Exploring the intricate history of national identity, this episode dives deep into the story of Panama's national anthem, "Himno Istmeño." We embark on a journey that bridges the planet’s hemispheres, weaving through tales of triumph, struggle, and the geographical significance of Panama as a cultural melting pot. Our discussion highlights the fascinating narrative of the Isthmus, from colonial times through its complex path to independence, and how these events influenced the creation of its anthem. Along the way, we encounter intriguing characters and reveal their roles in shaping Panama’s musical heritage. So, grab your swimming goggles as we dive into the melodies and meanings behind a song that celebrates unity and resilience, all while navigating the sometimes murky waters of history and politics.

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16. Musicant, I, The Banana Wars, 1990, New York: Macmillan Publishing Co., ISBN 0025882104McGuinness, Aims (2008). Path of Empire : Panama and the California Gold Rush. Ithaca: Cornell University Press. ISBN 9780801445217.
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30. https://www.mingob.gob.pa/simbolosdelanacion/santos-jorge-amatriaim/ 
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35.  Club Interamericano de Mujeres Unidad de Colón (1948). Panama Folklore. Inter-American Women's Club, Colon Unit. p. 20.
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38. https://web.archive.org/web/20161010100611/https://www.presidencia.gob.pa/tmp/file/894/SINTESIS%20DEL%20HIMNO%20NACIONAL.pdf 

https://portal.critica.com.pa/archivo/110499/nacional.html

Hello and welcome to the Anthems Podcast. I'm Patrick and I'm here to tell you the story of a song that helps to tell the story of a nation.

But to my surprise, a longer swim has been attempted.

It's absolutely terrifying stuff to me and an awful lot of work just to get to a country that technically speaking, you could swim right through.

Because Huerto Going to Panama Officially the Republic of Panama, we are in a country that's been called the Melting Pot because of its geographic placement as a crossroads of worldwide culture and trade. Because of the Canal, the idea of a Central American canal is almost exactly 400 years older than the completion of the one that is in Panama.

It was almost in Nicaragua, but Teddy Roosevelt, American imperialism, and our good old friend gunboat diplomacy stepped in when warships and the US army assisted in events that I'm going to kind of mention shortly. But no more spoilers for now.

So I've been hearing a lot about Panama, more than usual, and it's on a growing list of things I'm worried about. Not a good reason, but it is a reason why I am going to tell you about the Hymno Estemno or the Isthmian Anthem.

By now regular listeners of the show know the drill as far as the glaring gaps in my American education and what it's left regarding most of non Europe's countries. But I was not entirely ignorant about this one because of how awesome American history books think my country's engineering achievements are.

And one of the things I knew was the name of the national anthem and the basic circumstances of its very first performance. The least surprising part about that is that I was still surprised by all the things that I learned in my reading for this episode.

But before we get into all of them, we've got a song to listen. My initial reaction is that it sounds like it's fun to sing.

It's got a ceremonial feel to it, but there's a melody change in the middle that gives it sort of an atypical flow for an anthem. It leads me to believe that we may be facing another tune that was not originally intended to be a national anthem, but we'll find out.

Just like the decision about what I'm eating if I'm at a place that serves sancocho.

It's the national dish of Panama, and one of the things I knew about ahead of the episode and one of the tastiest things I've had a chance to eat a spicier version of your grandmother's chicken soup made with yucca, plantains and cilantro. Certainly not a dish for everybody, but definitely a dish for me.

There are many Latin American restaurants that serve it where I live, but the question here is where in the world I'd need to go in order to eat it, where it is the national dish and made by somebody whose grandmother taught them how. As long as we know where South America is, Panama is actually very straightforward place to find on a world map.

It's the SouthernMost of the 7 Central American countries and the one that connects the northwestern portion of the continent, sort of right in the middle of the Colombian coastline. So I guess we can say that the eastern and sort of a bit of the southern border of Panama is Colombia, and the western border is with Costa Rica.

Most of the northern and southern boundaries are coastline with the Caribbean Sea and the North Pacific Ocean, respectively. The nearly 4.4 million people who live there live in a tropical country that's almost exactly the same size as Lake Victoria in Africa.

