Ksenija Cicvarić

Ksenija Cicvarić was a Montenegrin and Yugoslav singer and one of the great interpreters of Montenegrin folk song. She was born in 1929 in Stara Varoš, the old quarter of Podgorica, and died in Belgrade on 11 February 1997. Her repertoire came from old Podgorica, Nikšić, Cetinje, Bijelo Polje, Pljevlja and other Montenegrin towns, and with her distinctive way of singing she promoted the Montenegrin folk song across Yugoslavia.

She grew up in the large family of Radivoje Bracović and inherited her voice from her mother, Simona. She sang so often and so well as a girl that her neighbours called her the "nightingale of the Ribnica" (Slavuj sa Ribnice). She wanted to study singing, but her father would not allow it, and she went to a vocational school instead. Back in Podgorica she joined the Stanko Dragojević choir, first in the chorus and then as a soloist, and also sang at the Crna Gora restaurant.

Her professional career began in the 1960s at Radio Titograd, where she auditioned with "Mlada Jelka ljubi Janka" and delighted the orchestra's leader, Janika Balaš. There she also met Hamdija Šahinpašić, the famous folk singer from Pljevlja, who taught her old Sandžak sevdalinkas that she went on to save from oblivion.

When she moved to Belgrade, Vlastimir Pavlović Carevac, head of Radio Belgrade's folk orchestra, invited her to an audition, where she sang the Kosovo song "Zapevala sojka ptica", and she began recording for Radio Belgrade. After she won the Yugoslav folk music festival in Cetinje with "Sjever ružu niz polje nijaše", she was given a Montenegrin costume that had belonged to Queen Milena; it was later taken from her to be presented to Nina Khrushcheva during the Soviet leader's visit to Montenegro.

From 1965 she made a string of EPs and singles for PGP RTB and Jugoton, among them "Sejdefu majka buđaše", "Oj, vesela veselice", "Sedam dana i tri noći" and "Milica, jedna u majke", as well as the albums Ksenija Cicvarić i Ansambl Miodraga Jašarevića (RTV Ljubljana, 1972) and Oj vesela, veselice (Jugoton, 1981). Besides Montenegrin songs she also sang Serbian, Macedonian, Albanian and Sandžak ones, and she wrote "Dolinom se šetala djevojčica mala" herself, for her daughter.

In her later years she withdrew from the stage. After her death PGP RTS released the three-CD collection Pesme Ksenije Cicvarić (1998), and Goraton issued Antologija in 2002. Her best-known songs include "Oj vesela veselice", "Milica jedna u majke", "Sahat kula" and "Zorna Zorka", and the younger singer Branka Šćepanović, her friend to the end, is often called her heir.