Today, we delve into the national anthem of the Republic of North Macedonia, "Danas nad Macedonisia," exploring its historical significance and the cultural identity it embodies. The anthem's roots are intertwined with the country's struggle for independence, reflecting a journey that began as far back as the fourth century BCE and culminated in the 20th century. We will trace the anthem's evolution from its inception during the early 1900s through its adoption as the national anthem following Macedonia's declaration of independence in 1991. Along the way, we'll uncover the stories of key figures, including poet Vlado Maleski and composer Todor Skalavski, who played pivotal roles in shaping the anthem's legacy. Join us as we uncover the musical and lyrical transformations that have defined this powerful symbol of Macedonian nationalism.

Hey all. Thanks for listening. Reach me at anthemspod@gmail.com.

Here are the notes

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbBitmYfIBA 
2. https://random.country/north-macedonia/ 
3. https://random.country 
4. https://www.britannica.com/place/Paeonia
5. https://web.archive.org/web/20081116102337/http://www.mfa.gov.mk/default1.aspx?ItemID=288
6. https://www.mfa.gov.mk/en
7. Banac, Ivo (1984). The National Question in Yugoslavia. Origins, History, Politics. London and Ithaka: Cornell University Press. ISBN 978-0801416750.
8. Laffan, R.G.D. (1989). The Serbs: The Guardians of the Gate. Armenian Research Center collection. Dorset Press. ISBN 978-0-88029-413-3.
9. Roisman, Joseph; Worthington, Ian (2010). A Companion to Ancient Macedonia. John Wiley and Sons. p. 13. ISBN 978-1-4051-7936-2. Retrieved 10 February 2016.
10.  Keith Brown, The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation, Princeton University Press, 2018, ISBN 0691188432, p. 71.
11. Reynolds, Michael A. (2011). Shattering Empires: The Clash and Collapse of the Ottoman and Russian Empires 1908–1918. Cambridge University Press. p. 324. ISBN 978-0521149167.
12. Mamčev, T., Kitan Ivanovska, M., Skalovski, D. (2003). Todor Skalovski: životot i deloto. North Macedonia: Makedonska akademija na naukite i umetnostite.
13. https://blesok.mk/en/authors/vlado-maleski/ 
14. Bianchi, B. (2012). War crimes and crimes against humanity: violence against civilians on the eastern front (1914-1919). Biblioteca di storia contemporanea (in Italian). UNICOPLI. p. 163. ISBN 978-88-400-1579-8.
15. https://web.archive.org/web/20070927023528/http://www.dpism.org.mk/clen_mac.asp?id=445
16. https://makedonija.name/culture/vlado-maleski 
17. https://vmacedonia.com/politics/symbols/macedonian-national-anthem.html
18. https://vmacedonia.com/culture/music/todor-skalovski.html
19. https://en-academic.com/dic.nsf/enwiki/6528543 
20. Bechev, Dimitar (2009). Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0810862951 – via Google Books.
21. Duncan Perry, "The Republic of Macedonia: finding its way" in Karen Dawisha and Bruce Parrot (eds.), Politics, power and the struggle for Democracy in South-Eastern Europe, Cambridge University Press, 1997, pp. 228-229.
22. Georgieva, Valentina; Konechni, Sasha (1998). Historical Dictionary of the Republic of Macedonia. Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0810833360.
23. History of Bulgaria, Petar Delev et al., 2001, p. 364
24. Axis Forces in Yugoslavia 1941–45. Bloomsbury. 1995. ISBN 978-1855324732
25. Pavković, Aleksandar; Kelen, Christopher (October 28, 2015). "Chapter 6 – A Fight for Rights: Macedonia 1941". Anthems and the Making of Nation States: Identity and Nationalism in the Balkans. I.B. Tauris. ISBN 9780857739698.
26. Kolstø, Pål (April 1, 2016). Strategies of Symbolic Nation-building in South Eastern Europe. Routledge. ISBN 9781317049357. Retrieved June 15, 2017.
27. James Horncastle, The Macedonian Slavs in the Greek Civil War, 1944–1949, Rowman & Littlefield, 2019, ISBN 1498585051, p. 167.
28. Axis Forces in Yugoslavia 1941–45. Bloomsbury. 1995. ISBN 978-1855324732 – via Google Books.
29. Constitution of the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. Amendments to the Constitution of SFRY. Constitution of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia. Amendments to the Constitution of SRM. Official Gazette of SRM. 19819. P. 455
30. "Macedonia – History". Worldmark Encyclopedia of Nations (12th ed.). Thomson Gale. 2007.
31. https://play.mrt.com.mk/live/47 
32. https://heraldika.org.mk/news/himnata-denes-nad-makedonija-se-ragja-2/ 
33. Nohlen, D & Stöver, P (2010) Elections in Europe: A data handbook, p. 1278 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
34. "State Symbols of Republic of Macedonia". Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Government of the Republic of Macedonia. Archived from the original
35. Dieter Nohlen and Philip Stöver (2010) Elections in Europe: A Data Handbook, p. 1278 ISBN 978-3-8329-5609-7
36. https://pretsedatel.mk/en/republic-of-north-macedonia/ 
37. Bernard A. Cook ed., Europe Since 1945: An Encyclopedia, Volume 2, Taylor & Francis, 2001, ISBN 0815340583, p. 808.
38. Пейо Яворов, "Събрани съчинения", Том втори, "Гоце Делчев", Издателство "Български писател", София, 1977, стр. 69. (in Bulgarian) In English: Peyo Yavorov, "Complete Works", Volume 2, biography Delchev, Publishing house "Bulgarian writer", Sofia, 1977, p. 69.
39. Brown, K. (2003) The Past in Question: Modern Macedonia and the Uncertainties of Nation (Princeton: Princeton University Press); pp. 196–198, ISBN 0-691-09995-2
40.  Sherman, Laura Beth (1980). Fires on the Mountain: The Macedonian Revolutionary Movement and the Kidnapping of Ellen Stone. East European Monographs. p. 89. ISBN 9780914710554
41. The Balkan Wars in the Eyes of the Warring Parties: Perceptions and Interpretations, Igor Despot, iUniverse, 2012, ISBN 1475947054, p. 22.

