friend, is to drink, rather than perhaps, to fight. Thus Slovenia’s anthem (in its current version) appeals to the universality of sentiments implying the participation of national entities

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in a cheerful cosmopolis – a glocality of neighbours and friends. Slovenia’s anthem can be said to thus transform the anthem’s usual object of national devotion, that is the clearly bounded nation state, into a diffuse feeling of universal solidarity with national subjects in general. The synecdoche implied suggests drinkers gathered convivially under vines are the model of good international relations. In this manner, Slovenian nationhood and brotherhood among nations is implied by a particular proven facility for brotherhood, that is the capacity to imbibe. Through these rhetorical means one might claim that, in ‘Zdravljica’, the object of Slovenian national devotion is nationhood in general. The objective of the song is the acceptance of Slovenia as brother nation among neighbours.

All the drinkers of the world unite, or not? This drinking context and the call to imbibe together makes the whole poem a rather unsuitable source for the Slovene national anthem in the view of some traditionally minded Slovenes. There is some suggestion that the national anthem should be a text that might be expected to project more dignity and perhaps more bellicosity. Accordingly, these traditionally-minded Slovenes prefer the current anthem’s predecessor ‘Forward the Flag of Slava/Glory’.7 Others, however, find objectionable not its drinking context or content but the ‘internationalism’ of the seventh stanza. Thus Boris Pahor, a prominent Slovene writer and public intellectual,8 recently said ‘we have an anthem which makes no mention of Slovenes and that is absurd’ (Bozˇic´ 2010). He also proposed that the new anthem should combine the lines of the second stanza: God let our land live! God let the whole Slovene world live! We are all brothers as we are sons All of a Slav mother. with the seventh stanza (Bozˇic´ 2010). In this way the anthem would include a mention of the Slovenes as well as the Slovene land. While Boris Pahor’s proposal initiated a lively debate among lawyers, literary scholars and journalists, his proposal for the change of text appeared to have generated little enthusiasm among his fellow intellectuals. There was some enthusiasm from politicians, in particular the former Prime

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Minister Janez Jansˇa who publicly backed the proposal (Sˇkrinjar 2012) but failed, when in power, to change the relevant law on anthems. However, during his premiership in 2012, at the official celebrations of Independence Day, four stanzas of the anthem were sung instead of only the seventh. The coalition government led by the Positive Slovenia Party (Pozitivna Slovenija), which replaced Jansˇa’s government in February 2013, as well as the current Slovenian president Borut Pahor, are committed to observing the law on the anthem currently in force (Sˇkrinjar 2013). In spite of this, the debate on the anthem and other state symbols continues on the pages of the leading daily Delo (Sˇvagelj 2013). It is impossible to say, at this time, whether the debate will eventually end with legislative change to the text of the anthem. While demands for a ‘Slovenisation’ or ‘nationalisation’ of this cosmopolitan anthem are perhaps only to be expected, one still wonders why these demands came two decades after the anthem’s unanimous acceptance in the national assembly and among the population at large. Why did the intellectuals and politicians proposing to nationalise the anthem in 2011 not propose to nationalise it in the early 1990s when the anthem was first introduced?9 In the gestation period of the early 1990s, the Slovenian nation faced the paradox that its best chance of coming into being was through joining Europe and that that manoeuvre was best made by at least appearing to eschew a normatively nationalist agenda. Saving the nation meant, in that context, foregoing some of the rhetorical paraphernalia of nationhood. Twenty years later, the whole ‘nationalisation’ debate concerning the national insignia and the anthem, it has been suggested, may be a diversionary ploy by politicians aiming to deflect attention from a deteriorating economic and financial situation in Slovenia and their own responsibility for it (Bozˇic´ 2013; Sˇkrinjar 2012). Nationalism and ‘nationalisation’ of political agenda are old and well-tested political diversionary ploys and the cosmopolitanism of Slovenia’s current anthem may, indeed, become yet another victim.

From a pan-Slav fighting song to the anthem of the armed forces of Slovenia ‘Naprej zastava Slave’ (‘Forward the Flag of Glory/Slava’) is a song that would have, in 1860, overtly suggested the unison of males of drinking

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age; the song was originally a call to the Slavs to go to battle and to let their rifles ‘speak’. Its connection with the drinking song discussed above extends even further to the moment of conception: its music score was conceived in one Vienna tavern and then completed in another one. But today it is no longer a song of males and for males only and it no longer suggests drinking either but rather only fighting. It is the anthem of the Slovenian armed forces (Slovenska vojska) which, like most armies of the member states of NATO, is composed both of male and female soldiers. The text of the anthem was written by a 25-year-old poet Simon Jenko who studied philosophy, economics and then law in Vienna. In Vienna, Simon became a member of the first non-German singing society – the Slovene Singing Society (Slovensko pevsko drusˇtvo) – founded in 1859 by his namesake and compatriot Davorin Jenko, a law student with a love for performing music. According to one source (Pirnat 1915), in early 1860 Simon gave Davorin, who was the choirmaster of the Society, the lyrics of the poem (initially entitled only ‘Naprej!’ (Forward!)), hoping Davorin would compose an appropriate score for it. Davorin found no inspiration for the music until 16 May 1860. While sitting in the Viennese tavern near the university, he read an article in the principal Viennese daily, Die Presse, which called the Slovene language ‘incomprehensible stuttering’ (Bric 2010). This disgusted him so much that it inspired the tune of the future anthem; and so he went to another tavern in Prater called ‘Zum Hirschen’ and there put the melody and the text on paper (Pirnat 1915).10 The song became very popular among Slav students in Vienna and at its first public performance by the Slovene Singing Society on 22 October 1860 it was met with rapturous jubilation and acclamation. Thus was born the principal national song of the Slovenes which, while sung on any variety of solemn occasions, received its official status as an anthem only in the anthem of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes established after the defeat and dissolution of the Habsburg Empire in 1918. The composite anthem of the Kingdom contained the stanzas from the Serbian royal anthem ‘The God of Justice’, the Croatian ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ and the Slovene ‘Forward the Flag of Glory’ and was the state anthem of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia until the overthrow of the monarchy by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1945.

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We have no records of the circumstances under which Simon Jenko conceived and wrote the text of the anthem. Knowing more of these circumstances may perhaps explain its blood-curdling rhetoric. Simon Jenko wrote many other patriotic and satirical verses, none of which seem to be as bellicose as these, as well as satirical stories. He died in 1869, aged 34, in Kranj. Like Presˇeren before him, in his last years he practised law in Kranj. Having passed his law exams in 1861, Davorin Jenko chose a career as a choirmaster first in Pancˇevo, a town in Austria-Hungary predominantly populated by Serbs. He then moved to the capital of Serbia where he was, until his retirement in 1903, the chief conductor and composer at the National Theatre in Beograd. In Serbia his musical compositions and endeavours were highly valued and he was showered with medals and high honours. It was there that he composed the music for the song ‘The God of Justice’ in the musical ‘Marko’s Sabre’ (1872), which later became the Serbian royal and state anthem and is the current anthem of the Republic of Serbia (see Chapter 4). Davorin Jenko is a highly successful composer in the history of anthem music. He composed the musical score for two different songs that then became anthems of two different states and that still, in the twenty-first century, do the same job. When composing this music he could have had no idea that these songs were going to be pressed into the service of anthemhood. Having died in 1914 in Ljubljana (then in the Habsburg Empire), he could not have anticipated that only four years later his ‘Forward the Flag of Glory/Slava’ would become part of the anthem of the Kingdom of the South Slavs and then, 80 years later, the anthem of the armed forces of his homeland, the independent state of Slovenia. ‘Naprej zastava Slave’ is yet another ‘budnica’ or national awaking song. However, in its call to battle and for the spilling of blood, it belongs to group known as fighting songs. In this respect, it deserves the label ‘the Slovene Marseillaise’. Its marching qualities cannot pass unnoticed. Indeed, its translation in English, published privately in London in 1885, carried the title: Naprei Zastava Slave´! [With Slava’s Banner, Forward!] the Slovenian National March, Or Patriotic Chant of the Slovenes, the

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South-Slavonic People of the Provinces of Carniola, Carinthia, Styria, and Istria, &c., in the Austrian Empire.11 The title of the translation also suggests a particular interpretation of its first line, which we shall discuss below. Naprej zastava Slave12

Forward!, flag of glory (or Slava)

Naprej zastava Slave, na boj junasˇka kri za blagor ocˇetnjave naj pusˇka govori!

Forward!, flag of glory (or Slava), To battle, heroic blood! For the benefice of the fatherland Let the rifle speak!

Z orozˇjem in desnico, nesimo vragu grom, zapisat v kri pravico, ki terja jo nasˇ dom.

With weapon and right hand Let’s bring thunder to the devil Let’s write in blood the justice Owed to our home.

Naprej zastava Slave, na boj junasˇka kri, za blagor ocˇetnjave naj pusˇka govori!

Forward!, flag of glory (or Slava), To battle, heroic blood! For the benefice of the fatherland Let the rifle speak!

Draga mati je prosila, roke okol vrata vila, je plakala moja mila, tu ostani ljubi moj!

My dear mother begged, hands clutched ‘round my neck, my dearest one she wept, remain here, my beloved!

Zbogom mati, ljuba zdrava, mati mi je ocˇetnjava, ljuba moja cˇast in slava, hajdmo, hajdmo, zanjo v boj!

Farewell mother, hale and loved the Fatherland is my Mother honour and glory are my beloved, Let’s go! Let’s go! to battle for her!

Naprej zastava Slave, na boj junasˇka kri, za blagor ocˇetnjave naj pusˇka govori!

Forward!, flag of glory (or of Slava), To battle, heroic blood! For the benefice of the fatherland Let the rifle speak!

Naprej! Naprej!

Forward! Forward!

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The song, without any reference to drinking and toasting, offers a much simpler tale than ‘Zdravljica’. It seems to say: Let us – we, the heroes – go to battle and there, for the good of our fatherland, let our rifles rattle in their own way. In this way, with blood, we shall achieve justice that is due to our homeland. Our dear mother begged us, the heroes, to stay away but we said to her (and to all of you listening): our Fatherland is our mother, honour and glory are what we love. Let us go to battle and get this bloody business done. There are three interlinked claims made here: that justice for our homeland can be achieved only through blood-spilling; that all the objects of affection of the singer-heroes are focused on the fatherland and its honour and glory; and that, therefore, we, the heroes, will achieve justice with our weapons. These lyrics comprise a set of highly uncompromising and dogmatic statements both from an ethical and from emotional point of view. Yet all three assertions suffer from ambiguities that serve anthem purposes very well indeed because they make this song re-usable on any occasion that gives specific content or grounds for these claims. It is unclear what kind of injustice needs to be remedied here, which makes the song suitable to confront any grievance the singers may think of. Further, if the Slovene ‘slave’ in the first line is understood to mean ‘glory’ it then becomes unclear which fatherland or homeland is referenced. The only indication we have of the actual fatherland intended is provided by the story of Davorin Jenko’s composition of the music. That story makes it clear that the fatherland is not Austria or the Habsburg Empire. The song is in Slovene, but who, in 1860, were the Slovenes? The English translation of the title (above) gives us their geographical and ethnic location, which, in 1860, would be unknown to an average English-language reader: ‘the South-Slavonic People of the Provinces of Carniola, Carinthia, Styria, and Istria, &c in the Austrian Empire’. So why do the Slovene people of these provinces have to remedy injustice by spilling the blood of their enemies? And who are their enemies? This last question appears to be the key one, to which even the story of Davorin’s composition cannot provide a persuasive answer. Are the enemies those who say that Slovene is ‘an incomprehensive stuttering’?

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Are these people the German-speaking Austrians? And therefore does their blood have to be spilt in order for this and similar insults to be remedied or removed? Perhaps to the Slav student-singers in Vienna raising all these questions would seem superfluous and pointless. In the line ‘Forward to battle, heroic blood’ the spilling of blood is, here at least, an end in itself. And how better can the failure of language (or the possibility of negotiation) be expressed than by the imperative, ‘Let the rifle speak!’ One might be tempted to ask, ‘why bother singing at all?’ until one realises that it is only through words or the music that the injunction can be conveyed. Thus words foreshadow, or perhaps invoke, the failure of words. The urging of violence in the national cause suggests that any argument or any conversation is pointless: forget argument, let the guns do the talking. If the enemy is literally demonised (‘bring thunder to the devil’) then what questions can there be? These lyrics reveal the flip-side of the boosterism seen in so many national anthems. Instead of the selfcongratulatory solipsism of the group’s self-praise, here we have exoneration of the impulse to violence against enemies who must be stopped before they destroy us: for the sake of justice thunder must be brought to the devil. In either case the logic is, of necessity, tautological. Beyond pure bellicosity, perhaps the most noteworthy aspect of the song is the role of the mother, the gendered conviction of the story. In ‘Zdravljica’ women are beautiful objects symbolic of the nation’s beauty, they are what is worth defending. In contrast, in ‘Naprej zastava slave’ motherhood is a restraint to just martyrdom. Although it is heart wrenching, the mother must be cast aside in order to get on with the blood spilling – that is what the nation business is apparently all about. Somehow, paradoxically however, one still feels it is all being done for the mother. The anthems of southeastern Europe abound in images references to mothers and motherhood. There are only two anthem lyrics discussed in this book which do not contain any representation of mother or motherhood – the prayer-anthem of Serbia and the marching anthem of post-1945 Yugoslavia, ‘Hey Slavs’. The Serbian ‘The God of Justice’ (see Chapter 4) is firstly a prayer for a king (not a queen) and then for the collective nation, and has little room for mothers grieving over fallen sons. And ‘Hey Slavs’ (see Chapter 1) is a call to defend first the language and then the spirit of the grandfathers and this leaves no room for mothers.

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The Slovenian anthem is unusual in its rejection of the mother in favour of the fatherland. The original text of Mihanovic´’s ‘The Croatian Homeland’ and the original text of the Macedonian ‘Today Over Macedonia’ contain very similar images of mothers grieving for their lost sons (fighters who have lost their lives in the struggle for freedom and rights). In both the Croatian and Macedonian lyrics the grieving mothers are consoled for their loss by appeals to the heroism and just cause for which their sons have perished. Interestingly, these references to the grieving mothers (a standard anthemic device) were later removed from the text of the official anthems. In Bosnia and Herzegovina’s first anthem ‘You are the One and Only’ (see Chapter 7) and Montenegro’s ‘Oh the Radiant Dawn of May’ (see Chapter 5), the homeland of the singers is equated with their mother, which is yet another common anthemic device. In contrast ‘Forward the Flag of Glory/Slava’ stands alone in the restraints that mothers, and beloved women in general, put on males bent on heroic acts for the sake of the fatherland, honour and glory.

Which cause does the song advance? Glory or Slavdom or something else? Whether the song should be read in terms of single-minded pursuit of glory depends on how one reads the first line of the song. The first English translators read ‘slava’ with the capital ‘S’ as a proper name and so did, perhaps more surprisingly, the learned contributor to the official journal of the Slovenian Armed Forces (Bric 2010). The first publication of the poem in the Slovenski glasnik in 1860, had ‘slave’ but then when the poem/song was published the next time in Pesmarica, edited by R. Razlog, in 1863, this word was printed as ‘Slave’ (Jenko 1964: 254–6). If you take ‘Slava’ to be a proper name, then it is the proper name of the mother of all Slavs, allegedly a divinity of the pre-Christian Slav religion, one of the divinities to whom the ‘Perun’ of the original of ‘Hey Slavs’ refers (see Chapter 1). According to this interpretation, the first line should read ‘Forward the Flag of Slava’. On this interpretation, the first line and thus the whole song should be read as advancing the flag and the cause of Slavdom, of all Slavs and not only Slovenes (who are not named at all). Although this interpretation of the first line is far from being universally accepted, it would explain why the song was so popular among other Slav students and intellectuals in Vienna, in particular, Croats, Czechs and

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Bulgarians (Pirnat 1915). This was a fighting song of justice-seeking Slavs and so resonated with at least of some of the unemployed and resentful youthful and Slavic-speaking intelligentsia in Vienna. The justice they were seeking was based on the recognition of equality – primarily cultural equality – with the Austrian Germans. It was a cris de coeur of the marginalised Slav intelligentsia and a ‘cris’ that took on a particularly bloodthirsty expression that now we find difficult to understand. However, all the scholarly as well as media commentators on this song still fail to address a rather obvious if unanswerable question: why did these highly educated Slavs in 1860s Vienna cry for blood and battle? Unlike ‘La Marseillaise’, ‘Forward the flag of glory/Slava’ was never meant as a war song or a song of armed insurrection. There is also no evidence that any of the singing Slav students were at the time even dreaming of, let alone planning, insurrection. Indeed, after the revolutions of 1848, the Slav peoples, including the Slovenes, of the Habsburg monarchy never rose in armed rebellion against their Habsburg rulers. The first time that the song was actually used in war was during the Nazi occupation of the country (1941– 5). The Communist-led Partisan resistance forces sang and broadcast the song from 1942 onwards to mobilise resistance against the German occupation and their local collaborators in Slovenia. Interestingly, the local collaborators, the Slovene Home Guard (domobranci), appear to have sung the song as well (Pavlovic´ 1990: 209). In view of the ambiguity of its text and fighting/ stirring qualities of its music, this is not surprising at all. Apparently in 1866 even the Prussian orchestras played the melody and in 1876 it was played at the entry of the Russian troops to major Bulgarian towns during the Russo-Turkish war (Pavlovic´ 1990: 207). Following the Communist victory in Yugoslavia in 1945, ‘Forward the Flag of Glory’ (but not of Slava) became the unofficial anthem of the People’s (later Socialist) Republic of Slovenia, a unit in the Communistruled federation. While its use was not prescribed by law, it was used at state and celebratory occasions, usually following the equally unofficial state anthem of Yugoslavia, ‘Hey Slavs’ (Pavlovic´ 1990: 209). In 1989, when the League of Communists of Slovenia started the process of separation from the federation and the campaign for its ‘return’ to Europe, the unofficial anthem was replaced by the official one ‘Zdravljica’. As discussed above, this song focuses on affection towards one’s neighbours – in Slovenia’s case Austrians, Hungarians and Italians

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as well as Croats. Yet, the unofficial and bellicose anthem was not, however, totally discarded. On 2 June 1991 ‘Forward the Flag of Glory’ became, as part of the Rules of the Territorial Defense Forces of Slovenia, the official anthem of the armed force. This group, originally a secondtier defence force of the federal units of SFRY, would soon be transformed into the Slovenian armed forces (Slovenska vojska). The Slovene recruits and soldiers thus gained an anthem to sing when taking the oath of service or, if necessary, in battle.13 And a battle, albeit a short one, came soon. On 24 June 1991, Slovenian forces blockaded the barracks of the Yugoslav People’s Army stationed in Slovenia, an armed force composed predominantly of fellow Slavs (Jansˇa 1994). There is no record of the song being sung during the sporadic fighting over the next ten days, but if it was, this was the last time it was sung in battle. As of 2014, Slovenia, a member of NATO and the EU, faces no threats and has, strictly speaking, no enemies. What role does such a bellicose anthem have for Slovenia now? The answer is found in the official journal of the Slovenian armed forces: At this moment the song ‘Forward the Flag of Slava!’ possibly appears to many people too belligerent and pan-Slavic but without any doubt with its stirring and patriotic charge it had, during a century and a half, an important mobilising and national awakening role. It was an obligatory part of the patriotic struggle of the Slovenes to maintain our identity, language and culture through the most difficult ordeals (Bric 2010: 27).14 The anthem may thus appear a worthy and important relic of past struggles while still retaining the potential for ‘mobilising and national awakening’ in any future struggle that the Slovenes may face.

Two faces of Slovene national identity Among national anthems, ‘Zdravljica’ is also something of an enigma, because it is the most cosmopolitan and at once the most libidinous of anthems. In this postmodern anthem we read a rejection of the project of modernity and concomitantly a rejection of commitment to the notion of nation per se. It is of great interest that the lyrics for an anthem performing such paradoxical functions should date from the golden age

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of nascent European nationalism, particularly as nationhood within Europe is the most convenient means for the Slovenian people to be themselves and enjoy their best prospects. In a song lauding the consumption of a drug as the means to evince a particular and desirable form of solidarity, we perhaps find yet another rejection of the project of modernity that seeks to find rational grounds for national solidarity. To put it in context, the national anthem of Jamaica is not, nor is it likely ever to be, some ‘easy skankin’ number by Bob Marley and the Wailers. And yet Slovenia’s anthem is an encouragement to the other nations of Europe to sit and imbibe (at least metaphorically) with the Slovenians. With its anthem, Slovenia, as an independent state, aims to suggest that it is a convivial and thus a good candidate for joining the European club of nation states, the European Community (now, Union). The intention, conscious or otherwise, behind installing and retaining ‘Zdravljica’ is one we might describe as pragmatic. The adopting of a drinker’s putative antianthem as anthem demonstrates a libidinous pragmatism, a stance that one could argue is well suited to the aspirations of Slovenia. This is of course not to suggest that Presˇeren was in any way a pragmatist although he certainly was libidinously adept. In writing ‘Zdravljica’, Presˇeren intended to write a drinking song imbued with a strong national sentiment. The poem and its national sentiment have a cosmopolitan quality that we may associate with the European pannationalism of 1848, a quality that was to become a new kind of national capital to be exploited, in new and unexpected ways, some 140 years later. There is no reason to suppose that Presˇeren believed he was writing a poem that would one day become the national anthem of Slovenia. In this sense, he could not have imagined that in writing his drinking song he was creating a political, and not only cultural, asset that could be exploited in the process of gaining independence for the homeland, which, at the time of his writing, had no set boundaries or even clear aspirations for self-government. However, from the perspective of the late 1980s it is not difficult to see why ‘Zdravljica’ should have been chosen as the face to show the world just at the moment when the only desirable foreign policy goal of the emerging sovereign state was to join the then European Community (now the European Union).15 In fact, there was no more suitable song either in Slovene literature or in the literature of any other South Slavic people.

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Given its cosmopolitan and anti-national spirit, one may yet ask whether this song can indeed function as a national anthem, particularly for a nation that needs to set itself apart from its neighbouring nations and other more distant friendly nations. Its functioning in the role of poem-as-anthem, we shall argue below, is assisted by the anthem-like parts of the poem omitted from the song as officially sung. If we consider which of Presˇeren’s words are included and which are excluded, we can easily see that the more bellicose parts have been omitted. The anthem as presented to the world is, in English, in its official translation, as follows: God’s blessing on all nations, Who long and work for that bright day, When o’er earth’s habitations No war, no strife shall hold its sway; Who long to see That all men free, No more shall foes, but neighbours be. It can be argued that although the fighting words and those words suggesting the exclusive qualities of those singing are not included in the official song, they will nevertheless be in the minds of those singing. That is because this poem, which is at the core of the Presˇeren’s canon, is one that all Slovenian schoolchildren have had to commit to memory during their schooling since 1918. If an anthem simultaneously represents a people-as-nation to itself and to the world at large, then the sentiment thus expressed and understood within the family of that nation is likely to differ in some degree from that which the outsider will perceive. In this case we can see that there is a subtext to that manner of representation, one that will operate largely at an unconscious level for the subject-in-unison. In ‘Zdravljica’ the call for sacrifice precedes the text of the anthem as sung and would have been in the minds of those who know the whole poem. The call to arms in the poem (in italics below) follows the praise of Slovene maidenhood. God, let Slovene girls bloom More beautiful than precious roses. There are no maidens more comely.

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Sons you bear will be the terror Of our enemies. And young men now, your toast is raised. There isn’t a poison to kill Your love of country When the hour strikes, You and all of us so shall Defend the homeland With all our hearts. So, to sing ‘Zdravljica’ is, in some degree, to concur with the ideas expressed in the above parts of the poem omitted from the official anthem. One might also contend that it is to participate in a covert rite of exclusion: those only listening cannot know the whole of the story of what we are singing. A Slovene singing ‘Zdravljica’ may thus feel significantly more proud or defiant in the national cause than appears to the average European subject attending to the song. This difference (and distance in understanding) in itself constitutes a kind of pragmatic solidarity. We know who we are and what that entails but what advantage would there be in telling the whole of that story to the world? There is nothing atypical in this gap in understanding between the outside listener and the subject-inunison to which the Slovenian anthem, seen in context, draws attention. Why then was it so easy for Slovenes to express a cosmopolitan ethos through their anthem when all around them appeared mired in the need to assert (or re-assert) a narrowly national identity? The answer is in the Slovene consciousness of what lies ‘all around’ Slovenia, particularly in the fact that Slovenia borders more with the rest of Europe (Italy, Austria and Hungary) than it does with the rest of the former Yugoslavia (Croatia). To the Slovenes, looking in the direction of Europe it was clear that exit to Europe from Yugoslavia was the pragmatic and perhaps the only effective solution to the problems of geo-political identity and integrity posed by the break-up of Yugoslavia. This observation is not intended to downplay Slovenia’s role in bringing that break-up about, but it does fit a long-established pattern of pragmatism in those political manoeuvres that might be deemed Slovene in origin. In conclusion, the uniqueness of Presˇeren’s poem cum song lyric lies in encapsulating a Slovenian spirit of pragmatism in the geopolitical

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sphere. Pragmatically putting behind them the question of identity, in singing Presˇeren’s toast, Slovenes ironically position their national identity as other-than-national. In what might be thought a quest not to offend, they perhaps give the European Union its least problematic (one might also say most politically correct) of anthems, one to which no other nation could possibly object. When we consider how problematic the idea of unisonance has been for Europe or at least the European Union can see Presˇeren’s toast in the light of a helpful gesture to the EU from an enthusiastic newcomer. A question as to sincerity arises where pragmatism is established as a motive. Yet it would be unfair to doubt the cosmopolitan (or at least pan-European) credentials of Slovenian national aspiration from 1990 to the present. The more recent demands to ‘nationalise’ the anthem by adding an overt reference to the Slovenes and their land only confirms that in Slovenia the anthem is still perceived as cosmopolitan, perhaps too cosmopolitan or ‘internationalist’ for some. Having joined the European Union in 2004, the pragmatic motives for retaining a cosmopolitan anthem may indeed now be behind the nation. One might go so far as to say that retaining such an anthem may today be seen as at least a partial denial of the pragmatism that was impetus for installing it in the first place. However, it must be remembered that the cosmopolitan anthem is not the only anthem in operation in Slovenia. Its bellicose predecessor ‘Naprej zastave slave’ has only been demoted to the more restricted and in some ways more appropriate function of military anthem. When comparing ‘Zdravljica’ with ‘Naprej zastave slave’, one cannot imagine two more opposite injunctions than those presented by the two successive anthems. Yet, the Slovenian state retains a use for each in much the same manner as Plato notes that the Doric and the Phrygian modes (the warlike and the peaceful) ought to be retained by a sensible state that has expelled or otherwise deterred its troublemaker poets (Plato 1952: 76). Just as ‘Zdravljica’ reveals to us the evolving moods of the inebriated so these two songs together reveal the Janus-faced nation, masked for tragedy or comedy, equipped equally for war or peace. The two aspects of the current Slovene national identity are captured succinctly but accurately by these two national anthems16.

CHAPTER 4 PRAYING FOR ONE'S PEOPLE: SERBIA 1872

‘God of Justice’ (‘Bozˇe pravde’) is the first and, so far, the only state anthem that Serbia, as an independent state, has ever had. Its present lyrics, which closely follow the original of 1882, were set by the Law on the Appearance and the Use of the Coat of Arms, Flag and the Anthem of the Republic of Serbia, 11 May 2009 (Zakon 2009). This law replaces the Recommendation of the National Assembly of Serbia of 28 August 2004, which introduced the current lyrics (replacing ‘the Serb king’ of the original with the ‘Serb lands’) and recommended its use as the state anthem ‘until the final determination regarding the state symbols’ (Preporuka 2004). The final determination came in Article 7 of the Constitution, adopted unanimously by the National Assembly of Serbia in November 2006, stating the state anthem of the Republic to be ‘God of Justice’. Although the song started its anthem career in 1882, the Constitution of 2006 is the first constitution of Serbia that proclaims ‘God of Justice’ to be a state anthem and the law of 2009 the first law to set out its lyrics and regulate its use.1 Prior to this royal proclamations or ministerial decisions or regulations determined what the anthem was. Its late legal codification was, perhaps, in part due to its doubtful popularity. In the referendum on the national symbols, held in May 1992, ‘God of Justice’ came second, after the ‘March on Drina’ (Pavlovic´ 1998: 150) (see below). This makes ‘God of Justice’ relatively unique; no other state anthem has been adopted after getting a second (and not the first) place in a national referendum on anthems.

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The anthem is certainly unique among the current anthems of the new states discussed in this book. It is the only prayer-anthem that follows the model of the British ‘God Save the King/Queen’. It is also a unique prayer-anthem because the singers pray not for the safety and well-being of their monarch or ruler but for their ‘lands’, the word that replaced ‘king’ in the original anthem. Aleksandar Karadjordjevic´, the son of the last Serbian (and Yugoslav) king, Petar II Karadjordjevic´, currently lives in the palace of his grandfather in Beograd and is officially addressed as ‘prestolonaslednik’ (the heir to the throne) but Serbia is a republic and its state anthem thus can no longer be a prayer for a nonexistent king. When Montenegro seceded from the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro in May 2006 and thus made Serbia an independent state, the Constitution in force in Serbia was still the one instituted in 1990 under the Communist regime of Slobodan Milosˇevic´ when Serbia was still a federal unit in the SFRY. The 1990 Constitution affirmed, for the first time in Serbian constitutional history (Pavlovic´ 1998: 145), that Serbia had an anthem but did not identify the actual song. The Yugoslav anthem ‘Hey Slavs’ continued to be used, without lyrics, as the state anthem of the federal state until 2006. The overthrow of the Milosˇevic´ regime on 5 October 2000 brought no change to the Constitution in Serbia nor a change in its anthem. The successive coalition governments found much more urgent matters to attend to than the change of constitution or the adoption of a new anthem. Faced with the adoption of a separate Montenegrin anthem in 2004, the minority government in Serbia led by Vojislav Kosˇtunica, a legal scholar, passed the above Recommendation, making the ‘God of Justice’ a temporary anthem of Serbia. The secession of Montenegro from the State Union, the breakdown of talks with the EU as well as the threat of the implosion of the minority government, led to the negotiations between the four major parties in Serbia (both in government and in opposition), which in September 2006 produced the draft of the constitution (Vreme 2006). During negotiations only the Socialist (formerly Communist) Party appeared to object to the adoption of ‘God of Justice’ as the state anthem (primarily because its associations with the monarchy) but soon accepted the anthem as all other parties did. For

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Prime Minister Kosˇtunica, a former anti-Communist dissident and a practising Orthodox Christian, its royalist associations were rather appealing reminders of the glorious days of the Serbian kingdom. Various commentators of liberal and libertarian persuasion noted, however, that this was an anthem of only one national group – the Serbs – in a state that was multinational (with over 20 per cent of the population not Serb) and that the religious form of the anthem was also not acceptable to a large number of non-believers (Katalaksija 2004).2 But in September 2006 no parliamentary party apparently found these features of the anthem objectionable. In October 2006 the draft of the Constitution was put to a hastily convened referendum and once it was passed the Constitution was promulgated by the National Assembly. The inappropriateness of the song for non-Serb citizens of Serbia such as Bosniaks was later raised again in 2012, in a public debate over the refusal by Adem Ljaljic´, a Bosniak soccer player in the Serbian national soccer team, to sing the Serbian anthem (C´orovic´ 2012). Although the overthrow of Milosˇevic´ and his Socialist Party in 2000 brought down the barriers to the singing of ‘God of Justice’ on public and official occasions that the Socialist Party had previously put up, its adoption first as a temporary anthem in 2004 and then in 2006 as the ‘permanent’ anthem was not a result of a sudden surge in its popularity or an expression of novel national aspirations and hopes (or anxieties). Apart from those who were not Serbs and who had no reason to pray for the safety of the Serb people, there were also those citizens who had nostalgic memories of singing of ‘Hey Slavs’ and who preferred its stirring international and secular lyrics to the Serbo-centric prayer-lyrics of the new/old anthem.3 The legalisation of ‘God of Justice’ was thus triggered mainly by the changes in inter-state relations (with Montenegro and with the EU) that had little, if any, relation to popular self-perceptions or aspirations of the Serbs as a nation.

A prayer for unity and a hope for new happiness The current lyrics of the anthem (Zakon 2009) remove all the previous references to the monarchy; the removed words are given in brackets in the translation.

Bozˇe pravde

God of Justice4

Bozˇe pravde, ti sˇto spase od propasti dosad nas, cˇuj i odsad nasˇe glase i od sad nam budi spas.

God of justice, thou who saved us from ruin until now, hear our voices from now on too and be our salvation.

Moc´nom rukom vodi, brani buduc´nosti srpske brod, Bozˇe spasi, Bozˇe hrani, srpske zemlje, srpski rod!

With mighty hand guide, protect the vessel of the Serb5 future God save6 God protect, the Serb lands [king], the Serb people!7

Slozˇi srpsku brac´u dragu na svak dicˇan slavan rad, sloga bic´e poraz vragu a najjacˇi srpstvu grad.

Unite the dear, Serb brothers into every glorious high deed Unity will be our foes’ defeat and the mightiest fortress of Serbdom.

Nek na srpstva blista grani bratske sloge zlatan plod, Bozˇe spasi, Bozˇe hrani srpske zemlje, srpski rod!

May the golden fruit of brotherly unity glisten on the Serb branch God save, God protect, the Serb lands [king,] the Serbian people!

Nek na srpsko vedro cˇelo tvog ne padne gneva grom Blagoslovi Srbu selo polje, njivu, grad i dom!

May on the cheerful Serb brow never fall the thunder of your wrath bless the village, the meadow and field, the town and home of the Serb!

Kad nastupe borbe dani k’ pobedi mu vodi hod Bozˇe spasi, Bozˇe hrani srpske zemlje, srpski rod!

And when the days of struggle come guide his steps towards victory. God save, God protect, the Serb lands [king], the Serb people!

Iz mracˇnoga sinu groba srpske slave novi sjaj nastalo je novo doba Novu srec´u, Bozˇe daj!

The new lustre of the Serb glory [crown] flares from a dark tomb a new era has began, Oh God give us a new happiness.

PRAYING FOR ONE'S PEOPLE: SERBIA Otadzˇbinu srpsku brani pet vekovne borbe plod Bozˇe spasi, Bozˇe brani moli ti se srpski rod!

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Defend the Serb fatherland [kingdom] the fruit of five hundred years of struggle. God save [the Serbian king], God protect the Serb people pray to you!

This is a prayer-anthem with a quite few self-congratulatory verses. Although it is no longer a monarchical prayer-anthem, it also contains series of cliche´s or topoi found in other monarchical prayers, such as the Habsburg ‘Gott erhalte unser Kaiser’ (‘God save our Emperor’) of 1854 and the Romanov ‘Bozˇe carja hrani’ (‘God save the Tzar’) of 1833, reproduced below in English translation. God save our Emperor May God save [erhaltet ], may God protect Our Emperor, our land! Powerful through the support of the faith, he guides us with his wise hand. Let us defend the crown of His fathers against any enemy: always the fate of Austria remains bound with the Habsburg throne. Let’s keep strongly together, in the unity stays the power, with united strengths, even the worst can be easily overcome. Let us as in ‘a band of brothers’ aim for a common target. Hail for the Emperor, hail for the Land, Austria will stay forever!8 The lyrics of the national anthem of the Austrian Empire (of which the above are only the first three stanzas) were written by Johann Gabriel Seidel. This anthem was in use (in its 11 official languages) in the Habsburg Empire from 1853 until its dissolution in 1918.

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The following is the Russian imperial anthem: God save our Tzar God save [hrani ] the noble Tsar! Long may he live, in pow’r, In happiness, In peace to reign! Dread of his enemies, Faith’s sure defender, God save the Tsar!9 These lyrics were written by Vasily Zhukovsky and adopted as the official anthem (consisting of this stanza alone) of the Russian Empire from 1833 until 1917. Prior to that a longer song, entitled ‘The Prayer of the Russians’ by the same author (using the music of the British ‘God Save the King’), was in use as the national anthem. The ‘Prayer’ starts with an almost identical verse, obviously copied from the British anthem: ‘God, save the Tzar’.10 In the above three anthems, God is exhorted to save and to protect the monarch and the land or the people. The word translated as ‘to save’ in all three anthems means ‘to preserve’ or ‘to nurture’. In Serbian and Russian the word is the same – ‘hraniti’ – and in German it is ‘erhalten’. God is thus exhorted to preserve and nurture the crowned head and thus save him. In the current Serbian version, God is asked to do all this for the Serb lands and people. The preservation and salvation primarily consists in facilitating two achievements: one is victory over their adversaries or enemies and the other is the unity of the people. In both the Serbian and the Austrian anthem there is an almost equal emphasis on victory over the enemies and unity of the people. However, in the very brief Russian anthem, victory stands alone and unity is not mentioned. In other monarchical prayers, victory and unity are often intertwined and this is how we find them in the Serbian ‘God of Justice’. The unity of the monarch’s subjects is claimed to guarantee the defeat of the foe. In addition, the foe is identified by the word that also means ‘devil’: the foe is a devil and the devil can be defeated by the unity of people. The argument seems to be that dissent and disunity among the crown’s/ government’s subjects opens the road to the victory of the foe/devil.

