THE FORGOTTEN DIVA OF THE BALKANS RETURNS TO THE STAGE

The City Theater "Semberija" premiered the play "The Singing and Silence of Sofka Nikolić" at the National Theater in Belgrade, as part of the "Days of Srpska in Serbia" event.

PHOTO: Info Bijeljina

The play, written by Milivoje Mlađenović and directed by Sonja Petrović, brought the story of Sofka Nikolić, a global star by the standards of her time, to the Belgrade audience.

Nikolić recorded 40 records in Paris and was the first female singer in Europe to win the "Golden Horseshoe" after selling 100,000 gramophone records.

She was compared to the famous opera singer of that era, Enrico Caruso. Her most famous songs include "Cojle Manojle," "Kolika je Jahorina planina," "Kad bi znala, dilber Stano," "Zone, mori Zone," and "Čuješ, seko."

Among the many prominent figures from Belgrade’s public life to whom she sang, it is recorded that Sofka was greatly admired and befriended by the world-renowned singer Josephine Baker.

After the death of her sixteen-year-old daughter Marica in 1939, at the peak of her fame, Sofka withdrew from the public eye and mostly stopped singing.

She spent her last years modestly and in solitude, living in Bijeljina and Belgrade.

Sofka died in 1982 in a nursing home in Banja Koviljača, and she was buried at the city cemetery Pučile in Bijeljina, in the crypt beside her daughter.

One of the streets in the wider center of Bijeljina is named after Sofka Nikolić.