Vesna Zmijanac

Vesna Zmijanac is a Serbian folk singer, born on 4 January 1957 in Nikšić, Montenegro. Her father Dušan came from Sisak and her mother Kovina from the Kraljevo area. Her parents divorced when she was about one, and she was raised by her grandmother in Kovači near Kraljevo. At fifteen she was singing in a kafana in Bivolje near Kruševac; she then lived for a while in Vienna with her mother, who worked there, before coming home to sing in the kafanas along the Ibar highway. English Wikipedia says it was Šaban Šaulić who discovered her in Vienna and helped her get signed.

Her first single came out in 1979 on PGP-RTB, and in 1981 she played Kadivka in Branko Baletić's film Sok od šljiva. Her first album, Ljubi me, ljubi, lepoto moja, followed in 1982, then Ti mali (1983), Šta će meni šminka (1984) and Zar bi me lako drugome dao (1985). "Nevera moja" (1985) was written by Miroljub Aranđelović Kemiš, her first husband. In 1986 she won the main prize at MESAM with "Kraj nogu ti mrem", and Dođi što pre (1986) sold 400,000 copies.

After Jedan si ti (1987), with "Kunem ti se životom", came Istina (1988), with "Kazni me, kazni" and "Kad zamirišu jorgovani", her duet with Dino Merlin; English Wikipedia puts its sales at about 850,000. In those years her main rival for popularity was Lepa Brena, and she was nicknamed the Queen of Sadness. In 1990 she moved to the Komuna label with Svatovi and played ten concerts in a row at Sava Centar in Belgrade.

Ako me umiriš sad (1992) was followed by Idem preko zemlje Srbije (1994), the year of her duets "Ja imam nekog, a ti si sam" with Slavko Banjac and "Idemo na more" with Rambo Amadeus, and she also worked with Bajaga. Malo po malo (1995) and Posle svega, dobro sam (1997) came next. In 2000 she published an attempt at an autobiography, Kad zamirišu jorgovani, and after six years away from the studio she returned with Šta ostane kad padnu haljine (2003) on Grand. Sokole (2011, PGP-RTS) is her fourteenth album.

In 2015 Vesna Zmijanac won the Pink Music Festival with "Ponovi za mnom". She received a lifetime achievement award from the Association of Music Artists of Serbia in 2019 and was proclaimed a National Music Artist of Serbia in 2020. In May 2026 she marked fifty years on stage with three concerts in a row at the Belgrade Arena. Her daughter Nikolija, born in 1989, is also a singer.