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Therefore, it is necessary to stick together and support the monarch/ government. This ‘prayer’ is of course an argument presented to the people and not to God and thus the exhortation to unity in this lyric is a pretext for a scare-mongering argument. The emphasis on unity was certainly needed and the second and the third stanzas of the song are both given to the topic of unity, here presented as golden ‘fruit’. Note that the golden fruit in the second stanza in the original 1872 version of the song (reproduced below) was freedom. Freedom was later dropped in the 1882 version – the version celebrating the proclamation of the Kingdom of Serbia under the Obrenovic´ dynasty. As we shall see below, the call for unity in 1882 was a response to the threat that this dynasty faced from the rival dynasty, the Karadjordjevic´ line. The unity that the original song invokes is the unity of subject-singing-in-unison under one monarch and his dynasty. The anthem’s initial function was, apparently, to scare its subjects-in-unison into supporting the incumbent dynasty for fear of outside foes. In September 2006, instead of the monarch there was a rather wobbly minority coalition government in Serbia facing the recent secession of Montenegro and the imminent secession of Kosovo. This government, regardless of its ideological and political orientation, would have certainly needed all the unity it could gather. And praying for unity might have been as efficacious a method of getting it as any other. Importantly, the image of the God to whom the prayer is directed in the Serbian anthem differs from those of the Habsburg, Romanov and British anthems. By describing him as God of Justice, the anthem insists that the demands or requests made of God, on behalf of the Serbian people, are requests for justice and are not for favours. The Serbian king and his subjects deserve, as a matter of justice, all the blessings that are listed in the anthem. In fact, God is exhorted to grant the whole list as a matter of justice and it is only in the last verse that it is disclosed that the Serbian people pray for this to happen. The anthem is thus a hymn to Serbian just demands rather than an expression of humility before the God whose justice invests the faith of a people: the Serbs demand justice, rather than mercy or blessing. As with ‘God Save the King/Queen’, an apparently benign expression of appropriate power relations (a prayer from the created to the creator) belies a contractual ploy. In ‘God Save the King/Queen’ this is more or less a warning to the sovereign that the monarchy is (or should be) of the constitutional kind.11 In the case of

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‘God of Justice’ the prayer conceals a demand made of God that the Serbs should have justice. The basis of Serb demands is not clear but the implication is that in the past God was just to the Serbs and therefore should continue to be so. The reader is struck immediately by the range of imagery or scenery in the text, a mixture of metaphors for the putative Serbian condition. These are things that may have faded from the consciousness of those singing, that is, those who know the song ‘by heart’. There is a ship of state steering from antique catastrophe to unknowable future. The good ship, sung on its way, has fortress solidity in the second stanza. Then there is the call for brotherhood of the Serbs, which in the third stanza is transformed into golden fruit on a branch. There was obviously no more evocative image for the value that was placed on fraternity – a feature that, as we have seen above, was sorely lacking in 1882 as well as in 2006. Apart from the victory and unity, the anthem intriguingly requests a blessing for ‘fields, meadows, town and home’. The image projected is that of peace, expressing desire for security. The overall message appears to be: leave the Serbs to lead their own lives peacefully, until they have to fight, and when they do, grant them victory. This relatively modest request stands in contrast to the frenetic insistence on unity that precedes it. The peaceful and modest tone is continued in the next stanza where the request is extended to granting ‘new happiness’ that should follow the proclamation of the kingdom. The last stanza opens, a little gloomily one might say, with the image of glory shining out of the darkness of the grave, promising happiness as fruit of 500 years of battle, overseen by God, whose protection was no doubt the key to survival all this time. This ultimate image of the centuries of the battle is a selfunderstood allusion to the ‘Ottoman yoke’, the rule of the Islamic Ottomans (from Turkey) over Serbia and the Balkans from 1389 until 1815, when the first Obrenovic´, Milosˇ, led the Second Serbian Uprising against the Ottomans. Unlike the First Uprising that failed, this one eventually resulted, in 1830, in the restricted (‘conditional’) independence of Serbia and the granting of the title of heriditary prince to Milosˇ Obrenovic´. The promotion of the princely line into the royal one is what this anthem was initially meant to celebrate/legitimate. Throughout this rollercoaster ride of national imagery, one is constantly reminded that health, safety and protection are achieved

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through God’s good offices; hence the efficacy of prayer, and/or of the prayer-song. In the last stanza, God is told, ‘the Serb people pray to you’. But is this song an actual prayer or is it the description of one, something like a recipe for a prayer? If this is only a recipe for a prayer to God, a description of a prayer, how can it be effective in securing salvation and protecting the king? In addition, if God has indeed provided protection over the past 500 years, why is there a need to pray to him now to secure more of the same? This is, of course, a problem for all anthems of the prayer type. The widespread and continuous use of the prayer-songs perhaps also indicates that their exhortative functions are not hampered by the logical questions here indicated. Prayerfulness is not however the only indeterminacy besetting this song. The very motive for the song is also ambiguous. Why is all this singing being done? What are the political effects of the song? Those in unison tell the listener, ‘Unity will be the enemy’s defeat’. This fact is what constitutes ‘a glorious deed’ for the purposes of this song. The point of singing Serbian unity seems to be to annoy some other unnamed party, one obviously excluded from (and by) this particular act of unison. The theme of unity predates the song by more than half a century, in the coat of arms known from the First Serb Uprising of 1803. The leader of that uprising was the first Karadjordjevic´, Karadjordje Petrovic´, founder of the rival dynasty to the Obrenovic´ dynasty. This coat of arms has four semi-circular signs which were often read as reversed Cyrillic letters standing for the abbreviation of the slogan ‘only unity can save the Serb’ (‘Samo sloga spasava Srbina’). This first coat of arms, unveiled by a Karadjordjevic´, invoked unity as the source of salvation. However, unity was not achieved and the Obrenovic´s, more than half a century after the First Uprising, preferred to turn to God to pray for the unity that had eluded them and the Serb people after so many centuries of struggle. More than a century later, in 2006, the highly disunited political parties of Serbia, facing two consecutive secessions from their state, turned again to God to pray for the unity that eludes them, the Serb people and the Serb ‘lands’. The anthem thus shows the continuous need for unity from the very beginning of the modern Serbian state to the present. The themes of the anthem can be summarised as: unity, victory, peace and security, essentially suggestive of happiness after a long struggle for

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the new era. All this seems rather conventional and it is. At the risk of a tautology, we can say that the cliche´ is serviceable precisely because it is recyclable. In 2006, a new era was dawning, albeit in somewhat different circumstances to those of 1882, and Serbia had again become a state independent of others. In 2000, a government based on a wide coalition of liberal and democratic parties had returned to Serbia after more than half a century of rule of the Communist Party and its successors. Serbia’s new-found single-state or independent status by 2006 was the result of almost a decade of wars, international sanctions and widespread misery – culminating in the NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999. Thus the anthem echoes Serbia’s claim to happiness in its new found independence after such a long and terrible struggle. The demands/desires for peace, security and happiness are indeed common in many national songs and anthems and these demands also provide a ground for national self-congratulation. The singers congratulate themselves on having the laudable and exemplary desires of a peaceful people who are as much focused on themselves as a nation as they should be: the singers desire peace and happiness for themselves but do not want to deny them to any other nation or group of singers. This is a standard and acceptable type of single-nation-centricity found in many national songs and anthems. In the context of a decade of war, peace and security seem as desirable as they had been in 1882. Unity is once again at a premium within a society with huge ideological and social cleavages. In 2006 there was no indication of any future violent struggle but there was a clear premonition of the impending ‘loss’ of the province Kosovo.12 And so, instead of calling for unity to preserve the dynasty, the anthem can be easily interpreted as calling for unity to preserve the territory. In fact, the changes in the text of the formerly royal anthem strongly suggest such a territorial interpretation. Throughout the anthem the word ‘king’ is replaced by ‘lands’ (‘zemlje’) and the word ‘crown’ in the last stanza is replaced by ‘fatherland’ (‘otadzˇbina’). Thus God is now, in the Republic of Serbia, entreated to protect and save not a king but the lands – that is, the fatherland of the Serbs. The use of the plural ‘lands’ as opposed to the ‘land’ may indeed suggest that the fatherland of the Serbs is not limited to the internationally recognised borders of the Republic of Serbia; beyond its boundaries, there are other lands, populated by the Serbs, that may also a part of their fatherland. It may refer in particular to the

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Republika Srpska (the Serb Republic), an entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina, which from 1992 until 2006 had the very same anthem ‘God of Justice’ with the original lyrics (see Chapter 7). In summary, the vagueness of the cliche´s in ‘God of Justice’ makes the anthem re-usable both in peace and in crisis. For crisis there is an exhortation to unity and a request for God’s assistance and mighty hand in leading a people to victory. In post-crisis situations there is a request for peace and security. The exhortations and the outcomes are as vague as they are mutually reinforcing, hence their serviceability. For the purposes of expressing goals, the superhuman agent God functions as an addressee, one whose passivity assures the permanent relevance of exhortation in the given form. The cliche´s entailed make the Serbs look rather ordinary – similar to any group that wants unity, victory, peace and happiness, and thus just like any other anthemgrinding nation. The Serbs’ claim to distinctness lies in the five centuries of struggle, in other words in their perseverance in a struggle for independence. The cliche´s of nation are delivered in a language of glitter and gold: unity is golden, the crown glistens, the dawn shines. The light of the future-as-national contrasts with the darkness of the tomb and thus the past of subjugation. This simple contrast between a dark past and a bright future serves to underline the value of the new era’s newfound happiness. In spite of its relatively mournful, slow melody and the repetitive and vacuous refrain, exhorting the preservation and nurture of the king or the lands, true believers find in ‘God of Justice’ a song of hope for the future.

An accidental anthem: A brief history of the search for the Serbian national anthem Very few European state anthems have been written with the purpose of becoming state anthems. Most European anthems prior to gaining their official status served as national songs that were often used to mobilise the singers for national causes, in war and, perhaps more rarely, in peace. Most of the anthems discussed in this book belong in one way or another to this category. Very few anthems became anthems by accident, in the absence of any more suitable or popular national song, ‘God of Justice’ also appears to belong to this category.

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Its original lyrics were the curtain-song of the play ‘Marko’s Sabre’ (Markova sablja), which was billed as ‘a play with singing and shooting’ – something akin to a musical with some theatrical displays of martial valour or joy. The play was written and performed to celebrate the coming of age and the elevation to the throne of Prince Milan Obrenovic´. In 1872, he decided to remove the regency and proclaim himself the Prince of Serbia. To celebrate this occasion he commissioned the director of the National Theatre in Beograd, the prominent playwright of the day, Jovan Djordjevic´, to stage a play. Djordjevic´ decided to write about the sabre that the mythical hero of Serb folk songs, Marko Kraljevic´, left to posterity for the fight against foreign oppressors. The music for the songs was written by the conductor and composer of the National Theatre, Davorin Jenko, the composer of the music for ‘Forward the Flag of Glory!’ (1860), later the national song and unofficial anthem of Slovenia (see Chapter 3). All the participants of the play – both mythical and historical figures of the Serb past – turn to the Prince of Serbia in the play and sing the following:13

Bozˇe pravde, ti sˇto spase od propasti dosad nas, cˇuj i odsad nasˇe glase i od sad nam budi spas. Moc´nom rukom vodi, brani buduc´nosti srpske brod,

God of justice, thou who saved us from ruin until now, hear our voices from now on too and be our salvation from now on. With mighty hand guide, protect the vessel of the Serb future

Bozˇe spasi, Bozˇe hrani, srpskog kneza, srpski rod!

God save God protect, the Serb prince, the Serb people

Jedna volja da zadahne Slozˇna srca, bozˇe daj! Pa da Srpstvu zora svane, Dugoj bedi dod¯e kraj! Da nam sinu lepsˇi dani, Da slobode sazri plod;

God grant one will to guide the united hearts So that the dawn breaks onto the Serbdom And the long misery comes to an end That finer days shine on us That the fruit of freedom ripens fully

Bozˇe spasi, Bozˇe hrani, srpskog kneza, srpski rod!

God save God protect, the Serb prince, the Serb people!

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As the play was staged many times both in Serbia and in Serbpopulated parts of southern Hungary (today the Serbian province of Vojvodina), the song became quite popular. Once Prince Milan decided to proclaim himself the king, he commissioned the same author to write his royal and state anthem. Djordjevic´ quickly obliged by changing the prince into the king, removing the second stanza and adding three new stanzas. This song, almost identical to the current state anthem, was sung for the first time on 22 February 1882 as the state anthem in the very same National Theatre in Beograd at the proclamation of the kingdom and the king (Pavlovic´ 1990: 165). We shall never know why the future king chose the curtain-song of a play as the basis for a state anthem. Perhaps he just liked the song and perhaps Djordjevic´ could not come up with another set of lyrics more suited for the occasion than the already existing song. As we have seen, the anthem follows the model of the imperial anthem of the neighbouring empire, Austria-Hungary, as well as the Russian Empire of the Romanovs. This may have a good enough recommendation for a new king of a small and poor kingdom that only four years previously had been a tributary of the Ottoman Empire. Previous attempts, by Milan’s adopted father, Prince Mihailo Obrenovic´, to find the lyrics suitable for a state anthem not only failed but also resulted in the best Serbian parody of an anthem: Jovan Jovanovic´ Zmaj’s ‘Jututunska narodna himna’ (‘The Yututun People’s Anthem’). In 1864, the poet Ljubomir Nenadovic´, a section head of Mihailo’s Ministry for Education, approached first the poet Djuro Jaksˇic´ and then Jovan Jovanovic´-Zmaj (editor of the satirical magazine and a well-known poet, living in Budapest, Hungary) to write a short song similar to the imperial anthems which ‘would become popular and the people’s army could sing it’ (Pavlovic´ 1990: 157). In response, Jovanovic´ wrote a long ‘People’s Anthem’, which starts with ‘God of Justice, the defender of the creatures/God of hope, God of Temptation’. In the last few lines, God is requested to provide a ruler who would be like a father and teach the singers ‘how one should be a good Serb/and to live for one’s people – or to die for them’ (Pavlovic´ 1990: 159). This poem, although put to music, did not satisfy the Minister for Education. Another poet, Vladislav V Kacˇanski, apparently in response to the same request, at the same time wrote the ‘Anthem’, which started with:

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The God of Dusˇan, great and mighty! Listen to the voice of the Serb people Accept our warm prayer Let Serbia live! Long live the prince!’ and ended with the prayer: Let the crown of glory shine over him [the prince] . . . Hearken God, God Most Illustrious, To Serbia and to your Serbian people. (Pavlovic´ 1990: 196). This sycophantic poem led Jovanovic´ to publish, in July 1865, in his satirical magazine Zmaj, ‘The Yututun People’s Anthem’: Holy God, stand by our prince [king], healthy, bouncing, arrogant and famous, because there has never been on this Earth, nor there’ll ever be anyone equal to him. This people knows it very well, it has been born for the sake of the prince [king] only, to give him taxes and praise, to wait upon him and to humbly bow to him. God Almighty, Thou that comes from the Highest, please fulfil our old desire God Almighty, do not let anyone have anything, so that the Ruler should have even more [. . .]14 Give Him the most shining presents from the Heaven, the constables, informers, policemen, if he prefers to let our foes alone, let Him vent his anger on His own people Let other peoples know about our glory, and then let us slumber in the shade

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but let a close guard be kept over us, because [in our slumber] all kinds dreams may crop up.15 This is a prayer with a vengeance – a mock-prayer for an absolutist and self-seeking ruler from an abject and subservient people. Yet there is a sense of menace in the last line ‘all kinds of dreams may crop up’. This menace came to be realised only a year after the proclamation of the kingdom, in 1883, when the mass populist party, the Radicals, rose in armed rebellion in eastern Serbia against King Milan. Finally, these ‘dreams’ led to the overthrow, in 1903, of the Obrenovic´’s dynasty and the murder of its last king, Milan’s son, Aleksandar and his wife. The overthrow of the dynasty temporarily ended the career of Djordjevic´’s ‘God of Justice’ which was, as an Obrenovic´ royal anthem, abandoned by the Karadjordjevic´ dynasty and the Radicals, now firmly in government. However, this flurry of anthems and anti-anthems provided a diverse and useful template for Djordjevic´’s curtain-song and for his ‘God of Justice’. Jovanovic´’s ‘People’s Anthem’ gave him both the first words and the title of his song – ‘God of Justice’. Jovanovic´’s anthem also asked God to ‘let the sad hearts sing again/and the old brothers embrace’ and to ‘bless our dear fatherland/bless the ruler’. These themes of the blessing of the land (‘village, field, meadow, town and home’) of brotherly unity and new happiness all reappeared in Djordjevic´’s own song. In addition, Kacˇanski’s ‘Anthem’ introduced the theme of the prayer and of pleading with the God to listen to the prayer of the people. He wrote of the ‘shining the crown of the glory’ – the shine that re-appears in ‘God of Justice’ together with the prayer and pleading with God to ‘hear our voices’. Finally, Jovanovic´’s anti-anthem serves as a warning against indiscreet and overt sycophancy, a warning that Djordjevic´ seems to have heeded. His ‘God of Justice’, unlike the earlier Montenegrin anthem ‘To Our Splendid Montenegro’ (see Chapter 5), avoids any praise of the ruler, his rule or his virtue. The ruler is present in ‘God of Justice’ only as an object of prayer and even there it is only his protection that the people are praying for, not for his health, long life, might or military valour. We learn nothing of the ruler or the qualities that he has or is expected to have; instead we only learn that the people pray for his protection. In fact, we do not even know whether he actually needs any protection. In that sense, it is a prayer by convention or rote. The singers pray for the

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ruler to be protected only because this seems to be the thing to do when singing anthems of this kind. The lack of information about the king or about his need for protection proved to be a significant – almost God-given – asset in 2004 when the royal anthem was to be transformed into a republican one. The impersonal king, of whom we knew nothing, could be easily replaced with ‘the lands’ and no meaning was lost or added. The murder of the last Obrenovic´ and the election of Petar Karadjordjevic´ as the King of Serbia in 1903 initiated yet another search for an anthem to replace the Obrenovic´ royal anthem ‘God of Justice’. Early in 1904 the Ministry of Education and Church Affairs opened a public competition for a new anthem (lyrics and music) and, out of 61 submissions, did not find a suitable one. Following this failure, the Ministry invited eight well-known poets to write an anthem and offered a thousand Serbian dinars for the winner. It took almost two years for the Ministry to choose from the seven submitted entries. The winner was the poem by Aleksa Sˇantic´, a leading Serb patriotic poet who lived in Mostar, the capital of Herzegovina (at the time under the administration of Austria-Hungary). In its first stanza the anthem called upon God to shine the sun’s rays over the fields of Serbia and did not, even once, mention the king (although the crown does get one mention). Once the anthem was published, all the newspapers in Beograd, almost on cue, attacked it as totally unacceptable (Pavlovic´ 1990: 166). The poet attempted to withdraw his submission only to be told that his poem was now the property of the state and of the people! In spite of this, the government of the day had no option but to abandon the anthem and indeed any further search for an anthem. In February 1909, it officially reinstated ‘God of Justice’ as the state anthem with slightly altered lines regarding the king: instead of the ‘Serbian king’ in the penultimate line the Karadjordjevic´ version had ‘King Petar’. The line in 1909 read: ‘King Peter, God preserve/the Serb people prays to you’ (Pavlovic´ 1990: 175). In 1919, the first and the last stanza of ‘God of Justice’ became the first and the last stanza of the composite anthem of the Kingdom of the Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) (see Chapter 1) with a further slight change: the word ‘Serb’ was everywhere replaced with ‘our’. The last line thus became ‘King Petar, God preserve/Our people prays to you’. Upon the death of King Petar, his name was replaced with his son Aleksandar and then,

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upon his assassination in 1934, with that of his son Petar the Second (Petar Drugi). Finally, in 2004, with all the kings gone, ‘Petar the Second’ was deleted, so that in the current lyrics the line reads only ‘God save, God protect’. ‘God of Justice’ thus proved its durability long before its latest resurrection in 2004: the secret of which appears to be in its flexibility and adaptability. The anthem proved easily adaptable to a rival dynasty and then to a new ‘three-named’ kingdom as well as change in the reigning kings. It is not then all that surprising that it proved to be adaptable to a republic too. As long as the singers appear to be praying to God to grant them the same set of things – those nationally desirable commodities of unity, victory, peace and security – it does not matter who the putative object of their prayer for protection is. The adaptability of the anthem showed that one can pray as easily for the protection of one’s king, as for one’s ‘lands’.

To march or to pray – or perhaps both? In 1992, the war in Croatia had just ended (at least temporarily) and another in Bosnia and Herzegovina had just started. As a result, the remnants of the Yugoslav People’s Army (a conscript armed force of the SFRY) were withdrawing from the now independent states, while Serb paramilitary forces (made up of volunteers) were crossing into Bosnia and Herzegovina to fight against non-Serb forces. The River Drina, subject of the song reproduced below, marks the border between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Serbia.16 In 1914 this had been the border of Austria-Hungary and Serbia which, at the outset of World War I, the Austro-Hungarian forces had to cross in order to invade Serbia. In 1992, many of the military units withdrawing to or leaving Serbia had to cross the same river although at this time, however, Serbia was officially not at war and there was no threat of another invasion. In April 1992, following popular referenda, Serbia and Montenegro formed the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia and then on 31 May the government of the Republic of Serbia called the Referendum for the purpose of preliminary declaration of the citizens regarding the symbols of the Republic of Serbia. There were three candidates to choose from: ‘God of Justice’, ‘March on Drina’ (‘Marsˇ na Drinu’) and ‘Serbia Arise’ (‘Vostani Serbijo’).17 (Pavlovic´ 1998:148). ‘March on Drina’ got 1,730,070 votes, which

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constituted only 46.67 per cent the eligible voters (Direct Democracy 2012); ‘God of Justice’ got slightly fewer votes and ‘Serbia Arise’ took third place (Pavlovic´ 1998: 150). Since none of the proposed anthems passed the required threshold of 50 per cent of eligible voters (set in the 1990 Constitution of Serbia), the referendum failed to select a new anthem and the old anthem ‘Hey Slavs’ continued to be used without lyrics. In contrast, the 2006 Constitution simply proclaimed ‘God of Justice’ to be the state anthem and tacitly abandoned the requirement of its 1990 predecessor for a referendum for the ‘preliminary declaration of citizens regarding symbols’. Below is the march that, according to the referendum in 1992, the citizens of Serbia appear to have preferred to the ‘God of Justice’: Marsˇ na Drinu

March on Drina

U boj, krenite junaci svi To battle, go forth you all heroes, Kren ‘te i ne zˇal’te zˇivot svoj Go on and don’t regret your lives Cer da cˇuae tvoj, Cer nek vidi boj May Cer see the battle, may Cer hear it A reka Drina slavu hrabrost and river Drina glory, courage I junacˇku ruku oca, sina. And the heroic hand of father and son! Poj, poj Drino, vodo hladna ti Pamti, pricˇaj kad su padali Pamti hrabri stroj Koji je pun ognja, silne snage Proterao tudina sa reke nasˇe drage.

Sing, sing, Drina – oh, you cold water, Remember, and tell of the ones that fell, Remember the brave line of soldiers, Which full of fire, mighty force Expelled the foreigner from our dear river!

Poj, poj Drino, pricˇaj rodu mi Kako smo se hrabro borili Pevao je stroj, vojev’o se boj Kraj hladne vode Krv ae tekla, krv se lila Drinom zbog slobode.

Sing, sing, Drina, tell my kin, How we bravely fought, The line sang, the battle was fought Near cold water Blood was flowing, Blood was streaming On the Drina for freedom!14

The melody of this song was composed by Stanislav Binicˇki, the conductor of the Royal Guard Orchestra of the Serbian military, after the Serbian victory over the Austro-Hungarian army at the mountain of Cer in western Serbia on 24 December 1914. After that it became a highly

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popular musical piece widely performed during both world wars. Although the Communist authorities discouraged its performance immediately following 1945 (because of its associations with their wartime enemies, the Royalist Chetniks), upon the release of the film ‘March on Drina’ in 1964 about the battle of Cer, the melody became very popular indeed. In 1963, the Danish guitarist Jørgen Ingmann made the composition an international pop hit and its popularity spread worldwide.15 In 1964, the lawyer and poet Miloje Popovic´ wrote the lyrics for this melody and the quote above is an excerpt from his much longer poem (Pavlovic´ 1990: 199– 201) and is the part of his poem that is now commonly sung. Due to its continuous presence in the popular media, its melody was much better known than that of ‘God of Justice’. Indeed, until 1988 ‘God of Justice’ was not performed on officially approved occasions and was not publicly broadcast. Even after 1988, because of its royalist associations, the officials of the ruling Socialist Party never encouraged or favoured its performance. Moreover, ‘God of Justice’ is a much less singable song and has a less stirring melody than ‘March on Drina’. The melody of the latter is based on the melodic pattern of the Serbian folk-dance, kolo, and therefore would be easily recognisable to most Serbs. In view of all this, it is surprising that ‘God of Justice’ got as many votes in 1992 as it did. ‘March on Drina’ is primarily a marching song although the call to march is found only in its first line. Its verses aim to evoke the solemnity of the battle, the sacrifice of the fallen heroes and their bravery. It reminds the singers and audience of the sacrifice in blood that the Serbian soldiers at Cer made for the sake of expelling the enemy from Serbian soil. It does not even suggest that the singers should or even could imitate these heroic deeds because it is a song in praise of the past and not a call for future battle. In that sense, it is also a selfcongratulatory song: it lauds and celebrates the bravery of the singers’ ancestors and, indirectly, expresses the singers’ gratitude for the heroic deed. And yet, given the events of early 1992, the song could have been understood as suggesting that the time had come to fight again and that the Drina would be the witness of battles once again. ‘March on Drina’ is no doubt a song of pride, national pride in the glorious deeds of one’s ancestors. In a sense, ‘God of Justice’ is also a song of national pride although the pride felt by the singers – in freedom won

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after 500 years of battle – is much more humbly expressed than in ‘March on Drina’. The difference between the two is thus not so much in the sentiment that they try to evoke but in their emphasis and methods of evocation. ‘March on Drina’ evokes pride in a series of striking and perhaps even gory images that are obviously lacking in ‘God of Justice’. Both the fast-paced folk-based melody and the striking images of sacrifice make ‘March on Drina’ more attractive than a prayer expressed in a rather slow and perhaps somewhat unfamiliar musical vocabulary. It is therefore not surprising that a large number of Serbs preferred to sing the melody and lyrics of a simple march instead of that of a prayer. Yet, in spite of the common expression of pride, the two songs tell very different tales. ‘March on Drina’ is a rather vague tale of a real and bloody battle and of Serb sacrifice while ‘God of Justice’ offers instead a list of things that the singers desire or should desire – brotherly unity, happiness in peace, victory in battle, and the protection of the fatherland’s freedom. It is unclear from the 1992 vote which of the two tales the Serb voters-to-be-singers preferred to tell and later the 2006 Constitution removed the need for choice. However, these two songs still serve to illustrate aspects of Serb selfunderstanding of themselves as a nation. On one hand, Serbs see themselves as a nation proud of its glorious past, primarily described in the terms of the huge sacrifice in human life for the sake of freedom from foreign rule. And, on the other hand, they see themselves as a nation desiring to be united (amidst the fractious politics and its fragmenting polity) and desiring to live in an idyllic peace and happiness, undisturbed by outsiders who had, during those symbolic 500 years, sought to rule or dominate them. Pride in the glorious past of battle and a desire for undisturbed happiness and peace are, of course, not incompatible; in fact, they may be viewed as complementary. Those who have sacrificed so much for their freedom, and who are aware of their sacrifice, would like at least to enjoy the ‘fruits’ of the freedom which is happiness in peace. If all this appears to be rather staple fare of anthems and national songs, then these two songs, each in their own way, suggest that the Serbs when singing their anthems behave in much the same way as singers-of-anthems the world over.

CHAPTER 5 A LOVE OF MOUNTAINS AND MOTHERS: MONTENEGRO 1863(?)

On 12 July 2004, St Peter’s Day, the Assembly of the Republic of Montenegro passed the Law on State Symbols and the Day of Statehood, which proclaimed the anthem of Montenegro to be the song with the title ‘O svjetla majska zoro’ (‘Oh, the Radiant [Bright1] Dawn of May’). The law set out the prescribed words of the anthem (Zakon 2004). As we shall see, these lyrics have since been a matter of controversy. ‘O, svjetla majska zoro’ is also the title and the first verse of an old Montenegrin folk song; whether its first published version is the one sung in a theatrical performance in 1863 (see below) is a matter of controversy too. As we shall see below, this is not the first anthem of Montenegro. In 1870, the Prince of Montenegro, Prince Nikola, proclaimed another song, ‘To Our Splendid Montenegro’, written specially for him, to be the first state anthem of the Principality of Montenegro, which was at the time a de facto independent state. However, in 2004 Montenegro was still a federal unit of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, which used, by default, the Yugoslav state anthem ‘Hey Slavs’ (without lyrics) (see Chapter 1). Once the Union was, under the EU auspices, formed in 2003, it was proposed to combine the verses of ‘O svjetla majska zoro’ with the verses from ‘God of Justice’ (‘Bozˇe pravde’) as its anthem. However, this proposal found no support among the major Serbian and Montenegrin parties and was denounced by the Patriarch of the Serbian Orthodox Church (Vreme 2004).

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In May 2006, the government of Montenegro called for a referendum on independence. The referendum was supervised by EU representatives, who also set the threshold for a successful poll: 55 per cent of those voting had to vote for independence. The vote for independence was won with around 2,300 votes over the required threshold – those decisive votes all coming from two municipalities (Oklopcˇic´ 2012: 141). The pro-Union parties who opposed independence, mainly drawing on the votes of the Serbs (the citizens of Montenegro who declared themselves to be Serbs), demanded a recount but the EU-supervised Referendum Commission rejected their demand (BBC 2006). The independence of Montenegro was soon recognised by Serbia and by the end of June 2006 Montenegro joined the UN as an independent state. This was not the first referendum on Montenegro’s independence. In March 1992, in a first referendum, 95.94 per cent of those voting voted for Montenegro to remain in Yugoslavia with Serbia (Andrijasˇevic´ & Rastoder 2006: 191). It was the same Prime Minister, Milo Djukanovic´, who in 1992 campaigned for Montenegro to remain in Yugoslavia and in 2006 for its independence.2 Some of the opposition parties that in 2006 opposed independence – the People’s Party, Democratic Serbian Party, Serbian People’s Party – also objected to the text of the anthem and in 2004 refused to vote for the Law on the State Symbols. In addition, some Muslim and Albanian deputies, who did not oppose independence, objected to the use of religious symbols and the phrase ‘our mother Montenegro’ (PCNEN 2004). The controversy over the text of the anthem continues and will be discussed later. A part of the current controversy over the anthem text concerns its origins.

From bravery to eternity Prior to the building of the National Theatre building in Beograd, Serbia in 1868, the theatre repertoire was dominated by patriotic pieces ‘with singing’ which we could perhaps call semi-musicals. As in pre-unification Italy and Germany during the nineteenth century, theatre was one of the principal outlets for public displays of patriotic feelings, not only through dramatic representations of glorious ancestral battles and deeds, but also through singing. Unison in song is both an apt expression of patriotic feelings and an assertion of an identity in common.

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Two of the songs from the nineteenth century patriotic semi-musicals proved to have an unexpectedly long life, perhaps because of their efficacy for nationalist purposes. ‘Oh, the Radiant Dawn of Bravery’ sung in 1863, and ‘God of Justice’ sung in 1872 seemed to have provided the thematic bases or templates for, respectively, the state anthems of Montenegro (2004) and Serbia (2006). As might be expected, the lyrics adopted as official texts for state anthems in the twenty-first century have differed considerably from the stage versions first performed in the nineteenth century; this is one of the reasons why many Montenegrin scholars would not see ‘Oh, the Radiant Dawn of Bravery’ as a template for the current anthem. ‘Oh the Radiant Dawn of Bravery’ was sung in the 1863 play entitled Battle of Grahovo or blood feud in Montenegro. This was ‘a play about brave men ( junacˇka), in the three parts, with singing’. No text of the play is preserved, nor for that matter do any other works by its authors, Jovan Car and Obrad Vitkovic´. However, a compilation of theatre songs offers the following lyrics. Oj, junasˇtva svjetla zoro, Majko nasˇa Crna Goro! Na tvojim se vrletima, Razbi sila dusˇmanima.

Oh, the radiant dawn of bravery, Our mother Montenegro! On your crags The might of the archenemy was broken.

Jedina si za slobodu Ti ostala srpskom rodu. Da t’ c´e Bog i sveta Mati Da se jednom sve povrati (Peric´ 1995: 145 – 6)

Only you have been left to the Serb race To enjoy liberty God and the Holy Mother will grant That all that will be restored once upon time

This is a song about the country whose mountains and their associated bravery have defeated the archenemy (the Ottomans) and left a space for the Serb race to enjoy freedom. The mountain-assisted defence of freedom and independence is, as we shall see, one of the central themes of the lyrics of the current anthem. The conviction is that freedom, and by implication an independent state, will be restored in time to come by the will of God and the Holy Mother. In 1863, Serbia was not yet fully independent because several Serbian towns as well as its capital were still

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garrisoned by the Ottoman military and Serbia paid tribute to the Ottoman emperor. This short song introduces two historical stories that were widely popular at the time. The first is that during the long period of Ottoman rule over the Balkans, from the battle of Kosovo in 1389 until the granting of autonomy to the Principality of Serbia in 1830, the only part of the Serb-populated territory free from the Ottoman rule was the mountainous core of Montenegro or the Black Mountain. The second story is that the reason the Ottomans were never able to occupy and hold this part of Montenegro was because of the impassable mountains – the ‘crags’ of the song – and because of the unwavering resistance of the mountain tribes of Montenegro who upheld their warrior ethic and never accepted the ‘Ottoman yoke’. At the time of singing in 1863 these stories were not contested or at least there was no record of any contestation. Yet they rest on a piece of a highly contested national identification according to which the population of ‘our mother Montenegro’ belongs to the Serb race (srpski rod) or are a branch of the Serb nation; in short that Montenegrins are Serbs. Only if Montenegrins are of the Serb race, could ‘our mother Montenegro’ be the only place where the race could enjoy liberty: there were no other Serbs, from Serbia or any other part of the Balkans, living in Montenegro at the time. This identification of Montenegrins with Serbs is officially discredited and rejected at the time of writing in 2013: the government of Montenegro and a large part of its population now hold that Montenegrins are not Serbs but rather a separate nation.3 At the moment no scholar who identifies themselves as Montenegrin only (and thus not as a Serb) would consider ‘Oh, the Radiant Dawn of Bravery’ to be the original template of the current text of their anthem. And yet the 1863 song, however pro-Serbian it may appear to be today, introduces both the opening verse (in which ‘bravery’ stands for the later version ‘May’) and the two themes of the current anthem of Montenegro as the mother of the singers of the song and of Montenegrin mountains as a defence of freedom from the ‘foreign yoke’. In contrast to the 1863 song, the current anthem makes no reference, explicit or oblique, to the Serbs or their freedom. Montenegro’s union with Serbia from 1918 to 2006, and the Montenegrins’ long historical association with the Serbs, is understandably given no mention in the anthem,

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which was introduced by the government that had been planning to secede, for ever, from the union with Serbia. Yet the anthem of Montenegro, proposed in 2004, has striking thematic and textual resemblances to the nineteenth-century song that identified Montenegrins with the Serbs and expressed the hope that the latter would restore their independence. So how could a song identifying Montenegrins with Serbs have given rise to an anthem that rejects any link, present or future, with the Serbs?4 As we shall see, by removing any reference to the Serbs and by introducing new themes that steer Montenegro away from any neighbouring or related nations, the current text of the anthem focuses solely on Montenegro and proclaims Montenegro to be everlasting – that is, an independent state for all eternity.

Of love and of honour: Montenegrins and their mother or motherland The theatre song shares at least one rather general feature with the current anthem of Montenegro: both are self-congratulatory songs in which the singers congratulate first of all their motherland and, by implication, themselves on having such a wonderful and eternal motherland. The first two stanzas of the anthem introduce the two major themes of motherhood and its honour as well as the firm mountains that preserve the country’s honour or freedom. Oj svijetla majska zoro, Majko nasˇa Crna Goro, Sinovi smo tvog stijenja I cˇuvari tvog posˇtenja.

