Today, we delve into the vibrant history and cultural significance of Ecuador's national anthem, "Salve o Patria." This episode explores how the anthem reflects not only the nation's struggle for independence but also the complex socio-political landscape of 19th-century Ecuador. As we navigate through the lyrical fervor that attacks colonial oppression, we’ll uncover the historical context surrounding its creation and reveal motivations steeped in a fervent nationalism. From the geological wonders of Ecuador’s landscape to the flights of migratory birds, this narrative that connects nature, history, and music. Illustrating how they coexist in Ecuadorian identity. So, buckle up for a journey that promises a mix of insightful commentary, learning, and a few chuckles as we uncover the layers behind this powerful anthem.

1. https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/22698209/154440143
2. https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/swing-at-the-end-of-the-world
3. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Gran_gu%C3%ADa_estadistica_sud_americana/mxVFAAAAYAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA5&printsec=frontcover
4. https://www.cia.gov/the-world-factbook/countries/ecuador/
5. https://www.google.com/books/edition/El_Aniversario_de_la_independencia_del_E/FGQdAQAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA17&printsec=frontcover
6. https://www.presidencia.gob.ec/galapagos-celebra-un-ano-mas-de-provincializacion/
7. https://www.lahora.com.ec/sociedad/Version-oficial-del-Himno-20010320-0181.html
8. https://web.archive.org/web/20090619202100/http://www.presidencia.gov.ec/articulog.php?ar_codigo=241&ca_codigo=112&ca_padre=0
9. https://nationalanthems.info/ec.htm
10. https://www.google.com/books/edition/Coleccion_de_los_viages_y_descubrimiento/mWuiNQy_PDQC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PA426&printsec=frontcover
11. https://www.google.com/books/edition/South_American_National_Anthems_and_Othe/KUtEAQAAIAAJ?hl=en
12. https://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/ec_uepan.html
13. https://web.archive.org/web/20131101223644/http://www.diccionariobiograficoecuador.com/tomos/tomo7/n2.htm
14. https://www.museopasillo.gob.ec/maximo-rodriguez/
15. https://www.loc.gov/item/91009494/
16. https://www.epdlp.com/escritor.php?id=3015
17. https://gw.geneanet.org/ferneche?lang=e
18. n&n=neumane&p=antonio
19. https://web.archive.org/web/20090712005212/http://archivo.eluniverso.com/2007/07/16/0001/12/FB602400670A4AD79FFF3CBDF71D7D11.aspx
20. https://web.archive.org/web/20080423012240/http://www.diccionariobiograficoecuador.com/tomos/tomo3/m6.htm
21. https://web.archive.org/web/20151208060028/http://www.telegrafo.com.ec/cultura1/item/autoridades-de-ambato-rindieron-loor-al-himno-nacional-por-sus-150-anos-de-creacion.html
22. https://web.archive.org/web/20151208060028/http://www.telegrafo.com.ec/cultura1/item/autoridades-de-ambato-rindieron-loor-al-himno-nacional-por-sus-150-anos-de-creacion.html
23. Macquarrie, K. The Last Days of the Incas. P Dippolito. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2007.
24. https://web.archive.org/web/20110720000636/http://www.presidencia.gov.ec/pdf/Simbolos-Patrios.pdf
25. https://web.archive.org/web/20181128114606/https://ww2.elmercurio.com.ec/2018/11/27/el-himno-nacional-debe-rectificarse-en-su-musica/

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 traveling 13,875 kilometers or 8,621 miles, is about the same distance as the longest recorded non stop flight of a bird. The record holder was a juvenile bar tailed godwit and it made the journey in 11 days and one hour at an average speed of 32 miles per hour.

Impressive, sure, but peanuts compared to the sooty shear water that will take off and fly a 40,000 mile like 64,000 kilometers. It's a big figure eight just to go get a bite to eat and come back home.

It's not the longest migratory flight and for fun you can look that up on your own. I'm fighting getting sidetracked in the opening already. The question is, what do these birds have to do with national anthems? Nothing I suppose.

But if you have a very specific knowledge of migratory seabirds, then you might know that I'm going to tell you about Ecuador, officially the Republic of Ecuador. Today we are headed to the country that is the home of the very first UNESCO World Heritage Site.

So it's time to go back to South America. Here we are in a country with a capital that is barely 25 miles from the equator and whose name literally means equator in Spanish.

We've encountered the Spanish Empire's non creative naming schemes before, but this one might be Simon Bolivar's fault, since the country used to be the Ecuador department of his Gran Colombia project, even though calling it his fault might be slightly disingenuous, given that not all of the decisions in the country were made by him and that it was probably always too ambitious a project to succeed at that time anyway. But there I go again with digression into historical wanderings.

