Bedřich Smetana

About Bedřich Smetana

Bedřich Smetana (1824–1884) was a pivotal Czech composer, often regarded as the father of Czech music. His historical importance, reflected in his #762 HPI rank, stems from his profound influence on Czech national identity, largely through his cycle of symphonic poems, *Má Vlast* (My Fatherland), which includes the iconic river theme, "Vltava." Smetana's work successfully infused nationalist sentiment into high-art music, setting a cultural precedent for the modern Czech state.

Despite this historical weight, Smetana's modern internet attention lags significantly behind his importance. In 2025, his Wikipedia page accrued just 145K annualized views. To illustrate this underattention (a -2x gap), this figure receives substantially fewer views than a contemporary composer like Dmitri Shostakovich (#880 importance), who garnered 586K views, or even Ennio Morricone (#950 importance), with 697K views. Even compared to less historically ranked modern figures like Al Capone (#992 importance) at 2.6M views, Smetana's digital footprint is comparatively small.

Furthermore, the data suggests this deficit is widening, as his 2025 attention shows a year-over-year decline of -13.9% and a Q1 to Q3 momentum drop of -13%, indicating that his historical resonance is not translating into sustained, high-volume online engagement.