Bella Ciao Anthem MEPs sang to deride Orbán has a rich history

“This isn't Eurovision,” said the speaker of the European parliament, Roberta Metsola, as she tried to silence leftwing MEPs greeting the visiting Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orbán, with a rowdy rendition of the classic anti-fascist anthem Bella Ciao.

- Philip Oltermann

The bang-your-fists-on-the-table motif at the heart of this earworm of a ditty - whose title means “Goodbye, beautiful” - may indeed sound like something cooed by a spandex-clad singer. But the story it tells reaches far deeper into the continent's history than the annual kitsch music extravaganza, telling an age-old tale of the left's determined struggle against political oppression.

Or that, at least, is how it is usually perceived. The song's most commonly known version is narrated from the point of view of a partisan fighter who wakes one morning knowing he has to leave his loved one behind to fight an unspecified invader, realising he may never see her again.

He sings: “If I die as a partisan / You must bury me / bury me up there, on the mountain / under the shadow of a beautiful flower / and all those who will pass by / will say 'What a beautiful flower / This is the flower of the partisan / who died for freedom.”