Oh, radiant dawn of May Our mother Montenegro We are sons of your rocks and guardians of your honour

Volimo vas, brda tvrda, I stravicˇne vasˇe klance Koji nikad ne poznasˇe Sramotnoga ropstva lance.

We love you, the firm mountains And your awesome gorges That never came to know The chains of dishonourable slavery.

These stanzas combine the imagery of dawn, mountainous landscape and freedom from foreign occupation in a manner similar to that of the 1863 song. The radiant dawn leads to the statement of ownership and motherhood: Montenegro, the land, is the mother of the singers-in-unison,

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who are referred to only as ‘we’. The name of the land ‘Crna Gora’ means ‘the Black Mountain’ and the English ‘Montenegro’ is in fact an Italian translation of its original. The image of motherhood is further reinforced by the metonymic assertion that we, the singers, are the sons of the Black Mountain’s rocks (which were named ‘crags’ in the 1863 song). The assertion reinforces the desired and often repeated representation of the singers-in-unison, the Montenegrins, as hardy, resilient and brave ‘mountaineers’ or sons of the mountains. The assertion may suggest yet another – one may also say stereotypical – representation of Montenegrins as male chauvinists. As the recent chairwoman of the Montenegro’s National Assembly noted, there is no gender equality in the anthem and the offspring of the rocks are here emphatically sons and not daughters (Vesti Online 2012). Being born of rocks, the sons dutifully love their life-givers, the mountains and gorges that dominate the landscape of their mother, the Black Mountain. The mountainous landscape thus dominates the first stanza as it dominates the land of Montenegro: it is the Black Mountain that gives birth to the sons who, in the second stanza, love its firm mountains and awesome gorges. Their love is not only motivated by their putative origin because these gorges have avoided dishonourable slavery. Since these very sons are also the guardians of the honesty of their mountainous mother, their love for the mountains, it is implied, is motivated by their pride in their mother’s honour. The sons of the gorges and mountains love their mother because they feel proud of her honour, which rests in never have been subject to foreign rule or foreign slavery. In contrast to the 1863 song, the anthem makes no mention of the defeat of enemies or archenemies. Instead, the defeat of enemies is replaced by a thematically related topos – escape from, or rather the avoidance of, slavery. Unlike defeats, one cannot leave a nation’s bravery to the past. But why was ‘bravery’ in the first verse of the 1863 song, replaced with ‘May’, the name of a month, in the anthem text of 2004? Danilo Radojevic´ (2011: 378), an advocate of separate and unique Montenegrin identity, points out that the Serbian poet Sima Milutinovic´-Sarajlija greeted Montenegro as ‘a Yugoslav dawn’5 and, later, Ljubomir Nenadovic´6 once again called Montenegro ‘a Serb dawn’.7 Thus the simile of Montenegro as a dawn, as a beginning of a new and happier era for the South Slavs or for the Serbs, had been

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established in Serbian poetry in the first half of nineteenth century. ‘Bravery’ is certainly less politically charged than either ‘Serb’ or ‘Yugoslav’ but it may sound too conceited; ‘May’ is possibly the most neutral word to describe the happiness that a dawn may bring. According to Rotkovic´ (2011: 387), ‘the [word] May was chosen not only as a month of flowers and spring but because all other names of months, except for June and July, are multisyllabic and could not fit into the decalic verse’. In his view, the first verse of the folk song ‘Oh, the radiant dawn of May’ is a mere preamble introducing the rest of the song, which, as he notes, was sung at the beginning of any collective celebration and group singing in Montenegro (Rotkovic´ 2011: 385). Rotkovic´ and other scholars (for example, Markovic´ 2011) all agree that the first two stanzas of the current anthem come from a folk song (and not from the theatre song) and so have no political message – unlike the poem ‘Our Eternal Montenegro . . .’ by Dr Sekula Drljevic´, which we shall discuss below.

Of unity, glory and eternity In contrast to the apolitical first two stanzas, the third and fourth stanzas introduce a few rather obvious political messages. Dok lovc´enskoj nasˇoj misli Nasˇa sloga daje krila, Bic´e gorda, bic´e slavna Domovina nasˇa mila.

While our unity gives wings to our Lovc´en vision Mighty and glorious will be Our dear homeland.

Rijeka ´ce nasˇih vala, Uskacˇuc´i u dva mora, Glas nositi okeanu, Da je vjecˇna Crna Gora!

A river of our waves, Jumping into two seas, Will carry the news to the ocean, That Montenegro is eternal.

The third stanza introduces the topos of might and glory via that of unity. All three are standard concepts and topoi of anthemhood: rare is an anthem that does not attribute to the subjects of the anthem one or more of these attributes. Most frequently it is the motherland/fatherland/ homeland that is mighty and glorious while the singing nation is united.

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In most anthems, glory is dependent on might, and both glory and might are dependent on the unity of the singers/the nation. The unity of the singers confers might on the land/state/sovereign and this naturally (at least in the world of anthems) brings glory. As we can see, this is the pattern followed in the current anthem: the unity of the singers gives an e´lan (‘wings’) to their Lovc´en vision and this unity, permeated by a specific vision, naturally leads to their dear homeland becoming both mighty and glorious. The dear homeland, it is assumed here, is the mother of the singers, the Black Mountain the singers love. Thus the image of the mother and its mountainous landscape merges with the image of a mighty and glorious country or state that is also a dear homeland. The seemingly mysterious reference (in the first line above) to the ‘Lovc´en vision’ is explained below. The final stanza introduces another staple of anthem landscape – rivers – and yet another staple anthem narrative – eternity of the fatherland/motherland/homeland. In the last stanza, Montenegro’s landscape is recruited once again in the service of the anthem but this time only as a conveyor of a message, ‘a voice’. In comparison with the rocks in the first stanza and the mountains in the second, the unnamed river in the fourth, a mere messenger, appears to be somewhat demoted. The rocks play the (metaphorical) role of the mother of the nation and the mountains are the object of love and devotion while the river is a bringer of tidings. Like the rocks or the mountains in the first two stanzas, the river, the two seas and the ocean are not identified in this song and so it quite unclear whether the river and the seas are metaphors for might, the most efficient conveyers of messages, or stand for a particular river in Montenegro and the sea or seas on Montenegro’s shores. Even if these are just metaphors, the meaning of the last stanza is clear – the message needs to be disseminated in the most effective way to the outside world – and a river will do this better than any other ‘natural’ or nonhuman element of Montenegro’s landscape. Another interpretation of the last stanza is explored in the next section in the context of Dr Drljevic´’s poem ‘Our Eternal . . .’ and its resemblance to the Croatian anthem ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’. But what is the message that the river needs to carry? At first it is a most unexceptional message, at least for an anthem, that ‘our dear

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homeland’ is eternal. In general, anthems do not allow any temporal limitations on homelands: however mortal the singers of anthems may be, their homelands/motherlands are not restricted in their putative duration. In the realm of anthems, all homelands are eternal. As for its anthem-content, the message the river needs to carry is thus unexceptional. Yet in spite of being unexceptional, this is key political message of the anthem: that the independent state of Montenegro will last for ever. So Montengrins’ love of their mother, of their dear, mighty and glorious motherland, and their e´lan and their unity (all common anthem themes) lead us to the last but most important message: from 2006 the independence of Montenegro is to be perpetual. There will be, the anthem tell us, no more unions of Montenegro with any other state and Montenegro will be eternal as an independent state.8 It is not the conveyance of the message but the message itself that matters: never again will Montenegro be annexed or unified with another state, certainly not with Serbia from which it seceded in 2006. By implication, never again will Montenegrins be a branch or ‘tribe’ of another nation. The assertion of eternality is thus a rejection of any possible dilution of Montenegro’s separateness. In a summary, the song moves from the assertion of belonging and devotion to an assertion of unity and Montenegrins’ might and glory, ending with an assertion of Montenegro’s eternity-in-independence. The honorific concepts of belonging, love, unity, might, glory and eternity are common anthem elements. Whether or not this mix is essential to anthems in general, the very frequency of its repetition in various anthems suggests that this is the right mixture of honorifics with which to express devotion and to extol the virtues of the anthem’s singers and of their homeland. Having noted the staple features of the anthem, let us now explore one of its unique features – the reference to the ‘Lovc´en vision’ or, in a more literal translation, the ‘Lovc´en thought’. Lovc´en is the towering mountain on the coast of Montenegro, overlooking the bay of Kotor, on the Adriatic Sea, on the top of which the greatest Montengrin poet and prince-bishop Petar Petrovic´ II Njegosˇ lies buried.9 Since the poet statesman is buried there, ‘the Lovc´en vision’ appears to refer, in a rather oblique manner, to Njegosˇ’ own thought or vision. So what is Njegosˇ’ vision? According to the current President of Montenegro Filip Vujanovic´:

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Njegosˇ’ poetic words and thought represent the cultural, historical and spiritual synthesis of Montenegro, the fundaments of our language and identity, which makes us visible and respected in the space of Europe (Vujanovic´ 2013). This excerpt does not explain what Njegosˇ’ or Lovc´en vision consists of yet it highlights its importance as the source both of national identity and national pride in the achievements of Montenegro and Montenegrins. As the source of their identity, language and pride, Njegosˇ’ thought should indeed give Montenegrins the e´lan that brings might and glory to their homeland (and possibly, as Vujanovic´ seems to suggest, their entry into the EU/Europe as well).

Montenegro and its anthems: A brief history From the Middle Ages until the present, Montenegro’s society in the core mountainous region of the ‘Old Montenegro’ has been based on clans identified by a name resembling a personal surname – Vasojevic´i, Belopavlic´i – and by the territory the clan inhabited. The clans are called ‘tribes’ (‘plemena’). In the continuing conflict with the Ottoman Empire, which claimed sovereignty over the whole of Montenegro, the clans provided the fighters and their leaders. As the conflict intensified in the early seventeenth century, the Eastern Orthodox bishops from the monastery in Cetinje became leaders of these clans fighting against the Ottoman rulers and endeavoured to unite them politically. In 1696, the family Petrovic´ Njegosˇ became recognised as the hereditary holder of the title Bishop-Prince (‘vladika-knez’), which was transferred from uncle to nephew (since Eastern Orthodox bishops are celibate). In 1852, the Bishop-Prince Danilo I Petrovic´, who succeeded to Petar II Petrovic´ Njegosˇ, abandoned the title of Bishop and was recognised by the Russian court as the Prince of Montenegro. Following his assassination in 1860, his nephew Nikola was proclaimed the Lord (Gospodar) of Montenegro (Andrijasˇevic´ & Rastoder 2006: 51– 93). The following poem, ‘To Our Splendid (or Beautiful)10 Montenegro’ (‘Ubavoj nam Crnoj Gori’) was published in 1865 in a journal in Montenegro and was performed for the first time as a song in 1870, in the presence of Prince Nikola, in the main reading room of the capital Cetinje:

Ubavoj nam Crnoj Gori

To Our Splendid Montenegro

Ubavoj nam Crnoj Gori s ponositim brdima, Otadzˇbini sˇto ne dvori, koju nasˇim misˇicama Mi branimo i drzˇimo preziruc´i nevolju, – Dobri bozˇe, svi T’ molimo: zˇivi Knjaza Nikolu! **** Zdrava, srec´na, moc´na, slavna, – obc´em vragu na uzˇas,

To our splendid Montenegro with proud hills, The fatherland which is not servile, which with our muscles We defend and keep, holding any misfortune in contempt, – Good God, we all pray to You: long live Prince Nikola!

Vrlim pretcim’ u svem ravna, svom narodu na ukras; Dobrim blaga, zlijem stroga; krsta, doma, slobode Zasˇtitnika revnosnoga, – hrani nam Ga, Gospode! Od kovarstva i napasti cˇuvaj Njeg’ i Njegov Dom; *** Koji snije Njem’ propasti – neka bude propast tom! A koju mu vjeru krsˇi, – pravda tog ukrotila, Krjepki Bozˇe, sve rastr’ci sˇto nam zloba rotila. Kud On s nama, svud’ mi s Njime krv smo ljevat gotovi za Nj’ za vjeru, nasˇe ime i za brac´u u okovi! Tome c´emo svetu dugu odzivati se svaki cˇas, – Bozˇe, svej nam bud’u u krugu, blagosiljaj Njeg’ i nas!

[The fatherland] Healthy, happy, mighty, glorious –to the horror of any of its enemies, In everything on par with its virtuous forbears, jewel in the eyes of its people Gentle to good, harsh to evil. And our steadfast guardian of the cross, home and freedomnurture Him for us, oh Lord! Save Him and His Home from deviousness and temptation. Who dreams disaster to Him may disaster strike! And who breaks His faith,may justice tame, Good God, scatter all that malice has brought to us Wherever He goes, we go with Him ready to shed our blood For Him, for our faith, our name and for our brethren in chains! Always ready to discharge this sacred debt God, don’t leave our sight, bless Him and bless us all!

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Having heard the song performed, Prince Nikola proclaimed it the state anthem of the Principality of Montenegro. The Principality gained international recognition of its independence in 1878 at the Congress of Berlin and in 1910 Prince Nikola proclaimed it a kingdom with himself as king. The author of the poem was the Prince’s secretary, Father Ivan Sunducˇic´, a Serb born in Bosnia, and educated as an Orthodox priest in a monastery in Croatia. By 1870 he was a well-known poet of occasional verses celebrating events and renowned personalities of the Slavs, in particular South Slavs. He was also a well-known Pan-Slavist whose large poetic opus, apart from this song, is now largely forgotten. This poem was modelled on the Russian Imperial ‘God Save the Tsar’ and the Austrian equivalent, all of which follow the arch-model of all prayer-anthems, the British ‘God Save the King/Queen’ (see Chapter 4). The Serbian equivalent, praying to God to save the Serbian Prince Milan, was performed for the first time on the Beograd stage two years later. The destinies of these two prayer-anthems differed greatly: the Montenegrin one lost its anthem status in 1919 as Montenegro became part of a larger state of the South Slavs (see below) while the Serbian anthem continued until 1945 as a part of the composite anthem of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia and was then resurrected in 2004 and constitutionally entrenched in 2006 as Montenegro’s secession left Serbia once again an independent state. The government of the Republic of Montenegro was happy to resurrect the coat of arms of the Kingdom of Montenegro as well as its royal standard as the state symbols of the newly independent Republic. So why not resurrect its royal prayer-anthem as the Serbian government did? It is difficult to find a conclusive answer, but one reason might have been that the royal anthem faced a fierce competition for anthemhood. There were another two national songs also competing for the title (Vreme 2003). In addition to ‘Oh, the Radiant Dawn of May’, there was also ‘There, over there . . .’. This is a poem of the recovery of a lost empire – the empire of Dusˇan, the first and only Serbian emperor – and of the recovery of lost glory. Both vanished in the mists of medieval history. The poem is full of references to Kosovo and Metohija, the site of the historic battle of Kosovo of 1389 against the Ottoman Islamic forces. It is also full of references to folk poems about the battle in which the Serbs allegedly lost their kingdom and the cream of their nobility. Prizren is a formerly

govore da je razoren dvor mojega cara; onamo vele, bio je negda junacˇki zbor.

There, over there . . . beyond those hills,(*) Ruined lies, they say, my Emperor’s palace; there, they say, Once, heroes had gathered.

Onamo, ‘namo . . . da viđu Prizren! Ta to je moje - doma c´u doc´’! Starina mila tamo me zove, tu moram jednom oruzˇan poc´’.

There, over there . . . I see Prizren! It is all mine – home I shall come! Beloved antiquity calls me there, Armed I must come there one day.

Onamo, ‘namo . . . sa razvalina

zajam ti moram vrac´ati vec´’!‘

There over there . . . from on top of the ruins Of Emperors’ palaces to the enemy I will say: ‘Flee from my beloved home you plague, Already your debt I must repay!‘

Onamo, ‘namo . . . za brda ona kazuju da je zeleni gaj pod kim se dizˇu Decˇani sveti: molitva u njih prisvaja raj.

There, over there . . . beyond those hills, Lies a green grove, they say, Under which rises up Holy Decˇani: A prayer said within Paradise claims.

Onamo, ‘namo . . . za brda ona de nebo plavo savija svod;

There, over there . . . beyond those hills, Where sky of blue bends down her arch; On to Serb fields, on to battle fields, There, brothers, prepare to march!

Onamo, ‘namo . . . za brda ona,

dvorova carskih vragu c´u rec´’! ‘S ognjisˇta milog bjezˇi mi, kugo,

na srpska polja, na polja bojna onamo, brac´o, spremajmo hod! Onamo, ‘namo . . . za brda ona pogazˇen konj’ma klikuje Jug: ‘U pomoc´, đeco, u pomoc´, sinci, svetit’ me starca, svet vam je dug!

There, over there . . . beyond those hills, Trampled by horses’ hooves cries out Jug: ‘Come help me, children, come help me, sons, Avenge the old man – sacred is your task!‘

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Onamo, ‘namo . . . sablji za stara

There, over there . . . for the ribs of the old man, I’ll dull my sabre’s edge on njegova rebra da tupim rez po turskim rebrim’; da b’jednoj raji The ribs of the Turks; and cut the shackles From the wrists of the wretched njom istom s ruku res’jecam vez! Christian masses! Onamo, ‘namo . . . za brda ona Milosˇev, kazˇu, prebiva grob! Onamo pokoj dobic´u dusˇi, kad Srbin visˇe ne bude rob

There, over there . . . beyond those hills, Lies there, they say, Milosˇ’s grave! There my soul eternal peace shall gain, When (the) Serb is no more a slave.

royal city of that region and Decˇani is a large medieval monastery there. Jug is the name of one of the heroes of the Kosovo battle epic and so is Milosˇ, who is said to have slain the Ottoman sultan on the battlefield. This is thus a very pan-Serb poem expressing the desire for the recovery of a Serb kingdom that was reputed to have included Montenegro. But – and it is a huge but for a candidate of an anthem of an independent Montenegro (in the making) – there is no mention of Montenegro in the poem. Not only that, this poem does not even suggest that there is a Montenegro as a separate entity or region. The poem’s author was Prince Nikola himself. It was published for the first time in 1867 in Danica a popular Serb magazine in Novi Sad, which two years previously also published several candidates (all unsuccessful) for the Serbian anthem (see Chapter 4). At the time of its publication, the poem called for the liberation and secession of Kosovo from the Ottoman Empire and was thus not quite suitable as a state anthem of a small and still unrecognised state bordering on the Empire. However, it was a highly popular national song sung on many official and unofficial occasions and its singing was for obvious reasons occasionally banned in the Serbpopulated parts of the Ottoman and Habsburg Empires. One can now see why in 2004 the ‘Oh, the Radiant Dawn of May’ would be considered preferable to these two competitors:11 one was a royal prayer song and another the king’s own nostalgic song yearning for the recovery of the lost pan-Serb state and pan-Serb glory. The government of Montenegro was looking for a song that would implicitly or explicitly justify the separation of its singers, Montenegrins, from the

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Serbs with whom they had been associated, in poems and in song lyrics, for several centuries. The dynastic symbols of the Montenegrin Petrovic´ dynasty (the flag and the coat of arms) served this purpose well, asserting a separate state identity and history as a small principality and later kingdom, independent of Serbia. Yet the royal prayer song mentioned Montenegro only in its first line and had over-all very little to say about Montenegro or its people, apart from the generic themes that they were a splendid people and that they should be healthy, happy, mighty and a terror to their enemies. The royal prayer anthem also focuses on the royal person. It does so much more than its Serbian counterpart. As we saw in Chapter 4, the latter presents a wide panorama of the Serb land and its history and says nothing about the desired or existing attributes of its ruler. This is what made it so easy, and politically almost imperceptible, in 2004 to replace the king image with the Serb lands. Any attempt to do the same with its Montenegrin equivalent ‘To our Splendid Montenegro’ would require not only a deletion and/or modification of a substantial part of the poem but a significant poetic inventiveness. Even more important was the absence, in these two songs, of any way of distinguishing Montenegro from Serbia and Montenegrins from the Serbs. Neither the royal song nor its nostalgic give-us-back-our-glory competitor offer any suggestion as to how do this. Given that the principal theme of ‘There, over there . . .’ is pan-Serbism and its prior glory, there is no way that it could offer any such suggestion. In the song, the Montenegrins are simply assumed to be part of Serbdom. In 2004, the government of Montenegro needed a state anthem as a symbol of separate statehood and separate nationhood as well and neither of the two competitors could fulfil this role, not even with substantial modifications. So where then to find a poem or a song that would suggest, or even better, express the separateness of the Montenegrin nation and the independence of Montenegro itself?

The poem of Montenegrin exceptionalism: Of love and of eternity Until October 1918 Montenegro was a state independent from Serbia. The history of Montenegrin separatism, as one would expect, starts at the time of its unification with Serbia. Once the occupation forces of

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Austria-Hungary left and were replaced by the forces of the Entente, including those of Serbia, the pro-Serbian unification faction in Montenegro, supported by the victorious Serbian government, quickly organised indirect elections for a national assembly, which was to vote for the dethroning of the Petrovic´ dynasty and unification with Serbia. This move was actively opposed by a group of citizens in the capital Cetinje and surrounding countryside. This group’s candidates were listed on green paper while the pro-unification ones were listed on white paper: from then on the ‘Greenies’ (Zelenasˇi) was a general name given to any political group or individual that opposed unconditional unification with Serbia. In spite of the opposition of the Greenies, in November 1918 the 160 delegates of the Grand National Assembly unconditionally unified Montenegro with Serbia, dethroning the aging King Nikola who was stranded in France at the time. An armed rebellion led by the Greenies broke out on 24 December 1918 but was quickly suppressed by local Montenegrin forces leaving 16 of the rebels dead (Andrijasˇevic´ & Rastoder 2006: 162); the Greenies’ resistance in the countryside continued sporadically until 1924. From then on the main political opposition to the loss of Montenegro’s autonomy came from the Montenegrin Party or the Montenegrin Federalist Party, which included not only the Greenies but also some erstwhile supporters of unification with Serbia who had become disillusioned after the unification. Among the latter was a lawyer and amateur poet educated in Croatia, Dr Sekula Drljevic´. His persistent criticism of the unitary and centralising policies of the Beograd government singled him out as one of the most vocal and consistent opponents of the Serb political dominance and the Serb royal dynasty in the Kingdom of Yugoslavia. In April 1941, following the defeat and surrender of the Royal Yugoslav military to the Axis forces, the Italian army occupied Montenegro and the Italian occupation authorities called an assembly on 12 July 1941, St Peter’s Day, which was to proclaim an independent Montenegro under Italian protection. The chief speaker was Dr Drljevic´. A mass armed rebellion broke out on the next day, organised both by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and Serb/Yugoslav royalists, and was soon transformed into a civil war. Having quickly regained control of most of Montenegro through a large counter-insurgency operation, the Italian governor appointed Drljevic´ the commissar for home affairs of the occupied Montenegro only to dismiss him in November 1941 and deport him to Italy. From Italy

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Drljevic´ travelled to Croatia, which was ruled by a Nazi-installed profascist Ustashe regime. Until 1944 he lived in Zemun, an Ustashe-held city near Beograd; it is in Zemun that he wrote The Balkan conflicts published in 1944 in Zagreb. As the Red Army and the Communist-led Partisans neared Beograd, he moved to Zagreb where he established the Montenegrin State Council, attempting to re-establish an independent Montenegro under German protection. In April 1945, from the retreating Montenegrin royalist Chetniks, he also formed a Montenegrin army under his overall command (Adzˇic´ 2011: 133). In November 1945 in Judengburg in Austria, members of this Montenegrin army murdered him and his wife before themselves being turned over to the victorious Communist-led Yugoslav army (Andrijasˇevic´ & Rastoder 2006: 226). In 1946, in Zagreb, the Communist-controlled Commission on the war crimes of the occupiers and their collaborators, obviously unaware of his death, proclaimed Dr Drljevic´ a war criminal (Adzˇic´ 2011: 185). Since the late 1990s, Drljevic´ has been rehabilitated in Montenegro both as a politician and a political thinker. In his major work The Balkan Conflicts 1905– 1941 he argued that Montenegrins are not of the same origin as the other Slavs, such as Serbs, but instead come from the ancient Illyrians and ‘the Illyrian blood together with their geopolitical position and history, continued to be the creator of their culture’. They have a thousand year old continuity of an independent state and an ‘ethnic and ethical uniqueness’ (Drljevic´ 1944: 163). From this Drljevic´ concluded that [t]he state independence of Montenegro is for the Montenegrins not the question of their vanity but a necessary presupposition for the maintenance of the purity of their race and of their culture (Drljevic´ 1944: 166). Perhaps Drljevic´’s conclusion could be translated into the currently more acceptable terminology of national identity. So translated, his argument would be that the independent state of Montenegro is necessary if Montenegrins are to preserve their national identity as authentic and genuine. The book, which ends with the above celebration of Montenegro’s independence, is prefaced with the poem entitled ‘Our Eternal Montenegro’,12 which celebrates Montenegro’s eternity:

Vjecˇna nasˇa crna Goro,

Eternal Our Montenegro,

Tvoj Lovc´en je car Jadrana, Ka seljaka tvojih djela, Kad su cˇija opjevana?

1. Your Lovc´en is the Emperor of the Adriatic, As with the deeds of your peasants When and where were they ever subject of a song?’

Volimo vas, brda tvrda, I stravicˇne vasˇe klance Koji nikad ne poznasˇe Sramotnoga ropstva lance.

2. We love you, your impregnable mountains And your awesome gorges That never came to know The chains of dishonourable slavery.

Lovc´en nam je oltar sveti, Vazda smo mu vjerni bili, U njega smo vjerovali I njime se ponosili.

3. Lovc´en is a sacred altar for us, We have always been faithful to it, In it we have believed And we have been proud of it.

Otkada je Badnje Vecˇe Nasˇu vjeru ocˇistilo, Među nama, seljacima, Nevjernika nije bilo.

4. Ever since Christmas Eve. Our faith cleansed, Among we peasants, There was no infidel

Dok lovc´enskoj nasˇoj misli Nasˇa sloga daje krila, Bit c´e gorda, bit c´e slavna Domovina nasˇa mila.

5. While our unity gives wings to our Lovc´en vision Mighty and glorious will be Our dear homeland.

Slobode c´e cˇuvar biti Nasˇa brda, nasˇe gore, Dokle zemlju sunce grije I dokle se ljudi bore.

6. Our mountains, our forests will guard our freedom as long as the sun warms the earth and the men are fighting.

Rijeka c´e nasˇih vala, Uskacˇuc´i u dva mora, Glas nositi oceanu, Da je vjecˇna Crna Gora.

7. A river of our waves, jumping into two seas, will carry the message to the ocean, that Montenegro is everlasting.

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Sekula Drljevic´ claims authorship of the poem at the end of the poem, removing any doubt of its folk-song origin. In 1936, he published an almost identical poem in Podgorica in Montenegro under the title ‘A Montenegrin peasant dance (kolo)’ and in Zagreb under its present title ‘Our Eternal Montenegro’ (Radojevic´ 2011: 381– 2). Stanzas 5 and 7 of Drljevic´’s poem are identical to the last two stanzas of the current anthem text. In view of this, it is understandable that the following questions have been raised and vigorously debated in the Montenegrin media.

Where does the anthem come from? Who wrote it? There is a considerable debate among scholars as well as among Montenegrin politicians, Orthodox clergy and the popular media concerning the following two interrelated questions: 1. Was the poem ‘Our Eternal Montenegro’ the primary source for the current text of the national anthem? 2. Was Drljevic´ the sole author of the poem or did he only adapt an existing folk song? The first question is still a major issue in party politics in Montenegro. At the time the anthem was proposed in 2004, the Patriarch Pavle of the Serbian Orthodox Church in Beograd, in a highly unusual open letter, requested the Montenegrin government not to use the text of the current national anthem on the ground that the text originated in Drljevic´’s poem and that Drljevic´ was, in his view, a war criminal and a quisling (PCNEN 2004a). A similar view of Drljevic´ and of the national anthem was endorsed at the time by the Serb Democratic Party, People’s Party and Serb People’s Party – all of which claimed to represent those citizens of Montenegro who felt that they were Serbs and thus rejected Drljevic´’s view of Montenegrin uniqueness (PCNEN 2004). In the opening session of the Assembly in November 2012, 11 members of the Democratic Front, the largest opposition bloc, walked out before the anthem was performed; most of them belonged to the New Serb Democracy, the party that took the view that Drljevic´ was a war criminal (BIRN 2012). In some cases, at local events, the organisers and participants still sing only the first two stanzas, those supposed not to originate in Drljevic´’s

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song. Even the current President of Montenegro, Filip Vujanovic´, a member of the ruling party that originally proposed the anthem, has on several occasions expressed unease with the current text, in particular with the last two stanzas (which are identical with those of Drljevic´’s poem) (RTV 2011). In this debate, some scholars and politicians have argued that Drljevic´ simply used a folk song as his model and that the current anthem is based not on his poem but on that earlier text that he used. Therefore, the current national anthem need not be associated with Drljevic´ at all and it should thus not be seen as politically objectionable. In addition, no evidence has been adduced, at least not in scholarly literature, to identify any folk song containing text similar to the two last stanzas of the national anthem that are identical to the fifth and seventh stanzas of Drljevic´’s poem. The major question is then: how much does the current national anthem borrow from Drljevic´’s poem ‘Our Eternal Montenegro’? Some scholars hold that only one stanza – the last one – is from Drljevic´ poem while others claim that stanzas 1, 2, 5 and 7 from Drljevic´’s poem were all transferred into the current anthem but that the first stanza of Drljevic´’s poem had undergone some significant changes (Radojevic´ 2011: 380). The latter view in fact implies that the whole of the current national anthem originates in Drljevic´’s poem and that Drljevic´ is thus the principal author of the national anthem. In contrast, the Polish literary scholar Boguslav Zielinski (2010: 27) as well as other Montenegrin scholars maintain that the two last stanzas (third and fourth) of the current anthem were written by Drljevic´ while the first two originate in a folk poem. This appears to be the view of those citizens of Montenegro who refuse to sing the last two stanzas and of the current President of Montenegro, Filip Vujanovic´ who feels uneasy about these two but not the others.

The last two stanzas: Of which anthem do they remind us? There are indeed a few similarities between the two last stanzas of the current Montenegrin anthem and several verses from the current Croatian state anthem ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’, discussed in Chapter 2. In the Croatian anthem the three rivers – Sava, Drava and Danube – carry the ‘voice’ or the ‘message’ that the Croats love their homeland to

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the ‘deep blue sea’. In the Montenegrin anthem (and in Drljevic´’s poem) it is a single but unnamed river and its waves that carry the message to the ocean, first jumping into two seas. Unlike the named rivers that flow through Croatia, the identity of this Montenegrin river is rather mysterious. As a Montenegrin scholar noted ‘our longest river which directly flows into the sea, Sutorina, is around five kilometres long; during the summer it cannot, with its waves, water even a single garden and at its confluence into the sea it almost completely dries up creating smelly marshes and sources of mosquitos’ (Markovic´ 2011: 396). Leaving aside the power of such a river to carry any requisite messages, what are the two seas to which the river flows? The Sutorina flows only into one sea. No scholar or anthem singer, at least to our knowledge, has even tried to identify the river or the seas to which the poem refers. Further, the last line of the third stanza calls Montenegro ‘our dear homeland’ (‘domovina nasˇa mila’) while the Croatian anthem in its first stanza uses an identical phrase to identify Croatia. In the second stanza, the Croatian anthem attributes glory to the dear homeland, and once again the same word ‘slavna’ is used in the third line of the third stanza of the Montenegrin anthem. The analysis of the two stanzas most likely written by Dr Drljevic´ reveals two peculiar features: the appropriation of a specific item of landscape without means of identification, and the use of identical phrases to describe the homeland as those used in the anthem of the state very close to Montenegro. Why would a nation wish to represent itself through reference to an unidentifiable aspect of landscape? Why would a nation also choose to represent itself with the words used in another state’s well-established anthem? No answers to these questions have as yet been suggested.

The national anthem and the political divisions in Montenegro However, these are not the only questions that arise in regard to this anthem. One of the other unresolved questions is: what is the purpose of introducing an anthem that will divide instead of uniting the citizens of Montenegro? The ostensible aim of national anthems is to unite its singers, preferably into a single nation. Yet, since it was proposed in 2004, the current text of the Montenegrin anthem has done just the

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opposite. It has led an acerbic public controversy and a political division within Montenegro that reflects the national cleavage between those who believe that Montenegrins are in some way or another related to the Serbs and those who reject this view and assert Montengrins’ unique national identity. As we have seen above, some anthems may have this kind of divisive effect in states which are the home of different and separate national groups. If an anthem is a national anthem of one of these groups, the other group or groups may simply reject it as not theirs. Since most European anthems date from the nineteenth-century era of national revival they are for the most part national songs – songs extolling the virtues of, or calling on, a single nation. There are only a few national songs that are supranational. ‘Hey Slavs’ is, as we have seen, a rare example of this kind. The current lyrics of the anthem have both led to an ongoing political controversy concerning its alleged author and exacerbated the division within the Montenegrin national group between Serbophiles and Montenegrin separatists. Although the anthem itself did not bring about the cleavage between these two groups, which has a long-standing history going back at least to 1918, it did increase the division. There are two ways in which the anthem has done this. The first is obvious: the author of the two stanzas has been perceived (whether justifiably or not) as a war criminal and fascist. This argument taints those who advocate the anthem and the independence of Montenegro, and paints them as people who are tolerant of fascism or even pro-fascist. The pro-Serb politicians in Montenegro make two types of claims against Drljevic´. First, they claim that he sent thousands of innocent Montenegrins to their death when he collaborated with the Italian occupiers and later with the pro-fascist Ustashe regime.13 Second, they claim that he was a Nazi and fascist who shared the anti-Serb ideology of the Ustasha regime in Croatia where he lived from 1941 until 1945. In many public statements these two claims are conflated so that Drljevic´ is proclaimed as a war criminal because of his alleged adherence to a fascist ideology. Many anthem critics suggest that in accepting his two stanzas, the pro-anthem parties/individuals are in effect saying that in Montenegro it is acceptable for the author of the national anthem to be a fascist or a war criminal. In response to these arguments, those who advocate the anthem often argue that the question of whether the author of the two stanzas

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was a war criminal or not is irrelevant: one’s anthem should not be tied to the personality of its alleged author (Rotkovic´ 2011: 388). Moreover, they argue that that the Drljevic´ poem was first published in 1936, at which time he had no association with the Ustasha movement or with the future occupiers of the country. Further, some scholars argue that Drljevic´ was not a war criminal, since the Communists’ charges of war crimes against him were politically motivated and never tested in court. Indeed, they claim he sent no one, let alone thousands of people, to their deaths (Adzˇic´ 2011: 185). It is also argued that in his works he never espoused either the Ustasha, or fascist, ideology of any kind. He was only a nationalist committed to the independence of Montenegro who made a serious mistake in seeking support among Axis powers and their local supporters (see Adzˇic´ 2011: 184; PCNEN 2004c; Radejevic´ 2011: 382).14 The continuing political controversy could easily be ended by simply removing the two offending stanzas from the anthem and leaving the two first uncontroversial stanzas together with the title. There is a history of such successful accommodation strategies elsewhere, for anthems that appear to be tainted, but for which an attachment remains. The continuing use of ‘Deutschlandlied’ in Germany is the most obvious European example (see Chapter 3). For such a change in Montenegro, that is a change of the 2004 Law on State Symbols, a simple majority vote in the National Assembly would be sufficient. And yet, for many of the pro-anthem advocates, the removal of the two stanzas from the anthem would appear to be a defeat of their vision of Montenegro’s independence. Since they believe that Montenegro should be independent forever and not enter any state union with another state (except, of course, the EU), the explicit removal of such an aspiration from the anthem would, for them, mean the rejection of their vision. This vision of Montenegro as everlastingly independent overrides any other concerns, including the political views and deeds of the author and the unity of the nation-singing-in-unison. The apparent paradox here is that those who believe in the inviolable separateness of the nation from its neighbour put the assertion of separation ahead of the possible unity that may be found in singing. In fact, the two stanzas are, in this public debate, often put forward as a test of Montenegrin national identity and national loyalty: those who reject the two stanzas are at times branded as ‘anti-Montenegrin’

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(‘anticrnogorski’). In retrospect, it looks as if the party leaders, led by the long-serving Prime Minister Djukanovic´, who from 1996 onwards started to seek separation from Serbia, introduced the text of this anthem in 2004 for two related purposes: as a rallying point for all those who favour separation and the independence of Montenegro and as a test of loyalty for those who reject the separation. As the referendum on independence showed, a large number of citizens of Montenegro – slightly fewer than 45 per cent of those voting in the referendum – rejected this option. In their view, Montenegro should not be independent from Serbia and thus they have far less inclination to sing the last two stanzas. The division between pro-anthem and antianthem groups mirrors to some extent the division between proindependence and anti-independence segments of the Montenegrin electorate. The above controversy about Drljevic´ as the author of the two stanzas has in effect given to the anti-independence and pro-Serb faction an additional argument against their pro-independence opponents. They can claim that pro-independence faction, in the absence of anything better, have to recruit wartime collaborator and, in their view, a war criminal in support of their cause. Thus the current anthem stands out from other ex-Yugoslav anthems not only by virtue of several features of the lyrics but in its authorship and societal impact. It is unique in terms of its authorship: no author of other anthems from the region, nor from any other country of Europe, was a political collaborator of the occupiers during World War II. Moreover, no other anthem in this region has deepened so many of the existing identity and political cleavages within the target national group as this one has done within the Montenegrin nation.

