- Born
- Birth nameSvetlana Velickovic
- Nicknames
- Serbia's Madonna
- Ceca
- Height5′ 8″ (1.73 m)
- Svetlana Raznatovic known by her stage name Ceca is a Serbian turbo folk singer, and one of the most popular singers in Serbia and the Balkans. She started her career as a folk singer in 1988. Being one of the highest paid artists in the Serbian music industry, she pursues Serbian modern folk-pop: performing to various types of music, mainly Balkan/Southern European folk or plain pop with ethnographic elements. Due to her enormous popularity, fans sometimes refer to her as the Mother of Serbia.
Ceca was born Svetlana Velickovic in the village of Zitoradja, then part of Yugoslavia. She lived with her parents, father Slobodan and mother Mira, until 1991, when she eloped to Switzerland with her boyfriend at the age of 18. She has a sister named Lidija.
Svetlana lived at home until her move to Switzerland in 1991 at the age of eighteen. She dated Dejan "Saban" Marjanovic, a minor Belgrade gangster, who was murdered. She was then in a relationship with former "FK Borac" footballer and restaurateur Haro Samardzic.
While performing for the Serb Volunteer Guard (SDG), a paramilitary force also known as Arkan's Tigers, in Erdut on 11 October 1993 during the Croatian War, she met her husband, Zeljko "Arkan" Raznatovic, a military commander who in addition to leading the said paramilitary force was one of the most influential criminal in the 1990s Belgrade. When the Party of Serbian Unity (SSJ) was formed, she was asked by Arkan to perform. He was married at the time, and the divorce that ended that marriage was finalized two months before their wedding. Arkan proposed to Ceca on 7 January 1995 and they married one month later on 19 February. Their wedding was broadcast on television, made headlines in newspapers, and was portrayed by Serbian media as a "Serbian fairytale." They had two children, a son Veljko in 1996 and daughter Anastasija in 1998. Ceca's parents, Mira and Slobodan were against the marriage of their daughter to a paramilitary member."
Arkan was shot on 15 January 2000 in a Belgrade hotel by four gunmen. Despite having been shot in the head, he remained alive for a brief period of time but died in Ceca's arms in the backseat of the car that was taking them to the emergency room. After fifteen months of mourning, she made her first public appearance in April 2001 in a television interview.
Reformist Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic was assassinated on 12 March 2003, prompting Serbian authorities to launch Operation Sablja. Ceca's luxury Belgrade home was raided as part of the crackdown on the network of criminals and nationalists behind the assassination. The raid led to a thorough investigation. She was arrested on 17 March 2003 and charged with illegal possession of multiple firearms. Ceca was one of dozens of people detained in the crackdown and she spent three months in prison. She also claimed the firearms were brought to the house by her late husband.
In 2011, Raznatovic pleaded guilty to embezzling millions of euros from the transfers of players from the football club FK Obilic, which she inherited from her late husband, and again illegal possession of eleven weapons. Ceca had sold fifteen players of FK Obilic to several international football clubs (such as Fenerbahçe.) Serbian state prosecutors accused her of taking for personal use an illegal share in the sale of fifteen players. Ceca denied having been involved in any kind of illegal activities, saying that her late husband was responsible for FK Obilic and that the eleven illegally possessed weapons found in her home also belonged to him. Under a plea bargain, Raznatovic was ordered to spend eight months under house arrest, avoiding the maximum sentence that the charges against her carry 12 years in prison.- IMDb Mini Biography By: Jovana
- SpouseZeljko Raznatovic(February 19, 1995 - January 15, 2000) (his death, 2 children)
- ChildrenVeljko Raznatovic
- ParentsSlobodan VelickovicMira Velickovic
- RelativesKrstan Raznatovic(Grandchild)Zeljko Raznatovic(Grandchild)Lidija Ocokoljic(Sibling)Zeljko Raznatovic(Grandchild)Helena Ocokoljic(Niece or Nephew)Viktor Ocokoljic(Niece or Nephew)
- At the age of 17, Ceca was cast in the role of Kostana, a beautiful gypsy singer and dancer, in Stojan Stojcic's directorial effort of Necista krv (Impure Blood), a movie based on the works of Serbian playwright and novelist Borisav Stankovic. Even though she had acted alongside actors such as Rade Serbedzija, Ljuba Tadic, she felt that her role was unimportant and therefore asked for her scenes to be removed because of "low quality." The troubled production took years to complete and received poor critical reception upon its release in 1996.
- She continued to work with Marina Tucakovic, Edin Dervishalidovic and later with their young protege Aleksandar Milic Mili, with whom she continues to work today. Her next three albums, Sta je to u tvojim venama (What Is In Your Veins?, 1993), Ja jos spavam u tvojoj majici (I Still Sleep In Your Shirt, 1994) and Fatalna ljubav (Fatal Love, 1995), broadened her popularity and included hit songs such as "Nije monotonija" (It Is Not Monotony) and two covers of hit Hanka Paldum songs: "Trazio si sve" (You Wanted Everything) and "Volela sam volela" (I Loved, I Loved.) With a more modern production of music, music videos, and an evolving style, her popularity grew, as demonstrated by her 1996 album Emotivna luda (Emotionally Crazy) and 1997's Maskarada (Masquerade). The song "Nevaljala" (Naughty) from Maskarada became the number one hit in Serbia for seventeen consecutive weeks. Her recording schedule became erratic because of the birth of her two children, Veljko in 1996 and Anastasija in 1998, and having to deal with family tragedy.
- On the night of 17 March 2004, Ceca and Kristijan Golubovic (close associate of Arkan, her husband) gathered demonstrators in front of the government building in Belgrade to speak about the situation in Kosovo and the burning of more than 300 Serbian Orthodox churches in Kosovo.
- In June 2013, she held a concert in Belgrade in front of thousands of fans for her 40th birthday.
- Her first two albums, Cvetak zanovetak (1988) and Ludo srce (Crazy Heart, 1989) were made in the traditional Serbian folk music style with some songs, such as "Volim te" (I Love You), having a more modern production. Pustite me da ga vidim (Allow Me to See Him), she quickly became a very popular teenage star and idol for many people in Serbia. Her third album, was a major hit in the former Yugoslavia. Ceca became the best-selling artist of the Belgrade TV's record label PGP-RTB and third best-selling female folk artist in Yugoslavia, behind Lepa Brena and Dragana Mirkovic. She continued in the same direction with her next album, Babaroga (1991) which included a music video for the song "Hej vrsnjaci" (Hey Peers) composed of footage from her eighteenth birthday gala event.
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