It's nearly 40% forested and due to its location, supports Central America's most diverse wildlife population with north and South American species.

One of the many interesting things about the geographic place the country occupies, but not, in my opinion, the most interesting that might be the isthmus itself because its formation roughly three and a half million years ago, heavily influenced the current form of the Gulf Stream and the Arctic ice cap. But how, I wonder aloud? Evidence suggests that ancient plate convergence started to close the Central American seaway.

And this caused the salinity in the Pacific Ocean to drop while it increased in the Atlantic Ocean. And that intensified the ocean conveyor. You're gonna have to look that up.

It's crazy interesting, but it's way too complex for me to understand it enough to explain it to anybody. So this in turn intensified the Gulf Stream as the isthmus formed, which introduce more moisture to the Arctic. More moisture means more sea ice.

More sea ice means more heat reflected back into space, which means more sea ice. And eventually that leads to sheeting and an ice cap. It's a fascinating process and it happened a long time ago.

Our story is going to have a start a few million years later in the planet's history. So let's get there. Panama was part of the Spanish empire for like 300 years.

And it varied from a novelty to the most important spot depending on how the empire was doing at the time. So this is yet another part of the growing sub series of the downfall of colonialism.

It means we're entering the timeline with the arrival of the Spanish on the shores of Central America. And then we're going to fly through a couple few hundred years of history at speed, as we usually do.

And the next year, the first European settlement on the American mainland was established and named Santa Maria la Antigua del Darian. Technically it was actually in modern day Colombia. But history has shown me the malleability of nations borders plenty of times.

An expedition set out from the settlement and Vasco Nunez de Balboa became the first known European to see the Pacific Ocean. He and other explorers descriptions of the region impressed Ferdinand ii, who is the guy that history considers the first king of Spain.

And I mention it only because it used about 20% of all the money in Scotland at the time, and the resulting financial ruin was a significant contributor to the formation of the United Kingdom. Panama played a pivotal role in the creation and maintenance of the Spanish Empire.

By the middle of the 18th century, the region's significance had begun to diminish due to trade pressures, technological navigation advances and the relocation of Central American political power to modern day Bogota, Colombia. The independence movement had been waiting in the wings and their moment was finally at hand.

Since we're back in a country that's attached to South America, it should not be a big shock that Simone Bolivar is involved a bit in this story. We'll be talking about him more in subsequent trips here, obviously because his role's kinda tangential in the Isthmus.

Their independence was fully achieved in a bloodless revolt when the Spanish left to fight in Ecuador and the first declaration of independence was made in the small town of Via de los Santos. The movement quickly spread to the capital and it was accelerated by the arrival of a printing press in the region.

And they immediately used that to spread the revolutionary cause.

He took up writing in Chile and did the bulk of it as a student, getting published in various magazines, newspapers and collections there and in Panama, he focused mostly on longing for his homeland and the people that he left behind.

I read that during his stay there he also developed an interest in journalism, but apparently not in any kind of a professional sense, at least that I could find.

OSA was not only interested in getting the canal built, which is a good thing because the French did not actually succeed in finishing the Canal, but also in the people that were building it. He made many drawings of them and collected stories from all over the world, since the workers came from all over the French Empire.

This might have been what drew him into political activity and compelled him to drop the De La from his name because of its upper class connotations. But I don't really know. That's a supposition. Along those lines, he participated in protests against US meddling in his country's affairs.

More on that in a few.

Apart from knowing that he was born in Spain, had some siblings, and earned a music theory degree from the Madrid School of Music and Declamation, his early life is a mystery. So he and the poet are true to the pattern for my show.

His musical talents served him well there, and the Bishop of Panama brought him on as chapel master, although the record is unclear about how long he remained in that role. And I'm not really sure what a chapel master does.

My sources were very scant on other info about his family, though. Santos Jorge had kind of a long life, and as many of the men involved in these anthem stories, it was steeped in music throughout.

The dates on a lot of this stuff are unclear, so I will uncite them, but he was at various times a teacher, composer and conductor. He worked at Panama's teacher training school, various municipal locations, in addition to privately tutoring voice theory, piano and violin.

