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              Return to Table of Contents Contemporary Bosnian musical culture is an amalgam of historical influences going back two millennia. There is music that stems from the Illyrians, the indigenous inhabitants of the western Balkans; the musical heritage of the Slavic people that migrated into the Balkans from the northeast in the fifth century AD; strong influences from the Middle East brought by the Ottomans, who governed Bosnia for 500 years; and Western music from Europe and America that has had an influence in Bosnia for the past 150 years.
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PUBLICATIONS | VOICES | BACK ISSUES | FOLKLORE IN ARCHIVES | FOLK ARTISTS SELF-MGT | ORDER PUBLICATIONS | SEARCH  If you happen upon a Bosnian community event, you’re likely to notice the aroma of grilling lamb or spiced sausage and hear the quavering voice of an impassioned singer accompanied by a small combo—typically a musician playing an Middle Eastern–sounding melody on an elaborate Korg synthesizer and a drummer tapping on a drum kit. There will probably be a line or circle of dancers— mostly women—with hands linked, backs straight, and shoulders erect while their feet perform intricate steps in unison.
The Bosnians as a culture group are relative newcomers to New York. They were driven from their homes in southeastern Europe in the brutal war that followed the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990s. Many of the Bosnian refugees found a new home in the United States. Some Bosnian refugee communities are located in large metropolitan areas like Saint Louis or Chicago, but even more have settled in smaller cities like Boise, Idaho; Des Moines and Waterloo, Iowa; Salt Lake City; and in New York, Utica, Syracuse, and Rochester. Few Americans knew much about Bosnian culture and history—in fact, many had never even heard of the country—until the war there propelled it into the international news headlines from 1992 to 1995. The country’s correct full name is Bosnia-Herzegovina, since its present borders encompass the territory of those two historical lands. There is no official internal boundary separating Bosnia from Herzegovina. For convenience, I’ll use “Bosnia” to refer to the entire county—no offense intended to Herzegovina, the smaller part with the longer name. Nearly everyone in Bosnia speaks a variant of a South Slavic language that may be called Bosnian, Croatian, or Serbian, depending upon the community. In Yugoslavia, the language was usually called Serbo-Croatian, and that designation is still often used in the United States. Bosnia is a multicultural country: Bosnian Muslims, Serbians, Croatians, Sephardic Jews, and Romany are the main ethnicities. As in much of former Yugoslavia, religion and nationality in Bosnia are intermingled. The largest religious/national group is Bosnian Muslims, most of whom follow a very liberal version of Sunni Islam. The next largest population group in Bosnia is Eastern Orthodox Serbians, followed by Roman Catholic Croatians. Among Bosnian Muslims, the Islamic prohibition on drinking alcohol is not widely observed. The majority of Muslim women wear Western clothes and do not cover their heads. Atheism was encouraged during the half century of socialist Yugoslavia, so many Bosnian Muslims are actually atheists. There are also atheist Serbians, Croatians, and Jews. Much of the culture—those grilled meats, the circle dances, the singing style—is shared among all Bosnians, although there are details of the folk traditions and distinctive folk costumes that are specific to the particular religious/national groups.
Bosnia lies on the route between Central Europe and the Middle East. Middle Eastern influences entered Bosnia even before the Ottoman Turkish conquest in the fifteenth century. Around the tenth century, a one-string bowed lute called the gusle spread to the Balkans, where it was exclusively used to accompany epic singing. Epic singers recount tales of historic battles and make up new heroic songs about recent conflicts—even about modern-day heroics in soccer tournaments. Because the songs usually portray conflicts between the ethnic groups, they typically provoke heated exchanges: www.youtube.com/watch?v=XA9CR5gpCwA&NR The mid-Eastern culture brought by the Turks has proven to be a decisive influence shaping Bosnian culture. In Bosnian instrumental music, the most widespread instrument is the family of long-necked Turkish lutes with a pear-shaped body: the largest is the saz, and other variants are the sargija and baglama. The classic Turkish style of playing and singing to the saz was adopted in Bosnia, with singing in the local Slavic language replacing Turkish. Selim Salihovic, a saz player from Sarajevo, accompanies singer Emina Zecaj, one of the most noted singers of the older type of sevdalinka, urban Muslim songs: www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LJVyc7MEZQ Another singer, Rajko Simeunovic accompanies himself on saz: www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcsAIw8HQ-E The sargija is a smaller, often more crudely fashioned village version of the saz. The sargija, often as a duo with a violin, became the favored accompaniment for a genre of village singing that shares much of the harmonic basis of the gange. This is an instrumental piece by a violin and sargija duo: www.youtube.com/watch?v=TyfqVV13KS8
This video features violin and sargija, with singing and a kolo circle dance: www.youtube.com/watch?v=BhSYYUNe8LM In the twentieth century, Western instruments became more frequent to accompany sevdalinka. A clip from a 1960s film about the assassination in Sarajevo that set off World War I depicts a 1914-style sevdalinka group with guitar, violin, contrabass, and tambura: www.youtube.com/watch?v=p6Nmfbi5HN4 Over the next few decades, other Western instruments, such as the accordion, clarinet, and drum sets, were adopted by sevdalinka musicians. Most recently, the synthesizer has often been added to sevdalinka groups. The synthesizer has even replaced the sargija in some village ensembles. The most up-to-date sevdalinka singers have instrumentation akin to contemporary rock bands, as in this performance by Hanka Paldum: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hGT68c886oo
“An Internet Tour of Bosnian Music by Rick March was published in Voices Vol. 34, Spring-Summer 2008. Voices is the membership magazine of the New York Folklore Society. To become a subscriber, join the New York Folklore Society now. HOME | ABOUT NYFS | PROGRAMS & SERVICES | MUSIC | PUBLICATIONS | RESOURCES | CALENDAR | WHAT’S FOLKLORE? | MEMBERSHIP | GALLERY | SHOP |
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