"Famous Macedonia" ( el, Μακεδονία ξακουστή, Macedonia xacusti, ) is a Greek military march folk song often regarded as the

regional anthem An anthem is a musical composition of celebration, usually used as a symbol for a distinct group, particularly the national anthems of countries. Originally, and in music theory and religious contexts, it also refers more particularly to shor ...

Greek Macedonia Macedonia (; el, Μακεδονία, Makedonía ) is a geographic and former administrative region of Greece, in the southern Balkans. Macedonia is the largest and Greek geographic region, with a population of 2.36 million in 2020. It is ...

, and used by the

Hellenic Army The Hellenic Army ( el, Ελληνικός Στρατός, Ellinikós Stratós, sometimes abbreviated as ΕΣ), formed in 1828, is the land force of Greece. The term ''Hellenic'' is the endogenous synonym for ''Greek''. The Hellenic Army is th ...

since the Balkan Wars. It is associated with the '' Macedonomachœ'' in the '' Macedonicos Agonas'' and can be heard on parades and in national anniversaries. Until the recent introduction of 24-hour programming, it also marked the end of radio programs on the local Macedonian channel (''Rádio Macedonía''

102 FM 102 FM is a radio station on 102 MHz in Thessaloniki, Greece. It is owned by ERT3, a regional public television channel aimed at northern Greek audiences, and broadcasts news and talk programs. First years It was one of the three radio sta ...

"), played before the Greek national anthem. It is written in Dorian scale, in iambic 15-syllable. The beat is 2/4 and it can be danced as a '' chasapico''. It can be performed in conjunction with the Macedonia dance. In addition, the lyrics refers to

Alexander the Great Alexander III of Macedon ( grc, Ἀλέξανδρος, Alexandros; 20/21 July 356 BC – 10/11 June 323 BC), commonly known as Alexander the Great, was a king of the ancient Greek kingdom of Macedon. He succeeded his father Philip II to ...

, who is the progenitor of the

Greek Macedonians Macedonians ( el, Μακεδόνες, ''Makedónes''), also known as Greek Macedonians or Macedonian Greeks, are a regional and historical population group of ethnic Greeks, inhabiting or originating from the Greek region of Macedonia, in N ...

Origin

The origin of the march is not certain. According to an

ethnographic Ethnography (from Greek ''ethnos'' "folk, people, nation" and ''grapho'' "I write") is a branch of anthropology and the systematic study of individual cultures. Ethnography explores cultural phenomena from the point of view of the subject ...

study conducted in villages in

Serres Sérres ( el, Σέρρες ) is a city in Macedonia, Greece, capital of the Serres regional unit and second largest city in the region of Central Macedonia, after Thessaloniki. Serres is one of the administrative and economic centers of Northe ...

and

Drama Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance: a play, opera, mime, ballet, etc., performed in a theatre, or on radio or television.Elam (1980, 98). Considered as a genre of poetry in general, the dramatic mode has b ...

, the song wasn't known or danced to in the area. Women from Ano Oreini and Petrousa attribute the Greek lyrics and the teaching of the dance to an anonymous teacher after

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

. Women from Petrousa claim that the melody of the song is a modification of a local malady of theirs, which was made "somewhere more centrally", and they dance to a similar melody with Slavic lyrics and different steps, similar to those of other local traditional dances. The musicologist Markos Dragoumis found a cassette with Ladino songs of

Thessaloniki Thessaloniki (; el, Θεσσαλονίκη, , also known as Thessalonica (), Saloniki, or Salonica (), is the second-largest city in Greece, with over one million inhabitants in its metropolitan area, and the capital of the geographic region of ...

, which included the melody of the song, as a composition made for the opening of the Schola de la Alianza, the first Jewish school of Thessaloniki, in 1873. Dragoumis guesses that it was either composed for the opening of the school and later was transmitted to the groups in the area, or it was originally composed in the middle of the 19th century by some Western composer for the Ottoman Sultan and later used by the Jewish communities. According to the Greek Army's website, it is a military march or ''emvatirio'' based on the traditional ''Macedonicos choros'', which is related with Acrítes of Byzantium.

Lyrics

Current version

Original version

Notes

References

External links

An arrangement for mixed choir
by Nicolas Astrinidis – YouTube
vocal score and parts

Another remixed version
– YouTube {{National Anthems of Europe Regional songs Greek patriotic songs Macedonia (Greece) Hellenic Army