CHAPTER 6 A FIGHT FOR RIGHTS: MACEDONIA 1941

The Law on the Anthem of the Republic of Macedonia, passed by the Assembly (Sobranie) of the Republic of Macedonia on 11 August 1992, made ‘Today over Macedonia’ (‘Denes nad Makedonija’) the state anthem of the Republic. Almost a year earlier, on 25 September 1991, the Republic of Macedonia, following a referendum, declared independence from the SFRY. The new state adopted a constitution in November 1991. Thus the anthem was legalised almost a year after Macedonia’s declaration of independence. ‘Today over Macedonia’ is a song from World War II which, as we shall see below, served first as an unofficial and then, from 1989, as the official anthem of Macedonia while it was a federal unit in the SFRY. In its current amended form, Article 5 of the Constitution of the Republic of Macedonia requires that the law regarding the flag, the coat of arms and the national anthem be passed by a two-thirds majority. Amendment X of the Constitution also requires that a majority of the representatives of those other than the majority of the population must be in favour of such a law. This, in effect, means that any law pertaining to these matters must be passed by a majority of the representatives of the Albanian minority in the Assembly. The current law of 11 August 1992 was not carried by the majorities required by the Constitution, but by the time the Law on the Anthem was enacted, ‘Today over Macedonia’ had in fact been the official anthem of Macedonia for three years. On 14 April 1989, the Assembly of the Socialist Republic of

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Macedonia, which was still a federal unit of the SFRY, adopted Amendment 24 to its Constitution of 1974, which replaced Article 10. Article 10 previously asserted that ‘The Socialist Republic of Macedonia has an anthem’ but its replacement, Amendment 24, stated ‘The anthem of SR Macedonia is “Today over Macedonia”’ (Pavlovic´ 1990: 291). The constitutional sanction of ‘Today over Macedonia’ as anthem parallels that of the Slovenian anthem ‘A Toast’, which became the Slovenian anthem through an amendment of Slovenian Constitution in September 1989 (see Chapter 3). As had been the case in Slovenia, the 34 constitutional amendments passed in April 1989 in Macedonia paved the way for its later declaration of independence and for multi-candidate elections (Rossos 2008: 262). And as in Slovenia, following the independence of the federal unit and first multi-party elections in 1991, a new law was enacted proclaiming the anthem already chosen in 1989 as the national anthem. There are, however, some significant differences between these two cases: the Slovenian assembly chose a song that was neither a World War II song, nor even a national song while the Macedonian assembly opened a public competition for the national anthem, which the already adopted national anthem allegedly won. There was never a public competition for the Slovenian national anthem and no one has ever proposed one. Unlike the laws on anthems in Slovenia, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, the Macedonian law does not establish a text for the lyrics of the anthem. The official text of the lyrics appears on the website of the president (see below) but this is an informal arrangement and appears not to have been codified by law. At the time of the adoption of the anthem the Assembly also adopted a new flag for the newly independent state and that choice was vigorously contested by the government of neighbouring Greece. The Greek government objected to the design of the new flag on the ground that it represented the ‘Vergina Star’ a golden object retrieved from an Ancient Macedonian tomb (alleged to be that of King Phillip of Macedon, the father of Alexander the Great). In taking the Vergina Star, it was claimed, the Macedonian state was taking a piece of heritage and a symbol of the Greek state.1 The Greek government, more importantly, also objected to the very name of the new state, ‘Macedonia’ claiming that this was already the name of a Greek province bordering on the newly declared republic.2 The latter objection delayed the EU and US recognition of Macedonia as an independent state and its admission to

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the UN. To gain admission the state had to be ‘renamed’ as the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or FYROM (Rossos 2008: 271). However, neither Greece nor any other neighbouring state objected to the national anthem, in spite of its title ‘Today over Macedonia’. There was no requirement, for example, to rename it as ‘Today over FYROM’. The Greek government apparently did not care how the Macedonians – singers of their own anthem – named their own country among themselves; moreover, the Greek government did not object to the singing of this anthem, in Macedonian, with the word ‘Macedonia’ in it, at official ceremonies in other states or international events. The whole dispute, which has still not been fully resolved, demonstrates how state symbols and even names can become objects of contestation when they appear to be threatening other particular forms of national self-identification (in this case, Greek national selfidentification). The Macedonian anthem escaped the inter-state contestation with Greece but did not, as we shall see, escape contestation by the politicians representing minority populations in Macedonia, primarily Albanians. ‘Today over Macedonia’ is a song about the Macedonian fight for freedom. It does not exhort or urge Macedonians to fight; rather it relates the fact that they are fighting and that, as a consequence, Macedonia will be free. In spite of the lack of exhortation per se the fight that Macedonians are carrying on as they sing the song remains the principal theme. Apart from being a fighting song, it is also self-congratulatory, in so far as it lauds the singers and their motherland for the freedom that they are to attain for themselves and for the state – the Krusˇevo Republic – they once had. In this chapter we shall discuss the song’s genesis as a national anthem and its main competitor ‘Rise the Dawn of Freedom’ as well as the recent controversy over its lack of any reference to non-Macedonian minorities.

From a festive song to anthem Picture a quiet New Year’s Eve night in December 1941 in Struga, a town in western Macedonia, under Italian occupation. A group of young men and women gather quietly to celebrate because too much noise may attract the attention of the Italian authorities. One of the young men picks up his guitar and sings a new song, which he has rehearsed over the

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last a month or so. Other participants take up the song enthusiastically and then sing other songs and chat happily in between. This would seem to be just an ordinary festive gathering of young and educated Strugans. Yet appearances can be deceptive: most of the participants, including the singer and the poet/composer, Vlado Maleski, later left the town to join a small Communist-led Partisan detachment fighting against the Axis forces (60 godin 2001: 22 –3). There were very few Partisan detachments in Macedonia and at that time only a few recruits. Yet by 1945 the Partisans had been victorious both in the war against the Axis and in a series of civil wars fought in various parts of Yugoslavia. In the Communist-ruled Macedonia, a federal unit of Yugoslavia, the singer and poet Vlado Maleski (1919–84) became not only a famous writer, the author of widely acclaimed novels, poems and dramas, but also a state official, the director of the main radio station and the Yugoslav ambassador to several countries. His song had also an illustrious career: it was sung on many official and festive occasions in Macedonia until in 1989 when it officially became the national anthem. The song is called ‘Today over Macedonia is being born’ (‘Denes nad Makedonija se radja’). Here is the official version of the current anthem which, as we shall see below, differs from Maleski’s original song:

Денес над Македонија се раѓа3 Денес над Македонија се раѓа,

Today over Macedonia is being born

ново сонце на слободата! Македонците се борат, за своите правдини! Македонците се борат, за своите правдини!

Today over Macedonia, is being born the new sun of liberty. The Macedonians fight, for their own rights! The Macedonians fight for their own rights!

Одново сега знамето се вее, на Крушевската република! Гоце Делчев, Питу Гули, Даме Груев, Сандански! Гоце Делчев, Питу Гули, Даме Груев, Сандански!

Now once again the flag flies (that) of the Krushevo Republic Goce Delchev, Pitu Guli, Dame Gruev, Sandanski! Goce Delchev, Pitu Guli Dame Gruev, Sandanski!

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Горите Македонски шумно пеат, нови песни, нови весници! Македонија слободна, слободнo живее! Македонија слободна, слободнo живее!

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The Macedonian forests sing [brightly] new songs and news! Macedonia is liberated4 It lives in liberty! Macedonia is liberated It lives in liberty!

The song was not initially composed to serve as a national anthem. Its original aim appears to have been primarily to stir up patriotic sentiments in the singers, raise national pride, and direct the singers’ patriotic sentiments toward the fight for freedom of their national group. In this sense, the song clearly belongs to the frequently (but not necessarily) linked genres of the patriotic awakening song (‘budilica’ in Macedonian) and the fighting song. The former aims at arousing patriotic sentiments among those who either lack these sentiments or have not had much public opportunities to expressing themselves. The latter serves to bolster the fighting spirit and encourage singers to join in the fight for freedom. Many anthems start as songs belonging to either or both of these categories. The current Croatian national anthem ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ and the Czech ‘Where is my home?’ both started as patriotic awakening songs under the Austrian and Hungarian rule. ‘The Marseillaise’ started as a fighting song of French revolutionary regiment. ‘Marcha Patriotica’, the current Argentinian national anthem, composed and performed in 1813, was a fighting song of the South American wars of independence against Spain. National anthems also aim to stir and channel the dormant patriotic sentiments of the singers, as vehicles for the musical and poetic articulation of those sentiments and for their public expression in unison. Hence the purpose of anthems often coincides with that of awakening and fighting songs. In consequence, the latter provide good anthem material which is easily transformed into anthems. In the case of this particular song we are privileged to know the story of the awakening, which commenced with its first private performance in 1941. Another unusual feature of this anthem lyric is its listing of the names of the illustrious dead (reminiscent of the listing of the martyrs in Yeats’s ‘Easter 1916’). In the initial version of the song, these illustrious

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dead were called the ‘builders’ of the Krusˇevo Republic – the first, briefly independent state on the territory of the present Republic of Macedonia.

An ode to a state of one’s own The sun is an ancient symbol with wide connotative range; for example witness the monotheism of the Aten cult in the reign of Akhenaten and the Roman ‘Sol Invictus’ (in both cases the sun symbol is used to convey the idea of unchallengeable power). Reborn every day, the sun is a culturally widespread symbol of life-giving, rebirth and associated hopes. The association of sun and freedom is also known from the Tarot. The sun is associated with health and with happiness (the ‘place in the sun’ for which people strive). Probably for all of these reasons the sun has long been a staple of national symbolism, for instance in flag design: for example in the flags of Taiwan, Japan, the Philippines, Uruguay, Argentina, Tibet and Kazakhstan. In the context of the Macedonian flag and the lyrics of its matching anthem, we may take the sun of freedom as focusing national devotion. This sun shines equally on all, and, as the real sun bestows light and warmth that gives life to all living beings, so the sun of liberty/freedom bestows freedom and removes oppression and shackles from those it reaches. In the case of ‘Today over Macedonia’ three associations are obvious – freedom, power and rebirth. The opening lines assert that the sun of freedom, unlike the real sun, does not arise by itself. For the sun of freedom to appear to oppressed and occupied peoples – at least in the context of fighting songs and anthems – these peoples have to fight. And that is exactly what the Macedonians are said to be doing: the sun of liberty/freedom arises as the Macedonians are doing the fighting. Interestingly, they are not said to fight for their liberty but for their rights. But what rights are they fighting for precisely? To answer that question, we need first to note the identity of the fighters who are said to be Macedonians. In 1941, the Bulgarian occupier of the large part of Macedonia (but not of Struga) rejected this as a national identification because it differentiated Macedonians from the nation of the occupier, the Bulgarians. The pre-1941 government of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia also rejected this is as a national identification because officially the Macedonian-speaking inhabitants of Macedonia were

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held to be Serbs. Identifying the individuals standing up and fighting as Macedonians was not only an act of political defiance to the occupying authorities in 1941 but was also an act of generally defiant national selfidentification. In naming this group of people as Macedonians, the poet and the singers are rejecting any other national identity as imposed by a hostile power. The first stanza could be thus read as saying: ‘We are neither Bulgarians nor Serbs – we are Macedonians. And to prove it, we are all fighting together for our rights. Today, as we all fight for our rights, we show that we are free from any imposed identity and we show that we are Macedonians.’ Through their struggle for freedom, Macedonians are reborn as a nation distinct from their neighbours. The next stanza tells us a bit more about the rights for which the Macedonians are fighting. In the original version this stanza offers an eschatological image of a state resurrected. As the Macedonians fight, the creators (masons) of the first modern Macedonian state are also resurrected. In the current version, it is only the flag of that resurrected state – the Krusˇevo Republic – that is resurrected. This is the most immediate sense in which the sun of both the Macedonian flag and the anthem represents rebirth. The flag of the first independent state serves here as an obvious symbol of independence resurrected. The resurrected flag is then followed by a list of four names. These are the well-known leaders of the movement which sparked an insurrection against the Ottoman rule in 1903, known as ‘the Ilinden insurrection’ after the Feast Day of St Ilias. It is their insurrection that led to the liberation of the city of Krusˇevo and its environs and the proclamation of the Krusˇevo Republic on 3 August 1903. The Republic lasted only ten days but, however short-lived, was the only state that claimed independence within the territory of the present day Republic of Macedonia until 1991. The listing of these four illustrious dead identifies the cause of the Macedonian fighters: like the insurrectionists of 1903, the song suggests the Macedonians are fighting for the same cause – the independence of Macedonia. The stanza thus asserts the continuity of the Macedonians’ striving for an independent state and, in doing so, asserts, most emphatically but still indirectly, the independence of Macedonia. Both assertions make the song eminently ‘portable’ over time. At any time that Macedonia’s independence appears to be contested or needs to asserted, the singing of this song reassures the singers that they still strive and fight for independence and freedom.

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If identity and fighting are the topoi of the first stanza and the resurrection of independence is the topos of the second, liberty/freedom is the topos of the third. Macedonia is asserted to be free at present and to live freely or in liberty in the future. The forests who are announcing the freedom can be read as metonyms for the guerrillas who are fighting or about to fight in those very forests. It is the Partisans living in the forests – whom Maleski and his fellow-celebrants were planning to join – who will bring Macedonia its freedom. The song is thus confirming to its singers and listeners that if Macedonians continue to fight for the independence of their state, the independent state will guarantee them the opportunity to live in freedom. Fighting for the cause of independence – at least in anthems and patriotic songs – always brings freedom! The three topoi that dominate this patriotic song (identity, independent statehood and freedom) are frequent themes in many patriotic songs and anthems. Identity is expressed through the repeated use of Macedonia (four times), Macedonians (twice), Macedonian (for woodlands, once), identifying the land, the motherland, its landscape and its fighting people. Independent statehood enters via the allusion to the first and (until 1991) the only (modern) independent state on the territory of today’s Macedonia. That state is the focus of the second stanza. As we shall see, in the process of its transformation into an anthem, the song was shortened and its content modified. In spite of this reduction, these three topoi were preserved in the final anthem version, together with the repetition of the word Macedonia and its cognates. These three topoi thus provide a conduit for the projection of a selfselected image of the nation-singing-in-unison and are eminently suitable for a national anthem. Yet, they also serve another purpose in asserting the state’s independence, which makes them particularly suitable as an anthem of a new state seeking to assert its independence and national identity among neighbouring states whose governments do not appear to recognise either the former or the latter.

Before ‘Today over Macedonia’: A blood-curdling march from Bulgaria In 1941 there were only two small political groupings in Macedonia that recognised a separate Macedonian identity: the Communist Party of Yugoslavia and the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation

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(United) (IMRO (United)). The latter, although officially disbanded in 1936, still had an impact on political life in Macedonia, primarily through its former members and sympathisers. IMRO (United) was formed by the left wing of the IMRO in 1925. Until 1934 the IMRO, based in Bulgaria, was a highly influential organisation in Bulgarian politics, which promoted the annexation of Macedonia to Bulgaria, denied the existence of a separate Macedonian nation, and used terrorist tactics against its opponents in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Greece. In contrast, the leaders of the IMRO (United) recognised Macedonians as separate from Bulgarians and it was partly due their initiative that the Communist International (Comintern) in Moscow issued, in 1934, a resolution that acknowledged the existence of a separate Macedonian nation and its separate language. In 1941, the Communist parties of Yugoslavia, Bulgaria and Greece, all controlled by the Sovietdominated Comintern, officially followed the Comintern line (Rossos 2008: 167). In June 1941, following the German invasion of the USSR, the Communist Party of Yugoslavia (CPY), acting on Comintern directives, organised an armed insurrection against the Axis forces occupying Yugoslavia. The attack on 11 October 1941 on a police station of the Bulgarian occupation forces by the Prilep Partisan detachment – organised by the Regional Committee of the CPY for Macedonia – marked the start of the Communist-led uprising in Macedonia (Rossos 2008: 192). In 1941, there was no Partisan detachment formed in the area of Struga which was occupied by the Italian forces. However, the League of Communist Youth of Yugoslavia (SKOJ in Macedonian and Serbo-Croat), a Communist youth organisation, had a network of activists in Struga. Members of this network planned the New Year’s Eve celebration at which Vlado Maleski performed, for the first time, ‘Today over Macedonia’. Some 24 young men and women were present on the occasion (according to available oral sources) and their names were recorded only in 1981 (60 godini 2001: 22). Most of the original singers obviously identified as Macedonians. Yet it is unclear how many people in Struga and its environs would also have done the same. Identifying oneself as a Macedonian at the time was not only an expression of ethnic but also political allegiance: allegiance to an antiAxis and anti-fascist left-wing ideology that promoted the idea of Macedonian separateness.

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While the Communist-led Partisans were small in number in Macedonia in 1942, in the course of the war their forces and their supporter-base grew considerably. On 2 August 1944, on the anniversary of the establishment of the Krusˇevo Republic, Macedonian Communists organised the first meeting the Anti-Fascist Assembly for the People’s Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM in Macedonian) in a Serbian monastery near Kumanovo. The president and one of the vice-presidents of the Assembly were former members or sympathisers of the IMRO (United). The Assembly duly declared Macedonia a federal unit, with state attributes, in the future federated Yugoslavia which was to follow the federal model of the USSR. The Assembly also made Macedonian, spoken by the majority population of Macedonian, the official language of the state (Rossos 2008: 196). Vlado Maleski, the composer and the first singer of ‘Today over Macedonia’, was a delegate at this Assembly. Yet his song was not sung at the Assembly. Instead, the Assembly was opened with the unofficial anthem of the Yugoslav Communist state, ‘Hey Slavs’ (see Chapter 1) and the older IMRO anthem ‘Rise the Dawn of Freedom’ (‘Izgrej zora na slobodata’). In view of the election of two former IMRO (United) members to high office in the Assembly, it is perhaps not surprising that the anthem of the old IMRO was sung (allegedly spontaneously) at the opening of the meeting (Nova Makedonija 2011). This was the principal revolutionary song in Macedonia and the delegates, most of whom were either members or sympathisers of the Communist Party or of the IMRO (United), would have known it well (Blazˇevski 2005). ‘Rise the Dawn of Freedom’ is a fighting song par excellence: it threatens to drown the tyrants in the blood of heroes and evokes scenes of fighting, heroic charges and heroes dying for freedom in the sacred forests – the very forests that echo the battle cry ‘Hurrah!’ Its principal refrain is a threat to any oppressors: Oh tyrants, we shall make wonders. We shall not stand being slaves. We’ll drown you in the blood of heroes And we shall thus gain freedom.5 In August 1944 the Macedonian Partisan units were fighting a German army which was struggling to maintain its communication links with

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its forces in Greece. A fighting song that expresses unwavering faith in the gruesome death of any oppressors and an unshakeable readiness to die fighting for the cause of freedom must have seemed appropriate at the time. This is particularly true in comparison with Maleski’s much milder and vaguer song that tells Macedonians they are fighting for their rights. However, ‘Rise the Dawn of Freedom’ was, as everyone singing it knew, a Bulgarian song written by a Bulgarian author in 1923 for an organisation that was based in and operated in Bulgaria. It uses the adjective ‘Macedonian’ only once in the following lines: ‘The new guerrilla fighters were coming/From the Macedonian country (zemja)’. In this sense the phrase ‘Macedonian country’ or ‘land’ does not suggest a bounded territory to be transformed into a state and populated by Macedonians. It is a purely geographical term that has no national or state implications. In short, unlike the Maleski song, this song did and could not anticipate or promote the creation of an independent or autonomous state of Macedonia as a homeland for the Macedonian nation. Following the expulsion of the Yugoslav Communists in 1948 from the successor of the Comintern (controlled as before by the Soviet Communist Party) the Yugoslav and Macedonian Communist authorities branded this Bulgarian song as pro-Bulgarian and thus as anti-patriotic, and banned its use (Nova Makedonija 2011). However, the song has continued its career in Bulgaria where it is still the anthem of the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation – the Bulgarian National Association in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia.6

The original song and its list of the glorious dead As we have seen, ‘Rise the Dawn of Freedom’ has nothing to say on the question of Macedonian identity or statehood. In contrast, Maleski’s song unambiguously states that Macedonians are a separate national group that should have a separate state of their own. And yet the song does not specify what kind of separateness that should be, either autonomy or full independence. This vagueness makes it equally usable as an anthem of a federal unit within another state as well as an anthem of an independent state. Here it is in its original version as it was printed in Kocˇe Racin’s collection of Macedonian revolutionary songs in 1943:

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Денес над Македонија се раѓа, ново сонце на слободата! Старо младо машко и женско, на нозе се кренало! Старо младо машко и женско, на нозе се кренало! Горите македонски шумно пеат, нови песни, нови весници! Македонците се борат, за своите правдини! Македонците се борат, за своите правдини! Од гроб станаа славните ѕидари на Крушевската Република! Гоце Делчев, Питу Гули, Карев, Влахов, Сандански Гоце Делчев, Питу Гули, Карев, Влахов, Сандански Не плачи Македонијо мајко мила, Крени глава гордо високо, Македонија слободна, слободна ќе живее! Македонија слободна, слободна ќе живее!

Today over Macedonia A new sun of liberty rises. The old and the young, men and women Jumped to their feet The old and the young, men and women Jumped to their feet The Macedonian forests sing brightly New songs and news! Macedonians fight For their own rights! Macedonians fight For their own rights! From the grave will rise again the famous builders7 Of the Krusˇevo republic Goce Delcev, Pitu Guli, Karev, Vlahov, Sandanski Goce Delcev, Pitu Guli Karev, Vlahov, Sandanski Do not cry, dear mother Macedonia Raise up your head high and proudly Macedonia is liberated It will live in liberty! Macedonia is liberated It will live in liberty!8

The current version omits two sets of verses from this original. First, it omits the two lines from the first stanza describing the enthusiasm of Macedonians of all generations and genders for the fight for their rights. In the current version, there is no jumping to one’s feet and no mention of the inter-generational and inter-gender unity in the fight. These two

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lines – repeated as they are – make it more of an action and fighting song than its current version. Second, the current version omits the two lines from the last stanza exhorting the grieving mother not to cry. The call for a mother (usually of a fallen fighter or hero) not to cry but instead to lift her head proudly is one of the most frequent topoi of patriotic poetry in Europe. For example, it is found in the original of the Croatian anthem, Mihanovic´’s ‘The Croatian Homeland’. Interestingly, just as the current lyrics of ‘Today over Macedonia’ omit the verses about the grieving mother, so do the lyrics of the current Croatian anthem. While this topos is a conventional device for spurring and/or displaying national pride – the national ‘stiff upper lip’ – it is not so suitable for an anthem that wants to leave no room for grieving. It is all right for grieving mothers to display their nation’s pride and the quintessential ‘stiff upper lip’ by ceasing to weep, but this is not the image required in a national anthem that should primarily display the unity and resolve of the singers-in-unison. The omission of these two sets of verses does not greatly change the overall tone and thematic focus of the song. Indeed, the changes in the third stanza of the above original are much more interesting and possibly politically relevant. The first line of the third stanza of the original is quite explicitly eschatological: the ‘Masons’ (Sidari) of the Krusˇevo Republic will rise from their graves. Such explicit eschatological images are not all that frequent in national anthems; anthems usually aim to resurrect glories and symbols and only very rarely do they depict the resurrection of humans. Thus it is understandable that an anthem of a Communist-ruled federal unit would omit such an eschatological image. The current lyrics resurrect only the flag of the Krusˇevo Republic, not its ‘masons’ or ‘builders’. Yet both the original and the current versions provide a list of the names of these ‘masons’ even if the current version does not tell us who they are in the way the original does. The list in the current version is shorter with only four as opposed to five names. Moreover, the current version omits two names (Karev and Vlahov) from the original and adds a new name (Dame Gruev). So who were these ‘masons’ of the Krusˇevo Republic? The Ilinden armed uprising against the Ottoman authorities in August 1903 was organised and led by the Secret Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (SMARO),9 which after World War I was reorganised in Bulgaria and renamed the Internal Macedonian

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Revolutionary Organisation (IMRO). The rebels took over the town of Krusˇevo in today’s Macedonia and held it for ten days before much larger and better armed Ottoman forces arrived and pushed them out of the town and the surrounding area. The five men who were called to rise from their graves were all members of this organisation and all of them were born and fought in what was then the Ottoman Empire.10 Goce Delcˇev (1872– 1903) was born in the town of Kilkes which is in today’s Greece (in Macedonian or Bulgarian Kukus). He trained as an officer in a Bulgarian military academy but during his studies became a revolutionary, eventually becoming the chief military organiser of SMARO. He was killed while organising the Ilinden uprising which he initially opposed as premature and unrealistic. Thus he did not live to see the establishment of the Krusˇevo Republic. Pitu Guli (1865– 1903) was a native of Krusˇevo who became a leader of one of the guerrilla detachments of the SMARO and died defending the Krusˇevo Republic at the battle of Macˇkin Kamen. He was a Vlach (or Arumenian) and did not belong to the ethnic majority group in Macedonia. Nikola Karev (1877– 1905), another native of Krusˇevo, worked as a teacher and was a member of the Bulgarian Social Democratic Party until joining SMARO and becoming one of its military leaders. Upon the take-over of Krusˇevo, he wrote the Krusˇevo Manifesto, proclaiming the independence of the Krusˇevo Republic. He was then elected its president. He survived the uprising but was killed in a skirmish with Ottoman forces in 1905. Dimitar Vlahov (1878– 1953), another native of Kilkes, was a member of the Bulgarian Socialist Democratic Party and appears to have joined SMARO only after the Ilinden uprising in which he did not participate. He participated in Ottoman politics (having been elected to the Ottoman parliament in Istanbul) and worked as a diplomat for the Kingdom of Bulgaria before becoming one of the leaders of the left wing faction of IMRO (previously SMARO). He was one of the founders the IMRO (United) and lived in the USSR from 1934 to 1944. In 1944, he returned to Macedonia and with other leaders of the IMRO (United) joined the Yugoslav Macedonian Communist government in which he held high positions until his death in Beograd, Serbia in 1953. Jane Sandanski (1872– 1915) was born near Kresna in today’s Bulgaria and, having joined the SMARO, became a leader of the local

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armed bands in the Serres region. While he was involved in attacking the Ottoman forces in his region, he did not participate in the establishment of the Krusˇevo Republic. After the failure of the Ilinden uprising, he opposed the Bulgarian-based Macedonian revolutionary organisation and insisted on the creation of an autonomous or independent Macedonia. He was allegedly killed on the orders of the Bulgarian government. Dame Gruev (1876–1906) was one of the founders and leaders of SMARO. In August 1903 Gruev organised an uprising in his own district of Bitola, which did not succeed because of the resistance of the Ottoman forces. Like Sandanski, he did not participate in the establishment of the Krusˇevo Republic but with Delcˇev was one of the best-known and most influential leaders of SMARO. His name appears to have been added to the song later. Damir Vlahov and Jane Sandanski, listed in the original version but replaced in the anthem, did not participate in the establishment of the Krusˇevo Republic. They were not in or around Krusˇevo at the time and it is not entirely clear if Vlahov was even a member of SMARO at that time. Further, Goce Delcˇev, although he greatly contributed to military preparations for the uprising, was killed before the uprising took place. Only Nikola Karev and Pitu Guli were leaders of both the uprising and the resulting republic. In other words, both lists include people who were not ‘builders’ or ‘masons’ of the Krusˇevo Republic. However, the six revolutionaries were all on record as supporters of an autonomous Macedonia and all of them disagreed, in one way or another, with the project of assimilation of Macedonia into Bulgaria. There were, of course, other SMARO leaders who participated in the uprising and the establishment of the Krusˇevo Republic but they were not known for their persevering support for an independent or autonomous Macedonia, at least in 1941. This is probably the reason why they were not included in this roll call. Why some names were later dropped and another added to the song is the subject of continuing debate (Dnevnik online 2007), but there is no doubt that their inclusion in the song was motivated by their support for an independent Macedonia. In listing these people as the ‘builders’ of the Krusˇevo Republic, Maleski is simply saying that in their time (that is, 1903) they were fighting for a Macedonia free from the foreign occupation (Ottomans) and not for its incorporation into Bulgaria. In this sense they were indeed

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fighting for the same cause as the Communist-led Partisans in Macedonia whom Maleski went on to join. Yet it is interesting to note that all six of the SMARO leaders are, in recent Bulgarian historiography, claimed to be Bulgarians and some, such as Delcˇev and Sandanski, are regarded Bulgarian national heroes. This trend of incorporation of IMRO (SMARO) revolutionaries into Bulgarian national history became even more pronounced in the 1990s (Frusetta 2004: 118– 19). The issue is not, of course, how these five or six men would identify themselves – as either Bulgarian or Macedonian – because is far from clear that in 1903 these two identities were considered distinct or incompatible. Instead, the issue of national identity concerns the alleged ‘national’ legitimacy of a separate Macedonian state. Those who argue that these five or six revolutionaries were Bulgarians and not Macedonians (on the ground that Macedonians are indistinguishable from Bulgarians now and then) are in fact saying that there is no national basis for a separate Macedonian state and that Macedonia is in this sense illegitimate. ‘Today over Macedonia’, in both its current and original versions, rejects this type of argument and asserts the separateness of Macedonia from Bulgaria or any other state.

Discordant voices: A contested anthem? There was apparently no debate or discussion preceding the unanimous vote on 19 April 1989 that made ‘Today over Macedonia’ the anthem of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. However, in 1992, the question of the selection of the anthem was raised again, this time in the context of the selection of a new flag and coat of arms. Less than a year after the proclamation of Macedonia’s independence, the Committee for Constitutional Questions of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia held a competition for the new lyrics and music of the state anthem. In June 1992, the Committee considered the three short-listed anthems, and by a majority vote (16 to 10), chose the existing anthem ‘Today over Macedonia’ (‘Denes nad Makedonija’).11 The choice was questioned by some members of the Committee as well as by the holder of the copyright, Danka Bosˇkova, the daughter of the author Vlado Maleski (who died in 1984). She asked how the Committee could hold a competition for a new anthem without deciding first whether the old was to be used or not. She also did not consider the Committee for

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Constitutional Questions to be competent to judge the music and lyrics of the song (Trajanovski manuscript: 12).12 However, both the government and the (majority) Macedonian parties in the Assembly supported the Committee’s decision and on 11 August 1992 passed the Law on the Anthem. All 88 members of the Assembly who were voting on that day voted for the anthem. However, the Assembly has in total 120 members and most of those who were absent were in effect boycotting the vote. Later, at a special press conference the coalition of (minority) Albanian parties in the Assembly stated that it could not accept the anthem because it was Communist and because it glorified the struggle of only one ethnic group and ignored the struggle of others, in particular Albanians (Trajanovski manuscript: 2 note 5). This obviously indicates that the anthem is not acceptable to those citizens of Macedonia who do not think that the label ‘Macedonian’ in the anthem applies to them. Is this a song of, or for, the Albanianspeaking citizens of Macedonia? Is it addressed to them at all? As the press conference in August 1992 showed, the leaders of the two Albanian parties (at the time outside the government) clearly thought it was not. Nor is there much reason to believe sentiment will have shifted by the time of writing, more than 20 years later. The Ilinden uprising was led by people who were, almost without exception, speaking a Slavic dialect that was later codified as the Macedonian language. The same is true of the leaders of the Partisan uprising in July 1941. There is no record of an Albanian person among the initial rebels of the two uprisings. As Trajanovski points out, the competition for the anthem and other state symbols specified that the anthem should express the statehood, self-reliance and sovereignty of the Republic, the historical tradition, the cultural heritage, the striving for social and spiritual progress, the natural features of the Republic, unity and common life (заедништвото и сожителството) and the contemporary striving for the democratic society and for the European and world integration’ (Andonov 2001: 31 – 2). In view of the initial rejection of the anthem by the Albanian ethnic parties, Trajanovski questions the capacity of the anthem to express ‘the unity and common life’ of various ethnic groups in Macedonia. The

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‘Macedonians’ in the original anthem obviously refers to the ethnic Macedonians and the list of the illustrious dead heroes does not include any ethnic Albanians (although it does include a Vlach, Pitu Guli, who is often identified as Macedonian). During World War II, the ‘plurinationality’ dimension of Macedonia was not an issue that Maleski or the Communist Party leaders found important. Instead, it was the plurinationality of Yugoslavia as a whole that the Communist Party of Yugoslavia emphasised during the war. The national liberation struggle in Macedonia was presented primarily as a struggle for the recognition of Macedonians as a separate national group deserving of political self-determination. In 1991, the Macedonians (or at least their leaders) faced a struggle for recognition under its self-proclaimed name the Republic of Macedonia. The Greek government objected both to the name and to the use of a specific sun symbol on the Macedonian flag. This was because a northern Greek province, bordering on the republic, has the same name ‘Macedonia’ and is populated by people speaking the same, Macedonian, language – although the Greek government does not recognise the language as Macedonian. This objection was sufficient for the EU and US to refuse, at least initially, de jure recognition. The Macedonian government were finally convinced to accept the recognition (albeit in their view only temporarily) under the name the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia or FRYOM. In this struggle for independence and international recognition, ‘Today over Macedonia’ once again played the role of a ‘battle-song’. The threat to Macedonia’s freedom this time was not foreign occupation of its land, but rather the foreign refusal to recognise its statehood and sovereignty. Yet, the anthem affirmed the perseverance of the Macedonians in fighting for their rights as well as the continuity of their claim to statehood and autonomy. The flag of the Krusˇevo Republic, depicted in the song, affirmed the latter and the verse ‘Macedonians fight for their rights’ again sounded as true as it did in 1941. In 1992, the time had come to proclaim, as the song does, that Macedonia is free and lives in freedom/ liberty in spite of foreign threats. A functional national anthem should have some degree of portability: it should be able to express the aspirations, self-understandings and, if necessary, defiance of the national group it strives to represent at different periods of time and in different political contexts. One of the

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ways of achieving portability is through the vacuity of references and vagueness of meaning (see Introduction; Kelen and Pavkovic´ 2010). Fighting for one’s rights and living in freedom can be done at different times and in different contexts just as the verses of this song do not suggest a particular time or context. Thus ‘Today over Macedonia’ is highly portable and has proven its versatility by its use in various political contexts. So the question arises: can that versatility be used to express the plurinationality of contemporary Macedonia? Since the brief but violent Albanian–Macedonian conflict in 2001 this has become a major political issue. In 2006, the leaders of the ethnic Albanian Party proposed that a new anthem be adopted without any lyrics because lyrics raise questions as to the ethnic or national ownership of an anthem (Nova Makedonija 2011a). It was suggested that the text of ‘Today over Macedonia’ does not express Albanian national group aspirations and self-understandings and that, for that reason, it should be omitted. This train of thought was later followed in the neighbouring Kosovo (following its proclamation of independence in 2008) where Albanian majority parties chose a lyricfree anthem entitled ‘Europe’ (see Chapter 8). Political commentators like Trajanovski have some doubts that the text of the anthem can be tweaked to accommodate these demands or to express the multinationality of the current Republic (Trajanovski 2009). Others, including the former Minister for Ethnic Relations Ms Cvetanova and the historian Professor Dimitrijevski, believe that the text of the present anthem can be ‘refreshed’ or ‘modernised’ so as to express those aspirations and accommodate the demands of non-ethnic Macedonians for an anthem with which they can personally identify. The fact that the present text of the anthem was allegedly changed ten times before the 1992 version was adopted is an argument in support of the idea that the text can indeed be changed again (Nova Makedonija 2011a). So how could the text to be altered to ‘include’ ethnic Albanians? Trajanovski (2007), in his online blog conversation has jokingly suggested that a few of the Albanian illustrious dead be listed along the IMRO/SMARO revolutionaries. For example, he suggests that the anthem could also include Skanderbeg, the fifteenth-century Albanian rebel against the Ottoman rule (who is today the principal Albanian national hero). But how does one incorporate an Albanian national hero, who has had nothing to do with Macedonian history, let alone modern

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Macedonia, among the revolutionaries of the Ilinden uprising in 1903? This somewhat flippant suggestion exposes a serious problem in the historical approach to anthem composition in the context of today’s plurinational Macedonia. Of course, one could easily ‘modernise’ the present lyrics by introducing new verses without historical references that instead refer to specific ethnic groups – for example, ethnic Albanians – or perhaps make general references to the plurinationality of Macedonia. However, no actual text has been proposed. The topic is highly controversial and the differences in views on this issue reflect, at least to some extent, the ethnic divisions within Macedonia. For example, ethnic Albanians are apparently more likely to support the change while ethnic Macedonians do not. It is therefore difficult to predict whether the text or the whole anthem will be changed in the future. If it were to be changed it would have to follow Amendment X of the Constitution in which any proposal for change has to gain the so-called ‘Badinter majority’ – a majority of members of parliament representing a non-majority population (that is, the Albanian minority).13 Thus any proposal for a change of anthem would have to be the result of an agreement between the ethnic Macedonian and ethnic Albanian parties. Any change in the anthem would therefore reflect a state of political alliance or cooperation between these ethnic groups. At the time of the writing, there is no agreement on the need for wider national inclusivity in the national anthem, let alone agreement on the method of change. Nevertheless a question mark remains over this anthem. The question ‘Does the anthem represent all citizens of Macedonia, even those who are not ethnic Macedonians?’ was raised at the time of the anthem’s adoption, and was answered in the negative by the leaders of the ethnic Albanian parties. There is no reason to believe that those feelings have changed. As the question resurfaces from time to time in public debate, it is obvious that it has neither faded from consciousness nor been resolved.

