Zora Dubljević

Zora Dubljević is a singer of sevdalinka, the traditional love song of Bosnia and Herzegovina, born on 7 August 1938 in Sarajevo. She loved sevdalinka from early childhood, above all as sung by Fatima Poriječanin, and sang at school parties and in the Sarajevo cultural societies Miljenko Cvitković and Slobodan Princip Seljo, the second a nursery for many later sevdalinka singers. She finished primary school, the gymnasium and the law faculty of the University of Sarajevo.

In 1958 she auditioned at Radio Sarajevo and was accepted, and she soon became one of its most popular singers, much requested through the 1960s and 1970s. She signed with Jugoton in Zagreb, and her first record, the 1962 EP "Oj, mjeseče, bekrijo", made with the composer Ismet Alajbegović Šerbo and the lyricist Nikola Škrba, sold more than 100,000 copies and brought the first gold record in Bosnia and Herzegovina. She also collected old folk songs, which became the cornerstone of her repertoire.

Records followed through the 1960s, among them Pjesme iz Bosne (1963), Ne ašikuj, Mujo (1964), Prva ljubav (1965) and Šećer Mujo (1967), first on Jugoton and later on PGP RTB in Belgrade. She sang at the Ilidža festival from 1964 to 1972, where "Prva ljubav" was an award-winning song in 1964, and at the Beogradski sabor in 1971. In 1964 she recorded "Cvati, ružo moja" with Šerbo's ensemble.

Her album Ti si mi sve came out in 1984, and her songs were gathered again on the compilation Folk zvijezda zauvijek in 2014; another release pairs her with Zehra Deović. Among the songs most linked with her are "Sjajna zvijezdo", "Ne ašikuj, Mujo", "Ti si pjesma srca moga" and "Veni, moja ljubavi".