Carinthian Anthem

On formal occasions, the Carinthian Anthem is sung – usually its first and fourth verses. It seems to have existed forever, and yet it has been the official anthem only since 1966. Its lyrics are cast into provincial law, but this only includes the German version.

In 1822, Johann Nepomuk Thaurer Ritter von Gallenstein first published his poem “The Carinthian Homeland” in the journal Carinthia. In 1835, Josef Rainer von Harbach composed a successful tune to the text. In 1911, the Carinthian Landsmannschaft (a traditional association) declared the song the anthem of Carinthia, but with the omission of the fourth verse, which glorified the Imperial House of Austria.

On the occasion of the 10th anniversary of the 1920 plebiscite, the Landsmannschaft held a competition for the creation of a fourth verse, with the stipulation that it should address the plebiscite. The competition was won by the teacher and regional poet Agnes Millonig. She had to change her unambiguously connotated last line “This is my German homeland” into “This is my glorious homeland”. Agnes Millonig had strong German-national affinities and joined the NS women’s organisation as early as 1933.

It was not only the Slovenian-speaking population who viewed the fourth verse critically. In 2018, Oliver Vitouch, a psychologist and the rector of the University of Klagenfurt, suggested replacing the martial-sounding fourth verse. In the new verse, Carinthia should be extolled as a part of a united and peaceful Europe. The parties FPÖ and Team Carinthia, as well as the resistance fighters’ association, rejected this suggestion as a “politically motivated mutilation”, invoking the song’s longstanding tradition. The idea of composing a fifth verse, with regards to the region of peace around the border triangle, has not been developed further.