DJORDJE BALASEVIC - a mariner of the Panonian Sea

I am not a singer in its true sense, because I do not look like a singer. Singers are tall, slim and handsome - like Zdravko Čolić(2), for instance. This is how Djordje Balaševic, our great author, creator of one of the best lyrics in our music, a true romantic who battles against the windmills described himself (NB. in jest). Always smiling and carefree, a true man from Vojvodina, the ambassador of good faith, describes his success in his own unique way: I became what I am, in fact, I did not become anything ‘of importance’, just because I was born in the wrong time. And he was born in 1953 in Novi Sad, where he still lives. He was a high school drop out in the third grade ( O levels) because he was struggling with natural sciences, but later he graduated as a student having achieved Pass with merit and managed to enroll in geography studies at which he somehow never managed to graduate ( due to professional reasons). If he had, who knows what would have happened to him and whether he would become what he is today, Djole - a living legend. Although, as he says, when people recognize him today and tell him that he has changed, he responds tongue in cheek: ‘I was Djordje Balaševic’.

Unique & authentic artist quality

His first smash hit ‘U razdeljak te ljubim’ (I’m kissing you right in the parting of your hair), he recorded with the group Žetva (The harvest), and with the band Rani Mraz (Early Frost) he recorded the Prva Ljubav (First Love) and a few other great songs among which are as follows: Računajte na nas ( ‘Count on us’). This song became the anthem of the youth at the time of Communism throughout the former Yugoslavia, and Đole became nicknamed ‘Tito's pioneer’. His opponents often used this to criticize him, because they all seem to have forgotten that they were once communists themselves, and he responded in his own idiosyncratic style: ‘People, I wrote that poem twenty years ago – ‘Even if I had killed Tito back then, I would have been already out of jail again’.

In the 1980s, he started a solo career that still lasts and withstands the passage of time. In the course of a half a century, he wrote a large number of songs that can, in terms of their artistic quality, comprise an independent anthology (Jesen stiže dunjo moja, Lepa protina kći, Boža Pub, Bluz mutne vode, Provincijalka ...), he also published twelve albums, two novels (Tri posleratna druga i Jedan od onih života), he then acted in television series and films. He does not belong to and neither does he plead allegiance to any political party, but he is known for his campaigns against injustice and a man who is ready to voice his disagreement in public against the establishment when he deems fit.

A true romantic beyond repair

His song Živeti slobodno (Living freely) became the anthem of the 5th October Revolution 2000, but what we will truly remember forever surely are his love songs. For years he has been giving concerts all over the world, but also throughout Serbia and Vojvodina, especially in remote and almost abandoned villages where cultural events tend to be few and far between. In this way, he does a kind favor to the lowlands and plains of Vojvodina, his homeland, which ‘put bread on our tables ‘ metaphorically speaking. New Year's concerts in the Sava Center have long been traditional and they keep being sold out well ahead every year, which speaks volumes that Djordje Balasevic is ‘not the thing of the past’, but still is here with us ‘ alive and kicking’ and ‘blazing trails’ on his concerts and performances everywhere he goes.

1 a mariner of the Panonian Sea……. Vojvodina, where his birthplace is used to be the Panonian Sea back in the day which is now the lowlands and plains of Vojvodina. That is why he calls himself a mariner of what once used to be a sea
2 A tongue in cheek reference to another famous singer from ex-Yugoslavia who happens to be rather handsome and good looking as it were).

source : Wikipedia

Translation support angloland