National Hymn (mp3/240kb)

National Hymn of Romania "Awaken Ye, Romanian!" ("Desteapta-te Romane!") Awaken ye, Romanian, shake off the deadly slumber The scourge of inauspicious barbarian tyrannies And now or never to a bright horizon clamber That shall to shame put all your nocuous enemies. It's now or never to the world we readily proclaim In our veins throbs and ancestry of Roman And in our hearts for ever we glorify a name Resounding of battle, the name of gallant Trajan. Do look imperial shadows, Michael, Stephen, Corvinus At the Romanian nation, your mighty progeny With arms like steel and hearts of fire impetuous It's either free or dead, that's what they all decree. Priests, rise the cross, this Christian army's liberating The word is freedom, no less sacred is the end We'd rather die in battle, in elevated glory Than live again enslaved on our ancestral land. The lyrics of our National Anthem belong to Andrei Muresan (1816-1863), a Romantic poet, journalist, translator, a genuine tribune of the times marked by the 1848 Revolution. The music was composed by Anton Pann (1796-1854), a poet and ethnographer, a man of great culture, a singer and author of music textbooks. Since 1848, "Desteapta-te Romane!" has been a song dear to Romanians, giving them courage in the crucial moments such as during the Independence War of 1877-1878. In other moments of crisis such as after August 23, 1944 when Romania turned against Hitler's Germany and fought alongside the United Nations Allies, this anthem was spontaneously sung by everyone and was aired on the national radio, keeping the whole country on alert. The same happened on December 22, 1989 when the anthem spontaneously arose from the streets, accompanying huge masses of people, dispelling the fear of certain death and uniting a whole people in the lofty feelings of the moment. Thus began the anti-Communist Revolution that set Romania free from 50 years of tyranny.