Kde domov můj

The story

"Kde domov můj" began as one of twenty-one songs of incidental music that František Škroup composed for Josef Kajetán Tyl's comedy Fidlovačka aneb Žádný hněv a žádná rvačka (Fiddlers' Feast, or No Anger and No Brawl). Karel Strakatý first sang it at the Estates Theatre in Prague on 21 December 1834. The original song has two stanzas. Tyl is said to have thought of leaving it out of the play, unsure of its quality, but it soon became the most popular song of Fiddlers' Feast among Czechs who were seeking to revive their identity within the Habsburg monarchy, and quickly became their unofficial patriotic anthem.

Composers and poets took it up. Johann Strauss the Younger worked its motif into his Slaven-Potpourri (Slavic Potpourri) of folk songs and dances, Op. 39, in 1847. In 1882 Antonín Dvořák used it in his overture to František Ferdinand Šamberk's play Josef Kajetán Tyl, often performed on its own as Domov můj (My Home), a concert work of some ten minutes. Rainer Maria Rilke paid tribute to the song in two German poems published in Larenopfer (1895).

Soon after Czechoslovakia was formed in 1918, the first stanza of the song became the Czech part of the national anthem, followed by the first stanza of the Slovak song "Nad Tatrou sa blýska", with official translations into German and Hungarian. The German-controlled Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia (1939–1945) kept the song as its anthem, usually played together with the German anthems, the Deutschlandlied and the Nazi Horst-Wessel-Lied. When Czechoslovakia split in December 1992, the Czech Republic kept "Kde domov můj" and Slovakia "Nad Tatrou sa blýska"; Slovakia added a second verse to its anthem, while the Czech Republic adopted its own in the single-stanza version. The words are set down in Appendix 6 of Czech Act No. 3/1993 Coll., as adapted by Act No. 154/1998 Coll.

The orchestration by Otakar Jeremiáš, in three versions (for large orchestra, 1930; for small orchestra, 1932; and a pastoral or Christmas version for organ and orchestra, 1932), is still performed. In 2008 the Czech government released new official recordings, orchestrated by Jeremiáš and Jaroslav Krček and performed by the National Theatre Opera Chorus and Orchestra under Jiří Bělohlávek in four versions: orchestral, choral, for soprano (Kateřina Kněžíková) and for bass-baritone (Adam Plachetka). They were first presented on Czech Statehood Day, 28 September 2008, in the Pantheon of the National Museum in Prague.

What it says

The singer asks where his home is and answers with a gentle picture of the Bohemian countryside, its streams, meadows, woods and blossoming orchards, a land like paradise; the second stanza praises the Czech people who live there. The mood is quiet and lyrical rather than martial.

The words