Hello, and welcome to the Anthems podcast.

I'm Patrick, and today I'm going to try and tell you the story of a song that helps to tell the story of a nation.

If you're listening to this, I'm optimistic that it's the beginning of a trend.

So thanks and welcome to episode three, the Republic of North Macedonia.

Today's anthem is danas nad Macadonisia.

It is brought to you by the very fun webpage random country.

And the thing does what it says.

It's probably a pseudo random generated number that picks from an alphabetical list, but it spit out North Macedonia.

So, uh, that's what we've got.

I'll include a link to the webpage in the show notes.

Like most of the anthems and associated countries, there is essentially nothing in my head about the country officially called the Republic of North Macedonia or its national anthem.

I only knew that a place called Macedonia existed and that it was probably near Greece.

It's a lot of fun, and I just realized the morning that I'm writing this sentence anyway, that I think I like doing a show like this because I enjoy doing homework, and some listeners right now are recoiling in horror.

But learning stuff doesn't need to be a reason every time, right?

Otherwise, even less people would listen to my show.

So, moving on with the story of Dennis nod Macadonisia.

But you know, what's gotta happen first.

So we will listen to two minutes and 30 seconds of the anthem to vibrate your eardrums a little bit, and I will see you after that.

My initial impression of the song was that it felt like a pronouncement, sort of like triumphant bursting forth.

The first two lines translate as today over Macedonia is born the new son of liberty.

So that feeling, it kind of tracks for me, musically speaking, it is another that leaves me feeling fairly not challenged listening to it.

But I think that it does all the right things, and it's good because it is short and that works with the pacing of it.

For me, the story of the macedonian national anthem is intertwined with the independence movement of the country.

It's another one of those common themes that I've been running into.

The song was written at very nearly the culmination of a struggle to maintain cultural identity that began as far back as the fourth century BCE.

We're not going to go back anywhere nearly that far.

I'm not doing hardcore history.

