Chile and Himno Nacional de Chile

Today, we delve into the fascinating tale of Chile's national anthem, the "Himno Nacional de Chile," a song that encapsulates the spirit and struggles of a nation. This anthem is not merely a collection of notes and lyrics; it serves as a historical narrative reflecting Chile's journey from colonial oppression to independence. As we explore the rich tapestry of Chile's geographical diversity and the complexities of its national identity, we uncover how the song evolved through layers of political and social change. Our discussion ranges from the roles of key figures, to the nuances of the anthem's lyrics that resonate with themes of freedom, and incredible resilience. Join us as we unravel the melody that has become a proud symbol of Chilean heritage, and perhaps even discover how the challenges of the past continue to echo in the present.

Speaker A: 00:00:00

Foreign 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.

Today we are launching 4,306 miles from or 6,930 kilometers. And in order to make that from a catapult, it better be big because this is a suborbital trajectory.

In physics terms, it's basically throwing something from one place to another.

But a throw this far requires us to account for gravity and planetary curvature, which leads to a supersonic launch velocity of like 20 times the speed of sound. It is fast, for sure, but galactically speaking, it's a mere bag of shells. For just a taste of the scale, consider this.

It is close to 15,000 miles an hour, but still more than 15% slower than the rotational speed of the planet you're on right now. If we dial in our aim, we can hit Cape Froward. That's the southernmost non Antarctic point. Honestly, it seems like a fun fact to know, but.

y we are in a country that at: 2670

And we are there because. I asked my wife what to do next. She said Chile, but she is not sure why and does not recall talking about it.

Probably because what you hear on the show is a very small part of a stream of consciousness that includes most of what I learn about for an episode. Could you imagine having the patience that she has? It was time to come back to South America anyway. My first thought was, sweet.

I'm gonna get to talk about Simone Bolivar again. That guy is a good story. But as is frequently the case in my life, I. I was completely wrong about something.

That of course, does nothing to diminish the contributions of the people involved in what might be the most well documented anthem story that I've covered on the show yet. It's one of those that leaves me amazed at the footprint people sometimes get to leave.

We have seen some people live long enough to become the villain on this show. But fortunately, that is not the case here. Despite nobody dying young. And that's a fine reason for me to tell you about the IMNO Nacional de Chile.

My second thought about this episode was that I was gonna get to talk about how much I love Chili's and how cool it was that they were the namesake of the country. But again, I'm wrong.

Yauch 2 for 2 it turns out that the word for chili fruit C H I L I and not C H I L E like the country is derived from an Aztec word for the chili pepper seed. Once again, Mexican cuisine wins the day. It gets no argument from me. I'll just add peppers to my breakfast.

They do grow all over South America, even in Chile, even though they're not native to that country. But this song is so enjoyable.

My initial reaction to the song was that I dug it because it was a march, even though it was just kind of another European style march. But that was not this version. Neither was the one that I stumbled onto that made it sound like an opera.

And when I found the one that you just heard, it made me smile because I realized there are layers to this song and I found them.

Of course it has everything to do with the performance and here I have made a deliberate call to use something with folk instrumentation that I think regardless of presentation choice, is a satisfyingly complex song, which is sort of a good summary of my new understanding of Chile. I even got to add another thing to my list of terrifying large man made bodies of water that lives in my head. A brief glimpse into my mind.

The newest entry is the world's second largest man made swimming pool. It's called the San Alfonso del Mar and it's in El Garobo, Chile.

It's very close to being a lagoon and holds about 60 million gallons of seawater which is about the same volume as the Hindenburg airship. So where in the world do I have to go to refuse to swim in this pool?

Chile is one of the not so difficult places for me to pin down on a map, mostly because it's slightly over half of the Pacific facing coastline of South America. Compare the rest of the coast with a total of 6,100km to Chile's roughly 6,430. If you need to crunch your own numbers, I get it.

More specifically though, our country is the southern half of the Pacific coast of South America. It includes the bottom part that is the aforementioned most southern non antarctic point on a continental landmass.

The nearly 18 million people that live there live in an area that is about one and a half times the size of FR. They live across 14 climate zones, which is only half of the record.

Actually, it is a nice place to live, though it must be since people have been there about 18,000 years. They also claim a sizable portion of Antarctica.

I was surprised, but apparently a bunch of countries do and the Only reason that we haven't developed it is because of treaties and you know, the cold.

So I guess it's a thing that humans are going to fight over once the ice melts and the continent remains as one of the cool temperature regions on the planet, or we figure out fusion and how to fight the inevitable urge to profit on low cost energy.

