ZAIM IMAMOVIĆ

Zaim Imamović, one of the most popular performers and singers of sevdalinka in the second half of the 20th century, was born in 1920, in Mrkonjić Grad, which was called Varcar Vakuf at the time. In the young age, as the youngest child in the family (he had an older brother and an older sister), he moved to Travnik with his family, where he completed the State Public School in 1935. Spiritual breath which was offered by Travnik, as a town of learned people and a center the role of which could not die overnight, suited Zaim's soul and love for songs. His sister Đula, two years older than Zaim, was the first to listen to song of old people from Travnik, absorbed with love and then sang. Zaim enthusiastically accepted this kind of songs and began to sing them himself, without realizing that he would develop into a legend about 30 years later.

He could also adopt love for singing and inclination toward the center of cultural life of the time – traditional Bosnian coffees – from his father Derviš Imamović. Still, Zaim Imamović would achieve the full swing in his singing career in Sarajevo, which was to experience unfortunate events of the Second World War very shortly upon the move of the Imamović family to this city, in the second half of 1930s. He got the opportunity to learn from established champions, such was Rešad Bešlagić at the time. He then purchased his first accordion and painstakingly learned and honed his talent.

He was a friend of Ibro Aščerić, later on of young Šerbo, and it was in Sarajevo where he first met academician Cvjetko Rihtman, who was significant for institutional understanding of what Zaim masterfully performed. In the late 1930s, Cvjetko Rihtman was a choirmaster of Gajret, and generally the main authority of musical life in Sarajevo. He recorded Đula and Zaim for the archives of studies in folklore within the National Museum, which later spawned the Academy of Music of University of Sarajevo. He made many recordings, and Đula also sang for Gerhard Gezeman.

Zaim achieved full popularity upon coming to Radio Sarajevo. At the moment when his voice appeared before public at large and when thousands of people could listen to songs with which they grew up, which they could identify themselves with, Zaim became a legend. Arrival of the first transistor radios slowly changed cultural life of villages as well. Industrialization changed style of living and habits, and mass employment in factories, arrival in cities, a shift away from monotonous daily life which was interrupted with a sporadic cultural event in villages now increasingly merged with the dynamic culture of the city, and Zaim, together with several of his colleagues form the radio, were this decisive spiritual link. From its urban cradle, sevdalinka was for the first time widely accepted in rural environments as well. Certainly, it was mostly due to Zaim's voice and his unique performance of the traditional folk song.

Another thing about the phenomenon of the folk: the song always had its author, it must have had – for an oral song we say that its author was a folk team, though it is only because of the unusual modesty of the person who first launched it into the world. Perhaps it was also because of insecurity and timidity about whether it would be accepted. Once, when people have accepted it and the blade of the critique of the time ensures its permanence, it is no longer important whose it is – it already belongs to the culture of a people, of a microcosm, and nobody should prevent it from belonging to the culture of the world – macrocosm, polycosm.

Zaim was exactly such a personality. Quietly, graciously, modestly, with much refined scruple, he approached the phenomenon of spiritual literacy of his people – and presented them in the same way – with respect and caution which astonished the world. Sevdalinka deserved a Zaim, same as Zaim is credited for spreading its glory and knowledge about it through the new and ebullient time of the 20th century in which he lived.

However, the new challenges for the oral literary lyrical creations, appearance of radio, was also a challenging time for its further development and survival. Sevdalinka opened itself for the second, and perhaps for the third time during its centuries-long existence. This time, in the 1970s, people asked for a hit. The traditional song could not offer it, but it served perfectly as a backbone for songs and tunes which would later on be labelled as “newly-composed folk music” by theoreticians of literature and music. With his talent, Ziam perfectly fitted in into the so transformed life of a long. Long tradition. He simply knew what he was doing and was original in it. Still, the tradition of singing sevdah accompanied by the saz was mostly revived with saz-player MuhamedaMešanović-Hamića in the 1970s, who received a big and significant support of the already well-established entertainer Zaim Imamović. Finally, one could claim with certainty that Zaim masterfully balanced tradition and modernity in the case of perception and development of folk songs of Bosnia and Herzegovina. It is due to this ability that he was a proven authority in his branch.

References

• Imamović, Damir (2016), Sevdah, Vrijeme, Zenica.

• Kalamujić, Lejla (2018), Zaim Imamović. život jednog sevdalije, UG FOTON, Sarajevo.

• Tahirbegović, Farah and Imamović, Damir (2004), Zaim Imamović, Pjesma srca moga. 100 najljepših pjesama, Buybook. Edicija baština, Sarajevo.