CHAPTER 7 TO SING OR NOT TO SING? ANTHEMS AND ANTIANTHEMS: BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA 1995/99

The current anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina, called the ‘The State Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ was introduced to the country on 25 June 1999 by the decision of Carlos Westendorp y Cabeza, the High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina. By 10 February 1999 the House of Representatives of the Parliamentary Assembly had passed the Law on the State Anthem but the House of Peoples, the upper Chamber, refused to follow suit. The High Representative, using the authority conferred on him by the Dayton Peace Accords of 1995, enforced the Law until the latter House eventually passed it two years later, on 23 May 2001 (Decision 1999). In this chapter we will discuss the anthem promulgated in 1999, the state anthem ‘You are the One and Only’ that preceded it, the official anthem of Republika Srpska (an entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina) entitled ‘My Republic’ and, lastly, two anthem parodies. All three official anthems are self-congratulatory songs; the last two also incorporate prayer-verses or elements of prayer-anthems. The anthem parodies are decidedly anti-selfcongratulatory. There are no marching or fighting official anthems in Bosnia and Herzegovina although, as one would expect, during the 1992–5 war various military and paramilitary units sang a variety of fighting or war songs. These are not the subject of our present inquiry.

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The current ‘State Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ has no lyrics but is only a musical score: it is a wordless anthem. It appears from this that the High Representative did not believe his authority extended as far as assigning lyrics to the music of the anthem approved by the Parliamentary Assembly. Another interpretation is that he did not perceive at that stage at least that the new state needed an anthem with lyrics. Regardless, the procedure used for anthem selection in this case seems most unusual: states usually select and own their own anthems and they do not outsource their implementation to international organisations or their representatives. Such an arrangement may however not seem so unusual in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. From 1995, when the current constitutional arrangements were put in force, the High Representative wielded a wide range of sovereign powers for enforcing laws or implementing legal regulations, including for example the power to dismiss any elected officials. The High Representative thus combines the powers of the head of state and the executive organ of the government. The absence of official lyrics for the anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina is, as we shall see, not for lack of trying. Only one anthem of another state-member of the UN lacks lyrics – the Royal March, the anthem of the Kingdom of Spain1 – which, dating from 1761, is one of the oldest anthems in use today. As we shall see in the next chapter, the anthem of the Republic of Kosovo (not as yet a member of the UN), also lacks lyrics. The attempt to find lyrics for the Spanish anthem through an open competition in 2008 resembled the attempt (discussed below) to find lyrics for Bosnia and Herzegovina’s anthem in 2009. Both attempts ended in failure and for very similar reasons: because of ‘the lack of consensus’.2 In this chapter we will try to understand this lack of consensus in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. So how did the country come to have a foreign office holder of this kind entrusted with the power to implement laws on anthems and other state symbols of the country? Any answer to this question requires a brief excursus into the recent history of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Independence without a consensus As we saw in Chapter 5 (Montenegro), the independence of some of the new states of the former Yugoslavia was not based on any citizen

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consensus. This is also the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Like all other new states in the ex-Yugoslav space (with the exception of Kosovo), Bosnia and Herzegovina was first established as a federal unit in the Democratic (later Socialist) Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, constituted by the Communist Party of Yugoslavia in 1946, on the model of the USSR. Bosnia and Herzegovina was of a special importance for the Communist Party: until 1943 the Party recruited fighters for its Partisan forces mostly (but not exclusively) from the Serb population of Bosnia and Herzegovina and fought several major battles against the Axis forces and their local supporters. Unlike the five other federal units which each had a single constituent nation (Croatia had two), Bosnia and Herzegovina had, from 1968, three officially recognised constituent nations3 – Serbs, Croats and Muslims (since 1993 the Muslims have been officially called Bosniaks). The first legislative proposal advocating independence of the republic from Yugoslavia, the Memorandum of Sovereignty, put forward in October 1991 by the political parties representing the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats, led to a walk-out of the party representing the Bosnian Serbs (the Serb Democratic Party). This party then formed a parallel parliament outside the capital and, after a plebiscite for the Serb citizens in Serb-majority areas, in January 1992 proclaimed the secession of the Republic of the Serb Nation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (later renamed the Serb Republic – Republika Srpska) from Bosnia and Herzegovina. In December 1991, undeterred by this move to secession the Bosniak and Bosnian Croat political leadership, claiming to represent the whole republic, applied for recognition of independence by the then European Community (EC). The EC, following the advice of its Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, recommended a referendum of all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina on independence, which was then held in February 1992. The Serb Democratic Party called on the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina to boycott the referendum, which most of them duly did. As a result only 62.28 per cent of registered voters participated. However, that percentage voted overwhelmingly (around 99 per cent) for the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina (Burg and Shoup 1999: 117). In April 1992, the US and EC member states recognised the independence of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The government at the time, consisting mainly of Bosniak and Bosnian Croat representatives,

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controlled around half of the territory of the state. The war between the Bosnian Serb military (supported by the Yugoslav federal army’s heavy weaponry and officer staff) and the Bosniaks and Bosnian Croat forces began about the same time (Burg and Shoup 1999: 119–20). The war was fought for the control of territory, first between the secessionist Bosnian Serb party and Bosniak and Bosnian Croat parties, and then in 1993–4 between the latter two parties as well. Apart from recognising the independence of a state on the verge of civil war, the European states, US and the UN also attempted to stop the fighting and negotiate a peaceful settlement. In the process the UN deployed military forces whose main aim was to protect humanitarian aid supplies and protect the population of several Bosniak-inhabited cities from military attack. Several attempts at internationally negotiated settlements failed, until in August 1995 NATO launched a coordinated attack on the Bosnian Serb military. This involved NATO bombing of the military installations and troop emplacements and a coordinated offensive by the army of the Republic of Croatia together with Bosniak and Bosnian Croat forces against the Bosnian Serb military. Having lost the support of the government of Serbia/Yugoslavia and its military, the Bosnian Serb military retreated from parts of the territory it controlled, followed by the Bosnian Serb civilian population. This military defeat forced the Bosnian Serb leaders to agree to peace negotiations in which they were represented by the then President of Serbia, Slobodan Milosˇevic´. These talks were held in the US Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio. Present were Milosˇevic´, Dr Franjo Tudjman (President of Croatia) and Alija Izetbegovic´ (President of Bosnia and Herzegovina), representing each one of the three sides in the conflict. The chief negotiator was Christopher Holbroke, US Assistant Secretary of State. The Peace Accords were initialled in November in the presence of the representatives of the Contact Group for Bosnia and Herzegovina – the United States, Germany, Russia, France, and the United Kingdom together with the EU negotiator. In December 1995, the Accords were formally signed by the same parties in Paris, in the presence of the presidents and prime ministers of the five Contact Group states (Burg and Shoup 1999: 329–67, Pavkovic´ 2000: 174–8). The Dayton Peace Accords, as well as establishing peace in the country, introduced a new constitution for Bosnia and Herzegovina (which also changed its official name by dropping the word ‘Republic’

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from its name) establishing two ‘entities’ – the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Republika Srpska – each with its government, legislature, courts and armed forces. The Federation was constituted of cantons (modelled on Swiss cantons), some of which were predominantly Croat, others Bosniak, and a few were of mixed populations. It also created a collective three-person presidency in which each of the constituent nations – Bosniak, Bosnian Croats and Bosnian Serbs – had one representative. The Constitution was brought into force by the Dayton Accords and did not require the endorsement of the elected bodies. The Accords envisaged the demobilisation of the various armed forces in the country, to be supervised by a NATO-led international force called the Implementation Force, which was to take over command of all armed forces in the state (Burg and Shoup 1999: 367– 73). The civilian ‘command’ was taken over by the High Representative with final authority to interpret the Constitution or any other legal Acts but no jurisdiction over military matters. The High Representative is officially elected by the Peace Implementation Council which includes 55 UN member states and several international organisations. Between 1996 and 2013 all seven High Representatives came from EU member states.4 The Office of High Representative with its extensive powers appears to be now a permanent actor in the political life of Bosnia and Herzegovina (OHR 2013). The Dayton Accords Constitution entrusted the task of establishing the state symbols, including the anthem, to the two-chamber Parliamentary Assembly of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, this Assembly has no powers to amend or to change the Constitution. In February 1998, when the Parliamentary Assembly was unable to get the required majority to pass the state flag, the High Representative imposed the design that had gathered the most votes. Bosnia needed a flag urgently for the winter Olympics to be held in Japan and the High Representative was authorised by the Peace Implementation Council to impose a flag on the state in the situation where no agreement had been reached. The need for an anthem was not so urgent. As we shall see below, the High Representative waited until June 1999 to impose, in a similar way, a state anthem under the title ‘The State Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’. This brief and highly selective recent history provides only an institutional context for the decision of the High Representative in

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implementing the anthem. To understand the proposed text of the anthem – and the absence of consensus – it is no less important to grasp the extent of the devastation brought by the 1992–5 war. Out of four million inhabitants, more than half were forcibly displaced from their homes during the war, many of them fleeing to neighbouring states as well as abroad. Many areas drastically changed their population, leaving them ‘ethnically pure’, that is inhabited only or primarily by one of the three recognised nations. Infrastructure, homes and industrial plants were destroyed, civilians were tortured and massacred. In one instance, the International Tribunal on Former Yugoslavia (ICTY) deemed the massacre of an estimated 8,000 Bosniak males by the Bosnian Serb military in the town of Srebrnica in 1995 an act of genocide. According to ICTY estimates, around 104,000 people died in the war, around 60 – 65 per cent of whom were military personnel, fighting for one of the three national military formations. Around 90 per cent of the total casualties were male. The largest number of both military and civilian deaths, around 57,000, came from the largest national group, Bosniaks; their death toll represented 3.1 per cent of their group’s population as it stood in the 1991 census. Overall around 2.5 per cent of the population of the republic died in the war.5 This is by far the highest death toll of all post-1991 wars fought in the former Yugoslavia. Once the Contact Group, together with Croatia and Serbia/ Montenegro (FRY), reconstituted the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1995, the governments of the Contact Group states seem to have expected that the state symbols would be, as it were, ‘naturally’ reconstituted through the state institutions they introduced. In retrospect this seems to have been an unrealistic expectation. One could even argue that, once the war stopped, the contest over territory and control over populations simply continued in song. This chapter will examine at least some aspects of this song contest.

From music to lyrics: An aborted move The current musical score was selected through a public competition conducted by the High Representative in May 1998. Out of 80 submitted proposals, the expert panel chose three to recommend to the House of Representatives. The House of Representatives then selected the score, without lyrics, entitled ‘Intermezzo’. As in the case of flag

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design, the musical score was ‘nationality-blind’ – that is, it had no elements that could be could be claimed to originate from, or be readily appropriated by, one of the three nations of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It made no reference to any folk-music melodies or songs of any kind. The avoidance of folk-music references was intended to make the score acceptable to all three official national groups and to avoid any controversy over ‘national’ appropriation. This was in sharp contrast to the previous state anthem ‘You are the One and Only’ which was based on the melody of a Bosniak folk-song. A comparison with the design of the official state flag illuminates the symbolic references of the musical score. The design of the flag, which the High Representative imposed in February 1998, used the specific blue colour of the EU flag and the design of its stars resembled the ones on the EU flag. The flag was thus designed to signal Bosnia and Herzegovina’s belonging to the European community of nations (Kolstø, 2006). The musical score of the state anthem was also based on ‘Western’ classical music patterns, rather than echoing any local folkloric theme, suggestive of a state belonging to a Western European tradition. These endeavours to make the anthem acceptable to all citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina have not been very successful. According to the survey conducted in 2005, only the Bosniak population found the state anthem acceptable: 86 per cent of the surveyed Bosniaks but only 10 per cent of Bosnian Croats found this anthem expressed best their feelings towards their homeland. No Bosnian Serb found the anthem acceptable and 96 per cent of them felt that ‘God of Justice’, the official anthem of the Republika Srpska at time (see below), best expressed their feelings towards their homeland; 76 per cent of the Bosnian Croats felt the same about the Croatian state anthem ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ (Kostic´ 2008: 309).6 Moreover, following a ‘Western’ model in the musical score might have also contributed to the controversy the score faced in 2009. It was found to be similar to the score of the Hollywood film ‘Animal House’ from 1978, whose author was Elmer Bernstein (now deceased). Four beats of Bernstein’s score were found to be identical to the anthem’s score7 and, on the basis of this, the anthem was proclaimed, in various media and blogs, to be plagiarised. However, the composer, Dusˇan Sˇestic´, denied any knowledge of the film or the music (Press 2009). The controversy arose at the time when the text of the current anthem was

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being discussed. Given the similarity to the film music it was suggested by some that the original score and the newly proposed text should be abandoned and replaced with the first (Bosniak) state anthem (Novinar.me 2012). Although the controversy over originality did not in the end affect the anthem status of Sˇestic´’s musical text, it suggested that the music following a ‘Western’ model was not sufficient for the anthem to gain acceptance among a nationally diverse population. The absence of general acceptance of the text-free anthem did not prevent the Council of Ministers of Bosnia and Herzegovina from holding a public competition for the text of the anthem in 2008. There were 339 entries for the competition and they were assessed by a panel of 11 experts and politicians – including those from the Bosnian Serb entity. Acting on the unanimous recommendation of the panel, in February 2009 the government selected a text whose authors were Dusˇan Sˇestic´8 (composer of the musical score) and Benjamin Isakovic´. The authors were paid a prize of 30,000 convertible marks (the currency of the state). In June 2012, the House of Representatives rejected the proposal and thus Bosnia and Herzegovina was left once again with a lyric-free anthem. However this time, unlike 1999, the High Representative showed no intention of overruling the House of Representatives. It can thus be assumed that, for the purpose of international recognition of Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state, a lyric-free anthem is sufficient. As long as there is music which can be played when required, this anthem, without lyrics, does as well as any other (see Introduction, Part I). Although there was a suggestion to hold another competition, representatives of Republika Srpska thought that this would lead nowhere. As the Serb representative Dusˇanka Majkic´ said at the time: Do we need an anthem which would only be an empty shell through which we shall be demonstrating to the world the tottering statehood of Bosnia and Herzegovina? At the present moment we believe that getting a text of the anthem which would satisfy the postulates of a song in praise of the state is not possible (Slobodna Evropa 2011). In view of this opposition from the representatives of Republika Srpska (which has its own official anthem, see below), it is unlikely that Bosnia and Herzegovina will get lyrics for its anthem any time soon.

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As had been the case with the music, the proposed text of the ‘State Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ attempted to avoid mention of anything that could possibly be the subject of national contestation: Ti si svjetlost dusˇe Vjecˇne vatre plam Majko nasˇa zemljo,Bosno Tebi pripadam

You are the light of the soul The flame of the eternal fire Our mother our land, Bosnia I belong to you

U srcu su tvoje Rijeke, planine Plavo more Bosne i Hercegovine

In the heart are your Rivers, mountains The blue sea Of Bosnia and Herzegovina

Ponosna i slavna Zemljo predaka Zˇivjec´esˇ u srcu nasˇem Dov’jeka

Proud and famed Land of ancestors You shall live in our hearts Forever

Pokoljenja tvoja Kazuju jedno: Mi idemo u buduc´nost Zajedno!

Your generations Have one message: We go into the future Together9

These lyrics focus on the reification of the state as object of mutual identification for a putative citizenry. The first step in the series of contentions here is a standard move in many anthems – proclaiming the homeland to be a mother of all singers/citizens. The current anthem of Montenegro makes the same proclamation, also in its first stanza (see Chapter 5) and many other anthems do the same.10 This ‘mother’ identification determines, in many ways, the course of the rest of the lyrics, as the anthem becomes, in a sense, a song about one’s mother or the mother of everyone singing the song. The mother-proclamation performs two further, important functions: first, it creates a determinate identity for the singers/citizens; second, by identifying national identity with a mother the homeland/state becomes an object of unconditional love and devotion. This strategy for identification is so simple as to go largely unnoticed. If the homeland is our mother, we are all her children

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and thus we derive our primary identity from her. There is no object of unconditional love that can compete with one’s mother. This is love stemming from a permanent and most importantly life-giving relationship, a relationship one cannot choose or relinquish at will. The logic of the analogy taken for granted here is that we do not choose our mothers or our mother countries, nor in a sense do they choose us: these are mutual and deterministic relationships that last forever. ‘I belong to you’ might be thought unusually explicit for an anthem in terms of stating what we could call the mechanics of the relationship between citizen and state, but perhaps this is necessary precisely because the citizen subject is in this case going to take some convincing. The lines ‘Light of the soul/eternal fire’, linking motherland with the eternal soul/fire, may serve a double purpose: as our soul, the motherland deeply and essentially belongs to us. This may be another, perhaps a more poetic way, of claiming belonging to the motherland or appropriating the motherland. Identifying the motherland with an eternal fire brings into focus another attribute of states or nations, commonly found in anthem lyrics – the idea of the nation’s eternity. Both Croatian and Montenegrin anthems, for instance, assert the eternity of the motherland. The parenthood symbolism returns in the third stanza with a vengeance. In general terms we do not have to be proud of our parents (and often children are not). However, with the motherland things stand differently: motherlands themselves are almost always famed or famous, at least in anthems, and hence they inspire pride. As we have no choice in the selection of our parents, so we have no choice but to feel pride in our motherland or homeland. In the third stanza we find pride and eternity internalised in the heart of the singers. It is easy to imagine fame and pride and ancestors (in particular when singing anthems) but for those conscious of mortality, it is harder to imagine eternal pride. The text attempts to convince its singer of a personal immortality which is to be brought about by the eternity of our motherland and our pride in her. Having already firmly established its subjects in eternity, it is not surprising that the anthem recruits the future as well. And so ‘Your generations/Have one message:/We go into the future/Together!’ These verses appear to make explicit (not all that subtly) the links between the living, the unborn and the dead. This may be considered rather trite because there is nowhere for the present generation to go but to the

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future. To the dead of course we can safely attribute any message we like. It is the use of the ‘national dead’ that Anderson find interesting: ‘For in the end, they (the national dead) have their own strange modern responsibility; helping to ensure that, however momentarily wrong, Our country is really always Right’ (Anderson 1999: 202). We can thus see that here being right consists of sending messages that cannot but be true. In the case of the Sˇestic´ /Isakovic´ lyrics for ‘The State Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, attention seems to be drawn to the question of how long the new state of Bosnia and Herzegovina will last. ‘We go into the future.’ Yes, but how far into the future? ‘You shall live in our hearts forever.’ Both the eternity of the nation and the putative belonging of its subjects seem to be over-asserted here. Is this perhaps a case of ‘protesting too much’? The eternalising rhetoric of the lyrics sits ironically with the initial title of the anthem, ‘Intermezzo’, and its suggestion of a temporal pause in proceedings. Is the anthem saying to the singers/citizens of Bosnia and Herzegovina that they have no choice but to go into the future together? The Peace Implementation Council and its High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina might have hoped so. As for the citizens/potential singers themselves, they may disagree and assert that, on the contrary, they do have a choice as to how they go into the future, together or separately. One way of asserting this would be simply to refuse to sing the anthem or even to recognise it as their own. As we have seen (Chapter 5), a refusal of this kind has taken place in Montenegro: both politicians and ordinary people there have refused to sing the official anthem, or at least its last two stanzas. In Bosnia and Herzegovina it is the political representatives who refuse to recognise these lyrics as the official anthem. They thus demonstrate, in a somewhat indirect and symbolic way, that they disagree with the assertion made in the last stanza of the anthem. All of them may not, after all, go into the future together.

‘You are the One and Only’ ‘Intermezzo’, without lyrics, is not the first official anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina. This laurel belongs to the wartime song ‘You are the One and Only’ (‘Jedna si jedina’). As a federal unit in Yugoslavia, Bosnia and

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Herzegovina did not have an anthem. Indeed, the Constitution did not even assert that the Socialist Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina had an anthem. Nor was this particularly unusual. The Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Serbia, for example, had no clause asserting the existence of an anthem of that republic. Unlike Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia, in Bosnia and Herzegovina there was no national movement (prior to the Communist-led resistance movement) encompassing all three national groups and striving for its autonomy or independence; hence there was no national song comparable to the national songs of Croats, Slovenes or Macedonians. Prior to 1992, it must be remembered that, unlike Serbia and Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina had never been a nation state which needed an official state anthem. Upon the declaration of independence, in March 1992 in the Bosniak-held part of Bosnia and Herzegovina the song ‘Jedna si jedina’ (‘You are the One and Only’) became an unofficial state anthem sung at state and other public occasions. At the time, Republika Srpska, constituting almost half of the former federal republic, had already seceded. Its unofficial anthem was ‘The God of Justice’ the anthem of the Kingdom of Serbia (1882– 1918) in which the Serbs pray for their king on the model of ‘God Save the Queen’ (see Chapter 4). In a sense, during the 1992–5 war Bosnia and Herzegovina had three anthems – one for each side in the war.11 A few days after the Dayton Accords were initialled the Presidency of Bosnia and Herzegovina (constituted of Bosniak and Bosnian Croat representatives only) officially adopted ‘You are the One and Only’ as the state anthem. As discussed above, in 1999 this anthem was replaced by the lyrics-free ‘Intermezzo’. Then in 2006, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina declared unconstitutional the law making ‘The God of Justice’ the anthem of Republika Srpska and the anthem was replaced in 2008 with ‘My Republic’, which we shall discuss in the next section. Thus these two wartime anthems lost their official status, although ‘You are the One and Only’ is still widely used as the Bosniak unofficial anthem. According to a recent poll, it is the most popular national song within the Bosniak population and much better known than the official anthem (Novinar.me 2012). The music of ‘You are the One and Only’ comes from the old folk song ‘S one strane Plive’ (‘From the other side of the river Pliva’) belonging to the Bosnian sevdalinke genre. This genre is generally thought to be of Bosniak origin although sevdalinke are sung by

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members of other nations in the country. The lyrics for this song were written by the Bosniak music star Edin Dervisˇhalidovic´, who is best known under his artistic name Dino Merlin. He was the representative of Bosnia and Herzegovina at the European Song Contest of 2011 and the author of Bosnia Herzegovina’s wartime 1993 official European Song Contest song ‘Sva Bol Svijeta’ (‘All the Pain of the World’).12 In face of the attempted secession of a half of the state, the anthem, quite understandably introduces two themes: the territorial unity of the state and the loyalty owed by all of its singers. Jedna si jedina13

You are the One and Only14

Zemljo tisuc´ljetna Na vjernost ti se kunem Od mora do Save Od Drine do Une

You thousand years old land I pledge my loyalty to you From the sea to the Sava15 From the Drina16 to the Una17

Ref: Jedna si jedina moja domovina

Refrain: You are the one and only My homeland

Jedna si jedina Bosna i Hercegovina

You are the one and only Bosnia and Herzegovina

Bog nek’ te sacˇuva Za pokoljenja nova Zemljo mojih snova Mojih pradjedova

May God save you For generations to come Land of my dreams Land of my forefathers

Not many anthems assert the specific age of the state, but those that do – such as the Greek ‘Hymn to Liberty’ – do so to exhort the singers to feel pride and, even more importantly, to follow the example of venerable ancients. In this anthem, the reference to a thousand years conforms with a particular national ideology insisting that Bosnia and Herzegovina, as a state entity, existed from the Middle Ages. The official Bosnian Serb ideology rejects the narrative of medieval origins and asserts that the first independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina was the one proclaimed in 1992 from which the Republika Srpska seceded.

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Thus the first independent state of Bosnia and Herzegovina was not the state of the Bosnian Serbs – at least not those who supported the secession of their own ‘entity’. The second line of ‘You are the One and Only’ explicitly introduces a perlocutionary act, the pledge of loyalty all anthems perform when sung. The need to make this explicit in this case arises possibly from the doubt that many of its putative citizens do indeed feel loyalty. The anthem thus explicitly excludes those citizens who feel no loyalty to the allegedly thousand-year-old state. The third and fourth lines delineate, with the help of the a few rivers, the boundaries of the state to which the singers pledge loyalty. Perhaps understandably the river boundaries include the territory of the seceded Republika Srpska: these verses are – once again explicitly – rejecting any attempt at secession or partition of the state that is allegedly a thousand years’ old. Although much less articulated in terms of picturing the national entity/landscape, the strategy here is not unlike that of Croatia’s anthem ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’, demarcating the bounds of the nation and its state with reference to its named rivers (see Chapter 2). A similar reference to rivers is used in the current Montenegrin state anthem ‘Oh, the Radiant Dawn of May’ (see Chapter 5). An invocation of natural boundaries helps make the demarcated nation/state appear to be a natural and permanent/eternal entity. The rejection of any partition or secession is reiterated in the lines, ‘You are the one and only one’ – thus rejecting the possibility of any other Bosnia and Herzegovina. This emphatic assertion of unity and uniqueness is however followed by an abrupt change of tone. From an invocation of history, geography and unity, the song abruptly slips into a prayer for current and future generations, ‘May God save you’. These are the only prayer-verses in an otherwise self-congratulatory song. And unlike most other prayer-verses in the standard prayer-anthems, it is not a prayer for the safety of the monarch or ruler but for one’s country or state. From the prayer the song slides again, this time into dreams – the territory of the state becomes the ‘land of my dreams’. The ambiguity of this collective assertion makes it available for a range of purposes: the state to and for which the singers-in-unison sing is an entity to be devoutly wished, or else it is already a dream come true. The possibility that the dreams in this case may be just dreams or mere illusions is

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probably ruled out: anthems are not supposed to deal with illusions, however pleasant or attractive they may be. The last line, proclaiming the homeland of one’s forefathers, jolts the singer from the dream. The image is one of the (generally) glorious dead who stand behind us. All of the anthem lyrics of the new states of former Yugoslavia make such an obligatory and in this context rather trivial link. ‘You are the One and Only’ thus makes use of a number of standard anthem devices including the hypostasisation of natural borders. Yet it also introduces a few ideologically contested propositions, thus challenging the suspected non-loyalists to show their loyalty and assert the unity of the state. At the time of this anthem’s introduction this unity was under threat. Thus this is an anthem with an urgent political task to perform– to assert the unity of the state and the loyalty of singers to it. The current official anthem of Republika Srpska, uses a few similar anthem devices and performs similar political tasks.

From a prayer for the (non-existent) king to a prayer for a republic The adoption, in 1992, of ‘The God of Justice’ as the anthem of the newly seceded Republika Srpska was an attempt to link, through song, the Serbs of the republic with the Serbs of Serbia and thus to link the seceded state (which had no international recognition) with its desired host state, Serbia. This prayer for the king of the Serbs was the anthem of the Kingdom of Serbia until 1918 and was part of the composite anthem of the Kingdom of Yugoslavia until 1945 (see Chapter 4). Although it makes no reference to any lands outside Serbia, the line the leaders of Republika Srpska probably found most attractive was the anthem’s chief refrain: God save, God nurture The Serb king, the Serb race (or people) These leaders and many of their followers saw the Serbs from Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of the Serb nation to which this song refers. The main political or ideological task that the anthem performs is to assert the Bosnian Serbs’ belonging to the Serb nation: in singing the anthem,

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the Serbs pray for and proclaim loyalty to the nation to which they want to belong.18 Anyone unfamiliar with the Bosnian Serb worldview at that time would probably find the singing of this song quite puzzling: in 1992 there was no Serb king and no Serb kingdom of any sort. In addition, in 1992 the official anthem of the newly formed Federal Republic of Yugoslavia was still the old Yugoslav anthem ‘Hey Slavs’, and Republika Srpska was, after all, a republic. The citizens of Republika Srpska were thus praying for the safety of a king who was not named and who could not be the head of their state, praying for the safety of both a nonexistent kingdom and its king. This probably makes this anthem unique, belonging as it does to a notionally non-existent state and referring to a king with which the notional state could have no political connection. When it made this same song a ‘recommended’ or temporary anthem of the Republic of Serbia in 2004, the Serbian National Assembly removed any reference to the king and replaced it with the Serb ‘lands’ (see Chapter 4). It is interesting to note that the Republic of Serbia (still a federal unit in the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro) and Republika Srpska (an entity in Bosnia and Herzegovina) shared ‘God of Justice’ as an anthem only for two years, until 2006, and during that time the prayer for the non-existent king remained only in the latter. In 2006, the Constitutional Court of Bosnia and Herzegovina proclaimed this anthem unconstitutional in Republika Srpska and in 2007 its National Assembly announced a competition for a new anthem. In 2008, the Committee on the Anthem chose ‘Moja Republika’ (‘My Republic’), music and lyrics by Mladen Matovic´ a composer, music teacher and chorus conductor from Banja Luka (Blic 2008).19 Unlike the official state anthem and the previous anthem ‘You are the One and Only’, this song offers a laudatory description of the people living in the homeland. In a sense, this is the only one of the three anthems that populates the land with living people – described, as expected in an anthem, in the most laudatory terms. Like the Monenegrin anthem ‘Oh, the Radiant Dawn of May’ this anthem starts with a dawn, which although not radiant, is nevertheless the most beautiful. And the dawn, like a curtain in a theatre, opens our view into a landscape. This is a landscape where good, honourable and proud people live. Perhaps this song suggests that in some other landscapes we would not find such good, honourable and proud people?

Moja Republika

My Republic

Tamo gdje najljepsˇa se zora budi,

Where the most beautiful sunrise wakes There live good people, honourable and proud, Where the sun’s rays are given birth, There is my own land – firm and defiant.

Cˇasni i ponosni zˇive dobri ljudi. Tamo gdje se rada nasˇeg sunca sjaj, Stamen, prkosan je moj zavicˇaj. Za njega svi se sad pomolimo, Drugu zemlju mi nemamo.

Now let’s all pray for it We have no other land.

U srcu mom samo je jedan dom, U srcu je velika moja republika. U srcu mom najljepsˇa zvijezda sja,

In my heart there is only one home, My republic is great in heart. In my heart the most beautiful star shines My republic, Republika Srpska

Moja republika, Republika Srpska. Tamo gdje su nasˇi preci davni, Ime upisali u svaki korak slavni. Tamo gdje se rađa nasˇeg sunca sjaj, Stamen i prkosan je moj zavicˇaj.

Where our forefathers from the past have written their names in every famous step, Where the sun’s rays are given birth, There’s my own land – firm and defiant.

Za njega svi se sad pomolimo, Drugu zemlju mi nemamo.

Now let’s all pray for it We have no other land.

U srcu mom je jedan dom, U srcu je velika moja republika. U srcu mom najljepsˇa zvijezda sja,

In my heart there’s only one home My republic is great in heart In my heart the most beautiful star shines My republic, Republika Srpska.20

Moja republika, Republika Srpska.

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However, it is not only the people, but also the landscape which has laudable qualities: it is ‘firm and defiant’. The latter two adjectives are usually used in connection with people – ‘stamen’ is a praiseworthy quality of men and of women who stand firm in face of adversity and ‘prkosan’ is once again used in terms of individuals who defy an enemy or injustice. ‘My own land’ is of course an imperfect translation of ‘zavicˇaj’ – which is, somewhat incorrectly, also translated as ‘homeland’ (‘zavicˇaj’ makes no reference to ‘dom’ – ‘home’). The people and land together are thus good, honourable, proud, firm and defiant. No other anthem in the region packs in so many laudable attributes for the loved place, let alone in the first four lines. Indeed, only the Croatian anthem calls the homeland ‘honourable’. Having congratulated the singers for being so praiseworthy and having such a great homeland, the song slides into a prayer: ‘Let us now all pray for it.’ And why? Because ‘we have no other land’. The theme is strikingly similar to that of the last stanza of ‘You are the One and Only’. There too the singers pray to God and the homeland is proclaimed to be uniquely important to those who sing. At first sight, one may think that in both poems the object of prayer and object of this unique appropriation are one and the same. Yet, in the next stanza we come to the name ‘Republika Srpska’ and the appropriation of this land by the singers as ‘my republic’. Although no geographical location is given, it is quite clear that this is not and cannot be Bosnia and Herzegovina and that therefore ‘my own land’ (‘zavicˇaj’) is not the same land as indicated in ‘You are the One and Only’. It is the very name ‘Republika Srpska’ that separates ‘my own land’ from Bosnia and Herzegovina. The third stanza introduces the theme of the heart: in the heart is only one home (‘dom’) and this again is my republic. The heart image, which introduces the corporeal feeling of belonging, is again used to identify the home as ‘my republic’, before being transformed into a most beautiful star, a star that dwells in the heart of the one who sings the song. The fourth stanza introduces the standard anthem theme of the famous ancestors/forefathers. But in the second line the ancestral theme gets an unusual twist: the forefathers have ‘inscribed their names in each of their famous steps’. One can read this as saying that they have left their traces over all the landscape of ‘my own land’, that by leaving their

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names or their traces they have appropriated the land for themselves and for the generations to come. Although, in fact it is not entirely clear what is meant by a ‘step’ nor is it clear how literally one needs to take the ‘inscription’ of the names. Overall it appears this stanza describes obscurely the act of ancestral appropriation of the land, for the benefit of those descendants who sing today. In summary, the song differs from the other two anthems of Bosnia and Herzegovina, through its self-congratulatory attempts to differentiate what is ‘my own land’ from other lands. Further, it introduces an internalisation device – placing the homeland in the heart of singers and then transforming it into a star. And yet the prayer, the unique appropriation and the naming devices found in ‘You are the One and Only’ are found here as well. The ancestors are also to appropriate the homeland for the progeny who sing their praises in the present day, just as they are in the other two songs from Bosnia and Herzegovina discussed above. This song contrasts sharply with the ‘God of Justice’ not only in the absence of a specifically addressed prayer (to God) but also in the absence of any reference to the Serb people or even to anything Serb. Any such reference would have been judged unconstitutional and detrimental to the vital interests of the other nations living in Republika Srpska – Bosniaks and Bosnian Croats. No anthem in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be, constitutionally, an anthem of only one of the three recognised nations. This is perhaps why the texts of ‘Intermezzo’ as well as ‘You are the One and Only’ contain no reference to any one of the three nations.

The anthems and national identity The Constitution of Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was introduced by an international consortium of states, rules out any appropriation of an anthem text by only one or two of the three nations it recognises. But, as we have seen, it does not rule out an oblique appropriation of a piece of land and an unnamed people. ‘My Republic’ appropriates the land of the Republika Srpska for the singers of the songs and ‘You are the One and Only’ and ‘Intermezzo’ appropriate Bosnia and Herzegovina as a state to the singers of these songs. The contest among these anthem texts is thus the contest over the territory and its ownership. The 1992–5 war was fought over the very same issues.