But first, we're going to take a look at what the region looks like now and then I can explain the chain of events that led to the anthem being chosen.

The Republic of northern Macedonia, which I will refer to as Macedonia, since most of the people who live there do that as well, is a southwestern european country.

And if you're looking at a map of Europe, you start at the heel of Italy's boot.

You go slightly northwest to the shore and just past Albania, which is the first country you'll find.

It's a mountainous, landlocked country bordered to the north by Serbia, Kosovo to the northwest, Bulgaria to the east.

On the south is Greece, and Albania is to the west.

Macedonia's current geographical boundaries were centrally laid out millennia ago and roughly correspond to those of the 6th century BCE kingdom of Paeonia.

They were a people referred to by Homer in the Iliad as allies of Troy.

Mi, has a population of roughly 1.9 million people.

Despite being landlocked and mountainous, it hosts more than 50 lakes.

Macedonia has the distinction of being a former member of the Socialist Federation of Yugoslavia, which is interesting because up until reading for this, I thought Yugoslavia was a country and just part of the USSR.

And that was the event that finally granted macedonian independence.

But we need to start at the other end of the century because I'm getting ahead of myself again, which I do a lot here.

This was a rebellion that was led by mostly macedonian bulgarian group called the Internal Macedonian Revolutionary Organization, or IMHO, because revolutionaries are always incredibly wordy when they name stuff.

This group's rebellious action established a very short lived crusevo republic.

This was the people's first taste of independence.

And despite being a republic that lasted just ten days before the Ottoman Empire mercilessly crushed them.

The rebellion is considered by many to be the foundational cultural event of the modern country.

In fact, the names that we hear in Denesnad Macedonisia are the names of revolutionaries from the IMHO, but put a pin in that one.

Despite not having success at gaining independence, the group stayed active and changed and split in accordance with what was happening in the region.

This one was the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire.

The final treaty that dissolved the empire was the result of another major event that occurred in the region at the time, World War one.

During the war, most of northern Macedonia was referred to as the military inspection zone of Macedonia, and it was subject to an intensely wretched period of forced bulgarization.

I feel very little need to discuss the details of bulgarization other than to state its place in the timeline.

But in case you don't know what it means, it is a specific type of denaturalization where an invading or occupying country attempts to commit cultural genocide.

Maybe the worst part is that the Bulgarians were doing exactly the same thing that the Serbians were doing before they invaded and would do again as soon as they were back in power.

Repetitive patterns of ethnic hatred are something you read a lot about if you are reading accurate history.

He attended primary school in Schoderover in Albania and went to high school back in Macedonia in a city called Bithola.

Vlado went on to study law in Belgrade, that's the serbian capital, but had to cut his education there short because World War Two happened after the war and chiefly because of the type of revolutionary activism that he was involved with.

In the years running up to the war, his role would be a bit different.

The sources I've gathered were not at all clear about what specific group or groups he was in.

But before we talk about what happened after the war, I'm going to catch up Todor and the rest of the region to Moleski.

During this same stretch of time that Vlador was participating in the growing communist movement in the region.

While completing his education, our composer was also finishing his music education in Belgrade and then sharpening his conducting ability at the Mozartarium.

He ended up being the founder and first chief conductor of the Macedonian Philharmonic after World War two was over.

Now I couldn't find any information about Todors political affiliation or whether or not he was an active participant in the resistance to fascism and the rise of communism in Macedonia.

But my guess is that he had to at least be a little involved because he wrote the music for the national anthem.

As always, if somebody knows more, please let me know and I will add it to the list of corrections.

The communists, international or intern, saw an opportunity to sharpen up their presence in Yugoslavia during this period.

They consistently endorsed the idea of an independent macedonian state, and they even went so far as to pass the resolution of the intern on the macedonian question.

This was the first recognition from an official and authoritative international organization that Macedonia had a legitimate claim to independent sovereignty.

Then World War Two happened, and the ensuing complications and chaos arose.

Given those complications and chaos, I am going to keep most of that conflict at arm's length for this narrative.

But North Macedonia is in Europe, and World War two happened largely in Europe, so some of it has to get sorted out.

