Israel's national anthem

Hatikvah (The Hope) is the national anthem of Israel. The text of Hatikvah was written by the Galician Jewish poet Naphtali Herz Imber in 1878 as a nine-stanza poem named Tikvateynu (Our Hope). The melody is a traditional folk song from Transylvania, Cucuruz cu frunza-n sus (Maize with standing leaf), arranged by Samuel Cohen, an immigrant from Moldova.



I wrote this post following the suggestion of Mrs. Octavia Sălcudean, made as a comment to one of my previous posts.

Two national anthems

Ciprian Porumbescu (1853 – 1883) was an Romanian composer, among the most celebrated of his time. He is known also to be the only that composed the national anthems of two countries.

His composition Pe-al nostru steag e scris "Unire" (On our flag is written "Union") was adopted in 1912 as national anthem of Albania, as Himni i Flamurit (Hymn to the Flag).

Hymn and flag of Albania (since 1912)

Trei culori ("Three colours") was the national anthem of Romania from 1977 until 1989, during the last stage of the Communist regime. Since the anti-communist Romanian Revolution of 1989 it been replaced by Deşteaptă-te, române! (Wake-up, Romanian!).

Hymn and flag of Socialist Republic of Romania (1977-1989)