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Competition among anthems in Bosnia and Herzegovina can be read as a peaceful continuation of the contest that was formerly conducted through war. There is no reference, not even an oblique one, in any one of these lyrics to national conflict or war. The point of conspicuous agreement among these lyrics is the polite silence on the fact of the war and its attendant atrocities, its lingering after-effects. War is what must be forgotten for those who wish to move into the future and for those diverse persons who acknowledge they have only one home. Mention of the war might indeed be deemed unconstitutional, and could warrant the intervention of the High Representative, on the basis that such mention would be detrimental to the vital interests of one or more of the nations involved. The contest among the songs is currently taking place within the parameters of the international Dayton Peace Accords. From the point of these Accords, Bosnia and Herzegovina, as an internationally recognised state and a member of the UN, has to have a state anthem. For the purposes of international relations and its rituals, the state anthem does not need to be sung and therefore it needs no lyrics. Hence the Peace Implementation Council and its High Representative do not require the state to have a singable anthem. The current anthem, without lyrics, satisfies these requirements well enough. The representatives of the Republika Srpska agree: Bosnia and Herzegovina, according to the Republika Srpska government, is only an instrument through which Republika Srpska discharges its international relations and obligations.21 The Dayton Accords allow each of the entities to have an anthem. Republika Srpska has had one since 1992 but its counterpart, created in 1994 as the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina has never had nor even attempted to have one. The reason for this is probably because the power in the Federation is shared between two nations – Bosnian Croats and Bosniaks – and their representatives cannot agree on the lyrics. Each of the two groups already has a national song that they sing at appropriate anthem-like occasions. For Bosniaks ‘You are the One and Only’ is their principal song and for Bosnian Croats it is ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’, the Croatian state anthem. Neither are official anthems and neither could plausibly become one. The official and unofficial anthem situation in Bosna and Herzegovina thus appears to reflect the division of power between the three national

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groups under the framework of the Dayton Peace Accords. The latter obviously puts significant constraints on the use of official anthems for the expression of national identity, and thus on one of the main functions of a national anthem. No official anthem can express or refer to, overtly, the identity of any one of the three national groups separately and there is no single accepted Bosnian and Herzegovinian identity to which any anthem can refer. In view of that, no anthem or anthem-like text discussed so far is even an attempt at nation-building. These texts appear primarily aimed at appropriation of territory and/or state for the singers and as an expression or assertion of loyalty or allegiance to the state so appropriated. All these anthem-like texts take the identity of the three recognised nations for granted (an ever-present but unmentionable background) and then proceed to make claims to the territory – the first two to the whole of the internationally recognised state of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the third to the territory of the Republika Srpska. In contrast to the first two, the Republika Srpska attempts to separate the population of its ‘land’ from any other population, by attaching to it a set of emphatically universal and non-national attributes. While the quest for official anthems and national songs has failed to provide even a veneer of common national identity, the convoluted political system and the lack of anthem lyrics has given rise to a derivative genre – the anthem parody.

Anthem-parodies: Anti-official songs of non-existent nations22 Having an official lyrics-free anthem as a temporary measure in the expectation of better times would appear in its own right to be a fit subject for parody. One might even go further and say that the provisional acceptability of the affective anthem quality of the official ‘Intermezzo’ is related to its potential to be parodied. The quest to find and make official some lyrics has involved agonising exposure of hypocrisy and provided a veritable blank slate for parody; it is as if the varied forces of cynicism unleashed in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s anthemattaining process are invited to fill in gaps in lines yet to be written. The ‘Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ (discussed below) was written by Zoran (Zoka) C´atic´ before the proposal for the ‘official’ ‘Intermezzo’ lyrics was published. It became popular before the ‘official’

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lyrics were proposed and to this day is more widely recognised by the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina than the Dusˇan Sˇestic´ anthem lyrics. Zoka currently uses his song as the opening and closing tune of his daily show on student radio. Zoka is a journalist and editor of the student radio eFM23 in Sarajevo. He is a known radio critic of the post-war socio-political situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina. He has also ventured into making documentaries, particularly ‘Dogodilo se na danasˇnji dan’ (‘This Day in History’24), produced in 2008 under the project name ‘BiH – u potrazi za izgubljenim identitetom’ (‘BiH – in search of lost identity’).25 Himna Bosne i Hercegovine, by Zoran (Zoka) C´atic´26

The Anthem of Bosnia Herzegovina, by Zoka C´atic´27

Zemljo Kulinova, kroz stoljec´a mnoga

O land of the Kulins,28 through many centuries We created you grotesque without fearing God.

Nakaradnu stvorismo te bez straha od Boga Kantona je deset, entiteta dva Tri su ˇclana predsjednisˇtva, bezbroj funkcija

There are ten cantons, there are two entities Three are the members of the presidency, countless functions.

I visoki predstavnik je najvisˇi od svih

And the high representative is the highest of them all Dobro nam ga cˇini svima, pa zasluzˇi stih He does us all good, and so deserves a verse. Bosno mila mati, Hercegovino Oprosti nam mila zemljo sˇto postojimo, Ti c´es zemljo vjecˇna biti a mi gnojivo.

Bosnia dear mother, Herzegovina – Please forgive us our existence. You the land will be eternal and we will always be the manure.

The fact that the parody is titled ‘anthem’ suggests that there is a serious side to this exploration of identity in relation to the state, an existential or ontological doubt as to what Bosnia and Herzegovina is or could be and what kind of allegiance it might be owed. There is also a

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self-esteem issue here. The song is ‘tongue in cheek’ but the idea that ‘we are the manure’ does suggest issues to do with the viability of the people as a nation or ‘narod’. Still, the interesting questions here are – what and who is being parodied? Are the institutions of nation or its state and the historical authority of the national entity under scrutiny? Is it that we made God’s creation grotesque or disfigured or is it that we, in a hubrisladen imitation of God, created ‘you’ and because of our hubris or ignorance or both, made you grotesque? Is the state grotesque in its innumerable divided institutions and in its high representative, ‘highest of all’ (or perhaps ‘tallest of all’)? Two of the last three lines of Zoka C´atic´’s parody were borrowed to accompany the music of ‘Intermezzo’: ‘Bosnia dear mother, Herzegovina’ and ‘You will always be the land and we the manure’ and were used by the band Dubioza Kolektiv (A Dubious Collective) in their song ‘Dosta’29 (‘Enough’) from their 2008 album Firma Ilegal (An Illegal Firm). A second album, by the rapper Frankie, a member of this band, from 2006 was also named ‘Dosta’ in dedication to the movement Dosta.30 The video for the song ‘Dosta’ begins by showing images of police brutality and implying political corruption. The lyrics are severely critical of the Bosnian government and its division into three (‘Ten there are of cantons, two of entities /Three are the members of the presidency, countless functions’). Corrupt politicians are, in the video, blamed for the lack of lyrics for the official national anthem. The last two lines from Zoka C´atic´’s parody are sung in unison and the vision goes on to show strife and hardship in the country. At concerts, the crowd usually joins in to sing Zoka’s words.31 Due to the great popularity of this band, and this song in particular, many young people in Bosnia and Herzegovina think of these lyrics when they hear the tune of the national anthem. The Dubioza Kolektiv song goes on to encourage the people to rise against the injustices and the system in the country. As already mentioned, Zoka’s song came before the official text of the lyrics was published. Upon its publication, in 2011, the band Zoster (from the divided city of Mostar) came out with their parody (‘informal version’) of the state anthem. Their song is also critical of the situation in the country, and like Zoka’s, has a heavily comical undertone. This is a different kind of parody from Zoka’s, one aiming for total irreverence. It is a deliberately politically incorrect approach, with the aim to offend. The lyrics need to be read taking into account an ironic

Neformalna himna BiH – Zoster

The Informal Anthem of Bosnia Herzegovina, by Zoster (own)

BiH zemlja je s dva entiteta i jednim Brcˇko distriktom Na cˇelu s visokijem predstavnikom a ja ne predstavljam nikoga

B&H is the land of two entities and one Brcˇko32 district At the head a high representative, but I don’t represent no one

Pa to nije drzˇava, to je klasicˇan protektorat ˇ Rece prijatelj moj i napisa doktorat

Well that’s not a state, that’s a classical protectorate Said a friend of mine and wrote a doctorate

Hajmo malo kopat Hajmo malo orat

Let’s do some digging Let’s do some ploughing

(RTV?)

(RTV?)

BiH (be i ha) ti i ja Ti si be a ja sam high

B an’ H, you and me You are B and I am H-igh. . .

Bih zemlja je tri konstitutivna naroda Sva tri podjednako pravno jednakopravno neravnopravna Ej kad se niste znali fino dogovorit’ papci

B&H is the land of three constitutive peoples All three of them evenly, legally, equally unequal Well since you dolts couldn’t come to a nice agreement

Kako su kulturni bili Cˇesi i Slovaci

How cultivated were the Czechs and Slovaks

Sˇtasˇ sad kad se prolilo krvi pa svi bi htijeli biti prvi

And now what when blood has been shed And everyone wants to be the leader? And so the vultures carrion round a handful of misery While New York has more gays than population

pa se oko sˇake jada strvinari strve a New York ima visˇe pedera no stanovnika

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BiH (be i ha) ti i ja Ti si be a ja sam high

B an’ H, you and me You are B and I am H-igh. . .

(RTV?)

(RTV?)

Od Orasˇja do Neuma Od Olova do Teslic´a Od Kaknja do Prnjavora Od Vakufa do Trebinja O Trebinje, kad me vidisˇ . . .

From Orasˇje to Neum From Olovo to Teslic´ From Kaknj to Prnjavor From Vakuf to Trebinje33 O Trebinje, when you see me . . .

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distance between the persona/e of the song and its implied ideal reading position. It is a critique of the people who would express the kinds of sentiments found in the song. The quotational mode criticises those who are not motivated to think or do anything about their own situation or that of their nation, but who would rather sit around, wasting time casting uneducated aspersions on apparently randomly selected others. These lyrics present a different angle on the inside/outside question of national identification in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina (BiH), the main point being to suggest a negative interpretation of the passivity or inaction of the people incapable of recognising themselves as such. Action is needed and a certain amount of hope is indicated but then: ‘B an’ H, you and me/You are B and I am High’. This fundamental division in the name, stands, for the purposes of the song, for the various kinds of division that would prevent the putative unisonant subject from expressing true solidarity. It gives us two parties and thus a (possibly) dialogic structure. The idea of a collectivity is posited by the refrain – it shows that there is a humorous relationship between the possible parts of the nation – and yet the ‘you and I’ possibility remains. What you and I have in common is the fact of being stoned and therefore not in a position to face the problems of national unity and symbolism an anthem would ordinarily address. The ultimate irony is that unity is achieved through a mutual reticence to focus on the issue at hand, this being the result of being mutually ‘out of it’. The attempts at official anthems thus have in common a reticence to acknowledge the facts of

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conflict; Zoster’s parody draws attention to a common reticence to acknowledge or participate in reality. The parodies of ‘Intermezzo’ are demonstrations of what is unconvincing and problematic about anthem quality, and also national identification, in the case of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The criticism may be read as multi-faceted; it targets bureaucracies, processes and attitudes. The implied critique of government is paradoxical given a state entity that barely exists; but it is precisely this ontological weakness that is the target of the satire. The negative image of political practices and politicians and their actions acknowledges corruption and failure to compromise. The critique of patriotic sentiment and exclusivity of interests is also paradoxical because the interests of power politicians are served by forming unofficial alliances across ethnic/national allegiance lines and by pandering to the representatives of international institutions in charge of the country. Taken together, Zoka’s and Zoster’s parodies suggest a disingenuous polity, one which cannot help but be two-faced: appealing to nationalist groups for electoral purposes and appealing to international bodies for funding and recognition purposes. The implied criticism of the people is for their intellectual laziness (electing idiots) and for its most obvious result – getting the government they deserve. An important paradox in the idea of nationhood in the context of Bosnia and Herzegovina is that nationalist tendencies are what prevent the nation from cohering. These parodies of the national anthem work to shed light on this and related paradoxes; they pose vital questions of the kind that anthems typically militate against having the unisonant ask or answer. Far from indicating that parodists are disinterested in, or straightforwardly opposed to, the possibility of national unity or identity-in-common, these works suggest keen attention to the problems entailed in Bosnia and Herzegovina’s self-symbolisation. As in Slovenia’s official calculated deployment of the cosmopolitan anthem ‘A Toast’ (Chapter 3), these anthem parodies suggest a wider interest in the problematics of nationalism and national identification more generally. Considering together the range of anthem pretensions surveyed in this chapter, we can say that the situation in toto points to a self-reflexive, post-modern, ironising quality of national identification. The identification of subjects as national in a Bosnian sense or frame is demonstrated most clearly by the parodies, but also by a comparative reading of texts

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that aspire to but cannot be official anthems for the country. Regarding the prospects for a national anthem for Bosnia Herzegovina, one can see this dilemma for a nation of less than four million as a microcosm of Europe’s self-symbolisation dilemma and what this tells us about the problematic conception of European nationhood, nationness and the paradoxes these entail. Bosnia and Herzegovina may be read as a microcosm of the EU’s problem with an anthem, in particular with the use of the final movement of Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’.34 The fleeting dream of European unity is somehow poignantly represented by Bosnia’s currency, the convertible mark (KM), retaining the name of Europe’s strongest preEuro currency, the now vanished (German) mark.

CHAPTER 8 WISHING TO BE ONE WITH EUROPE: KOSOVO 2008

Kosovo’s present anthem is a tune entitled ‘Europe’, composed by Mendi Mengjiqi, chosen by a public competition and deliberately created to stand without lyrics. Mengjiqi’s music was adopted as the state anthem at a special session of the Assembly of Kosovo on 11 June 2008, four months after the declaration of Kosovo’s independence. Prior to this, Kosovo did not have an official anthem. Within the SFRY, Kosovo (established in 1946 under the Serbian name ‘Kosovo and Metohija’) was one of the two sub-federal units or provinces within the Socialist Republic of Serbia, neither of which had official anthems. From 1968 the Albanian state flag was openly displayed in Kosovo as the province’s flag. An attempt was made, without much success, to suppress its use following the Milosˇevic´ regime’s 1989 revocation of the wide autonomous powers of the province. Since 1968 Kosovo Albanians have, on public occasions, sung the Albanian national song ‘Hymn to the Flag’, which is the state anthem of Albania. After the NATO air bombing of Serbia forced the Milosˇevic´ government to agree, in May 1999, to withdraw from Kosovo, Kosovo Albanian insurgent military forces, the KLA and its allies, took control of all Kosovo except a northern enclave that was mostly populated by Serbs and other non-Albanians (see below for a brief account of this war). At that point the ‘Hymn to the Flag’ became an unofficial anthem of the new Kosovo Albanian authorities. Under a UN Security Council

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resolution, NATO-led forces also entered the province and Kosovo was put under temporary UN administration. On 17 February 2008, the Kosovo Albanian members of the Assembly of Kosovo declared its independence. This was not Kosovo’s first independence declaration: Kosovo Albanian deputies of its provincial assembly (elected under the Communist one-party system) declared independence first in 1990 from Serbia and then in 1991 from the disintegrating SFRY. At that time only Albania recognised Kosovo. At the time of writing, in 2014, most UN member states recognise Kosovo’s independence. Since two permanent UN Security Council members, Russia and China (as well as Serbia) refuse to do so, Kosovo is not (as yet) a member of the UN. At present, the EU Rule of Law Mission (EULEX) acting under the UN mandate ‘supports and assists’ the judicial, police and customs institutions of Kosovo while the Kosovo Force (KFOR), a NATOcommanded military force (of around 4,000 personnel) assists in the provision of security. Unlike Bosnia and Herzegovina, Kosovo has no international administrator with the powers impose anthems, overrule its legal acts or dismiss its elected officials. However, in their declaration of independence in 2008, Kosovo Albanian representatives and their government pledged to ‘fully accept the obligations for Kosovo’ contained in the ‘Comprehensive Proposal for the Kosovo Status Settlement’, put forward by the UN Special Envoy Marti Ahtisaari (called the ‘Ahtisaari Plan’) and endorsed by the UN Security Council in 2007 (BBC 2008). The Plan outlines both the main principles and the contents of Kosovo’s Constitution and legislation and, as we shall see, also defines the content of its state symbols, including the anthem (Comprehensive Proposal 2007). In contrast to the situation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the wordless anthem of Kosovo was not imposed by an act of an international administration; nonetheless, its choice was guided by the restrictions that the UNendorsed Comprehensive Proposal, the Ahtisaari Plan, imposed on the content of the anthem. It is not surprising that the Albanian national song ‘Himni i Flamurit’ (‘Hymn to the Flag’), which is also the state anthem of Albania, served as an unofficial anthem of Kosovo for so long. Since 1999, 93 per cent the inhabitants of Kosovo are Albanians and the country’s non-Albanian inhabitants now mostly live in separate enclaves. In the song, the singers give a pledge of loyalty to the national flag and express their readiness

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to fight for the fatherland. The song also proclaims that those who are not ready to fight – who ‘abstain from war’ – are traitors. Those who are ready to fight and who die fighting are martyrs and saints. This fighting song, by a Romantic Albanian poet, was first published in April 1912 in an Albanian magazine in Bulgaria. In November 1912, an Albanian national assembly in Vlore proclaimed the independence of Albania and declared this song to be its anthem. Although the song does not mention Albania or Albanians by name, it is generally regarded (and sung) as the principal national song of all Albanians and not only of the Republic of Albania. Although this song is still sung at public occasions in Kosovo as a competitor to or replacement for the official wordless anthem (BIRN 2013), the ‘Hymn to the Flag’ was not the only candidate for a Kosovo anthem. The leader of the largest pro-independence party, the League for Democratic Kosovo, and the literary critic Dr Ibrahim Rugova (1944– 2006), proposed another anthem in 2000, while he was the first president of the Republic of Kosovo. The English title of the song is given as ‘When the War-Cry Descends on Kosovo’ (Garton Ash 2008). The song was apparently about the martyrs who fell during the liberation of Kosovo and, like the ‘Hymn to the Flag’, it appears to be a fighting song.1 President Rugova also designed a flag with the name of Dardania on it, the name of the kingdom of Illyrians, which purportedly existed in the territory of Kosovo prior to its conquest by the Romans in the second century BC .2 These were obvious attempts to disassociate, at least at the level of state symbols, Kosovo, as a state, from Albania; Rugova’s party, unlike its main competitor, consistently aimed at securing Kosovo’s independence and not its unification with Albania. Rugova’s proposals as well as the preparation for the declaration of independence, led to a prolonged public debate about state symbols in which ordinary citizens, politicians and scholars vigorously took part (Kohavision TV 2005). Rugova’s proposed anthem appears not to have been widely accepted (Reuters 2007), with most Kosovo Albanians preferring the ‘Hymn to the Flag’. Neither Rugova’s proposed anthem, nor any other Albanian national song, had any chance of attaining official anthemhood in Kosovo: the principal obstacle was the Ahtisaari Plan which, in its General Principles article 1.7 states:

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1.7 Kosovo shall have its own, distinct, national symbols; including a flag, seal and anthem, reflecting its multi-ethnic character. This is in line with article 1.1 which states that ‘Kosovo shall be a multi-ethnic society’ and article 1.8 which states that ‘Kosovo . . . shall seek no union with any State or part of any State’ (Comprehensive Proposal 2007). As Kosovo was obliged not to seek union with Albania, it stands to reason that it could not have the same state symbols as Albania. And as Kosovo was to be a multi-ethnic society, its state symbols could not privilege any one ethnic group over others. Rugova’s proposed flag and anthem, although distinctly Kosovar, privileged one group, Kosovo Albanians. On 17 February 2008, following its declaration of independence, Kosovo’s Assembly agreed on a flag that reflected its multi-ethnic character. The flag has the EU blue as a background colour (also favoured by Bosnia and Herzegovina) and, above a map of Kosovo, six golden stars, each representing one ethnic group or community of Kosovo (and resembling the stars of the EU flag). The public competition for both the flag and the anthem began on 13 June and closed on 27 June 2007. The Commission on State Symbols presented the three finalists of the flag proposal to the Assembly before the vote on 17 February 2008 and the Assembly selected the winner (Flags of the World – Kosovo 2008). The Kosovo Assembly held another competition for the anthem almost a year later, in March 2008. Prefacing the rules of the competition was a curious disclaimer: This announcement is mainly related with music composition and not with the text of the hymn. Nevertheless, texts can be included as well in the application, in any official language of Republic of Kosovo. This clearly indicated that the anthem to be adopted at that time was to have no lyrics. There were two further related rules or conditions: 3. Any proposal should comprise the content of overall proposal for Republic of Kosovo Status Settlement.

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4. In order of including the overall proposal in selecting the specific manner, all proposals: – Shouldn’t present or be similar to the hymn or popular song of any country, or hymn of any political party, movement or Institution of Republic of Kosovo, or to implicate any faithfulness towards any ethnic community of Republic of Kosovo (Announcement 2008). In order to avoid privileging (or showing ‘faithfulness’ to) any ethnic community, there had to be no lyrics in any one of the official languages of Kosovo (which were also set by the Ahtisaari Plan, mentioned in rule 3 above). Using any one of these languages, according to this unstated view, would privilege the community whose native language it was. Apart from these conditions regarding the ethnic ‘orientation’ of the anthem, there was also a severe restriction on its length: it had to be less than 60 seconds long. There is no explanation for why the anthem had to be so brief. The Ahtisaari Plan made no mention of the length of the anthem. One can only assume that the designers of the competition had in mind the use of the anthem on the international stage. As a symbol, the competition designers wanted the anthem to be brief in duration and not to be associated in any way with a national or ethnic group or political movement or institution in Kosovo or abroad. In short, it was to be a brief and nationally empty symbol of an independent state. Unlike the adoption of the flag, the adoption of the anthem was delayed for a few months following the declaration of independence. This might suggest a lack of initial consensus among the Kosovo Albanian parties about the terms on which the anthem was being sought. However, by 15 June 2008 a state anthem was urgently needed because the Kosovo Constitution was about to come into force. Such a momentous event could not pass without a state anthem. In the absence of a state anthem at the time of the declaration of independence in February 2008, Beethoven’s ‘Ode of Joy’, once again without lyrics, as the official song of the EU, had been used. Ordinary Kosovo Albanians (unofficially and enthusiastically) celebrated independence by singing the Albanian ‘Hymn to the Flag’ and waving Albanian flags (France Press 2008). To ensure that the coming into force of Kosovo’s Constitution was greeted with an official anthem, the Assembly representatives attended a special secession on 11 June 2008 to adopt

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the anthem. There were 15 votes against and five abstentions. The representatives of the Alliance New Kosovo voted against the anthem because their coalition was excluded from the Committee for State Symbols, which assessed the anthem proposals and the representatives of the Serb parties boycotted the vote (Slobodna Evropa 2008). While the anthem passed with a comfortable majority of 72 votes, the absence of consensus was obvious, as was the anthem’s rejection by the largest non-Albanian group, the Serbs. The absence of lyrics in Kosovo’s state anthem begs a comparison with Bosnia and Herzegovina (Chapter 7). In either case considerations of pragmatism are to the fore. A state needs to be able to put on a musical performance for the purposes of international recognition or state rituals, or to state the case negatively, so as to avoid the embarrassment of appearing to lack this symbolic sine qua non of nationhood and statehood.3 In the case of both Kosovo and Bosnia and Herzegovina, the solution of the lyric-less anthem has satisfied the international sponsors of a new regime. In this way the problem of plurinationality is also solved for the purposes of state symbolism. The choice of ‘Europe’ as a solution to Kosovo’s problem of a need for a unique but inoffensive anthem may be seen as in several ways mirroring the EU’s choice of ‘Ode to Joy’. As we have seen, Kosovo Albanian political leaders, in the absence of their own official anthem, used the ‘Ode to Joy’ to celebrate the declaration of Kosovo’s independence. The difference of course is that whereas Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ was written to accompany Schiller’s existing lyrics (and will therefore always, with or without the words, connote Schiller’s cosmopolitan spirit), Kosovo authorities set out deliberately to create a song with no connotations at all, beyond those suggested by the title and the music itself. Mengjiqi’s music can be described as slow, majestic, and at 55 seconds, quickly over (as required by the rules of the competition). The feel of the composition is very nineteenth century, almost Christmaslike, a new tune calculated to fit in with anthems generally, as if it were one the listener had always already known. Mengjiqi’s composition asserts that a place for Kosovo on the world stage should be neither problematic nor taxing for the listener. This anthem may be regarded as a small, new nation’s token of gratitude to the larger state-transcendent entity (the EU), which by virtue of that parental entity’s cosmopolitan

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pretensions, takes the newcomer into the fold. And ‘Europe’ asserts a symbolic parity with Europe; an ancient people appeals for renewal through statehood to the likewise ancient polity-writ-large of Western civilisation, as lately renewed in the political idea of Europe. The manner of that appeal is perhaps more poignantly expressed in the Kosovo flag’s mirroring that of the EU. Kosovo, in its anthem choice, has deliberately identified itself – on a miniature scale – with the problem writ large in European identity politics. Surely, as a miniature of Europe with its continuing existence owing much to Europe, Kosovo should be entitled to membership in the larger polity it symbolically mirrors? In choosing Mengjiqi’s music for its anthem entitled ‘Europe’ and in the choice of accompanying flag, Kosovo Albanian political leaders have attempted symbolically to assert a rightful place for Kosovo under what appears to be the only acceptable and available aegis, that of the EU. In contrast with the situation with the Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) and the province of Macedonia in Greece, Albania and Kosovo share the same linguistic and ethnic identity in spite of being at present separate states (although Albania does not have the non-Albanian inhabitants that Kosovo still has). Moreover, Albania has consistently supported the independence of its ‘brotherly’ neighbour’ both diplomatically and by providing training, logistics and weapons to the Kosova Liberation Army during the 1998 – 9 war for independence. As in the case of all other anthems (except the Macedonian one) discussed in this book, the war is not mentioned and is, indeed, unmentionable. As happened in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in 1998 an insurgent military force – the Kosovo Liberation Army – fought the much larger and better equipped forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (Serbia and Montenegro), the state that ‘inherited’ the province of Kosovo from the SFRY. Also, as in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the war involved civilian massacres, large-scale expulsion of populations and a large-scale intervention of NATO forces. At the start of NATO bombing campaign against Serbia in March 1999, over 800,000 Kosovo Albanians were expelled or left Kosovo for neighbouring countries. Once the Yugoslav/Serb forces withdrew and NATO ground troops entered the province in May 1999, the Kosovo Albanians returned home, while over 150,000 Kosovo Serbs and other non-Albanians left

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(or were expelled) to Serbia. The great majority of them have never returned, making Kosovo a much more nationally homogenous state than it was before the war.4 The only other two states from SFR Yugoslavia that have achieved a similar level of national homogeneity are Slovenia and Croatia and there was no international requirement for them to declare themselves as multi-ethnic societies. Despite this, in the aftermath of the war, the UN and the EU, through the Ahtisaari Plan, required Kosovo to declare itself a multi-ethnic society and to reflect this through its institutions and legislation, including state symbols. It appears then that the Ahtisaari Plan was devised to negate the nationally homogenising effects of the war for Kosovo’s independence. The Plan and its adoption prevents the Kosovo Albanians from having an official national anthem with lyrics but, of course, it does not prevent them from singing, at public celebrations and sporting matches, their preferred national song, the anthem of Albania, and waving its flag.5 State anthems have a purpose and in the case of Kosovo this purpose is explicitly stated in the conditions that were set for the 2008 state anthem competition. Mendi Mengjiqi’s anthem is a wordless tribute to EU’s role in Kosovo since 2000. In choosing a state anthem with no words the Kosovo Albanians have gone one step further than the Slovenes in their effort to become part of Europe: they called their national song ‘Europe’, have described it as a gesture of thanks, and have left absolutely nothing to discuss about what it might mean. The Kosovo anthem is a clear expression of a straightforward desire – to have within Europe the kind of autonomy that frees a nation from past associations, the kind of autonomy that appears, thus far, to have worked for Slovenia. Kosovo’s state anthem deliberately discloses nothing concerning national identity, so as not to offend the non-Albanian inhabitants who question the existence of the state and to satisfy the constitutional requirements that the EU and UN made in return for recognition of independence. What this minimalist anthem does declare to the world, and especially to Europe, is an intention to minimally fulfil the ritual requirements of statehood, so as to argue Kosovo’s place, as an independent entity, on the international stage.

EPILOGUE WHAT DO THESE ANTHEMS TELL US?

One could argue that the creation of a few new states from the SFR Yugoslavia, in the 1990s and early 2000s, was the culmination of a concerted (if not collective) long-term project of achieving independent statehood. Such a project was the goal-in-common of the national movements of Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians and Albanians in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The complementary project of the national liberation of the peoples of the Balkans from the rule of the Islamic Ottoman state started in the early nineteenth century. As the rule of an Islamic government over Christian peoples was, in European public opinion during the nineteenth century, increasingly regarded as unacceptable, this project had the growing support of various European powers. As a result, the Serbian and Montenegrin, as well as Greek and Romanian, nation states had already been created. If one compares these two sets of state-building projects, one could argue that the delay of more than a century in the realisation of the former is due to a variety of factors including the absence of support from European powers and the expansion of the Bulgarian and Serb state-building projects to territories claimed by other national movements (Macedonian, Albanian, Croat). Once the national liberation movements – using their anti-Communist mobilisation potential on the eve of the collapse of the European Communist states – gained support from outside powers, their state-creating projects could be finally completed.

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If one interprets the recent creation of new states in southeast Europe as the culmination of earlier state-creating projects, it is only the international recognition of their statehood that is new: the idea of independent statehood originates in the nineteenth century. From this point of view, the creation of these new states is not a revolutionary rupture with the past but in a sense a ‘catching up’ with history and with one’s luckier neighbours, the Serbs and Montenegrins, who completed their state-building projects earlier. This interpretation of the creation of the new states is borne out by the choices of anthems: none of the anthems chosen for the new/old states celebrate or even hint at the novel aspect of the status of their singers as citizens, finally, of states of their own. The achievement of the centuries’ old project is not a subject of anthem celebration or even mentioned in any of the new states. Although the proclamation or recognition of independence in the new states was greeted with popular celebration, this is not something to be evinced in the anthems. The absence of acknowledgement of the new ‘era’ or ‘status’ in the state anthems discussed above stands in sharp contrast with the revolutionary songs/anthems of other new political regimes, whether the anti-monarchical regimes in France in 1790s or the Communist ones in the USSR and the People’s Republic of China. The regimes of the new states in the Balkans were not ‘new’, in the sense of being revolutionary or socially transformative. In their own view, these states were just continuing the march of history. The selection of old national songs as state anthems in the case of Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia preceded their proclamation of independence. In the case of Slovenia and Croatia the selection of these songs was not an intentional choice of the old over the new; there were simply no ‘new’ competitors for national anthems. In the case of Macedonia, even when confronted with a choice between the new and old songs, the government and its supporters in parliament (representatives of the majority group, the Macedonians) chose the oldest song available for the purpose and the one that had served as an unofficial and official anthem before. The majority parties of Serbia went, without dissent, for the same option – the oldest available anthem, the first and only anthem of Serbia. For some, including the head of government at the time, this was a return to the glorious past of the independent Serbian kingdom. The Montenegrin government, in 2004 was faced not only with widespread opposition to its independence

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project but also a problem with the glorious past: the old Montenegrin national anthem and other national songs were pro-Serb and not proindependence. In response to this problem of the inconvenient past of pro-Serb orientation, the independence-oriented government of Montenegro came up with a hybrid anthem created from an old apolitical folk-song and a pre-World War II pro-independence poem. In a sense, the advocates of Montenegrin statehood in power at the time opted for a glorious past of Montenegrin separatism from Serbia, which is only one of the past glories of Montenegro’s history. This choice between the old and new national songs was not available to the governments and assemblies of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo, the states that were created by international intervention. Bosnia and Herzegovina simply lacked an inclusive national movement, encompassing its three main national groups. The political organisations of the three national groups (until the rise of Alija Izetbegovic´’s pan-Islamist group in the 1970s) were not independenceoriented but irredentist: they aimed at the incorporation of Bosnia and Herzegovina into other states. Hence, in Bosnia and Herzegovina there were no old or even new national songs that might have been associated with national movements for the independence of the whole republic. The initial choice of the anthem of the Bosniak-dominated government, in 1992, was a newly written song of unity (‘You are the One and Only’) based on a recognisable folk-song melody. The Bosnian Serbs and Bosnian Croats, perhaps predictably, went for the state anthems of their respective ‘host-states’ – the (non-existent) Kingdom of Serbia and the newly independent Republic of Croatia. Since the Bosniak anthem was not acceptable to others, the international administrator of Bosnia and Herzegovina initially imposed the new lyrics-free state anthem that satisfies the minimal state-related functions of anthem. The choices of the Albanian political authorities in Kosovo, following the NATO and UN intervention in the province in 1999, were quite similar both to these of Bosnian Serb and Croat leaders as well as the state authorities of Bosnia and Herzegovina. The old Albanian national awakening and fighting song ‘Hymn to the Flag’ is now the state anthem of the ‘host state’ or ‘host nation’ – Albania and its Albanian citizens. It served as an unofficial anthem (or one of the songs used for that purpose) of Kosovo from 1999 to 2008. Following its formal declaration

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of independence in 2008 and widespread international recognition, Kosovo needed its own anthem. The choice, similar to the one initially imposed on Bosnia and Herzegovina, was a new anthem without lyrics. In this case, the new lyrics-free anthem was chosen as required by the UN-endorsed Athisaari Plan. The new wordless anthems of both Bosnia and Herzegovina and Kosovo were thus choices imposed or influenced by the international organisations that were overseeing independence of these states. As we have seen, the state anthems chosen in Slovenia, Croatia and Macedonia all originate in old national awakening songs, dating from the beginning of the national movements when the idea or project of independence had not yet been articulated. These songs, consequently, do not celebrate or even suggest independent statehood and they are singularly free of the standard nationalist narratives of the centuries-old struggle for national survival under foreign oppression. A partial exception to this is ‘Today over Macedonia’, which, in addition to being a national awakening song, is also a fighting or marching song of World War II, celebrating in a rather general manner the Macedonian fight for their rights. As national awakening songs, these compositions very clearly articulate the distinctness and separateness of the singers and their audience as a single national group on a par with other national groups. The songs selected by Serbian and Montenegrin authorities, although they do not belong to this particular genre of songs or poems, do the very same thing – they single out the singers as members of a distinct national group attached to a national homeland. In addition, these two anthems mention, if only in a few words and in passing, their nation’s freedom from a foreign ‘yoke’ or from ‘slavery’. Nevertheless, like the others, these two anthems are also free from the nationalist narrative of a continuous struggle to free those singing from dominating foreign enemies. Each of the singable songs we have considered appears to convey two related and equally important messages. First, that we, the singers, are a distinct nation, a nation equal to others singing similar songs and thus a nation worthy of recognition and respect. Second, that we the singers, as a nation, have our own homeland to which we are attached in all the various ways that peoples are attached to their homelands. The Croat song tells us that the Croats love and admire their homeland and states a few reasons why that is so. With the Montenegrins likewise we are told

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of their pride in their place. The Macedonians fight in their homeland and for its freedom. The Serbs pray for their homeland and for themselves, the Serb people and it is obviously assumed that they love it too (why would they be praying for it otherwise?). The Slovenian anthem makes no mention of the Slovene homeland but instead assumes that the singers have a homeland from which they can extend their affection to their neighbours. In addition, the Slovene poet who wrote the lyrics of the current anthem did not forget to write in his longer poem about the love of the Slovenes towards their homeland. These messages of national distinctness and attachment to a homeland are the core messages of any singable national song or anthem.1 They conform to the paradox of the uniformity of differences. This is revealed in the fact that the overwhelming majority of the world’s national anthems are written and arranged according to the rules of Western poetics and musical forms. Every member of the series ‘nation’ must have a national anthem; as a consequence, though anthems are notionally intended to express uniqueness and the differences between nations, reflection reveals that they serve largely to illustrate the consistency of national investments across international borders. These two messages enable a singable anthem to perform its main task: to enable the singers – the nation singing-in-union – to appropriate its homeland as a state of their own. Through song, nations appropriate their homelands as objects of their special, national attachment. The singers and the audience only need to identify either implicitly or explicitly the homeland with a state, and a national song is easily transformed into a state anthem, a song in praise or in defence of a state of their own. But what else, apart from this, do these anthems tell us about the nation-singing-in-unison and their homeland? The wordless anthems of course say the least: only their titles ‘speak’ in the sense of conveying meaning through words. The ‘State Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ tells us that there is a state of Bosnia and Herzegovina but nothing else. The title ‘Europe’ tells us that the Kosovo Albanians or at least their representatives feel that they are part of Europe. In contrast, ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ tells us that Croats love and admire their (beautiful) homeland and will love it as long as their hearts beat. That of course tells us little about the Croats as a distinct nation: other nations can – and do admire and love their homeland too.