His compositions ranged from mazurka to habanera to fantasy to march to polka and back again through the genres and the years. Through all of this work he brought European romantic symbolism in and utilized the culture of his adopted homeland as inspiration for the pieces.

Amitrian was especially prolific composer of school anthems, having no less than nine well known works to his name. One of them is even well known enough that I'm technically talking about it right now on my show.

In many ways, it was an artificial stability because the military was used to enforce it many times, and as per usual, pretty much no one living there was asked about what they thought should happen, and all the decisions were made by foreigners. But Panama is the thin spot in the Americas, so France and the United States were not going to let this place go.

As the name implies, it was fundamentally important to completing the canal at the beginning of the 20th century. US interest in completing what turned into a failed French project is in fact what led to Panama's complete independence, at least in the way it did.

Independence is also probably the wrong word, since my understanding is that Panama considered itself a distinct national identity well before the separation from Colombia, and they thought it was a separation versus an independence.

So the US under Roosevelt sort of pushed Colombia out of the picture in a series of events and treaties that I can't afford the time here to get us mired in trying to decipher. And that was all done in the interest of getting control of the region to put a canal there and finish what the French started.

I thought I was going to wade into all of that when I started doing the reading, but it's layers and layers involving more creative interpretations of treaties by politicians.

We're concerned with the end result of that intervention, or rather a specific part of it, wherein William Buchanan was appointed to be the US Minister in Panama by Theodore Roosevelt following his stint as ambassador to Argentina.

As a side note, I will admit that I have a terrible knowledge of who the US Presidents were for the most part, and I definitely thought this guy was one of them. But that was James Buchanan. He was number 15.

The new ambassador had to present his credentials to the provisional Government board of the newly separated Panamanian nation at a ceremony. And there was no anthem for the country.

Musically speaking, we have a song that was composed as an anthem, albeit for a school, but nonetheless it fits the bill and does it well. It is a nearly March in 44 time with a major key that I have now come to associate with patriotism.

The song follows European romantic classical tradition, mostly because that's the music the composer was trained in and loved to write based on his broader catalog. That's where the majestic melody and harmonic progressions come from that lend it a very nearly but not quite Spanish military feeling.

But Santos, unlike some composers of south and Central American anthems, really leaned into his new homeland and crafted a singable structure that has a slowish, reverent introduction followed by a more boisterous section.

Although it was not initially written with that in mind, it certainly mirrors Panama's emergence from the colonialism and onto the world stage as a country of no small importance.

I'm guessing that my listeners, despite being a pretty diverse audience and being spread across an amazing 80 countries, understand English, but not necessarily the actual language the anthem is sung in.

Mostly I assume this because not knowing English would make it tough to understand a guy that can basically only speak that, so I think the show is going to drift away from talking about the song's actual content and meaning before I get to the read through in my native tongue. In terms of tone, though, it feels solemn and uplifting. Having a choir accompany the band is usually a plus for me.

This one I enjoy, and it feels celebratory in a way that an anthem should to me, the Imno est Meno is written as chorus, two verses, chorus two verses, and it ends with the one more refrain.

This is originally written and sung in Spanish, but I will be reading an English translation that I've pieced together from a couple of different versions. Going to read the chorus first and then just note where it comes up in the rest of the tune.

At last we reached victory in the joyous field of the union with ardent fires of glory a new nation shines bright with ardent fires of glory a new nation shines bright Tis necessary to cover with a veil the past time of Calvary and cross Let now the blue skies be adorned with the splendid light of concord progress caresses your path to the rhythm of a sublime song. Thou seest both thy seas roar at your feet, giving you a path to the noble mission. Then the chorus.

In your soil covered with flowers to the kisses of the warm terrestrial breeze warriors roars have ceased.

Only fraternal love reigns ahead the shovel and pick at travail without more dilation and we will be as such at work and gala of this fruitful world of Columbus. Then again, the refrain. Jorge opens his anthem with a declaration of independence and unity.

It is stated as a victory won through struggle, but more importantly, through the solidarity of the people.