But anyway folks, as you might imagine, a region that is on the Pacific Ring of Fire essentially entirely bordered by the Andes Mountains on the east, the Pacific Ocean on the west is at most about as wide as the longest recorded lightning bolt. But north to south is further than Los Angeles to New York City.

Has an astonishing geographic story, but it was not hard to pick a geographic diversion here because in the north region of Chile we find the driest non polar place on Earth. It was a surprise for me because if I thought about it, I probably would have picked a location in the Sahara somewhere.

y significance since at least: 1570

It's almost certainly the oldest desert in the world too, with geological evidence putting its origin somewhere in the Miocene, which is around 16 million years ago, geologically old.

So as usual, some of the most interesting stuff you'll have to read about on your own because it's a different kind of a story than what I'm here to tell. For me to get to the point about an anthem, we need some not usually great societal stuff to happen.

And this tends to be true whether or not the country stabilizes after colonialism, because that is again the story in Chile. This time it's the Spanish Empire before we get into the colonial conquest and the transition into freedom that resulted in the anthem.

We're going to tee things up a little bit with the Incan Empire historically and as an empire, they're all over the coast of the continent up until and well into the Spanish takeover. I have to talk about them at some point because they established one of the greatest of all human empires.

And they did it without the wheel, no horses, steel or even writing.

They mostly did not have money either as a means of exchange and used the early economic theory of reciprocity wherein everyone makes sure everyone else is taken care of, which sounds pretty good actually. Over time this does build a hierarchy into the system, because we are people after all. But it still sounds better than what we're doing now.

The Incan Empire is the culmination of thousands of years of Indian civilization. It is the tail end of one of the so called pristine civilizations and culturally lives on to this day through the Quecha people.

s of this empire arose in the: 1200

Probably not a coincidence that the Incan empire roughly coincided with the maximum range of the llama and the alpaca because they were the largest domestic animals on the continent. That is until we introduce Spain and their horses.

The first European to see Chile, as far as I know, was another one of the recurring figures on our show, our pal Ferdinand Magellan.

We know that the last non European place he saw was the Philippines because he was killed in a battle at the opening of the narrative for the episode on Lupin in a ring. The initial official European discovery with a landing and such is by a guy named Diego de Amargo Amagro.

He was Francisco Pizarro's lesser known to me partner.

re, so he returned to Peru in: 1537

He then invaded, subjugated the people that he found there, and founded Santiago.

This area was never going to become a source of riches for the empire, though the resources that Chile does have to offer mostly require modern technology to get to and modern engineering to be perceived as useful at all. The farmland though, turned out to be pretty good and the reason that people were living there.

And by the time the Spanish got there, the three sisters had been keeping the soil fertile for a long time. Despite not producing bags of treasure, the region was an important food source for the empire's holdings in South America.

There was of course, resistance, but nothing that stood in the way of a state of the art war machine from Europe. That is, except for the Mapuche people.

They were never subjugated by the Spanish and they harassed them well into the 18th century in something that I'm looking for a book about called the Arauco War.

We're going to make a jump to: 18:15

Part of this was an intense period of violent political Persecution, because countries always think that's going to get people to listen. It did not work in Chile either.

This time it resulted in a geographical, but not ideological split of rebels, with some fleeing into the recently independent Argentina to build the army of the Andes while they were preparing the invading force for liberation.

th of: 1817

, in: 1818

la Vera Cruz in Argentina in: 1718

l University of San Felipe in: 1799

m removed from the country in: 1810

He was the secretary of finance and war for the revolutionary government when the Reconquista happened, and he was part of the party that fled to Mendoza, Argentina. Our first poet became instrumental in that country's support of the independence effort.

And in: 1817

In: 1826

th in: 1827

,: 1789

. So in: 1806

Between: 1808

director of the theater until: 1820

oing pretty well. And then in: 1923

ometime in the second half of: 1825

But he was dragged to Madrid as a prisoner to become the theater director and composer of more works. Heck of a way to get a job.

Ramon took full advantage of it, though, and proceeded to create over 200 extant works in opera, religious music, instrumental pieces, and what one source called staunchly liberal hymns.

th of: 1855

,: 1826

Two years later, in: 1844

Getting that gig at 21 years old landed him a position as an official in the statistics office.