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The Slovene anthem – in the present selection – does not say anything about Slovenes but it clearly suggests that the singers, Slovenes, feel strong affection for their neighbours and other nations and would not like them to be enemies. The song thus expresses a strong sentiment of friendliness and affection towards non-Slovenes. This in itself suggests that Slovenes are an affectionate and friendly nation. In contrast, the Macedonians are, in their anthem, said to be fighting for their rights and, as a consequence of their fight, their homeland of Macedonia lives in liberty. We are not told that they love it nor it is suggested that they love their neighbours. The Montenegrin ‘Oh, the Radiant Dawn of May’ is much more explicit about the singers: it tells us that the singers love their mountainous homeland as their mother, that they consider themselves her sons, that they are guardians of her honour, and that they are united and full of elan due to the ‘Lovc´en vision’. Thus the Montenegrins are clearly distinct from any others who do not possess these characteristics. The Serbian ‘God of Justice’ tells us more about what the singers find desirable than about the singers themselves. The singers are, in singing the anthem, praying to God; whether they ever do so outside the anthem-singing setting we are not told. In praying, they are asking God for: protection of the Serb people and its homeland(s), a brotherly unity among the Serbs, the avoidance of God’s wrath, God’s blessings on the Serb village, meadow, field, town and home, a victory in any future struggle, new happiness (as required by the coming new era), and, finally, the defence of the independence of the fatherland (achieved after five centuries of struggle). It is a long but rather unexceptional list for any person or group who believes that God can and does deliver. In asking for these things devoutly-to-be-wished, the singers present themselves as a rather unexceptional group of people who want to leave in peace, prosperity, brotherly unity, happiness and freedom from foreign rule. While the list of desirable outcomes does not distinguish them from other groups, the anthem that lists all those as objects of a prayer does: as a listing of wished-for items worthy of prayer, it is quite unique among European anthems. Of all the anthems discussed in the book, it is the Bosnian Serb ‘My Republic’ that provides the most information about the moral qualities of the singers or the inhabitants of the national homeland: as ‘good, honourable, and proud people’. The Bosnian anti-anthem the ‘Anthem

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of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ by Zoka C´atic´ is, in contrast, most derogatory about the singers or inhabitants of that state: it calls them the ‘manure’ of the eternal land of Bosnia and Herzegovina. However, ‘My Republic’ is not a state but a non-sovereign entity anthem and C´atic´’s song is not an anthem either but a parody of a state anthem. Anthems often tell us more about the appropriated homeland than about the singers. Thus the Croatian ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ tells us that the homeland is: beautiful, heroic, gracious (or dear), full of ancient glory, glorious and the only one. Further, it has both plains and mountains (both of which are dear to the singers) as well as the rivers Sava, Drava, Danube and the deep/wide blue sea. Finally, the homeland contains the sun-swept fields and wind-swept oak as well as the graves of the ancestors. The Croat homeland is thus possessed of some fairly abstract aesthetic and moral properties – beauty, glory, heroism and the like – as well as some rather general landscape features. These properties and features are common among other homelands as well, but the difference here is the three named rivers and the unnamed sea that together delineate, somewhat roughly, the borders of Croatia today. The anthem thus tells us quite a lot about the Croat homeland both in general aesthetic, moral and physical terms, as well as in terms of its landscape and political borders. No other anthem in southeast Europe can match the vast scope of the details of the landscape/homeland depiction offered in ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’. In contrast, the Montenegrin anthem tells us only that the homeland consists of the firm mountains and awesome gorges. No plains are mentioned and there is only one unnamed river going into two seas. The mountainous homeland is the (no doubt metaphorical) mother of the singers, making it honourable, mighty, glorious and eternal. The Montenegrin homeland while it appears to possess less physical variety than the Croat homeland, does possess a temporal dimension that no other anthem explicitly asserts, that is, eternity. We are told nothing about the physical features or moral properties of the Serb homeland or Serb lands, but we are told that they need God’s blessing, protection and help in defence of freedom. In terms of the Macedonian landscape, only the forests are mentioned, possibly as a safe heaven for the Macedonian fighters. And, of course, no mention is made of the Slovene homeland or its landscape in the seven verses selected for the anthem (although Presˇeren’s drinking poem from which the verses

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are taken, praises the fertility as well as the abundance and quality of the country’s wines). The anthems we have considered in this book in general provide little information about the singers – the nation-singing-in-unison. Perhaps this is because no such information is needed as long as the anthems make clear that these singers form a separate group of people who have a separate homeland too. As noted above, the Croation anthem provides the most detail about the nation’s homeland. This detail may be required because Croatia’s borders have been much contested throughout the past two centuries, including the recent armed rebellion by Croatia’s Serb minority on Croatia’s periphery. However, while the borders of Croatia have been contested, the status of its anthem, has not been contested since 1905 or perhaps even 1891. One can argue that this song was an uncontested signature tune of the Croat nation and, by extension, any Croat state or state-like entity for more than a century. No other anthem in the former Yugoslav space has held such an uncontested place. While it may indeed be difficult to explain why this anthem has had no competitor as the national song or anthem of the Croats, a comparison with the contest and controversy over the other anthems in the former Yugoslav space may give us at least some indication as to why this anthem has escaped any controversy or contest. The two most contested anthem lyrics are those of the ‘The State Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’ and of the Montenegrin ‘Oh, the Radiant Dawn of May’. In the case of the former the contest is not really about the content or the text of the proposed lyrics but over the existence of any lyrics or even any anthem. The political leaders of Republika Srpska, one entity of Bosnia and Herzegovina, have not chosen to be part of Bosnia and Herzegovina and have explicitly stated that they are using the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina to further the interests of their non-sovereign entity on the international stage. In order for Bosnia and Herzegovina to perform its inter-state or international functions, it is sufficient to have a lyrics-free anthem. Hence, the political representatives of the Serb entity can acquiesce to the adoption of this anthem. A singable anthem would be different and would require the citizens of the Serb republic to acknowledge, in song, their allegiance or association with Bosnia and Herzegovina. Instead, in their nonsovereign entity they have adopted an anthem in which the singers

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pledge their exclusive loyalty to Republika Srpska without mentioning the state of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In contrast, the controversy over the Montenegrin anthem has focused on a part of its content – the last two stanzas. The alleged author, Dr Sekula Drljevic´, collaborated as a politician, with the occupation forces during World War II and is thus regarded, by some, as a traitor to Montenegro. The two last stanzas of the current anthem suggest that Montenegro is and should for ever be separated from Serbia. This emphasis on its separateness is not accepted by those Montenegrin citizens who were against independence from Serbia, a large number of whom consider themselves to be Serbs. In addition, even those who, like the current President of Montenegro, support Montenegrin independence and do not consider themselves to be Serbs, still feel uneasy about the two last stanzas because they were written by a wartime collaborator. In both cases above, the lyrics require the singers to proclaim their loyalty or association with the state identified. The problem both anthems face is the disinclination or refusal of a segment of its citizensingers to accept the state as presented in the anthem. None of these issues beset the Croat anthem, at least among Croat citizens. There is nothing in the lyrics or the origins of the anthem verses that would raise any similar concerns. Even those citizens of Croatia of Serb nationality who, in 1992 attempted to secede from the state of Croatia, have found nothing to object in the Croat anthem; they only wanted to take the territory on which they lived out of independent Croatia. Indeed, after their rebellion was crushed in 1995, most of them left Croatia. There are thus no minority groups in Croatia who do not consider Croatia their homeland and who, for that reason, could object to the current anthem. This is not the case in Macedonia and Serbia. In both states, there are minority groups whose members could and do feel that anthems praising or praying for only the majority group are simply not their anthems. In the Macedonian anthem ‘Today over Macedonia’ it is only the Macedonians who are said to be fighting for their rights and who are lauded for having established the historic Krusˇevo republic. In the Serbian anthem, it is only the Serb people or kin who are praying and whose lands and state are said to be in need of prayer. There is no mention of or place in either anthem for any national group but the majority one. The principal issue here is not whether members of the

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minority groups feel they belong to the state that is extolled in each of the anthems; instead it is whether they can feel that the anthem represents them, given that each anthem addresses only one national group. The representatives of the two major Albanian parties in Macedonia offered a clear and negative answer to that question in 1992. The stance of the Albanian parties in Macedonia has not changed since: the Macedonian anthem is, in their view, not an anthem that addresses the Albanian citizens of Macedonia. In contrast, no minority parties in Serbia – in particular no minority party of the Bosniaks (Muslims) from the Sandzˇak region of Serbia – voiced a similar view of the Serbian anthem. However, in recent public debates regarding the refusal of a well-known footballer of Bosniak origin to sing the anthem, it has been noted that the anthem does not address or speak to non-Serb citizens of Serbia and that it is not, consequently, their anthem. The controversy over the Slovenian anthem concerns not a minority group or a segment of Slovenian population and its relation to the anthem but the whole Slovene nation or the great majority of its singers: the current anthem makes no explicit mention of Slovenes or the Slovene nation, which has recently been deemed unacceptable by a number of Slovene public intellectuals and politicians. Their preferred solution is not to abandon or change the anthem but to add the verses from the original poem that would mention the anthem-singing nation and thus clearly identify the singers in words. Yet how do Slovenes now relate to their anthem, which makes no mention of them? At the moment, it seems that most Slovenes happily sing their cosmopolitan anthem and have done since 1989. With only the one stanza to sing, the task at least cannot be too onerous for them. In the above controversies, it is generally assumed that one can ‘own’ an anthem and sing it as one’s own only if the anthem lyrics relate to one’s own national group and/or at least do not contradict a particular political view that one’s group holds dear. In happily singing the anthem that makes no mention of them, the Slovenes appear to be contradicting the assumption behind the above controversies. Although the Slovene anthem does not mention the Slovenes themselves there is no doubt that the anthem is a Slovene song and thus belongs to the Slovenes or Slovenian-speakers. Many Slovene anthem-singers may disagree with the cosmopolitan sentiments expressed in the anthem or with the way they are expressed but this disagreement makes it no less their own

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anthem. And it appears that Slovenes in general do not worry about these alleged deficiencies of their anthem. Nonetheless, the proposed anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the anthems of Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia appear not to be acceptable to significant segments of the populations of these states. If so, these anthems fail in the one task generally considered common to all anthems – uniting, in song, the population of the state. Fortunately for those states, this does not appear to be an essential task. As we have seen, the anthems of Montenegro, Macedonia and Serbia as well as Croatia and Slovenia all tell us, in rather different ways, that their singers and their addressees are a distinct nation attached, in an expected or accepted way, to a homeland of its own. By identifying, contextually or otherwise, the homeland with the newly created state, the anthems thus tell us that the singers do have a state. Only a couple of these anthems – such as ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ and ‘Today over Macedonia’ – have played an important role in the state-building process that led to the creation of their respective states. The Serbian, Montenegrin and Slovene anthems were adopted as anthems or national songs at the very last stages of the current state-creation and thus played little or no role in the creation of the new states. However, whatever role these anthems have played in the state creation, once the states were created they became essential symbolic devices used in the announcement of the creation of the new states to the outside world and to their own citizens. As anthems, they signal that a new state has come into being and that its citizens now have a song with which to celebrate not only their new state but their new status as citizens of an independent state.

NOTES

Introduction 1. In his study, National Anthems, Paul Nettl tells the story of how, in 1853, Costa Rica, embarrassed to learn that dignitaries visiting from Great Britain and the United States were expecting to be welcomed to the country with the Costa Rican national anthem, set about to produce one. The strategy was simple. The country’s foremost practising musician, Manuel Marı´a Gutie´rrez, was detained by the authorities until he produced an anthem, which he duly did. According to Nettl, ‘The poor devil insisted that he knew nothing about the art of musical composition. But that did him no good. He was thrown into prison and promised that he would not be released until he produced a usable piece of music’ (Nettl 1952: 185). This anthem remains the national anthem of Costa Rica. 2. Quoted in Eyck 1995: 43. 3. For example, popular music has been very important in disseminating the idea of common Afghan national identity in a state with very distinct national/ethnic cleavage (Baily 1994). 4. The source of this classification is Kelen and Pavkovic´ 2010. Unfortunately, there is no space here to discuss other classifications of national anthems, in particular the one offered in Eyck 1995. 5. Two principal sources for this part are Jelavich 1983 and Pavkovic´ 2000. The most comprehensive recent account of Serb national ideology is found in Vujacˇic´ 2015. 6. Only one national ideology in southeast Europe, that of Slovenes, did not base its recovery of independence claim on the basis of a medieval state; nonetheless the Slovene national poet Presern did write an epic about the pre-Christian Slovene lords (see Chapter 3). 7. Here is the poem in full:

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Montenegro (1877) THEY rose to where their sovereign eagle sails, They kept their faith, their freedom, on the height, Chaste, frugal, savage, arm’d by day and night Against the Turk; whose inroad nowhere scales Their headlong passes, but his footstep fails, And red with blood the Crescent reels from fight Before their dauntless hundreds, in prone flight By thousands down the crags and thro’ the vales. O smallest among peoples! rough rock-throne Of Freedom! warriors beating back the swarm Of Turkish Islam for five hundred years, Great Tsernogora! never since thine own Black ridges drew the cloud and brake the storm Has breathed a race of mightier mountaineers. (Alfred Lord Tennyson, Ballads and other poems, 1880) 8. The statelet was conquered by the Croatian army with US support in 1995, prior to the NATO intervention in Bosnia and Herzegovina. 9. Another striking difference is the great powers’ approach to the massacres and targeting of civilians. In 1878, the great powers made no attempt to bring to justice those who ordered or committed the massacres of civilians that were supposed to justify their later military intervention. In 1993, however, through the UN Security Council (which they controlled) the great powers established the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia (ICTY) whose task was to try those responsible for war crimes and crimes against humanity during the wars in that region.

Chapter 1

‘Live, live the spirit of the Slavs’ (1834): ‘Hey Slavs’ from 1942 to 2006

1. The Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina is one of the two entities of the sovereign state of Bosnia and Herzegovina that is, not officially, a federation. In view of this, we can perhaps say that there is no longer officially a sovereign state of South Slavs. For the anthems of Bosnia and Herzegovina see Chapter 7. 2. Both Maxwell (2006: 161) and Pavlovic´ (1990: 34) maintain that the song was written in Czech. 3. The original text is reproduced Pavlovic´ 1990: 33. Translation by the authors, using the partial translation in Maxwell 2006. 4. Translation from Wikipedia article ‘Poland is not yet lost’. Available at http://en. wikipedia.org/wiki/Poland_Is_Not_Yet_Lost (accessed 27 December 2013). No translator identified. 5. Pavlovic´ (1990: 52 – 3) cites as one source, the memoirs of the first president of Czechoslovakia, Tomas Masaryk, entitled Sve˘tova revoluce za valky (Prague, 1925).

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6. The abandonment of this officially selected anthem closely parallels the earlier case in which the Serbian government, under the Karadjordjevic´ dynasty in 1909, abandoned the song by Aleksa Sˇantic´, which in 1906 had been officially selected as the new anthem of the Kingdom of Serbia, and returned to the previous anthem ‘God of Justice’, which it had abolished upon the overthrow of the rival Obrenovic´ dynasty in 1903 (see Chapter 4). 7. These public opinion polls apparently did not specifically canvass the view of non-Slav nationalities, in particular Albanians and Hungarians. The results among those, one may assume, would probably be different. 8. This translation is taken from http://www.slobodnajugoslavija.com/hej_slaveni. html (accessed 15 February 2009). No translator identified. 9. The authors’ translation of the text from in Antifasˇisticˇke pesme (Anti-Fascist Songs), published in the short-lived Communist-ruled Uzˇice republic in Serbia in October 1941 and reproduced in Pavlovic´ 1998: 48.

Chapter 2 Loving one’s homeland: Croatia 1835 1. The law specifies the occasions on which the anthem has to be performed as well as the occasions on which it may be performed, while prohibiting the performances which ‘offend the reputation and the dignity of the Republic of Croatia’. However, the law does not set penalties for the misuse of the anthem as it does for the misuse of the flag and the coat of arms (Zakon 1990: 15 – 22). 2. Ministry of Foreign Affairs and European Integration of the Republic of Croatia. Available at http://www.mvpei.hr/MVP.asp?pcpid¼953 (accessed 11 August 2010). No translator identified. 3. The words in brackets are those used in the official translation. These are all incorrect translations. 4. For an outline of the relevant period of the history of the Habsburg Empire see Kann 1973: 288– 99, 396– 402 and Okey 2001. 5. The changing borders of Croatia are well illustrated in the historical maps in Srkulj & Lucˇicˇ 1996, The preface of this book was written by the late Dr Franjo Tudjman, the first president of independent Croatia. 6. Runjanin was a Serb Orthodox by birth (and would be thus considered to be an ethnic Serb) and was baptised in a Serb Orthodox church as ‘Josif’. His name is often given as ‘Josip’, suggesting, wrongly that he was a Roman Catholic. 7. Andrija Tomasˇek, telephone conversation on 18 February 2010. 8. Only two issues of this magazine were ever published. It was edited by the tutor of the niece of the reigning prince, Anka Obrenovic´, and prominently featured some of her literary compositions. Some scholars maintain that Mihanovic´ fell in love with Anka (who reciprocated his love). Prince Milosˇ disapproved of this liaison and this might have been one of the reasons why he asked the Austrian authorities to recall Mihanovic´ from Beograd (Pavlovic´ 1990: 118 – 21).

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9. ‘The only prince of an Illyrian tribe’ a few years later requested Mihanovic´’s recall from Serbia. Mihanovic´ subsequently served as an Austrian diplomat in various cities of the Ottoman Empire, Greece and Romania. 10. The original is reproduced on the Croatian Sabor web page. Available at http:// www.sabor.hr/Default.aspx?art¼12965 (accessed 10 January 2014). The translation is by the authors. 11. Words in italics have been changed in the current official version of the anthem. 12. Mihanovic´ was convinced of the superior quality of Croat and Hungarian wine. In the early 1830s he went on a promotional tour of North and South America in an attempt to secure markets for those wines, apparently without much success (Ocˇak 1998: 149–56). 13. A local version of a lute, which may be regarded as a Croat national instrument. 14. A round dance. 15. The words in italics were removed or changed in later versions of the song and do not occur in the current lyrics of the anthem. 16. The word ‘narod’ in the Croatian government’s official translation into English is given as a ‘homeland’, which is an obvious mistranslation. 17. The current Montenegrin anthem has apparently copied this device from the Croatian one. See Chapter 5.

Chapter 3 A toast to a cosmopolitan nation: Slovenia 1844 1. In 1980 a Slovenian scholar discovered a previously unknown poem ‘The Golden Era’ (‘Zlatni vek’) by Mojsije Georgijevic´ published in 1842 in the ‘Illyrian’ magazine Bacˇka vila in Novi Sad (then in Hungary), which deals with a similar themes, uses a similar vocabulary and even a similar glass-shaped graphic format of a drinking song. It is interesting to note that Presˇern was a subscriber to this magazine (Paljetak 1982: 335). 2. Available at http://www.preseren.net/slo/3_poezije/13_zdravljica.asp (accessed on 4 August 2010). 3. This seventh stanza, is the current anthem of Slovenia. 4. The following is the officially recommended translation of the whole poem by Janko Lavrin found on the website of the Government of Slovenia. It is quite a free translation which seems to add words or phrases not found in the original. A Toast The vintage, friends, is over, And here sweet wine makes, once again, Sad eyes and hearts recover, Puts fire into every vein. Drowns dull care Everywhere And summons hope out of despair.

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To whom with acclamation And song shall we our first toast give? God save our land and nation And all Slovenes where’er they live, Who own the same Blood and name, And who one glorious Mother claim. Let thunder out of heaven Strike down and smite our wanton foe! Now, as it once had thriven, May our dear realm in freedom grow. May fall the last Chains of the past Which bind us still and hold us fast! Let peace, glad conciliation, Come back to us throughout the land! Towards their destination Let Slavs henceforth go hand-in-hand! Thus again Will honour reign To justice pledged in our domain. To you, our pride past measure, Our girls! Your beauty, charm and grace! There surely is no treasure To equal maidens of such race. Sons you’ll bear, Who will dare Defy our foe no matter where. Our hope now, our to-morrow – The youths – we toast and toast with joy. No poisonous blight or sorrow Your love of homeland shall destroy. With us indeed You’re called to heed Its summons in this hour of need. God’s blessing on all nations, Who long and work for that bright day, When o’er earth’s habitations No war, no strife shall hold its sway; Who long to see That all men free No more shall foes, but neighbours be. At last to our reunion – To us the toast! Let it resound, Since in this gay communion

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By thoughts of brotherhood we’re bound May joyful cheer Ne’er disappear From all good hearts now gathered here. (Translated by Janko Lavrin)

5. 6.

7.

8. 9.

10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

Available at http://www.vlada.si/en/about_slovenia/political_system/national_i nsignia (accessed 4 August 2010). Krst na Savici, Uvod. Available at http://www.preseren.net/ang/3 – 1_poezije.asp, (accessed 17 July 2013). Translation by the authors. One of the leading scholars of Presˇern, Boris Paternu, sees ‘Zdravljica’ as a ‘Slovene Marseillaise’ partly because of its occasional fighting tone directed against the enemies (Paternu 1977: 244). But in a more recent study another well-known scholar, Janko Kos, notes that in spite of the fighting tone ‘Zdravljica’ appears to belong to a quite different kind of poetry to the ‘Marseillaise’. See comments by the anonymous author of ‘Zdravica ali Zdravljica’ on the website of the self-described nationalist and traditionalist association of societies Hervardi (Hervardi, no date). The site also reproduces several manuscript versions of ‘Zdravljica’ arguing that the current version does not correspond to the original intentions of its author. Born in 1913 in Trieste in a Slovene family, Boris Pahor spent most of his life in the city teaching and writing in Slovene. Janez Jansˇa, who recently supported the changes in the text, was the Minister of Defence (1990– 4) in the government that passed the Constitution of 1991 and the Law on the Anthem of 1994. As a Minister of Defence, he was also responsible for establishing ‘Forward the Flag of Slava/Glory’ as the anthem of the defence (later armed) forces of Slovenia. This story about the composition of the anthem was possibly related by Davorin Jenko himself. The poem was the first literary text translated from Slovenian into English. For the circumstances of the translation see Doborovoljec 1951. The text and its translation comes from SPIN. No translator identified. The anthemhood of the song was confirmed by the government Decree on the Insignia of the Slovenian Army, Article 6, promulgated in 1995 (Bric 2010: 27). See also http://flagspot.net/flags/si%5E.html (accessed 21 July 2013). Translation by the authors. A similar question faced the president and government of the Federal Republic of Germany (West Germany) upon its establishment in 1949: how to choose an anthem that would present in an acceptable way the new Germany to those outside of Germany? The Nazis had used the first stanza of the nineteenthcentury national song and later state anthem, Deutschlandlied or ‘Deutschland U¨ber Alles’. For that reason the first president of the new Germany, Theodor Heuss, was very much against the use of this song. However, the first Chancellor, Konrad Adenauer argued that choosing only one stanza, which was

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not used by the Nazis, would be acceptable. The third stanza expresses universal as opposed to national values and this, he argued, would make the new Germany acceptable to its new friends and allies: Unity and justice and freedom For the German fatherland! For these let us all strive Brotherly with heart and hand! Unity and justice and freedom Are the pledge of fortune; Flourish in this fortune’s blessing, Flourish, German fatherland! Like the seventh stanza of ‘Zdravljica’ the third stanza of ‘Deutschlandlied’ sings of ‘brotherhood’ although here it is the brotherhood of Germans, not of all peoples. Despite the fact that it is decidedly not cosmopolitan, the third stanza does express the (allegedly) universally desired (and politically correct) values of unity, justice and freedom. Chancellor Adenauer’s choice of the third stanza presented the renewed Germany to the international audiences in a positive way and, as a traditional national anthem, was widely accepted among the Germans (Eyck 1995: 175). In a similar way, ‘Zdravljica’ presented to the other states the new and soon-to-beindependent Slovenia as a friendly, convivial nation. 16. An earlier version of this chapter was published in the Nationalities Papers (2014).

Chapter 4 Praying for one’s people: Serbia 1872 1. Like its Croatian counterpart (see Chapter 2), the Serbian law on anthems specifies on which occasions the anthem is to be performed. Unlike its Croatian counterpart, it allows, in Article 36, that the anthem be performed on ‘other occasions if its use is not contravening the law’. In Article 37, the law allows the performance ‘in exceptional circumstances’ of the first two stanzas only; the law offers no suggestions as to what the ‘exceptional circumstances’ may be. As with its Croatian counterpart (see Chapter 2), the law determines the penalties for the misuse of the flag and the coat of arms but does not set any penalty for a misuse of the anthem (Zakon 2009). 2. See also a later critical analysis of the anthem by the anti-nationalist writer Filip David (David 2008). 3. For an example, see the interview with a 49-year-old Bosniak citizen of Serbia in Golubovic´ 2003: 347. 4. The title is sometimes translated as ‘God, give us justice’. However, the title is taken from the first two words of its first verse and these two words ‘Bozˇe pravde’ are in the vocative case, indicating an invocation of the God of Justice. This vocative invocation could be translated as ‘Hail, God of Justice’. In view of this, ‘God, give us justice’ does not appear to be the correct translation.

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5. ‘Srpski’ is here translated as ‘Serb’. The English word ‘Serbian’ (found in most translations of this song) refers to Serbia and is the correct translation of the adjective ‘srbijanski’. There is no reference to Serbia in this song. 6. ‘Hrani’ in Serbian. 7. ‘Rod’ is here translated as ‘people’. Its original meaning is ‘kin’. 8. This translation is available at http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry. com/~deutschzerne/Files/village2.html (accessed 26 October 2008). 9. This translation is available at http://www.hymn.ru/god-save-the-tsar-en.html (accessed 25 February 2009). 10. An interesting fourth term in the comparison would be Kolcsey’s Hungarian anthem: God, bless the Hungarian With abundance, gladness, Graciously protect him when Faced with foes or sadness. Bring for people torn by fate Happy years and plenty; Sins of future, sins of late, Both are paid for amply. (Kunz 1955: 44 – 5) Here the deity is exhorted to acknowledge the Christ-like suffering of a nation that has already paid for the sins it is yet to commit. 11. The contingent nature of reign is spelt out more explicitly in the rarely sung third stanza of ‘God save the King/Queen’: Thy choicest gifts in store, On her be pleased to pour; Long may she reign: May she defend our laws, And ever give us cause, To sing with heart and voice God save the Queen. (Scholes 1942: 2) Here we see how the song covertly supports a Protestant succession and a constitutional monarchy by insisting that the individual singer has God’s ear and that the sovereign reigns by virtue of popular support. 12. In February 2008, the Kosovo Albanian parliament declared the independence of the province of Kosovo (Kosovo and Metohija in Serbian terminology) from Serbia. At the time of writing in 2013, Serbia, Russia and China do not recognise its independence. The first declaration of independence by Kosovo Albanian parliament deputies was made in 1990; this was followed by an armed rebellion of Kosovo Albanians in 1998, the NATO bombing of Serbia and the replacement of the Serbian government in Kosovo by a UN administration in 1999. For a brief account of the war see Pavkovic´ 2000, 185 – 201. See also Chapter 8.

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13. The Serbian text is available at http://www.czipm.org/stevovic%2002.html (accessed 20 August 2013). Translation by the authors. 14. Two stanzas are omitted here. 15. The translation is by Slobodan Cekic´ modified by the authors. The text and translation can be found at Serbo-Croation Poetry translations. Available at https:// sites.google.com/site/projectgoethe/Home/jovan-jovanovic-zmaj/jututunskanarodna-himna (accessed 21 August 2013). 16. For a discussion of the mythical significance of this border see Goldstein 2005. 17. This was the poem that the Serbian writer and educationalist Dositej Obradovic´ wrote in 1804 to celebrate the First Serbian Uprising in the same year. 18. The translation by Aleksandra Rebic´ accessed at http://www.heroesofserbia. com/2009/08/mars-na-drinu-march-on-drina.html, on 18 August 2013. The translation has been modified in a few places by the authors. 19. For a list of recordings in the world see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ March_on_the_Drina (accessed 20 August 2013).

Chapter 5 A love of mountains and mothers: Montenegro 1863(?) 1. The word ‘svjetao’ in the context of a dawn appears to mean ‘radiant’ rather than ‘bright’ as the word is usually translated in this verse. We shall depart from the usual translation and use ‘radiant’ throughout. 2. Milo Djukanovic´ is probably the longest serving ex-Communist prime minister and head of state of all the former Communist states of Eastern Europe. Formerly a high ranking Communist official, he was the Prime Minister of Montenegro from 1991 to 98, President of Montenegro from 1998 to 2002, and then again Prime Minister from 2002 until the present (2013) with two ‘retirements’ in 2006 (15 months) and 2010 (22 months). 3. In 2003, the percentage of Serbs, according to the official census, stood at 31.99; at the same time the percentage of Montenegrins was 43.16 (the rest of the population were mainly Albanians and Muslim/Bosniaks) (Statisticˇki godisˇnjak 2006: 44). The official censa in 1981 and 1991 gave significantly smaller numbers of Serbs, suggesting that as Montenegro moved closer to independence, a large number of its citizens changed their identification from Montenegrin to Serb possibly because, officially, Montenegrins were no longer considered to be a part of the Serb nation. 4. This is not, of course, the only example of a transformation of a romantic and unifying patriotic song into a separatist official anthem. The current Croatian state anthem ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ is a result of a similar, although less obvious, transformation. Its original verses are found in the romantic national awaking poem ‘The Croat Homeland’ by the Croat poet Antun Mihanovic´. This poem was first published in 1835 in the journal of the Illyrian movement in Croatia, which strove to construct a single cultural space and literary language for Sˇtokavian speakers, including Croats, Serbs and Montenegrins. Four stanzas

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5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

10. 11.

12. 13. 14.

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of the 14 stanza poem were put to music, without the knowledge of its author, in the late 1840s and in the early twentieth century the song entitled ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ became the national song and later anthem exclusive to the Croats (see Chapter 2). In his tragedy Milosˇ Obilic´ written in Montenegro around 1827, but published in 1837. See Vujovic´ 1998. This was the poet who on behalf of the Serbian Ministry of Education in 1864– 5 invited several well-known fellow-poets to write the first official Serbian anthem: see Chapter 4. Radojevic´, 2011: 381. The 2007 Constitution of Montenegro in Article 15 prohibits any union with another state that leads to a loss of the sovereignty (and thus independence). Under Communist rule in the 1970s a grandiose mausoleum was built there for the cleric and statesman who died more than a hundred years earlier: originally, following his own wishes, Bishop Njegosˇ was buried in a small chapel on the same site. The South Slav word ‘ubava’ is here usually translated as ‘beautiful’. However, the word in the present context does not have carry only aesthetic but also ethical and political connotations and thus ‘splendid’ appears to be more apposite. This was not always the case. In 1993 all the lands to which ‘There, over there . . .’ refers to were at the time located in a single state, the newly established Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, and the song could no longer be viewed only as a dream of, or an aspiration for, a Serb/Montenegrin state. Consequently, in the discussion over the selection of the Montenegrin anthem in the National Assembly, ‘There, over there . . .’ was considered the best candidate. However, the political parties at the time could not agree on that or any other choice and Montenegro was then left without an anthem of its own. (Markusˇ 2007: 91). The English translation from the Citenzdia.org website, has been changed in order to preserve more of a literal translation of the text. See http://www.citi zendia.org/Oj,_svijetla_majska_zoro (accessed 29 June 2013). The deputy president of the Serb People’s Party Goran Danilovic´ explaining why his party voted against the Law on the state symbols (RSE 2004). As Borislav Cimesˇa (2011) noted: ‘The work of Sekula [Drljevic´] and his opus are an example and the message which says that for the purposes of Montenegrin state, people’s, national and physical survival, one should fight for one’s state of Montenegro and one’s own Montenegrin people and nation and that this fight is in this sense always historically justified’ (italics added, translation by the authors).

Chapter 6 A fight for rights: Macedonia 1941 1. The issue of the flag design was resolved in 1995 when the Macedonian Assembly adopted a new design that still had a representation of the sun and its rays but did not resemble the Vergina Star. In return, the Greek government

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lifted the economic blockade of Macedonia and signed an interim accord with the Macedonian government (Rossos 2008: 272). The Greek government appeared to be here following the Ancient Roman legal motto ‘nomina sunt consequentia rerum’, arguing that there is only one thing that the word ‘Macedonia’ can refer to and that is the Greek province of Macedonia. From the website of the President of the Republic. Available at http://www. president.gov.mk/mk/za-makedonija/2011 – 07 – 08 – 08 – 04 – 15.html (accessed 2 September 2013). The above, official, translation of the song translates ‘slobodna’ as ‘liberated’ and ‘slobodno’ as ‘in liberty’. These words could be more simply translated as ‘free’ so that the last two couple of verses would read as ‘Free Macedonia, lives free’. Below is the song in the Macedonian standard, not in its Bulgarian original: Изгреј зора на слободата Изгреј зора на слободата Зора на вечната борба Изгреј во душите и во срцата На сите робови по светот! Тирани чудо ќе направиме Ние туѓо ропство не трпиме Со јуначка крв ќе ве удавиме И пак ќе се ослободиме! Јунаци смели пак развија Окрвавени знамиња Комити нови зашетаа Низ македонската земја! Тирани чудо ќе направиме Ние туѓо ропство не трпиме Со јуначка крв ќе ве удавиме И пак ќе се ослободиме! Ечат шуми, полиња, планини Од бојни песни и Ура Одат борците – великани Напред, готови за борба! Тирани чудо ќе направиме ние туѓо ропство не трпиме со јуначка крв ќе ве удавиме и пак ќе се ослободиме! Нас ништо веќе не ќе не исплаши И така живееме ден за ден Свети се горите наши Во нив слободни ќе умреме!

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Тирани чудо ќе направиме ние туѓо ропство не трпиме со јуначка крв ќе ве удавиме и пак ќе се ослободиме! Available at http://www.macedoniantruth.org/forum/showthread.php? t¼3395&page¼2 (accessed 20 August 2013). 6. See the current VMRO in Bulgaria website. Available at http://www.vmro.org/ index.php?option¼com_content&view¼article&id¼30&Itemid¼31 (accessed 2 March 2012). 7. ‘Sidari’ means ‘builders’ but it also refers to free masons. Some of the founders of the Krusˇevo Republic were allegedly free masons. 8. The Macedonian original is taken from Nova Macedonija 2011a. The translation is based on an official translation of the current anthem (see above) with the additional verses translated by the authors. 9. There is a fair bit of historical controversy as to whether the organisation was originally known as the Bulgarian Secret Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation. The Macedonian sources, in particular Makedonska Enciklopedija 2009, use the SMARO appellation (in Macedonian). 10. For an account of the Ilinden uprising and its contemporary significance see Rossos 2008: 105– 13. For more detailed biographical sketches see the Makedonska Enciklopedija 2009. 11. Zapisnik 1992. Apart from the ‘Today over ‘Macedonia’, the other two candidates considered by the Committee were ‘The Anthem’ (‘Himna’) by Taki Hrisik and ‘That You Should be Eternal’ (‘Da ni bidesˇ vecˇna’) by Aleksandar Dzˇambazov. The texts of these candidate anthems have not been published but one can safely assume that both were composed after 1941 and were thus much younger than ‘Today over Macedonia’. We are grateful to Bosˇko Stankovski for providing us with this copy of the minutes of the Committee for the Constitutional Questions of the Assembly of the Republic of Macedonia kept in the Archives of the Assembly. 12. We are grateful to Mr Trajanovski for making available to us the manuscript of his highly informative and perceptive analysis of the process through which the Macedonian anthem was introduced and politically justified. For a different and shorter version of his work see also Trajanovski 2009. 13. Robert Badinter, a former judge of the French Constitutional Court, presided over the EC Abritration Commission on Yugoslavia and was involved in the drafting of the Ohrid Framework Agreement (August 2001), which ended a brief but violent conflict between ethnic Albanian insurgent groups and the Macedonian government. The agreement between the ethnic Albanian representatives and the Macedonian government envisages all decisions over ‘ethnically sensitive’ matters such as the anthem to be reached by majorities of the representatives of the groups who are not ethnic Macedonians and who do not form a majority in Macedonia.

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Chapter 7 To sing or not to sing? Anthems and anti-anthems: Bosnia and Herzegovina 1995/99 1. Coincidentally, Carlos Westendrop y Cabeza, who gave Bosnia and Herzegovina the lyrics-free anthem, is a former foreign minister of Spain. 2. Alejandro Blanco, the president of the Spanish Olympic Committee, commenting on the reasons for his withdrawal of the proposal of the lyrics. From the New York Times online edition. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/18/world/ europe/18briefs-anthem.html?ref¼world (accessed 7 July 2013). 3. Whose religious background is, respectively, Eastern Orthodox Christianity, Roman Catholicism and Islam. 4. Three of them came from Slav backgrounds, speaking the local language(s) of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 5. These figures come from the ICTY Demographic team investigations. See Zwierzcjpwski and Tabeau 2010. Some Bosniak party leaders and journalists believe the estimated death toll to be too low but they have failed to offer any data, matching those of the ICTY, in support of higher estimates. 6. The attitudes of these three national groups towards the flag and coat of arms also introduced by the High Representative were very similar to the attitudes towards the anthem (Kostic´ 2008: 309). This shows the non-acceptance of the Bosnian Serb and Bosnian Croat populations not only of the state anthem but of all the state symbols of Bosnia and Herzegovina. 7. For the comparison see Himna Djon 2009. 8. Dusan Sˇestic´ is a Bosnian Serb composer and choirmaster from Banja Luka, the administrative capital of Republika Srpska. Prior to settling in Banja Luka, in the Communist-ruled Yugoslavia, he was a member of the Yugoslav People’s Army Orchestra in Beograd, Serbia. 9. Translation by the authors. 10. Examples of such anthems include those of Bulgaria, Bangladesh, Egypt, Sri Lanka and Brazil. 11. The third secessionist state, the Croat-controlled Herzeg-Bosna, on the territory of Herzegovina, which seceded from Bosnia and Herzegovina also in 1992 did not have its own anthem. The Croatian ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ appears to have been in use instead. Herceg-Bosna was reincorporated in the Federation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1994 (Pavkovic´ 2000: 159, 174). 12. Translation of the title by the authors. The song continues: ‘All the pain of the world is in Bosnia tonight, I will stay in spite of the pain’. 13. Available at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jedna_si_jedina (accessed 25 April 2011). 14. Translation by the authors. 15. Sava is a river forming the northern border of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Croatia. It also flows through Serbia. 16. Drina is a river forming most of the eastern border of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Serbia.