Again, the communist organizers took complete and full advantage of the fascist occupation.

They grew their power base and nearly immediately began vigorous and organized armed resistance to the Germans and Bulgarians.

This was exactly the massive social revolution that the communist party needed to tip the scales and take power.

By October of that year, the newly pro soviet bulgarian government didn't about face and sent about a half a million soldiers into Yugoslavia, and they took part in driving the Germans out to the west.

The new communist government in the area was compelled by Soviet Russia to allow for massive unification.

But again, I have run out a little bit ahead of the story.

The first time the anthem was performed, it was not exactly a public event, but instead kind of a pep talk.

Additionally, Danas Macedonis was written by a guy that thinks really well of his own work.

Heres a quote from Vlado himself.

Given the opportunity, it is done everywhere so that it does not fall into the eyes.

The purpose of New Year's Eve was to gather the youth and in this form to discuss the upcoming armed resistance against fascism.

I was also informed about the attacks on the police station in Prilep and the attacks on Kumanovo for the New Year's Eve program.

I boropute and Dimche Kosharko prepared the song today over Macedonia, which soon after will become the most popular song in all of Macedonia and which is maintained as a kind of macedonian anthem to this day.

He was really proud of his work.

In a lot of anthems, the poet is absolutely masterful at speaking to the specific crowd of rebels or patriots or revolutionaries or what have you.

Moleski's song is no different in this respect, and we can hear people's enthusiasm for it in a firsthand account from one of his friends, Nicola Kochaski.

I was invited by my friend Joseph Meissa to attend New Year's Eve dance at Sotire Shooter's house.

When I entered the upper rooms of the house, I was pleasantly surprised by the atmosphere in which the song today over Macedonia was being sung, the name of which I learned during the evening.

Vlado Moleski played the guitar and sang.

He sang the song with admiration, and the audience calmly followed him and hummed along.

Many nice words were expressed about the song, emphasizing that its content contains all macedonian history and future.

Such a pleasant atmosphere also allowed for serious conversation when we were informed for the first time about the success in the war being waged against fascism, as well as the first armed action of the macedonian fighters with the attacks in Prilep and Kumanovo.

It's an almost stereotypical description of the origin of an anthem.

That's not a surprise to me anymore that I have read a bunch of this stuff, because revolutionary minded people tend to be people that write revolutionary poems, and they can be really dramatic and passionate about what they're writing, especially here.

Emotions run high when you're fighting for independence while also waging a guerrilla war against the axis forces in world War two and fighting literal nazis.

The song stuck around and remained popular, tuned to play at meetings.

But the macedonian people only sort of got their country after World War two.

It ended up as part of a larger soviet republic of Yugoslavia, essentially just the kingdom of Yugoslavia, run as a communist dictatorship instead of a regular dictatorship.

Listeners of a certain age may remember the name Slobodan Milosevic.

I think that was in the nineties.

Anyway, the Soviet Union did compel Yugoslavia to make Macedonia whole.

The unofficial regional anthem for the newly delineated Social Republic of Macedonia, or SRM, was none other than Denis nod Macadonisia.

The sources sort of just state that the anthem was sung at many state celebrations and events of all kinds throughout, which is kind of the way with an anthem, it becomes part of the background of your culture.

They're not really thought about, but they are there.

He became the post war director of the first radio station to broadcast from within Macedonia called Radioscopi.

You can check out the show notes for a link to stream it and enjoy it because it still runs today.

He had been the editor of three arts and culture magazines, Navden Savonost and Razledi.

Vledo also joined the diplomatic service for Macedonia and was at different times the ambassador to Lebanon, Ethiopia and Poland.

Like I said earlier, Vlad only sort of got to see his work become an official anthem.

It didn't say what it was.

The song with amendment 24 to article ten of the Macedonian Constitution, which replaces the old language with the anthem of the Socialist Republic of Macedonia, is today over Macedonia, but it does not give an official set of lyrics.

We'll get there, but I gotta catch the composer back up again.

Post war, Todor founded the Macedonian Philharmonic as well as became the first director and chief conductor.