At least it's an accurate name and an excellent reason for me to tell you about Salve o Patria or in English, Hail o Fatherland. This is a country that I've had two of the distinct foods from.

The first I'm going to mention only briefly because eating guinea pigs upsets a lot of people in western countries since they are are often kept as pets. Doesn't make them less tasty though.

The second was my first introduction to eating goat, specifically in a slow cooked stew with tomatoes, garlic, peppers, onions and other spices. Being able to sample food from all over the world in random corner bodegas is one of the things I love about my city.

Maybe you are going to love this song. Here's to hoping. Sa. Gloria. My initial reaction is that this is another proper marching tune.

It's proclamatory and has a medium yet celebratory pace in a way that the last couple of songs just did not. Probably because I am a sucker for a march which is known and this is the type of march that gets wedged far into my head on repeat.

Another that has made the regular rotation playlist on my streaming service with so many cool things to see in Ecuador, I had a little trouble deciding what to tell you about that is until I stumbled across the Swing at the End of the World Deep in the middle of nowhere outside the city of Banyos on the mountainside in a rainforest, there is a seismic monitoring station set up to keep an eye on the active volcano, Mount Tungurahau. It's notable because for some reason they've put the monitoring station in a treehouse and somebody added a swing.

I will give you the same line I always say finding Ecuador should not be too hard for us if we assume I a thing. In this case, we just have to know where South America is.

If you heard the episode on Chile, you know that most of the western coast of the continent is that country. And if we head north two countries we're in Ecuador.

Or we can follow the equator along the Pacific Ocean and when we reach the beach resort of Pender Nales. Either way, it's fairly straightforward process to get there.

It's not a huge country at nearly 110,000 square miles and is nearly split in half by the Andes.

And there is everything from Andean mountains to equatorial beaches and rainforests. Interestingly enough, the tallest mountain in Ecuador at 20,560ft is the point on the planet furthest from the center because of the ellipsoid shape.

So not Everest, which surprised me a little bit.

A consequence of being on the equator that I'm envious of is the almost lack of variation in daylight hours, leading to a 6am sunrise and a 6pm sunset for literally the whole year. No messing with the clocks, but probably the most important thing about Ecuador is the biodiversity.

This has a lot to do with the pin we put in there. So pull that out and we're going to refer to the very first UNESCO heritage site, the Galapagos Islands. They are a province of Ecuador.

I didn't know that. We're going to call it our geology diversion because they're volcanic islands that sit on top of a hotspot and along the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Not only is this the place that directly inspired Charles Darwin to complete his thinking on evolution, but it is an astonishingly diverse place in the country that has the most biodiversity per square mile of anywhere on the planet.

The islands here are the largest tourist draw and a significant continuous source of knowledge regarding biology and ongoing conservation work. Very much a place on my bucket list for international travel onto the timeline, despite the infinite rabbit hole that the Galapagos Islands offer.

So we're going to talk about the downfall of colonialism again, which is just sort of becoming the secondary theme of the Anthems podcast. So again, we are going to begin with the Conquistadors, Specifically Francisco Pizarro, a guy that I think we'll run into at least one more time.

While his men were talking to the emperor, Pizarro set up an ambush and used superior Spanish firepower to kidnap the guy and then have a room filled with gold for ransom, kill him anyway, then take his 10 year old wife as a mistress and proceed to kill thousands, actually thousands of mostly Non soldiers in order to conquer the empire.

Those are basically small fiefdoms of subjugated people where labor is awarded in a parsed out fashion to the conquering soldiers. The economy is focused on shipping, trade and textiles.

The dearth of activity from them will continue with this episode for the most part. But I do want to bring them up because a lot of revolutionary history in South America is driven by people who were educated by the Jesuits.

And much of their activity was from a base of operations in Quito, the capital of Ecuador.

So even though in Ecuador the anthem was not written by Jesuit priests and they were off the continent for like 90 years before the country successfully kicked out the Spanish, the order had a strong and lasting effect on the history that we are learning about right now.

The first signs of the struggle for independence in Ecuador were similar to much of the rest of the Americas at the time, including the United States. The criollos were upset with the peninsulares and their increased privileges and rights. This is the.

The people that were descended from the colonial nation, but born in the colony were getting treated an awful lot like the people they were supposed to be subjugating themselves. So they were basically sitting on a tinderbox of revolutionary sentiment.

Ferdinand this was not the popular upswell of revolution that they had hoped for.

And despite overcoming local opposition, establishing a congress and promulgating a constitution in very, very short order for the state of Quito, they just could not solidify support. And as such, this iteration of the rebellion was poorly equipped and trained.

Shortly after that, at the end of the war of the Sixth Coalition that defeated Napoleon the first, Joseph Bonaparte abdicated from the Spanish throne. And with that, Ecuador returned to full Spanish control.

