 | ||
Lyrics Francisco Acuña de Figueroa, 1846 Music Francisco José Debali, 1933 | ||
Paraguayos, República o Muerte is the national anthem of Paraguay. The lyrics were written by Francisco Acuña de Figueroa (who also wrote Orientales, la Patria o la tumba, the national anthem of Uruguay) under the presidency of Carlos Antonio López, who at the time delegated Bernardo Jovellanos and Anastasio González to ask Figueroa to write the anthem (Jovellanos and González were commissioners of the Paraguayan government in Uruguay). The anthem was officially finished by Figueroa on May 20, 1846.
It still remains unclear who was responsible for the music. Some sources claim that Frenchman Francisco Sauvageot de Dupuis was the composer, while others claim it to be the work of the Hungarian-born Francisco José Debali (Debály Ferenc József), who composed the melody of the Uruguayan national anthem. What it is known for sure is that it was the Paraguayan composer Remberto Giménez who in 1933 arranged and developed the version of the anthem which remains in use today.