Naprej, zastava slave
former national anthem of Slovenia; since 1995 the anthem of the Slovenian Armed Forces and of the President of Slovenia
"Naprej, zastava slave" or "Naprej, zastava Slave" (Forward, Flag of Glory) is the anthem of the Slovene nation, written in 1860, and was briefly used as the national anthem of SR Slovenia until 1989. It is now used as the official service song of the Slovenian Armed Forces.
Lyrics and music
It tells about a boy who goes to defend his homeland, meaning him more than his mother or sweetheart. As such, it is a patriotic recruiting poem. It was the first Slovene literature to be translated into English. The lyrics were written originally by Simon Jenko and then improved collaboratively by him and his cousin Davorin Jenko who also wrote the music. The poem was first publicly sung with great success in front of a large Slavic audience on 22 October 1860, and was first published in Slovenski glasnik (English: The Slovene Herald) on 1 December 1860. In 1863, it was renamed by Radoslav Razlag to Naprej, zastava Slave. In 1885, it became the first poem in Slovene to have been translated into English, under the title "With Slava's Banner, Forward!" The translators were Andrej Jurtela, the first lecturer of Slavic languages at the University of Oxford, and English journalist Alfred Lloyd Hardy, who had a keen interest in music and in Slavic culture. He arranged the melody by Davorin Jenko for piano, wrote an interlinear translation and published it lithographed as an independent publication.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Jul 25, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1141087. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1860, 1989, 1863 and 1885.
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This entry incorporates text from “Naprej, zastava slave” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.