For a bit, decades led to a little bit more maturity for developing Ecuadorian culture and a robust continental spread of revolutionary struggle in the Americas, and that had coalesced under two men. In the north there were the forces of Simone Bolivar, and in the south there were the forces of Jose de San Martin.

This meant that when Quito again declared independence, they were able to appeal for and receive military aid from Simon Bolivar, who sent the talented young lieutenant Antonio Jose de Sucre. There was a subsequent string of initial wins before the northern army's forces hit a wall and had to appeal to San Martin for reinforcements.

But this was not a series of events that got Ecuador completely independent, because two months later Bolivar himself came to Quito and convinced the junta to join his Republic of Gran Colombia as the district of the south and eventually as the department of Ecuador. We'll drop another pin in there, because before we get the country to fully independent, we have a couple of guys to discuss.

Their first daughter was born there as well. He was hired on as musical director and conductor for the opera company his wife was in, and they were off to tour South America to great acclaim.

This guy was all over the place. And he became impresario and conductor for a large opera company there.

He was raised alone by his mother, Josefa Martinex Vascones, because his father, whom I choose not to dignify with a name, took off before he was born. He lived in austere childhood, marked by poverty, on a farm that his grandmother rented out and the family worked.

His education was received entirely at home, mostly from family members and reading the family library. Still, though, he taught himself Latin, French and Italian while reading anything that he could get his hands on.

And as far as I can tell, he wrote up until he died and stands out as one of the most important South American writers of the 19th century.

It's not really a spoiler to tell you that he was chosen for being an ardent political conservative, a devout Christian, very nearly pious actually, and a close ally of Garcia Moreno. That guy's political party came into power the year before, and the conservatives appointed Mera as the Security Council of State.

Three years later, he was appointed Secretary of the Senate and transitioned from deputy to senator while simultaneously serving as the chief clerk for the Ministry of the Interior.

Marrow was another man that left a lasting structural, artistic, literary and political legacy in his country. It's actually impossible for me to do his story justice in this format, so I encourage you to read about the poet on your own.

At this point, political discontent and events that I'd love to get into on a different kind of show brought the country almost to complete anarchy. The situation was brought to a halt with the rise of a very nearly authoritarian conservatism.

But we're not going to talk about that because with Moreno's presidency, we also get the anthem. There were several attempts at getting an anthem beforehand, but nothing with any lasting popularity.

I think broadly speaking, Salve o Patria is a romantic era operatic piece that is a similar sound and feel to some of the music that we've heard here. It was originally composed in B flat major, but was transposed into G major to make it easier to sing or in musical jargon, more cantable.

The major key also does what it usually does in an anthem and gives this song an uplifting and ceremonial feeling. There are other familiar aspects here as well.

With that 1:4,5 progression we seem to love in the Western world, along with a heroic chorus and an almost fanfare like fourth or fifth leap in the melody, it's generally in common time, which is 4, 4. It has March like rhythms despite not actually being a march.

Overall, it's just a nice piece of music to hear, even if the full official version of the thing can feel pretty long.

Originally composed for brass and strings with the sparse use of percussion and the accompaniment of a choir or at least a large group of singers, but it's an anthem, so you know you can find any kind of an interpretation you want if you look hard enough. Lyrically, this anthem is another that is kind of quite a bit in volume of writing as well as in content.

For official occasions, just the intro, chorus, verse two or and a final chorus are played, but it was originally written as a six verse song and performed with a starting refrain that is also played in between each verse and at the end. So quite a bit of writing. But also remember how I say that context matters for these songs.

It might actually be the second most important thing to know about national anthems, besides them being a nationalistic thing. So what's the context?

Here we have a staunchly conservative and religious man devoted to his country, writing a poem at the request of a government that is also staunchly conservative and fighting for the continued existence of the country against the Spanish.

As a result, we've got a song that is sometimes considered the most offensive anthem out there and it attacks Spain in every single verse except for the second, explicitly. Anyway, which is why that gets played as the official version of the anthem.

When the lyrics were declared unalterable by the Ecuadorian legislature, they were originally in Spanish.

There is an official version in the officially recognized indigenous language of Quechua, and I will be reading in English, starting with the chorus and then each verse indicating where the chorus would be. We greet you, O Fatherland, a thousand times, O Fatherland, glory to you.

Your breast overflows with joy and peace and your radiant face is brighter than your shining sun. We see your children were outraged by the yoke that Iberian audacity imposed upon you by the unjustly horrendous disgrace fatally weighing upon you.

They cried out a holy voice to the heavens, that noble voice of an unbreakable pledge to defeat that monster of blood, that his servile yoke would disappear. And the chorus the first sons of the soil which Pichincha proudly adorns, declare you as their sovereign lady forever and shed their blood for you.

