"La Marseillase: A Song of War, a song of Freedom." Topic

"The Marseillaise has been the French national anthem only since a law was passed on 14 February 1879, when France's institutions passed into the hands of republicans (and since then it has remained so without interruption – except for the accidental parenthesis of an anti-republican French State, from 1940 to 1944). On 30 January 1879, the republican Jules Grévy took over as French President following the resignation of MacMahon, a staunch royalist. The choice of the anthem, with the return of the government to Paris, was the first symbolic measure, a year before 14 July was chosen as the date of France's national day (on 6 July 1880). The anthem, composed in April 1792, was originally entitled Chant de guerre pour l'armée du Rhin (Battle song for the Army of the Rhine), and for almost the whole of the 19th century in France it was a song of struggle against conservative and authoritarian regimes. In addition, very early on the Marseillaise attained huge popularity across the world, and was sung to galvanise protesters against their oppressors in numerous countries.

The concept of a national song or anthem appeared in England in 1740 with the nationalistic Rule, Britannia!, then in 1745 with the dynastic God Save the King. A loyalist song, it was sung by the English against the Jacobite rebellion led by the ‘Young Pretender', Charles Edward Stuart, the last Catholic pretender to the British throne. The prince landed in Scotland in summer 1745 and was defeated in February 1746. At the time of these events, God Save the King achieved a breakthrough in the press (which supplied readers with the words) and in the theatres of London. From March 1793 onwards, with the wars against revolutionary then imperial France, a dynastic, nationalistic cult developed in England, accompanied by these two songs. During their performance, a motionless and dignified standing position was adopted, men with their hats off and one hand on their hearts. France followed the same course, with a number of songs, but the Marseillaise was quick to prevail, being declared the "national anthem" (or rather "one of the national anthems") on 14 July 1795. Under the Revolution and during the 19th century, some would kneel for the sixth verse – containing the lines "Sacred love of the motherland" and "Freedom, cherished freedom!" – a religious posture, reminiscent of that adopted in Catholic mass for a passage of the credo or the elevation of the host. Touched upon previously, in connection with these national anthems, is the idea of a "transfer of sacred function", from religious worship to patriotic cult. We will return to that idea further on. In the yet to be unified Germany, Deutschland über alles appeared much later. How should it be translated? Germany "before all" or "above all else" (as it is usually rendered), or else "more beloved" or even "greater than all else"; the phrase is ambiguous and its translation unclear, since it is a proposition lacking a crucial element: the verb. The poem was written in 1841 by the poet and linguist August Heinrich Hoffmann (sometimes known as Hoffmann von Fallersleben, after the village of his birth). He wrote it on Heligoland, an island off the German North Sea coast, with a German-speaking population, but which belonged to the Danish from 1714 to 1807, then the British from 1814 to 1890; an island at the outermost limits of Germany, a borderland like France's Strasbourg. In the 19th century, the song was regarded by the ruling princes as too liberal, calling on the German people to rise against them to claim their freedom. It was not adopted as Germany's national anthem until 1922, by the Weimar Republic, only then replacing the various dynastic anthems, the Prussian anthem and the anthems of the various ruling princes, then the German imperial anthem. Much loved, it was maintained by Hitler from 1933 to 1945, alongside the purely Nazi anthem, the Horst-Wessel-Lied. It should be added that the slogan Deutschland über alles had a long history of antecedents in Österreich über alles (Austria above all else)…."
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Amicalement
Armand

Any tune banned by both Napoleon and the Bourbons has got to have something going for it!

hello, don't want to talk about this old fashion and policaly oriented "ministere de la defense" post that you link here. (no problem, just that history is alway rewritted… )

the whole song is about defending the nation (people + country).
Actually it is pretty agressive and arrogant for my point of view and it is for shure a song of war a lot more than a song of freedom or revolutionary or republican…

it's only tacking about those (germans, autrians , prussians*) than want to invade France.
so we have to defend… easy and clealy a song of WAR for my PoV.

thanks for the post and the interess :)

Was first abopted by Marseilles volunteer bataillon, which was not much better in behavior than nowadays majority of inhabitants there. A looting, raping, murdering band entering Paris and sent later to fight. ( and do the same in Germany).

Glup!….

Amicalement
Armand

Aux armes citoyens! Formez vos bataillons! Marchons, marchons! Qu'un sang impur abreuve nos sillons!….'

Attack is the best form of defence

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand