"Over the Tatras Lightning Breaks..." The song "Over the Tatras Lightning Breaks...", the Slovak national anthem, was written in 1884 during a trip by students of Bratislava's Evangelical Grammar School to Levoča in support of Ľudovít Štúr. The author, Janko Matúška, set his words to the Slovak folk song "A Well She Dung" and the work became the favourite song of Štúr's young followers. It was circulated in hand-written copies and is found in many manuscript song collections. Based as it was on a popular melody and written in standard Slovak , it became known across the nation and was adopted by the Slovak volunteers of 1848, who printed it as a broadside. In December 1918 the first stanza became part of the national anthem of the Czechoslovak Republic and since 1.st January 1993 its first two stanzas have constituted the national anthem of the independent Slovak Republic.