Bosnia’s “Balkan Blues” earns UNESCO recognition

By Amel Emric and Daria Sito-Sucic

SARAJEVO (Reuters) – Every Friday, folk musician Enes Salman performs the Sevdalinka, an ancient form of love song from Bosnia and Herzegovina that this month was included in UNESCO’s National Inventory of Intangible Cultural Heritage.

Sevdalinka, often referred to as the Balkan Blues, is a melancholic urban love song dating back to the 16th century. It is a mix of South Slavic oral poetry and the music of the Ottoman Empire.

Salman is one of a few musicians who are keeping the old tradition alive.

“I have been playing and singing Sevdalinka since I was 14,” Salman said before a recent performance.

Sevdalinka, often performed a capella or accompanied by traditional instruments like a lute, has been carried from generation to generation through performances at family gatherings.

In recent years, novel interpretations of Sevdalinka by a few younger musicians have brought it to global audiences.

One of them is Damir Imamovic, whose father and grandfather were famous Sevdalinka bards. Imamovic won awards in 2020/2021 for the European best album by world music magazines Songlines and Transglobal.

Imamovic promotes Sevdalinka internationally through his SevdahLab project, which drummed up support for the song’s inclusion on the UNESCO’s World Heritage list.

“I realised how little the public knows about the Sevdalinka genre and wanted to reveal the story behind that music,” he said.

Zanin Berbic, 28, an ethno-musicologist who plays saz, a long-necked lute used in Ottoman classical music, says that Sevdalinka tells the story of Bosnia’s history.

“Most of my days I spend either singing or playing Sevdalinka songs or reading or talking about them,” said Berbic, who works as a custodian in the music department of Bosnia’s Regional Museum in Sarajevo.

“Sevdalinka is my life.”

(Reporting by Daria Sito-Sucic; Editing by Diane Craft)