Singer/songwriter popular across former Yugoslavia dies

Djordje Balasevic, a native of the northern Serbian city of Novi Sad and a proud son of the flatlands of the Vojvodina province died at the age of 67 of pneumonia after contracting COVID-19. He died at the Vojvodina Clinical Center where he was admitted just two days earlier after being treated at home. The Vojvodina public broadcaster RTV reported that his condition deteriorated on Friday because of chronic health problems. Balasevic had heart problems and underwent surgery two years before he died.

Local sources in Novi Sad said that the entire city was in mourning with people lighting candles and laying flowers in front of his family home and gathering at the central Liberty Square to sing his songs and light candles. The state TV (RTS) broadcast one of the shows he recorded for that station in 2001 even though his music was not aired on that station for years allegedly because of his criticism of the authorities. The Croatian public broadcaster HRT aired a recording of his 2001 humanitarian concert in the city of Pula. A sign in Cyrillic script was laid on the pavement in central Zagreb and candles were lit by fans. In Sarajevo, candles were lit in one of the central squares of the city.

Balasevic wrote his own songs and performed with a virtually unchanged band for decades. He fell out of favor with the Milosevic regime early in the 1990s and turned to organizing concerts outside the country in cities with large numbers of refugees from the former Yugoslavia, the only exception were New Year concerts in Belgrade’s Sava Center. He released a total of 12 albums in a career which started in the 1970s with the group Zetva and turned into a solo career in the early 1980s.