Slovak National Anthem for String Orchestra

The melody of the anthem, long used as an unofficial anthem, is that of a Slovak folk song entitled “Kopala studienku”. The lyrics were written by a Slovak student who was one of those who joined other students in an exodus from Bratislava to Levoča in 1843 in protest over the firing of a teacher who had Slovak nationalist views; the Tatras, mentioned in the first verse, are a mountain range the students would have passed through on their way from Bratislava to eastern Slovakia, and have been used as a symbol of the nation as a whole.