A new nation shining bright and lit with the ardent fires of glory is a powerful opening statement and indicative of another poet that definitely understood the assignment. This is a piece very much written with the intention in mind. Not an isolated incident for this guy either.

He's a great writer and it's a shame that his works remain scattered. With no collection for me to direct you to for a more comprehensive read through, should you so choose to make one.

The first verse has the country emerging from a long suffering and time of struggle into a period of reconciliation. Specifically that the pain and sacrifice of colonial rule and internal conflict that prevented them from coming into their own for years.

There are clear and strong allusions to Christianity here, indicating that Jorge was quite religious and reflecting that nearly 90% of the country is Roman Catholic.

Using Claverio y la Cruz, which is the cavalry, and the cross is a direct reference to the crucifixion of Christ and as a reference point for the suffering of the people that was endured before independence. It's a very strong indicator of the depth of their belief.

In verse 2, he moves on to another frequent anthem, the land itself, speaking of the symbolic role that Panama's fortuitous location and geography give the land and the people. The country is sometimes referred to as the bridge of the world, which makes sense.

It's a notion made pretty explicit with the completion of the canal as a pass through for the Eastern and Western hemisphere. He calls it a noble mission and alludes to the peaceful nation and the nature of things there.

After the refrain, verse three picks up the name of the land and makes it feel kind of pastoral, although I think there's a better word for peaceful paradise that I cannot think of right now. The imagery of a flower covered soil and warm breezes suggests tranquil fertility and peacefulness.

An anthem that touts the harmonious brotherhood of a nation.

That has stuff has to do with Manuel Noriego Moving on the fourth verse reminds me of the first anthem that I covered on the show, La Destination, and how parts of it are directed directly at the workingclass citizens of the country.

Here Asa talks pretty explicitly about the literal nation building through the work of folks with pickaxes and shovels, highlighting their ability to present Panama as a beacon in the land that Columbus discovered.

I will note the presence of very heavy air quotes around the discovered part while referencing what Christopher did in the New World since he is one of the people in my interesting and terrible category that I'll eventually have time for another podcast about.

All told, we have an anthem that is mostly a moral hymn instead of a militaristic one, and calls for the people to embrace peace while working in national unity. It's an idealistic vision and it stands as a poetic statement of the nation's founding principles.

It's a very forward looking piece of writing fashioned over a stirring piece of music and stands as a really good example of how an anthem can take artistic ideas that were honed in Europe and adapt them to new ideas of how a nation ought to work in the Americas.

It speaks volumes about the character and nature of the people that live in Panama and I've enjoyed hearing it, learning the story, and figuring out how I was going to relay that to you folks. As usual, I hope that you have had a similarly gratifying experience and enjoyed hearing this show. On to the credits.

The writing, recording and production for the show are done by me and I wrote and played the theme music. The music was used with my permission. Unless otherwise noted, the anthems I play are public domain. Some other equivalently free license.

My sources are contained in the show notes and the most direct way to get to those show notes is@anthemspodcast.com I can be found on Facebook and WhatsApp as the anthems podcast. I was on Reddit to look for information for the show, but it's been far less useful for that than I thought it was going to be.

So I am not there anymore. Someday I'll have the free time and energy to have a larger social media presence. Maybe. Until then my advertising budget exists, but it is limited.

So I'm going to ask you to please help me get the episode onto whatever platform you can with the hashtag anthemspod. Think Instagram, Mastodon, Blue Sky, Twitter, or any of the other one that the kids are on that I don't know about.

It would be super cool if you shared this content with others and perhaps it will somehow lead to large and militarily powerful countries leaving Panama in charge of their own canal and respecting treaties that they signed.

Or better still, leave me a review wherever you can so more people can hear me or give me a rating on your podcast app. Because that super matters.

Maybe you live on a heavily foot trafficked road and you have to constantly pause your recording when people walk by talking loudly. And since spring is finally warming up in your part of the world, you can play this very episode very loudly and open the windows.

But even if all that happens is that you listen to one more, then I sincerely thank you for your time and next time I'll see you somewhere different sometime soon. Sa.