Mila Rodino

Tsvetan Radoslavov wrote both words and music in 1885, as a student leaving to fight in the Serbo-Bulgarian War; the song was called Gorda Stara planina after its opening line and circulated for decades as a school and patriotic song rather than as a state emblem. It was adopted as the national anthem only in 1964, replacing earlier official anthems, and the text was altered more than once in the years that followed — a verse praising the Communist Party was removed in 1990. The version in force since then uses the first stanza and the refrain alone.