For some reason, Leo is all over the place after that because he got wrapped in some anti government sentiment that I'm not going to wade into other than acknowledging its effect on the poet becoming essentially transient for like 25 years across Peru, Bolivia and Chile. He did this while working for at least five newspapers.

t sounds complicated. Then in: 1875

of the roles in the run up to: 1880

I got to learn sort of a fun new word reading this because that year Leo was appointed Chile's Minister Plenipotentiary in Bolivia. That is basically somebody that can act with the authority of Chile's President when dealing with another country.

e Minister of the Interior in: 1886

th in: 1910

His legacy includes his poetry, structural changes to several South American countries, governments through Statecraft and a 115 painting art collection that was good enough to seed the Museum of Fine Art in Santiago. So why a first and second poet and only a second composer? The answer to that is me finally getting to the point.

th in: 1819

The resulting piece was an 84 verse poem that was dripping with anti Spanish sentiment and vitriol, which made sense because of the ongoing struggle against the Spanish Empire for South American independence.

Initially they did not have music for the piece, so they used a melody from another song and then commissioned something, but people really did not like it.

The composition made by composer number one was not favored by pretty much anybody except that it was the official position of the President's office that this was the version that they preferred. As soon as they got a new president, it was certain that the composition would change.

d sometime in between July of: 1825

Then in: 1844

But one of the conditions was that the anthem could no longer be 840 syllables of we hate the Spanish Imperialists.

That was why the highly capable Leo ended up writing a new verse even though he was not happy with it, and ended up keeping Bernardo's refrain and allowing him a prominent place in the story on my podcast. A whole bunch of other people were very not happy about this change.

And as late as: 1906

th in: 1847

Musically speaking, it's a nice change since opera is the composer's speciality. This is essentially an opera. There is full orchestration, intro, six verses and a refrain.

A modern official playthrough though is the chorus and verse five. It's in the key of F major. It is a 44 at a moderate 100 to 110 beats per minute in allegretto on my metronome.

A lot of times it's played very march like because it's an anthem and military bands play them a lot. But it's written more lyrically, which I like because I like these as singable songs.

It works out well as an anthem because heroic, expressive, full bodied, patriotic opera generally does that. Even though this is definitely a piece of traditional European music as opposed to something a little bit more culturally appropriate for Chile.

But you know, you've heard these things before. A lot of them are actually just European songs, lyrically speaking.

The full version of the song is kinda long, but I think we're gonna do a full readout. Despite six eight line verses and a quartet meaning 54 lines, the official version is, as I said before, just the 12 lines, fifth verse and chorus.

I was on the fence about sharing how the song evolved and exploring the deeper motivations for that, but I chose not to for this anthem for two reasons that are both fairly straightforward. One, the other song is really, really long and the current one is also not short. It's already going to be a longer than usual episode.

And two, the explanation really is as simple as Spain put conditions on good relations and the change was one of them.

official playthrough between: 1973

I will be reading the English translation that you can find on wikipedia because despite the little bit of clunkiness in there, it lines up well with the original in meaning. I'll start with the chorus and then go through the six verses.

Sweet homeland, receive the vows that Chili gave you on your altars that you be either the tome of the free or a refuge from oppression. The bloody fight has ceased and yesterday's invader is now our brother. Three centuries we watched the affront of fighting in the field of honor.

That who yesterday was a slave is free and triumphant today. Freedom is the heritage of the brave. Victory lies shameful to his feet.

Rise, Chile with spotless forehead you conquered your name on the fight, always noble, constant and courageous. The children of El Cid found you.

May your free calmly crown the arts, industry and peace, and may they sing songs of your triumph to intimidate the daring despot. Your names, brave soldiers who have been Chile's mainstay, are engraved in our chests. Our children will know them as well.

May they be the death cry that comes out when we march to the fight. And ringing in the mouth of the strong, they always make the tyrant tremble.

If the foreign cannon intends to invade, daring our people, let's draw our arms and know victory or death with its blood. The proud Mapuches inherited its courage to us and the sword does not tremble in the hand of that who defends the honor of Chile.

Pure Chile is your bluish sky. Pure breezes cross you as well and your flower embroidered fields are the happy copy of Eden.

Majestic are the white mountains that the Lord gave you as a bastion. And the sea that tranquilly bathes your shore promises you a future splendor.

That pride, O homeland, those flowers growing on your fertile soil, May they never be stepped on by invaders.

May Your shadow cover them with peace Our chests will be your bastion in your name we will know how to win or your noble glorious emblem will see us fall in the fight.

So yes, this one is a lot, but remember that Chile's anthem also has a ton of stuff written about it by smart people, so it's a song that I think we can wrap our heads around again. We've got 54 lines of decasyllabic 10 syllable verse accentuated on numbers 3, 6 and 9. This is broken up into six verses and a chorus.

