About Hanka Paldum

Hanka Paldum (born 1956 in Čajniče, Bosnia and Herzegovina) is one of the most influential Bosnian folk and sevdalinka singers. She began singing as a child in school choirs and cultural-artistic societies in Sarajevo. Her professional career started at age 18 after passing an audition at Radio Sarajevo, where she recorded her first sevdalinkas. Her early hits included Pokraj puta rodila jabuka, Zelene oči, and Ja te pjesmom zovem. In 1979, she co-founded the record label Sarajevo Disk and soon achieved major success with songs like Voljela sam, voljela, Crne kose, and albums such as Čežnja and Sanjam, the latter selling over 1.5 million copies. Throughout the 1980s, she released numerous successful albums and won several music festivals. During the Bosnian War, she remained in besieged Sarajevo, where she became a symbol of peace by publicly singing lines calling for unity among ethnic groups. After the war, she continued performing, recording popular albums (Džanum, S kim si takav si, Žena kao žena) and held major concerts, including in Sarajevo’s Zetra and Zagreb’s Lisinski Hall. Hanka Paldum is celebrated as a leading voice of sevdalinka and a key figure in Bosnian music and culture.