Daily Times

Among the more magical moments of Euro 2012 is the sight of players of opposing teams falling in a row, their bodies taut and heads held high, lip-syncing the lyrics of their national anthems as their tunes echo in the stadium. In the galleries, their supporters, on their feet, hands over their hearts, sing aloud the national anthem with the fervour of the possessed. You realise what is to unfold before you isn’t just a game of football but ‘war minus shooting’, a replay of centuries of national rivalries and quests, fashioned and leavened at the time Europe was a cockpit of scheming kings and fearless knights, and the idea of a modern nation-state had begun to germinate in its blood-soaked land.

Perhaps it was not just serendipity that sports administrators thought of playing the national anthem before the beginning of every match. In evoking the memories of the birth and survival of a nation, they sought to inculcate in its players the patriotic passion required to inspire them to subordinate their personal goals for those of the nation. The national anthem’s significance to sportspersons was best illustrated in Russia, which decreed new lyrics every time its society underwent cataclysmic changes. In the 1990s though, Russia’s anthem was a mere musical composition sans lyrics. The Russian soccer players blamed the wordless anthem for not inspiring in them the requisite ‘patriotic fervour’ as the reason for their failure to qualify for the 1998 World Cup. Two years later, Russian athletes expressed similar concerns to President Vladimir Putin, whose government organised a competition to provide words to the tune already in existence. Sergey Mikhalkov’s entry is now Russia’s anthem.

National anthems can cast their shadow over the present. The provenance of the clash between Russian and Pole fans, during Euro 2012, dates back to more than a century before Poland became a satellite state of the Soviet Union. Over three successive partitions, then dominant European powers — Russia, Prussia, Austria — calibrated the disappearance of Poland in 1795 from the map. In desperation, the Poles turned to France for help: poet-politician Jozef Wybicki convinced Gen Jan Henryk Dabrowski to lead a Polish legion for assisting Napoleon on his military foray into Italy, from where they hoped to march across Austria and reclaim Poland.

To inspire the Polish soldiers, Wybicki penned Poland is not yet lost. The lines hark to military expeditions of the past, praise Napoleon, and its opening line, “Poland has not yet died/So long as we still live”, encapsulates what was then a radical idea: a nation does not cease to exist just because it does not have a sovereign country. Through more than a century and several uprisings, Wybicki’s haunting lines continued to inspire Poles who, following the rebirth of Poland in 1918, adopted his poem as their national anthem. But the word “died” in the opening line was replaced by “perished”, suggesting a more violent past than what even Wybicki had imagined. The context of Poland’s national anthem rekindles the memory of the suffering endured at the hands of the Russians and Prussians, who subsequently welded several principalities into a united Germany. This remembrance became darkled even further because of post-World War II politics.

Poland’s anthem deeply influenced that of Ukraine, which is the other country hosting Euro 2012. Penned in 1862 by Pavlo Chubynsky, it is titled Ukraine has not yet perished. These words begin the opening line of Chubynsky’s poem, a fact not surprising considering that Ukraine, as we know it today, had been parcelled out among several powers in the 19th century. In 2003, though, independent Ukraine altered the original version to read, “Ukraine and its glory has not died yet”, testifying to the abiding faith of its people in the permanence of their nation.

It is possible in hindsight to perceive Ukraine’s national anthem as a taunt to the Poles who were opposed to the Habsburg monarchy’s encouragement to the Ruthenians to consider themselves a separate nation in East Galicia. No doubt, the Habsburg’s motive was to counter the Poles’ demand for greater autonomy. The Ruthenians later identified themselves as Ukrainians, and fought a ferocious but losing battle against independent Poland in 1918-1919. At the beginning of World War II, the Soviet Union annexed East Galicia, attached it to the existing Ukraine, and shifted Poles from there to their shrunken country.

Germany’s national anthem, Deutschlandlied, or Song of Germany, is arguably the most controversial, invoking fear in those who feel the country’s expansionist quest continues to smoulder among its people. To bolster their claims, they cite the opening stanza, which begins with, “Germany, Germany above everything,” and then goes on to lay out the coordinates of its boundary, unwittingly including territories belonging to other countries. Its second stanza has been criticised for ‘commodifying’ women. For the most part of its history though, Germany accepted only the song’s third stanza as its anthem, as it promises “unity and justice and freedom/For the German fatherland.”

Yet the history of Germany’s anthem spells out an alternative narrative. It was Heinrich Hoffmann who wrote the lyrics in 1841, hoping the 39 independent entities comprising Germany would unite under a common state enjoying sovereignty over the territory spelt out in the opening stanza. The song languished in oblivion until it is said to have re-emerged in the battlefield during World War I, sung by soldiers as they attacked British troops. President Friedrich Ebert adopted the song as the national anthem in 1922, but instructed only the singing of the third stanza at official ceremonies. Under Hitler, the national song comprised the first stanza to which was appended the anthem of the Nazi Party.

Post-WW II, all German national symbols were banned. The situation was complicated with playwright Bertolt Brecht returning from exile to pen Kinderhymne, or Children’s Hymn, which sought to allay the fears that Hoffmann’s song evoked. This can be gleaned from the following words: “That the people give up flinching/At the crimes which we evoke.” Brecht also thought of his country as, “Neither over or yet under.” In 1952, though, Hoffmann’s third stanza was once again adopted as the national anthem.

Yet the opening stanza was never banished from public memory. When Germany won the World Cup in 1954, its supporters sang the opening stanza, much to the horror of people worldwide. Otherwise too there have been attempts to make the studying of Hoffmann’s entire song mandatory in schools. The collapse of the Berlin Wall and reunification of Germany reopened the debate on the national anthem, particularly as an entire generation had grown in East Germany singing their own national song. Some canvassed to have Brecht’s lyrical hymn adopted as the national anthem, but Hoffmann’s third stanza prevailed.

Paradoxically, Germany’s anthem appears innocuous in comparison to France’s Le Marseillaise, which talks of “Let an impure blood/Water our furrows”, or Portugal’s martial, even though defensive, chorus of its anthem: “To arms, to arms/Over land, over sea.” In contrast, Spain’s is a mere musical composition, and attempts to create lyrics have been eschewed lest it angers Basques and Catalans who identify more with their regions than the Spanish state. Perhaps the absence of patriotic lyrics inspires Spain to transform soccer into an exalted art.

The author is a Delhi-based journalist and can be reached at ashrafajaz3@gmail.com