Nicaragua National Anthem

Key Facts

• 1. The 1918 competition rules asked for just two quatrains, one for each part of the music, and required the entries to speak only of peace and work
• 2. The opening lines celebrate that the voice of the cannon no longer roars on Nicaraguan soil and that the two-coloured flag is no longer stained with the blood of brothers, a reference to the civil wars the country suffered in the 19th and 20th centuries
• 3. The melody is an old liturgical psalm which, according to the National Assembly, a Franciscan friar from Toledo, Spain, introduced in the late 18th century to evangelise the indigenous people of Sutiava, in León; Delgadillo's adaptation, fixed by a 1919 decree, moved it from G major to E-flat major so that children could sing it
• 4. Ibarra Mayorga entered under the pseudonym "Rómulo" and the jury chose his text unanimously, but the Conservative government of Emiliano Chamorro withheld the prize because he was a Liberal; the words became official only 21 years later, under Anastasio Somoza García