He did the same with the Macedonian Opera.

1944 was also the year that he actually set Vlado's lyrics to music.

Skolavsky's resume continues with deputy director of Radio Skopje.

He worked with Vledo for a while, founder of several still going international music festivals.

He was a music teacher and the composer of dozens of prominent pieces of macedonian music.

Todor was especially well known for his extensive use of folklore motifs.

Put another pin in that one.

That means that Mister Skolavski was around for the complete collapse of european communism.

Thankfully, we're only concerned with just a bit of that here.

An anthem was not named in the constitution, but they gave themselves six months.

A contest was held, but we know what happened.

Danas dad macedonisia had finally become the national anthem of Macedonia.

Independence and an anthem to celebrate it seemed like a fitting end to a struggle that began back in the fourth century BcEnae now my copy of national anthems of the world, a book that has the music for all of the anthems that I've read about so far.

It says to play this song with dignity right at the beginning of the notation.

The best I can find is that basically means Maya stoso, or majestic and stately as a musical direction.

So like 88 bpms, if you believe the label on my metronome.

Another new music word for me, and not the impression that I got from the song, felt like a pronouncement.

If you recall, I said, discussing the music lets me pull the second pin out.

I'm remembering them in this one.

Skolavsky was well known for folklore inspired motifs in his music, and similarly to Michel Navarro, he appears to have stuck with what he knew for his anthem than us nad macadonisia.

The music for the anthem is an adaptation of the bulgarian folktoon nadasta balna legnala.

Pardon my pronunciation.

Its translate says Rafinka has fallen sick, which in turn was adapted from folk tunes that macedonian soldiers learned on the front in World War Two.

Personally, I find the combination of stately and folk music to have a real bureaucratic feeling to it.

It's not bad music, but it does very little to excite me.

The lyrics are a little confusing because there are different versions of them.

I will read out Molesky's original lyrics first, then I will discuss the differences from what the republic's official website says.

As far as I've been able to find, there has never been a official explanation for the lyrical changes.

But there are some possible ones, and one that is almost certainly what is going on.

And that's what I will mention, because that's what the sources are most strongly confident about.

It seems fairly safe to assume that it had something to do with the eagerness of communist governments, and governments in general, to rewrite history in more of a useful way for them, though there are certainly four more egregious history retcons than changing the words to a national anthem, but regardless of the magnitude, I am not a fan of changing history.

The difference in tone between the original version and the final official version really strikes me, and I think I know what's going on.

In the original version, Moleski was writing and living in a country that felt like and actually happened to be about to realize independence.

So that affected his feeling.

And the official version was adopted in a place that had completed the cultural struggle and come out of it successful.

That's what I gather.

Anyway, you draw your own conclusions and please let me know what they are.

Verses two and four were swapped, so I'm going to compare them in the way that makes sense.

It'll explain when we get there.

It seems that it will be an enduring mystery.

Onward the original first today a new son of freedom is being borne over Macedonia old, young, male and female rose to their feet old, young, male and female rose to their feet the official today over Macedonia is being born the new son of liberty Macedonians are fighting, fighting for their rights the original is a call to stand together and rise, united the current is a call to fight for rights.

Both versions refer to the synonyms freedom and liberty as well as the national anthem, standby of national birth.

The former seems a hopeful opening and the latter is more forceful and triumphant in tone.

The original second verse the macedonian mountains are singing loudly new songs, new newspapers Macedonians are fighting for their justice.

Macedonians are fighting for their justice.

The official fourth verse the forests of Macedonia are singing new songs, new newspapers Macedonia is liberated lives in liberty here I suspect the difference in the first line is a translation choice because sources I've seen have translated it as mountains, hills, woods, forests, landscapes, and newspapers have been translated as songs, music versus news as well as newspapers.

The rest has a markedly different tone, though.

Originally they are to fight and now Macedonia is liberated and they close the anthem with the victorious statement that they live in liberty.

