The lyrics of the song "Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm" (My Fatherland, my pride and joy) were written by Johann Voldemar Jannsen to a tune by Friedrich (Fredrik) Pacius, a music teacher at Helsinki University, in years of the upswing of the Estonian national movement. First published 130 years ago in the collection of songs for the First All-Estonian Song Festival in May 1869, its had its first performance by male choirs in the festival's secular programme on its second day. The song was well received, it soon spread all over the country and by the All-Estonian Song Festival of 1896 at the latest it had become an unofficial national anthem which people sang standing up and with bared heads.

"Mu isamaa, mu õnn ja rõõm" was the Estonian national anthem in the first period of independence from 1918 to 1940 and enjoys the same status also since independence was re-established in 1991.

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