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Naprej, zastava slave or Naprej, zastava Slave ("Forward, Flag of Glory") is the historical national anthem of Slovenia (from 1860 until the beginning of the 1990s).
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 his cousin Simon Jenko and then improved collaboratively by both. 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 ("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.
The poem was originally titled Naprej ("Forward") and set to music in an inn in Vienna's Prater by Davorin Jenko, who was in anger over the German snub of the Slovene, on 16 May 1860.
