Zafir Hadžimanov

Zafir Hadžimanov was a Yugoslav singer, composer and actor, born on 25 December 1943 in Kavadarci, in today's North Macedonia, where he spent his childhood. His father was a folklorist. He spent almost his entire adult life in Belgrade, and Serbian as well as Macedonian sources count him as their own, which is why he is listed here with Serbia.

He went to high school and music school in Skopje, and while studying in Belgrade in the 1960s he began singing popular music. At the Opatija festival in 1965 he won first place with "Zašto dolaziš samo s kišom", and four years later he returned to Opatija with "Bio je maj". In 1967 he graduated from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade. He married the singer and actress Senka Veletanlić, and their son Vasil Hadžimanov became a jazz musician.

He also sang abroad, especially in the Soviet Union. His best-known songs include "Ljubi me i glavata gore" and "Od ljubov ne se bega", next to Belgrade festival songs such as "Plavi žaket" and the 1967 PGP RTB single "Lepa Flamingo". As an actor he appeared in the films Nož and Makedonska krvava svadba, and he wrote five collections of poetry, published in Macedonian and Serbian. He took part in the Struga Poetry Evenings in 1975 and an international chanson festival in 2003.

In 2007 he was named an honorary ambassador of Macedonian culture in Serbia. Zafir Hadžimanov died on 27 March 2021, at the age of 77, of complications from COVID-19. Later that year he was honoured posthumously in both countries, with the Golden Medal for Merits in Serbia and the Order of Merit in North Macedonia, the latter for his rich work and for bringing traditional Macedonian harmonies into popular music.