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Lepa Brena

singer

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionAug 30, 2026
Entity authorityQ236943 ↗
Source-derived summary

Fahreta Živojinović (née Jahić; Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Фахрета Живојиновић, née Јахић; born 20 October 1960), known by her stage name Lepa Brena (Serbo-Croatian Cyrillic: Лепа Брена), is a Yugoslav singer, actress, and businesswoman. With around 40 million sold records, she is regarded as the most commercially successful recording artist from the former Yugoslavia. Brena is also often credited with creating the turbo-folk genre with her first two albums Čačak, Čačak (1982) and Mile voli disko (1982).

Lepa Brena grew up in Brčko, Bosnia and Herzegovina, but has lived in Belgrade, Serbia since 1980, where she started her career. Lepa Brena is considered to be a symbol of the former Yugoslavia, due to the fact that she was one of the last popular acts to emerge before the breakup of the country. She has described herself as being "Yugo-nostalgic". Along with her husband, Slobodan Živojinović and friend, Saša Popović, Brena co-founded and co-owned Grand Production, the biggest record label and production company in the Balkans. In 2019, they decided to sell Grand Production for €30 million.

Early life

Born into a Bosniak family in the outskirts of Tuzla, PR Bosnia and Herzegovina, she grew up in Brčko as the youngest child of Abid Jahić (c. 1928 – 22 October 2010) and Ifeta (née Smajlović; 15 April 1934 – 21 November 2014) alongside her sister Faketa and brother Faruk. Both of her parents are originally from villages near Srebrenik; her father was born in Ježinac and her maternal family hailed from Ćehaje.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Lepa Brena” as singer. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Lepa, Brena and singer.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1960, 1982, 1980, 2019—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1960-10-20. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Lepa, Brena and singer providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Lepa Brena”, the useful work is to connect “singer” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Aug 30, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q236943. VIAF identifies the subject as 5467152684022623430002. 2 of 2 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1960, 1982, 1980 and 2019.

Critical limits

A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Lepa Brena”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Lepa Brena primary sources, Lepa Brena archive and Lepa research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Lepa Brena”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Lepa Brena” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.