I've always enjoyed classical music and thus I've found the national anthems in this particular region to be quite enthralling. Recently I was talking to one of my former history professors who mentioned reading somewhere that these anthems were purposefully crafted to be captivating and to invoke a sense of unity. I'm guessing that the regions deeper cultural connection to symphonic orchestras has something to do with the composure style.
When I listen to national anthems of really any European countries, I'm reminded so much of the influences of Western European music. Keep in mind that a lot of the Eastern European composers that may have been responsible for composing his/her country's national anthem most likely studied the Western style of music.
Take Latvia for example. Karlis Baumanis lived in a time in which the Nationalist movement was sweeping ALL OVER Europe. Each region felt a fundamental need to distinguish itself and unite their peoples under one banner. The problem here was that Baumanis lived in Latvia under Russian rule and Latvia didn't gain its independence of Russia until MUCH later than Baumanis was living. Even so, I hear this music and I immediately recognize the German Romantic influence on the work, even before the Germans occupied Latvia.
Source #3: An article titled "The Influence of Conservatory Folk Music Programmes: The Sibelius Academy in Comparative Context." This article analyses the impacts of institutionalising oral folk/traditional musics into tertiary-level performance-oriented degree programmes in Western-style conservatories, music academies, and universities. The Folk Music Department at the Sibelius Academy in Finland serves as a primary case study, with ethnographic data supplemented by statistical analysis to illustrate the nature and extent of the Sibelius Academy's influence. This case study is also compared with other programmes in the Nordic countries, the British Isles, North America, China, Indonesia, and former Soviet states in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. The article demonstrates how conservatory environments and high valuation of Western classical music have often led to the adoption or imposition of Western art music conventions or value systems (labelled Westernisation or artification); how curricula and pedagogies have been shaped by specific cultural agendas and political ideologies (such as nationalism, socialism, anarchism, democracy, or pluralism); and how academy programmes can create new musician hierarchies, disseminate their ideologies, and transform attitudes and practices far beyond institutional walls. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
My hope for the third source is to illustrate how deep the Westernization of music really influenced Eastern European countries (among others). Each country/region is going to have its own story to tell, and each composer of his respective national anthem is going to come from a different place in life. The common theme is that Western Music GREATLY influenced even the folk traditions of a lot of regions, and it was up to the composers to take that influence and mold their renditions of the folk tunes into melodies that would inspire. Good luck on any followup research that you might do! I hope this helped a bit. :)