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 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.
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.
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 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 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:
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 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 signature-tune. 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.
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 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 non-anthem songs may indeed evoke anthem-like sentiments. For the study 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 re-examine 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.
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:
In exploring these two questions we discuss how poetic images of nations' identity are used in the processes and discourses of nation-building 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 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.
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 state-owner 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 music-only 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 ever-closer 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 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:
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.
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 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 ‘self-evident’ 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:
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:
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:
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 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. However, unlike the British anthem, this anthem has significant self-congratulatory 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). ‘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 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 Mihanović 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. 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 (non-Slav) 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 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 Obrenović 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 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 nineteenth-century 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 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 nation-building 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 nineteenth-century 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 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 fellow-solidarity. 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 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 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 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 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.