Hymn to Liberty

Hymn to Liberty is a long poem written by the Greek poet Dionysios Solomos in 1823, in the midst of the Greek War of Independence against Ottoman rule. Solomos, who lived on the island of Zakynthos, composed it in Greek in 158 stanzas, praising liberty and recalling the struggle of the Greeks. The Corfiote composer Nikolaos Mantzaros set the first stanzas to music a few years later. The first two stanzas became Greece's national anthem in 1865, and the same anthem was adopted by Cyprus in 1966. It is regarded as one of the longest national anthems in the world when counted by its full text.

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