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The Military Anthem of the People's Liberation Army

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Xiàngqián, xiàngqián, xiàngqián! The People’s Liberation Army of the People’s Republic of China is the biggest army of the planet, and one of the most powerful armies out there. As China continues to arise as World Power, their military keeps growing and making qualitative progress. The army has a rich story and interesting background. Here we will take a look at the most important song of the Chinese Army: The Military Anthem of the PLA . Just like countries and institutions, armies usually have their own anthems. In some cases, the “anthem” is a representative patriotic song or a military march (and they can have more than one). In the case of the People’s Liberation Army, a song called “March of the Eighth Route Army” (“ 八路 军进行曲 ”) was composed in 1939 by Zheng Lücheng ( 郑律成 ) and Gong Mu ( 公木 ) in honour of the 18th Group Army of the National Revolutionary Army ( 国民革命 军第十八集团军 ), which participated in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. The song become widely ...
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Similarities in National Anthems

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 I recognize that! It is known that some countries use or have used, in the past, the same melody (even the same lyrics) of the national anthem of other country as their own. Even today there are some territories that use exactly the same national anthem of other country. For example, both France and French Guiana use "La Marseillaise" as their national anthem. This is seen specially with non-independent territories. In other cases, one country just borrows the music of the other, just like Liechtenstein with “Oben am Jungen Rhein” which uses the melody of “God Save the Queen” from England. However, in some cases, we can see that certain national anthems are different, but somehow similar in some notes or lyrics.  SURINAME & SOUTH AFRICA The old national anthem of South Africa (Die Stem van Suid Afrika) shares similar notes with the national anthem of Suriname, which is older than the South African one. "God zij met ons Suriname" was composed by Johannes Cor...
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Aviamarch: The Soviet Air Force Song

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Cleared for Take-Off! The Tupolev 22-M "Backfire" has entered the runway, all the checklists are completed, and this beat starts playing on the background as the airplane goes full throttle through the runway… The “March of Aviators” (also known as "Aviamarch") as accompanied Soviet and Russian pilots since the last century and it is not rare at all to hear it in military parades such as the Victory Day parade as Russian fighters cross the sky. This song also has an interesting story behind, which is related even with Nazi Germany, North Macedonia, and the German Democratic Republic. The melody of this song was composed by Yuli Khait in 1920 and the lyrics were written by Pavel German. It is not clear if German wrote the lyrics at the same time, or he wrote the lyrics after and fitting them with the melody. This is due to the fact that the song was published in 1923, but the composer stated that he composed the song in 1920. During this time, it was known as the “...
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The National Anthem of Chile in Different Languages

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El Himno Nacional de Chile en otros idiomas... The national anthem of Chile suffered several changes during the XIX century which go from its lyrics to the melody used to sing the anthem. It is a symbol of union among Chileans and it is sung passionately on big occasions. Proof of that are the many videos that you can find on the internet, especially football related videos. This has attracted the attention of international media and articles have been written about it. Although the official version is in Spanish, there are certain versions of the lyrics in other languages. Let’s take a look at them! The current national anthem uses the lyrics written by Eusebio Lillo in 1847 (which also uses the chorus of a previous anthem created by Bernardo de Vera y Pintado in 1819) and the music of Ramón Carnicer i Battle, composed in 1828. The anthem has six stanzas, but only the V stanza and the chorus are sung. However, during the Military Dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet (1973-1990), the III...
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Songs for the Leader: South America Edition

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From Pinochet to Perón... During the past century, most of South American countries were under the rule of ruthless dictators and polemic presidents who had a great impact on countries societies and culture. However, during these periods of times, by genuine desire or by force to meet the requirements of the cult of personality, many songs and marches were composed to honour those leaders and their political movements. " Songs for the Leader " is a section where we take a look at several songs dedicated to these people or their political movements. Today, we will review a list of the most popular songs of South American countries during those difficult times. Argentina Speaking about Juan Domingo Perón is very controversial. Especially after what the Peronist Party (now Partido Justicialista) has become. Nevertheless, Perón had a great popularity back on the day, and many songs were composed in his honour. However, the main song of the Peronist movement is, without any doub...
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Marcha Real: The National Anthem of Spain

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An Anthem without lyrics... The Spanish "Royal March" (Marcha Real) was one of the most watched videos in the original channel of DeroVolk, and even today in the backup watch it has thousands of views. There was a certain month in which many versions of the anthem were uploaded to the channel, each one as the anthem of a Spanish colony (e.g.: Spanish Sahara, Spanish Guinea, etc.) and this was subject of many jokes due to the overload of Marcha Real versions that flooded the channel during those days. This was done in order to show the many varieties in terms of instrumental and vocal version that this anthem has. Today, the Marcha Real is the national anthem of Spain, and it is one of the oldest anthems of the world. Even though the official anthem does not have any lyrics, there have been many unofficial versions during all these years. Source: Pixabay The anthem was composed during the XVIII Century and it appears with the name "Marcha Granadera" (Grenadier'...
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The Original National Anthem of Uruguay

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Brotherhood... In a recent post in this Blog, I wrote that the national anthems of Paraguay and Uruguay can be considered “brother anthems” due to the fact that the lyrics of both anthems were written by the same person: Francisco Acuña de Figueroa. After an investigation carried out in recent years by César Manuel Barrios (composer, pianist and orchestra conductor), a great discovery was made public. And today, the world can see it in detail! Francisco Acuña de Figueroa After researching through many sources and investigation works in South America and the United States, it was discovered that the lyrics of the national anthem of Uruguay were used with a melody created by Francesco Casale, and which is in fact the melody of the current national anthem of Paraguay (arranged by Remberto Giménez in 1933). According to the story, the President of Uruguay issued a decree on 1837 stating that the music created by Francesco Casale would be used with Figueroa’s lyrics until a new proposa...
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