Rosna Livada - Balkan Slavic Song feat. July Vitraniuk

Arrangement and video by Farya Faraji, vocals by July Vitraniuk. Many thanks to Christophe Chapleau and Barbara for heping out with the video. This is a song present in at least three of the Balkan's Slavic-speaking cultures: Serbs, Bosnians and Croats. The lyrics used here are from the Bosnian and Serbian versions. There are multiple versions of the song with different lyrics, even time signatures, but they tend to share lyrical similarities about a dewy meadow, and a girl stringing pearls in it. The Bosnian version of the lyrics I decided to use makes reference to tyrants who "took the girl's beloved," and given the historical and cultural context of this phrase and song, the interpretation many have is that it is an implicit reference to the Ottomans; representing the suffering felt by natives of the Balkans at the hand of imperial domination under said empire. Musically, I wanted this rendition to reflect native, historical Balkanic musical practices from before its more modern u