God observed and accepted the holocaust and the blood was the prolific seed of other heroes whom the world in astonishment saw rise up around you by the thousands. CHORUS of those heroes of Iron Arm, no land was invincible, and from the valley to the highest sierra you could hear the roar of the fray.

After the fray victory would fly, Freedom after the triumph would come and the lion was heard, broken with a roar of helplessness and despair. At last Spanish ferocity yielded.

And now, O Fatherland, your free existence is the noble and magnificent heritage which the felicitous heroism gave us. It was given to us from our Father's hands. Let no one take it from us now, nor any daring fool wish to excite our vengeful anger against himself.

May no one, O Fatherland, try it. The shadows of your glorious heroes watch us, and their valor and pride that they inspire are omens of victory for you.

Come lead and the striking iron with the idea of war and revenge wakes the heroic strength that made the fierce Spanish succumbing chorus.

And if new chains are prepared by the barbaric injustice of fate, Great Pachinja, may you prevent the death of the fatherland and her children in the end sink to the deep point in your gut all that exists on your soil. Let the tyrant tread only ashes, and in vain look for any trace of the being beside you. And a final chorus.

So I did say that this was quite a bit I did a little bit more context here. Moreno's administration was conservative, but it was not actually authoritarian as far as I can tell, and they were certainly not slackers.

There was a ton of modernization and solidification of what Ecuador was was, and part of that was enacting national symbols meaning the flag, the anthem and etc. Stuff like that is actually super useful for limiting secessionist aspirations for provinces in a young country.

The spirit coupled with being actively at war with Spain tells some of the story before we even consider what Mara wrote, which is elaborate and given that he knew what he was writing was an anthem, he definitely had a specific list as well as the general anti Spanish goal. And since the guy was a brilliant writer, this is a fun ride as long as you are not Spanish, I guess.

I think the part that's the most generally anthem like is the chorus as it describes the homeland and begins with something that feels almost Roman in the formality of tone. The chorus equates the country to joy and peace while connecting back to the ancient religions of the sun.

It's pretty good stuff, despite the translation itself being a little bit clunky, even though Spanish and English generally work together pretty well. Just a very formal form of Spanish, the meaning is accurate and it was not meant to be heard in English, so I guess it works out.

Then we get into a list of gripes and grievances and angry contentions full of current to the writing, justifiably venomous sentiment for the Spanish. It starts in verse one and is consistent throughout with simply no reference to the indigenous culture that was around in pre colonial times.

It's very nearly entirely a song about the war of Independence and frame Spain as a villain and Ecuador as a justifiable fighter for independence. A fight that I actually am generally in support of. Just to be clear.

It's a heavy handed piece of writing though the unjust and horrendous disgrace weighing down upon you lets you know how Mera feels immediately.

The battle of Pachincha was fought on the slopes of a volcano outside of Quito and involved people from all over the continent fighting to be independent. A triumphant force of iron and shattering a lion of an empire on the battlefield is a really well written line.

I think I do understand why they shortened this anthem because the song is absolutely just relentlessly against the Spanish for two more verses, hammering on them for their oppression and resisting the fight for freedom, then I am surprised when the song invokes the power of the Pacific Ring of Fire to volcanically destroy the country should it ever be invaded by an outside force again.

I think it's an amazing verse actually, and I would enjoy it very much, even if it's way out of the range of what you typically expect or hear in an anthem. Maybe it's sort of because of the incredible nature of invoking natural destruction in the name of your country.

We've learned a great deal about another aspect of the ongoing downfall of colonial power and we got to run through some great history and a bit of an eye opening piece of writing and composition.

I got to learn more about the story of American independence and share a bunch of it with you all and we're getting an ever clearer picture of the current state of anthems in the world. Let's do some credits. The writing, recording and the production for the show were done by me.

I wrote and played the theme music and used it with my permission. Unless otherwise noted, the anthems I play are free. Many of them are.

This time I have not been able to track down the source of the audio I've got, but if I succeed it will go on my list of future fixes for the show. 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 and the rare anthem relevant news story, but mostly I'm depending on word of mouth for this to get into ears. That means I'm asking for you to help me and use the hashtag anthemspod.

It would be cool and it might help lead to sustainable solutions for reducing gang related violence in Ecuador. It is currently a pressing social issue there and leading to increased homicide rates. I don't think anybody wants that.

Maybe you have rated this show enough, and rated it highly enough that it randomly slips into a Spotify playlist that you share with friends and you all discover that you're interested in talking about stuff that you've learned on this very episode. Or maybe you just recommend my show to the nerdiest person that you know.

Either way, thanks for letting me into your ears again and sharing my thoughts about this stuff. I'll see you next time.