The original third verse again now the flag is flying the famous masons rose from the grave of the Republic of Khrusov to Gatsi, Delchev, Pituguli, Karev, Vlahov, Sandansky to Gatsby, Pituguli, Karev, Vlahov, Sandansky the official third verse now once again the flag stands that of the Krushevo Republic Goceschev, Pituguli, Dame Gruev Sandansky, another national anthem verse that is dense with historical references.

So these next few sentences involve a bunch of reading for me.

Firstly, it was mentioned at the beginning of the show, but what is the Khrushchevo Republic?

It was created and headed by some of the people mentioned in the rest of the verse.

The republic created was very far left for even standards of today.

They rejected nationalist rhetoric from minorities and favored a christian muslim alliance in opposition to the sultanate.

And after initially being caught off guard, the Ottoman Empire's forces regrouped and killed everybody involved that they could get a hold of, along with a bunch of innocent people in the town.

And they burnt a whole bunch of it to the ground too.

There is no mention in anything I've read about why the line about what I'm assuming are Freemasons was removed.

Ghazi Deltzev and Pitu Guli were both founding members of the IMRO.

They are claimed as historical heroes by both Bulgaria and Macedonia, although they both identified as Macedonians.

The next two guys that Maleski mentions are Nikola Karev and Dmitar Vlahov, two more very prominent macedonian revolutionaries.

Nikola was the head of the provisional government of the Khrushchev Republic, and Dimitar was not involved with that, but he was a decades long fighter for an independent state.

But they were both pulled out of the official version to be replaced with a man named Dame Gruev.

This guy was involved in the ImHO's activity before and immediately after events in Khrushchevo.

But he plays a substantially minor role compared to the people that he displaced in the anthem.

Like I said before, sources indicate that it might b because Karev and Vlehof initially identified as Bulgarian, but then they switched sides to Macedonian and they never shook that past.

The sources don't say that about Dame or the last man mentioned in the anthem, Yayne Sandansky.

But I don't understand that about Sandinsky Sandansky, because his bio reads like a power hungry pragmatist that wanted a free Macedonia as a vehicle for a power grab.

He had a couple of people in the Imro killed and it got him killed after three unsuccessful assassination attempts.

Anyway, Moleski seems to have written him in because he bought into the communist narrative that had been run around.

This guy was holding the revolutionary together or something.

It's very tough to follow, but it has something to do with communist history.

Retcon I understand that's a lot of information that I gave you all at once, but some anthems are going to have historically dense lyrics that made lots of sense to the people they were written for and not us.

So similar to il canto degli Italiani Moleski's dinas mad Dakota would have been very inspiring to the type of communist revolutionary that he was talking directly to.

One fun fact before we move on to the last verse.

Sandansky was involved in the miss stone affair, widely considered to be America's first hostage crisis.

He and others kidnapped a couple of protestant missionaries for ransom to fund the financially foiling Imro.

Money onto the fourth verse, the original don't cry Macedonia dear mother, raise your head proudly high free Macedonia she will live free Macedonia is free it will live free.

The official second verse do not cry dear Mother Macedonia, raise your head proudly high old, young men and women have risen to their feet.

The first two lines makes sense for a national anthem in both versions, and the repeated line in the original seems like exactly the way the thing ought to end.

It's really odd that Skalovsky, again I'm assuming, would change the last lines to what were a line in the first verse and move it to the second verse.

I mean, what he did works for the song and it doesn't really suffer much for the change, but it seems superfluous at best.

It's another thing that I can't find any information about and seems to be lost to the mists of history.

Hopefully I don't have to say that a lot because we have no idea, can get a little boring after a while, but that's sometimes it and it is all we have to say about this song.

So I'm gonna mop it up.

The writing, recording and production for the show are done by me, and I also wrote played the intro outro music.

The music was used with my permission.

Unless otherwise noted.

The anthems I play are public domain stuff.

My sources and other tasty bits I found are contained in the show notes.

The most direct way to get to those show notes is@anthemspodcast.com you can find me on Facebook and WhatsApp as the Anthems podcast.

I don't know if I'll ever have the energy to get on the rest of the socials.

You can email me corrections, comments, suggestions, ideas, instructions on how to do awesome things, concerns and even ask me questions@anthemspodmail.com.

Catch you for the next one.