Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová in a studio. (source: Culture Ministry's website)
The purpose of a national anthem is to unite, but in Slovakia efforts to amend the national song are stirring deep divisions.
It all began in late October when Culture Minister Martina Šimkovičová, a nominee of the far-right Slovak National Party (SNS), announced on a pro-Russian disinformation platform that she had to leave early because the Slovak Philharmonic in Bratislava was preparing a “big surprise.” It didn’t take long for the secret to leak: the Culture Ministry had decided to support the idea of modernising Slovakia’s national anthem, a concept proposed more than a decade ago by noted producer and conductor Oskar Rózsa.
“We are, of course, not altering the original lyrics or melody since it is a national symbol of the Slovak Republic,” Šimkovičová wrote on Telegram, a messaging app, in October. Her main focus was on complaining about media questions regarding the project’s cost: “They weren’t bothered by the hundreds of thousands of euros spent on gay pride events,” wrote the minister, who is well-known for her homophobic and xenophobic views.
Slovakia’s national anthem comprises the first two stanzas of the protest poem “Nad Tatrou sa blýska” (Lightning Over the Tatras) written in 1844 by poet Janko Matúška to the tune of the folk song “Kopala studienku, pozerala do nej” (She Dug a Well and Looked Into It). The first stanza became part of the Czechoslovak national anthem in 1918, paired with a stanza from the Czech song Kde domov můj (Where My Home Is), which is now the Czech Republic’s national anthem. Slovakia’s anthem has seen several musical arrangements, the most renowned of which was composed by Ladislav Burlas upon Czechoslovakia’s dissolution in 1992-3.