Generally speaking, we've got a guy that knew his audience and was a capable writer, very much a purpose driven piece of writing, and he hits almost all the benchmarks that you would want. A National Anthem Thematically, it is what it should be, a praise and exultation of Chile that maintains a confident and celebratory tone throughout.

One source called it the Song of the Free and the civic prayer of excellence. Another said that it has been sung so many times that it has acquired the status of a prayer or a natural collective meditation.

We do need to remember that an anthem is, by the very nature of the thing, a nationalistic thing.

So a source saying that the song praises Chile's national reality and exalts the nation's libertarian values as a reflection of the country's characteristics, glories and the great destiny reflected in it is not really an overblown description of the way that it's written.

The remaining kernel of Bernardo's original anti Spanish rather than pro Chile song stayed because it speaks directly to the libertarian core of the prevailing Chilean political philosophy.

There are whiffs of that in much of the rest of the writing, and it makes it make sense that Lilo left the original in instead of the two versions that he wrote. I don't really read very far in a country's history past the adoption of the current anthem, so I'm not sure of the current political climate there.

But I will be when my algorithm realizes I've published this and I start getting Chilean news stories. I like a short chorus in a song that has many verses, and whereas today it's officially just a chorus in a verse affair.

At first it was sung as the entire thing, and this fits because it's brief and it just moves things along. The rest of the verses are split into sections of distinct character, although it is not an even split.

The first verse and a half of the second are historical, talking of past battles and struggles. Eusabio writes of a rising out of slavery and an actual 300 years of oppression to a brotherhood with the former enemy.

Very on brand stuff for a national anthem. And neatly followed by the second half of verse two.

Looking forward in time, the song hopes for peace and for the country to advance, ever succeeding and scaring off potential conquerors.

A historical note here where the song references the children of El Cid that is an actual guy, but him, his daughters and his son were alive around 400 years before the Spanish even got to Chile. It's an obtuse historical reference that I don't understand because this guy and his kids were Spanish.

So it's a strange person to be in the song, but definitely another one of those wildly interesting historical figures that I spent way too much time reading about. Probably another thing I'm getting wrong too, so somebody let me know.

Anyway, the next two verses are all about the military and the men that helped it win against the aforementioned oppressors. The soldiers are remembered by generations and the people will continue to pick up the fight in their name.

Obviously not every anthem makes it clear that people die for the country, but this one definitely does. The Chilean people have inherited unwavering courage from the Mapuche that resisted the Spanish for the entire colonial period.

They will defend a country that the song spends the next verse and a half talking about the natural beauty of another frequent anthem topic. It's also the verse that Chile chose to make official.

% Roman Catholic in the: 1940

Now it's less than half of that.

But look up religious stuff on your own for this one because we're basically at the end of the song where we are reminded in the last half of a verse that Chile's beauty will be defended with the people's lives. With that, we have made it through another anthem that was created by people and that definitely got the assignment.

The music itself is not really as South American as I'd like to hear, given that it was a Spanish guy composing Italian opera, but historically it tracks. The lyrics, though, are exactly what they should be, and you couldn't really ask for writing that is any more anthem appropriate than this stuff.

This was possibly the episode that I have had the most available information for yet, so it was an information dense couple of weeks for me to get this out. It also means that you guessed it, I learned a great deal of stuff. Hopefully I've whet your appetite to learn much more about the country.

You can take the longest north to south road trip in onto the credits. The writing, recording and production for the show are done by me and I wrote and played the theme music. Then I used it with my permission.

Unless otherwise noted, the anthems I play are free to play. This time I played something that I can't find the source for, but I really tried though, so if anybody knows please tell me.

My sources are in the show notes and they live@anthemspodcast.com I can be found on Facebook and WhatsApp as the Anthems podcast I post about the show, but mostly I'm depending on word of mouth to get this into ears. That means that I am asking you to help me by using the hashtag anthemspod.

It would be cool if you shared this content and perhaps it would do a little something to get the Chilean government to agree on well defined rights for the indigenous Mapuche people. After all, they are cited as a cultural inspiration of courage in the national anthem.

hemspodmail.com callertexted +: 120375

-: 4255

Maybe you have some very frustrating but needed road work that is occurring directly in front of your house, with the traffic and machinery only drowned out by the sound of this very episode playing directly out of your window at 120 decibels. Or May. Maybe you're going to listen to it like a normal person. Either way, I get it and you'll hear me next month if you get this. Sam.

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