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17. Una is a river in Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is a tributary to Sava. 18. As already mentioned, the 2005 survey found that 93 per cent of Bosnian Serbs felt that this anthem best expresses their feelings towards their homeland. 19. Dusˇan Sˇestic´, the author of the ‘Intermezzo’ and one of the authors of its proposed text, also entered this competition and his proposal came a close second. 20. Translation from the National Anthems forum by anonymous ‘avtandil’. Available at http://www.nationalanthems.us/forum/YaBB.pl?num¼121718 3554/0 (accessed 11 July 2013). The translation was modified by the authors to make it more literal. 21. ‘Republika Srpska is today a parliamentary republic with limited international subjectivity. Hence she realises some of her interests through the mediation of common state organs on the level of Bosnia and Herzegovina as an internationally recognised state’. Translation by the authors. (Republika Srpska geografija 2013). 22. We are grateful to Merima Dizdarevic´ for her assistance in researching and writing this section. 23. Available at http://www.efm.ba (online streaming). 24. Available at http://www.pro.ba/en/dogodilo-se-na-danasnji-dan/ (accessed 26 April 2011). 25. Available at http://www.sarajevo-x.com/kultura/clanak/081024072 (accessed 26 April 2011). 26. Available at http://www.sarajevo-x.com/showtime/muzika/clanak/041201011. Audio available for download (accessed 26 April 2011). 27. Translation by the authors. 28. Kulin was ruler of Bosnia from about 1180– 1204 as ban (vassal or viceroy) first of the Byzantine Empire and then of the Kingdom of Hungary. 29. Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v¼pEdOXNH2n1k (accessed 29 April 2011). 30. Dosta! aims to promote accountability and government responsibility to the people, and to spark civic participation of all Bosnian citizens, no matter what religious or ethnic group. With several hundred people from 15 cities around the country involved in non-violent actions, this grassroots movement has established itself as a visible actor in Bosnia’s civil society. See http://www.nonvi olent-conflict.org/index.php/learning-and-resources/on-the-ground/1139darko-brkan (accessed 30 April 2011). 31. Several concerts attended by Christopher Kelen. 32. The poem ‘An die Freude’ (To Joy) was written by Friedrich Schiller in 1785 as a ‘celebration of the brotherhood of man’. The poem was later used for the choral movement of Beethoven’s Symphony No. 9 in D minor. Officially the European anthem does not have any lyrics. However, it is still sometimes performed with the original lyrics in German (Rudolf 2001: 267– 8). The state symbols of Bosnia and Herzegovina are strongly influenced by the EU. The flag, including the colours yellow and blue, the yellow part being a

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right angle triangle (isosceles) in the middle of the blue, suggest a map of the country and its three constituent peoples. The flag is embellished with seven full five-pointed (white) stars and two half stars on the top and bottom along the hypotenuse, reminiscent of the circle of stars on the EU flag. In Bosnia and Herzegovina a standing joke is that the flag motif was taken from the ‘Ikar’ can that supposedly contained beef and was received as humanitarian help during the war. A monument of the can, the work of artist Nebojsˇa Sˇeric´-Shoba, was raised in Sarajevo in 2007 with the inscription: ‘The Monument to the International Community’ from the ‘Grateful Citizens of Sarajevo’. This satirical kind of work is of a piece with the anthem parodies discussed above, as many Bosnians criticised the international community for sending this sort of dubious humanitarian help (no expiration date shown) while letting the war drag on until 1995. 33. Brcˇko district – a neutral, self-governing administrative unit, under the sovereignty of Bosnia and Herzegovina. Formally a part of both entities of Bosna and Herzegovina. 34. Orasˇje, Neum, Olovo, Teslic´, Kaknj, Prnjavor, Vakuf, Trebinje – cities/towns in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Chapter 8

Wishing to be one with Europe: Kosovo 2008

1. It proved impossible for us to find an authoritative text of this anthem either in Albanian or in English translation. 2. For a discussion of conflicting historical accounts or myths about Kosovo, see Pavkovic´ 2001 and Kostoviceva 2005. 3. See Nettl 1952: 185 for a story of how the authorities of Costa Rica in 1953 had to quickly find a national anthem to welcome UK and US dignitaries and for that purpose detained the foremost practising musician until he ‘produced’ a suitable anthem (See Introduction). 4. For an account of the war and its results see Judah 2008 and Kubo 2011. The NATO bombing of Serbia in 1999, carried out without UN Security Council approval, was (and still is) highly controversial. For a discussion of this operation and of the issues raised in this controversy see Waller et al. 2001 and Jokic 2003. 5. And, reportedly, showing their disapproval of the official Kosovo anthem by whistling when it is played during football matches (BBC 2010).

Epilogue:

What do these anthems tell us?

1. The lyrics of old Yugoslav anthem ‘Hey Slavs’ fails to convey either of the two. The context and the habitus of its singing make it clear that the singers are citizens of Yugoslavia and not any other Slav country.

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—— (2009). ‘Химната како национален симбол’ [‘The anthem as a national symbol’]. Available at http://www.okno.mk/node/3590 (accessed 20 March 2011) ——, manuscript (undated). ‘Конструирање и перцепирање на државната химна на Република Македонија како национален симбол’ [‘Construction and perception of the state anthem of the Republic of Macedonia as a national symbol’) manuscript of 29 pages Vecˇernje Novosti (2009) ‘Usvojen Zakon o drzˇavnim simbolima’ [‘The Law on State Symbols Adopted’]. Available at http://www.novosti.rs/vesti/naslovna/politika/ aktuelno.289.html:239595-Usvojen-Zakon-o-drzavnim-simbolima (accessed 28 May 2013) Vesti Online (2012). ‘Nova mana crnogorske himne: Nema rodne ravnopravnosti’ [‘A new defect of the Montenegro anthem: there is no gender equality’], 7 November 2012 Vesti Online. Available at http://www.vesti-online.com/Vesti/ Ex-YU/267823/Nova-mana-crnogorske-himne-Nema-rodne-ravnopravnosti/ print (accessed 20 April 2013) Vreme (2003). ‘Simboli Drzˇavne Zajednice Srbija i Crna Gora: Plavo i plavetno na paragvajski nacˇin’ [‘The symbols of the State Union of Serbia and Montenegro: Blue and Bluish colour in the Paraguay way’] Vreme No. 632 13 February 2003. Available at http://www.vreme.com/cms/view.php?id¼332936 (accessed 22 August 2013) —— (2004). ‘Bozˇe zore’ [‘The God of Dawn’] by Slobodan Kostic´ Vreme No. 710, 12 August 2004. Available at http://www.vreme.com/cms/view.php?id¼387870 (accessed 23 August 2013) —— (2006). ‘Ustavni Tajming’ [‘The Constitutional Timing’] by Milan Milosevic´ Vreme 28 September 2006. Available at http://www.vreme.com/cms/view.php? id¼466316 (accessed 20 August 2013) Vujacˇic´, Veljko (2015). Nationalism, Myth, and the State in Russia and Serbia. Historical Antecedents of Soviet and Yugoslav Dissolution (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press) Vujanovic´, Filip (2013). ‘Cetinje 22 August 2013. Urucˇenja Njegosˇeve nagrade 13 November 2009. Godine na Cetinju: Mirku Kovacu’ [‘Cetinje 2013: the presentation of the Njegos award 2009. The years in Cetinje: to Mirko Kovac’]. Available at http://www.predsjednik.me/ (accessed 25 August 2013) Vujovic´, Svetislav (1998). ‘Burna i tamna poezija burnog i tamnog zˇivota’ [‘The tumultuous and dark poetry of a tumultuous and dark life’], Srpsko Naslede, Istorijske Sveske. No. 9. September 1998. Available at http://www.srpskonasledje.co.rs/sr-l/1998/09/article-10.html (accessed 1 July 2013) Waller, Michael, Drezov, Kyril and Go¨kay, Bu¨lent (eds) (2001). Kosovo: The Politics of Delusion (London, Frank Cass). Weber, Max (1978 [1920]). Economy and Society. Translated by Guenter Roth and Claus Wittich (Berkley, University of California Press) Vol. 1 Williams, Raymond (1976). Keywords (Glasgow, Fontana) Zakon (1990). Zakon o grbu, zastavi i himni Republike Hrvatske te zastavi i lenti predsjednika Republike Hrvatske [Law on the Coat of Arms, Flag and Anthem of the Republic of Croatia and of the Flag and Sash of the President of the Republic of Croatia], 21 December 1990, Narodne novine. Available at http://narodnenovine.nn.hr/clanci/sluzbeni/1990_12_55_1067.html (accessed 12 June 2013)

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—— (2004). Zakon o drzavnim simbolima i danu drzavnosti Crne Gore [The Law on State Symbols and Days of Statehood of Montenegro], Vlada Crne Gore. Available at http:// www.gov.me/naslovna/drzavni_simboli/ (accessed 24 August 2013) —— (2009). Zakon o izgledu i upotrebi grba, zastave i himne Republike Srbije [The Law on the Appearance and the Use of the Coat of Arms, Flag and Anthem of the Republic of Serbia]. Available at http://www.parliament.gov.rs/narodna-skupstina (accessed 18 August 2013) Zapisnik (1992). ‘Записник на дваесет и осмата седница на комисијата на уставни прашања на Собранието на Република Мекоднија одржана на 8 и 9 јуни. . . .1992 година’ [‘The minutes of the twenty eight meeting of the Committee for the Constitutional Questions of the Assemby of the Republic of Macedonia held on 8 and 9 July . . . 1992’], The Assembly of Republic of Macedonia archives. Zdravljica – Lacˇni Franz in prijatelji [The Toast – Hungry Franz and Friends] (1987). Available at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v¼ytTcIDsQIjY (accessed 14 August 2013) Zecˇevic´, Divna (1988). Hrvatske pucˇke pjesmarice 19. stoljec´a (svjetovne i nabozˇne) [Croatian Popular Songbooks of the 19th century (secular and religious)] (Osijek, Revija Radnicˇko sveucˇilisˇte ‘Bozˇidar Maslaric´’) Zielinski, Boguslav (2010). ‘Ideje crnogorske himnografije’ [‘The Ideas of the Montenegro Anthem Writings’] in Njegosˇevi Dani 3 (Filozofski fakultet, Univerzitet Crne Gore) Zˇizˇek, Slavoj (2007). ‘“Ode to Joy”, Followed by Chaos and Despair’ The New York Times, 27 December 2007. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/ opinion/24zizek.html (accessed 7 April 2010) Zwierzchowski Jan and Tabeau, Ewa (2010). ‘Bosnia and Herzegovina: census-based multiple system estimation of casualties’. Available at http://www.icty.org/x/ file/About/OTP/War_Demographics/en/bih_casualty_undercount_conf_ paper_100201.pdf (accessed 8 August 2013)

INDEX

‘A Portuguesa’, 21, 24 ‘A Toast’ (‘Zdravljica’), 19, 27, 29, 103, 156, 200 censorship, 91 drinking song, as, 90 – 7, 106– 10 English translation, 108 lyrics, 92 – 3 nationalisation of song, 97 – 8 origins, 90 – 7 proclamation as anthem, 88, 90 singers, 88 Slovenian independence, and, 89 – 90 tone and mood, 95, 109 –10 ‘Advance Australia Fair’, 69 Ahtisaari, Marti, 203 Ahtisaari Plan, 203, 204– 6, 209, 213 Albania, 26, 27, 28, 32, 44, 48 anthem see ‘Hymn to the Flag’ creation of, 41 – 2 Kosovo, and, 203– 5, 206, 208, 212 ‘All the Pain of the World’ (‘Sva Bol Svijeta’), 187 America, 31 ‘Anthem’, 123, 125 ‘Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, 195– 7, 215– 16 lyrics, 196 anthems classification of, 19 –22

genesis, 22 – 8 importance of, 1 – 2 national, 12 –15 nature and purpose, 1, 7 – 8, 214 portability, 172– 3 reasons for performing, 2 – 9 singers see singers state, 47 – 8 topics, range of, 9 – 10 vocabulary, 9– 10 Anti-Fascist Assembly for the People’s Liberation of Macedonia (ASNOM), 164 Anti-Fascist Council of National Liberation of Yugoslavia, 52, 56 Arbitration Commission of the Peace Conference on Yugoslavia, 51 Arne, Thomas, 25 Association of Croat Singing Societies, 82, 83 Austria-Hungary, 20, 56, 83, 123, 126–7, 146 Habsburgs see Habsburgs Badalic´, Hugo, 82 Bali Kombatar, 62 Balkans, 26 – 7, 210– 11 competition over territory, 44 – 5 Congress of Berlin, following, 40 – 1

246

ANTHEMS

AND THE

MAKING OF NATION STATES

historical background, 33 – 44 national liberation ideologies, 33– 8 struggles and wars, 38 – 47 Belgium, 21, 26 Binicˇki, Stanislav, 128 Bjørnson, Bjørnsjterne, 23 Bosˇkova, Danka, 170 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 14, 27, 33, 40, 42, 49, 95, 104, 127, 175 anthems, 175–6, 193–5, 212, 217– 18 independence, 45 – 6, 51, 176– 80, 186 national ideology, 35, 45 unofficial songs and parodies, 195– 201, 215– 16 war, 178– 80, 194 see also ‘Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’; ‘Informal Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’; ‘State Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’; ‘You are the One and Only’ Bosniaks, 35, 45 –6, 113, 177–82, 186– 7, 193, 194, 212, 219 ‘Bozˇe pravde’ see ‘God of Justice’ ‘Brabanconne’, 21 Britain, 13, 24 – 5, 39 – 40, 46 Broz, Josip see Tito Bulgaria, 26, 28, 40– 2, 48, 210 Macedonia and, 160, 163, 165, 169– 70 national ideology, 35, 45 Serbia, war with, 36, 41

Communist Party of Yugoslavia, 37 – 8, 43– 4, 51, 56, 61 –2, 67, 99, 146–7, 162– 5, 172, 177 search for an anthem, 57 – 8 congratulating the nation, 18 – 20, 32 self-congratulation see selfcongratulatory anthems Congress of Berlin, 40 – 1, 142 contested songs, 14 Convention of Ackerman, 39 Costa Rica, 5 Croatia, 26, 27, 33, 37, 42, 217–18 anthem see ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ independence, 38, 45, 51, 66 – 7, 72, 209, 210, 211 national ideology, 35 Serbia, war with, 45 – 6, 72, 127 ‘Croatia Has Not Perished As Yet’ (‘Josˇ Horvatska ni propala’), 82 ‘Croatian Anthem’ (‘Hrvatska himna’), 82 Croatian Democratic Union (CDU), 66 ‘Croatian Homeland’, 23, 27, 52, 73 – 5, 92, 104, 167 Croatian Spring, 67 culture music and, 16 national identity and, 16 nationalism and, 12, 14 Czech Republic, 26 anthem, 69 Cyprus, 40

Car, Jovan, 133 C´atic´, Zoran (Zoka), 195– 7, 200, 216 Chetniks, 62, 147 coat of arms, 14, 66 Macedonia, 155, 170 Montenegro, 142, 145 Serbia, 111, 119 Slovenia, 90 Communist International (Comintern), 163, 165

Dabrowski, Jan, 54 Dayton Accords, 175, 178– 9, 186, 194–5 de Lisle, Rouget, 21 ‘Dear Motherland’, 48 Delcˇev, Goce, 168, 169, 170 DEMOS, 90 ‘Denes nad Makedonija’ see ‘Today over Macedonia’ Denmark, 20, 23

INDEX ‘Denmark, Denmark – Sacred Sound’, 20 Dervisˇhalidovic´, Edin, 187 dignitaries, reception of foreign, 2 – 3, 7 Djordjevic´, Jovan, 122– 3, 125 Djukanovic´, Milo, 132, 154 Drina River, 127– 30 Drljevic´, Dr Sekula, 137, 138, 146– 7, 149– 50, 152– 4, 218 Dubioza Kolektiv, 197 Dumorouiez, General, 7 education, 10 function of anthems, 4 – 5, 7 entertainment anthems and, 1 – 2, 8 Estonia, 26 ‘Europe’, 173, 203, 207– 8, 214 European Community (EC), 51, 89–90, 107, 177 European Union (EU), 14, 46 – 7, 107, 110, 113, 131– 2, 156, 172, 179, 201, 208– 9 flag, 181, 205 Rule of Law Mission (EULEX), 203 exclusion, rites of, 108– 9 exhortation, 18 Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (FRY), 11, 14, 89, 127 establishment, 52 fighting anthems, 7, 18, 21 – 2, 26, 48, 64, 213 Albania, 204 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 175 Macedonia, 159, 164– 5, 215 Serbia, 127–30 Slovenia, 89, 95 – 6 First Serb Uprising, 118, 119 flags, 3, 9, 14, 19, 22, 32 Albania, 202 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 179– 81 Croatia, 66 EU, 181, 205

247

Kosovo, 202, 203– 6, 208– 9 Macedonia, 155, 156, 160– 1, 167, 170, 172 Montenegro, 145 Serbia, 111 Slovenia, 90 folk music, 48, 55, 122, 129– 30, 131, 137, 142, 149– 50, 181, 186, 212 Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FRYOM) see Macedonia ‘Forward the Flag of Slava/Glory’ (‘Naprej zastave slave!’), 22, 32, 122 anthem, as, 83, 96, 98 – 104, 110 lyrics, 101 uses, 88 –9, 104– 6 freedom, 9, 28, 84, 91, 117, 133, 160–2, 172– 3, 213, 215 fighting for, 40, 80, 81, 104, 129– 30, 134– 6, 157, 159– 62, 164– 5, 173, 214 gift and preservation of, 59 – 61, 216 past, 94 –5 French Revolution, 7, 13, 22, 34, 159 funerals, 4 Gaj, Ljudevit, 36, 55, 73 – 4, 79, 82 geographical features naming and describing, 70 – 1 see also landscapes Germany, 26, 34, 46, 132 ‘God of Justice’ (‘Bozˇe pravde’), 25, 52, 62, 83, 99, 100, 103, 131, 133, 193, 215 adaptations and modifications, 121– 7 Bosnian Serbs, and, 181, 186, 189– 90 lyrics, 114– 16, 122 ‘March on Drina’, comparison, 129– 30 prayer anthem, 113– 21, 125– 7 Serbian anthem, as, 111–13, 121, 127– 8 ‘God Long Live’ (‘Bozˇe zˇivi’), 82

248

ANTHEMS

AND THE

MAKING OF NATION STATES

‘God Save the King/Queen’, 13, 24–5, 26, 49, 95, 112, 116–18, 142, 186 ‘God Save Our Emperor’, 115 ‘God Save the Tsar’, 115, 116, 142 Great Britain see Britain Greece, 26, 31, 41, 45, 48, 187 Macedonia, and, 156– 7, 172, 208 War of Independence, 38 – 9, 40 – 2 Greenies, 146 Gruev, Dame, 167, 169 Guli, Pitu, 168, 169 Habsburgs, 33 – 4, 35, 40 – 2, 54, 70 –1, 74 – 5, 90, 105 anthem, 115, 123 heads of state, inauguration of, 3 ‘Hey Slavs’, 7, 22, 24, 103, 105, 112, 128, 131, 152, 164, 190 anthem, transformation into, 58 – 63 Croatian, translation into, 55 history, 51 – 3 lyrics, 59 original song, 53 – 8 religious references, removal of, 59 –60 Serbian, translation into, 55 singers, 63 – 5 Slavic language, preservation of, 54, 55 song of resistance, as, 55, 56, 59 – 62 High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, 174, 176, 179–82, 185, 194 ‘Himni i Flamurit’ see ‘Hymn to the Flag’ histories, 30 – 2, 35 Holbroke, Christopher, 178 homelands, 29 – 30, 216 boundaries and borders, 70 – 2, 188– 9, 217 creation of, 67 justice for, 102 love for, 68 – 72, 81 – 2, 84, 86, 150– 1, 213–14 nationalism and, 12

honour, 135– 7 Hungary, 26, 31 anthem, 70 revolution, 91 ‘Hymn, The’, 31 ‘Hymn to the Flag’ (‘Himni i Flamurit’), 32, 48 Kosovo, and, 202– 4, 206, 212 ‘Hymn to Liberty’, 31, 48, 187 Ilinden uprising, 167– 9, 171, 174 illocutionary acts, 18– 19 Illyirans, 33, 36, 73 –6, 79, 147, 204 Implementation Force, 179 ‘Informal Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, 197– 9 lyrics, 198– 9 ‘Inno di Mameli’, 21 inspiration, 5 – 8, 22, 78, 184 ‘Intermezzo’, 180, 185, 186, 193 parodies, 195, 197 Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organisation (United) (IMRO (United)), 162– 3, 164, 167– 8, 170, 173 ‘Internationale, The’, 21 internationalism, 97 Isakovic´, Benjamin, 182, 185 Italy, 21, 26, 132, 146 Izetbegovic´, Alija, 178, 212 Jansˇa, Janez, 98 ‘Jedna si jedina’ see ‘You are the One and Only’ Jenko, Davorin, 99, 100, 122 Jenko, Simon, 99– 100 Jovanovic´ Zmaj, Jovan, 123, 124 ‘Jututunska narodna himna’ see ‘Yututun People’s Anthem’ Kacˇanski, Vladislav V., 123, 125 Kajkavijan dialect, 74 Karadjordjevic´, Aleksandar, 112, 126–7

INDEX Karadjordjevic´, Petar I, 126 Karadjordjevic´, Petar II, 112, 127 Karadjordjevic´ dynasty, 112, 117, 119, 126 Karev, Nikola, 167, 168, 169 ‘King Christian’, 20 Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, 37, 71, 83, 99, 117, 186, 189, 212 Kosovo, 14, 27, 49, 142, 144, 173, 176 Albania, and, 203– 5, 206, 208 anthems, 203–9, 212 independence, 38, 45, 51, 117, 120, 202– 3, 209 see also ‘Europe’, ‘Hymn to the Flag’ Kosovo Force (KFOR), 203 Kosˇtunica, Vojislav, 112– 13 Kraljevic´, Marko, 122 Krusˇevo Republic, 157, 160, 161, 164, 167– 9, 172, 218 Kuhacˇ, Franjo, 73, 82 landscapes, 9, 30 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 192 Croatia, 70 – 2, 216 Montenegro, 136–9, 151, 216 see also geographical features; homelands languages, 10 allegiance to, 54, 55, 59 – 60, 65, 74 Czech, 53 – 4, 65 liberation ideologies, and, 35 nationalism and, 12 Slovak, 53 –5, 65, 74 Latvia, 26 League of Communists of Slovenia, 89 liberation ideologies, 33 – 8 nature and purpose, 34 – 5 liberation song evolution of, 26, 160– 1 Liechtenneger, Vatroslav, 73 ‘Lijepa nasˇa domovino’ see ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ Lithuania, 26 Ljaljic´, Adem, 113

249

Lovc´en vision, 138– 40, 215 loyalty, 3, 7, 13, 32, 188 national, 153, 154, 187– 90, 195, 203, 218 lyrics anthems without, 176, 180, 182, 186, 195, 205–7, 212–13, 214, 217 nationhood and, 28– 9 role of, 14 – 15 Macedonia, 21, 24, 26, 27, 33, 41, 45, 48, 67, 155, 208, 214, 215, 218 Albanians in, 171– 2, 173– 4, 219 anthem see ‘Today over Macedonia’ Bulgaria and, 160, 163, 165, 169– 70 Greece, and, 156– 7, 172, 208 independence, 38, 46, 51, 155, 161– 2, 172, 210, 211 national ideology, 35 plurinationality, 172– 3, 174 Majkic´, Dusˇanka, 182 Maleski, Vlado, 158, 162– 5, 169– 70 ‘March on Drina’ (‘Marsˇ na Drinu’), 111, 127– 30 ‘God of Justice’, comparison, 129– 30 lyrics, 128 marching anthems, 7, 18, 20, 21 – 7, 29, 48, 54, 64, 213 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 175 Macedonia, 159 Serbia, 127– 30 Slovenia, 89, 95 –6, 100, 103 Marko Kraljevic´ see Kraljevic´, Marko ‘Marko’s Sabre’ (Markova sablja), 100, 122 ‘Marsˇ na Drinu’ see ‘March on Drina’ ‘Marseillaise’, 7, 21, 24, 26, 31, 64, 105, 159 Marxism, 58, 60, 62, 89 Matovic´, Mladen, 190

250

ANTHEMS

AND THE

MAKING OF NATION STATES

Mengjiqi, Mendi, 202, 207– 9 Merlin, Dino, 187 Metternich, Count, 91 Mihanovic´, Antun, 23, 73 – 6, 78 – 9, 82 – 4, 104, 167 Milosˇevic´, Slobodan, 72, 112 –13, 178, 202 Milutinovic´-Sarajlija, Sima, 136 Minderovic´, Cˇedomir, 57 minorities, 4 mobilisation, 2, 13, 26, 34, 36, 43, 45, 62, 67, 105– 6, 121, 210 ‘Moja Republika’ see ‘My Republic’ Montenegro, 11, 27, 48 –9, 95, 104, 131, 210– 11 anthems, 70, 131– 5, 140– 5, 213– 14, 216, 218 clans, 140 independence, 38 – 42, 46, 52, 112– 13, 117, 132, 139, 142, 145– 6, 211–12 national ideology, 35 political divisions, 151– 4 Serbs, and, 134– 7, 144– 7, 152, 218 State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, 52, 112– 13, 131 see also ‘Our Eternal Montenegro’; ‘To Our Splendid Montenegro’ mothers and motherhood, 103–4, 135– 7, 183– 4, 215 motivation, 5 – 8, 96, 136, 199 music anthems, of, 14 – 15 culture, dissemination of, 16 pleasure in making, 1 ‘My Republic’ (‘Moja Republika’), 186, 190, 215– 16 lyrics, 191 ‘You are the One and Only’, and, 190, 192– 3 myths, 30 – 2, 35 ‘Naprej zastave slave!’ see ‘Forward the Flag of Slava/Glory’

nation-building, 26 discourses, 12, 70 – 1 nation-singing-in-unison, 3, 4, 7, 12, 15, 28, 29, 153, 162, 214, 217 national anthems see anthems national awakening, 22 – 4, 48 Croatia, 72, 213 Macedonia, 159, 213 Slovenia, 92, 94 –5, 100, 213 national identity, 8, 147, 193– 5 brotherhood and, 96 – 7, 215 definition, 15 – 18 homeland and, 76 Macedonia, 161– 2 Montenegro, 152– 4 self-recognition and, 96 self-reflexive, 200– 1 Slovenia, 106–10 symbols and, 17 – 18 vocabulary and language, 9 – 10, 28 – 9 national ideology, 12 – 5, 187 construction, 34 – 7, 44 – 5, 48 liberation ideologies, 33 – 8 national liberation ideologies, 33 – 8 resistance, songs of, 61 – 2 struggles and wars, 38 – 47 nationalism, 98 anthems, role of, 13, 14 development of, 12 – 13 love of homeland and, 85 nationhood identity and, 15 – 18, 29 nationalistic tendencies impeding, 200 vocabulary of, 28– 9 NATO, 46 – 7, 49, 99, 106, 120, 178–9, 202– 3, 208, 212 negative emotions, 28 – 9 negative theology, 63 neighbours, affection towards, 95, 97, 105–6

INDEX Nenadovic´, Ljubomir, 136 Njegosˇ, Petar Petrovic´ II, 139– 40 non-anthems, singing, 10 – 11 Norway, 26 Obrenovic´, Mihailo, 123 Obrenovic´, Milan, 25, 122– 3, 125, 143 Obrenovic´, Milosˇ, 75, 118, 144 Obrenovic´ dynasty, 25, 75, 118, 119, 125– 6, 144 ‘Ode to Joy’, 14, 88, 201, 206, 207 Oehlenschlaeger, Adam G., 20, 23 ‘Oh the Radiant Dawn of Bravery’, 133– 4 ‘Oh the Radiant Dawn of May’, 104, 144– 5, 188, 190, 215, 217 historical background, 132– 5 mothers and motherhood, 135– 7, 215 political messages, 137– 40 Ottomans, 33– 5, 38 – 42, 48, 118, 123, 133– 4, 144, 168, 210 rebellions against, 41, 47, 48, 140, 142– 4, 161, 167– 9, 173 ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’ (‘Lijepa nasˇa domovino’), 66 – 7, 99, 138, 150, 159, 188, 220 Bosnian Croats, and, 181, 194 love of homeland, 68 – 72, 81 – 2, 84, 86, 214, 216– 17 lyrics, 68, 69, 76 – 80 people’s choice, 81 –3 selection, modification and addition, 83 –5 singers, 71 – 2, 85 – 7 transformation into anthem, 73 –81 ‘Our Eternal Montenegro’, 137, 138, 147 authorship, 149– 50 lyrics, 148 source of anthem, as, 149– 50 Pahor, Boris, 97 – 8 parliament, opening, 3

251

Peace Implementation Council, 179, 185, 194 ‘People’s Anthem’, 123 performance, reasons for, 2 – 9 Petro, Nikola, 140, 142, 144 Petro dynasty, 140, 145 Pijade, Mosˇa, 57 plurinationality, 172– 3, 174, 207 Poland, 26, 54 ‘Poland Has Not Yet Perished’, 54 politics anthems and, 2, 6, 7, 12, 137– 40 political aspirations, 14 Popovic´, Miloje, 129 Portugal, 21 possession, 29 prayer-anthems, 18, 95, 112, 115– 21, 125–7, 144, 188 ‘Prayer of the Russians’, 116 Preml, Stanko, 90 Preradovic´, Petar, 82 Presˇeren, France, 88 – 92, 94, 96, 100, 107–10, 216 Radojevic´, Danilo, 136 religion, 35 – 6 removal from anthems, 59 – 60 Republic of Kosovo see Kosovo Republika Srpska (Serb Republic), 95, 121, 177– 9, 181–95, 217–18 resistance, songs of ‘Hey Slavs’, 55, 56, 59 – 62 ‘Rise the Dawn of Freedom’, 157, 164–5 list of the glorious dead, 165– 70 lyrics, 166 origins, 165– 70 ritual, 2 state see state rituals Romania, 26, 41 Rugova, Dr Ibrahim, 204 rulers, 30 prayers for safety, 18, 95, 112, 125– 6, 144

252

ANTHEMS

AND THE

MAKING OF NATION STATES

Runjanin, Josif, 73 Russia, 21, 38, 39 – 40, 46 Russian Empire, 33 anthem, 115, 116, 123 Sandanski, Jane, 168–9, 170 Sˇantic´, Aleksa, 126 Secret Macedonian Adrianople Revolutionary Organisation (SMARO), 167– 70, 173 Seidel, Johann Gabriel, 115 self-congratulatory anthems, 19 – 20, 26, 32, 115, 129, 157 ‘A Toast’, 88 ‘Hey Slavs’, 64 ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’, 69 Serb Republic of Krajina, 45 – 6, 72 Serbia, 11, 25, 27, 28, 33, 83, 95, 110, 130, 210– 11, 214 anthem see ‘God of Justice’ Bulgaria, war with, 36, 41 Croatia, war with, 45 –6, 72 independence, 38 – 9, 40 – 5 national ideology, 35 search for an anthem, 121–7 State Union of Serbia and Montenegro, 52, 112– 13, 131 ‘Serbia Arise’ (‘Vostani Serbijo’), 127– 8 Serbian Uprisings, 38, 118, 119 Sˇestic´, Dusˇan, 181 –2, 185, 196 signature tune, 8 – 9 singers, 9 – 12, 213– 14, 215, 217– 18 ‘A Toast’, 88 ‘Hey Slav’, 63 –5 ‘Our Beautiful Homeland’, 71 – 2, 85 –7 singing, 1 Skanderbeg, 173 Slavs, 63 – 4, 104– 6 Slovak language, 53 – 5, 65, 74 Slovakia, 26 anthem, 70

Slovene Singing Society, 99 Slovenia, 8, 15, 19– 20, 22, 26, 27, 29, 32, 42, 45, 67, 88, 209, 214, 215, 219–20 anthems see ‘A Toast’; ‘Forward the Flag of Slava/Glory’ Europe, relationship with, 109 historical references, 94 – 5 independence, 38, 51, 89 – 90, 209, 210, 211 national identity, 106– 10 pragmatism, 109– 10 socialisation, 4– 6, 7 Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (SFRY), 21, 28, 67, 71, 89 – 90, 106, 112, 127, 155– 6, 177, 202–3 anthem see ‘Hey Slavs’ dissolution, 11, 15, 18, 38, 51 – 2, 67, 208– 9 establishment, 37 search for an anthem, 57 – 8 see also Federal Republic of Yugoslavia Sokol movement, 56 solemnity, 8 solidarity, 2 – 8, 24 – 5, 62, 75, 96 – 7, 107, 109, 199 language and, 28 – 9 ‘Song of the Polish Legions in Italy’, 54 South Slavs, 7, 22, 36 – 7, 43, 52, 53– 8, 65, 79, 100, 102, 107, 136, 142 dialect, 36, 74 – 5 sovereignty conceptions of, 13 socialisation and, 4 – 6, 7 symbols, 3 – 4 Spain, 14, 159, 176 sporting events anthems, role of, 5 – 6, 7 non-anthems, 6 ‘Star-Spangled Banner’, 31

INDEX ‘State Anthem of Bosnia and Herzegovina’, 175– 6, 179– 80, 214, 217 creation, 180– 5 proposed lyrics, 183– 5 state anthems, 47 – 8 state-creation, 210– 11, 220 discourses, 12 national liberation struggles, 38 –47 old national songs, and, 47 – 9 state rituals funerals, 4 inauguration of heads of state, 3 opening parliament/assemblies, 3 reception of foreign dignitaries, 2 –3, 7 Sˇtokavian dialect, 36, 74 – 5 Sunducˇic´, Ivan, 142 symbols, 3, 32, 153 national identity, and, 17 – 18 sovereignty, 3– 4 subjectivity, 17 sun, 160– 1, 172 ‘There, over there. . .’, 142– 4, 145 lyrics, 143– 4 Thrace, 41, 42 Tito (the nickname of Josip Broz), 44, 56, 67 ‘To Our Splendid Montenegro’ (‘Ubavoj nasˇoj Crnoj Gori’), 125, 131, 140, 142, 145 lyrics, 141 ‘To the Slavs’, 53 ‘Today over Macedonia’ (‘Denes nad Makedonija’), 21, 24, 27, 64, 104, 164, 170, 213, 218, 220 amendments to include Albanian references, 173– 4 anthem, as, 155–7, 170– 4 list of the illustrious dead, 159–60 lyrics, 158– 9, 167

253

national devotion, 160– 2 origins, 157– 60, 163 Tomasˇik, Samuel (Samo), 53 – 4, 59– 60 Topalovic´, Mate, 82 trauma, 31 Treaty of Adrianople, 39 Treaty of Bucharest, 41 Tudjman, Dr Franjo, 66, 178 Ukraine, 26 United Nations (UN), 4, 46, 132, 157, 176, 178– 9, 194, 202– 3, 209, 212–13 unity, 199, 220 acts of, 3, 4 prayer for, 113–21 songs of, 62, 133, 137–40, 171– 2 Ustashe, 62, 83, 147, 152– 3 Vergina Star, 156 victimhood, 31 – 2 violence, impulse towards, 103 Vitkovic´, Obrad, 133 Vlahov, Dimitar, 167, 168, 169 ‘Vostani Serbijo’ see ‘Serbia Arise’ Vujanovic´, Filip, 139, 150 war, 120, 127 anthems and, 7 depictions of, 79 – 80 sibling rivalry and national conflict, 79 ‘War Song for the Army of the Rhine’ see ‘Marseillaise’ ‘We are Brothers, Illyrians’ (‘Mi smo brac´o ilirskog’), 82 Weber, Max, 13 ‘When the War-Cry Descends on Kosovo’, 204 ‘Where is My Home?’, 69, 159 ‘William of Nassau’, 13, 25 ‘Workers Marsaillaise, The’, 21 Wybecki, Josef, 54, 55

254

ANTHEMS

AND THE

MAKING OF NATION STATES

‘You are the One and Only’ (‘Jedna si jedina’), 104, 174, 181, 190, 194, 212 lyrics, 187 ‘My Republic’, and, 190, 192–3 origins, 186– 9 unofficial anthem, as, 185– 6

Yugoslavism, 36 – 7 ‘Yututun People’s Anthem’ (‘Jututunska narodna himna’), 123, 124– 5 ‘Zdravljica’ see ‘A Toast’ Zhukovsky, Vasily, 116 Zoster, 197– 200