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public performance she rose the bar high- er and constantly changed and advanced, which couldn’t help but be noticed. Every newmulti-storeybuildingintheformercoun- try was named after her at that time, while she is also the only living singer to actual- ly have a street named after her while she was still alive, in the village of Donja Rača near Kragujevac. She participated in Jugo- vision – the national competition to select an entrant for the Eurovision Song Contest – and sang in the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Sarajevo. Equally loved in all six republics and two provinces of the former Yugoslavia, while in Mostar the au- dience chanted to her“We are Brena’s, Bre- na is ours”. AfterTito,herlikenessbecamethemost powerful embodiment of the idea ofYugo- slavandacarefreelife.Whenshecircledina cranearoundthehighestlevelsofastadium inTimisoarathataccommodated30,000peo- ple singing the lyrics“Long liveYugoslavia”, shift in its production facility. Nor had any previoussingerbeendiscussedatasession oftheCentralCommitteeoftheCommunist party of Serbia. Brena’s popularity was dis- cussedin1983primarilybecauseofthefear thatherovernightpopularitythreatenedthe treatmentofreportsontheworkofthepar- tyandfunctionariesinpublicmediaoutlets, in terms of both allocated space and time . Brenawasthefirstamongall“folksing- ers” to perform at Belgrade’s Sava Centre, andshedidsofor17consecutiveevenings, whileshebecametheabsoluteworldrecord holder for the number of consecutive con- certsafterperforming31concertsinthehall ofBelgrade’sTradeUnionHouse–breaking YvesMontand’srecordof30consecutiveap- pearances at the Paris Olympia. No one prior toher hadbeen so in-de- mandandsopresent inthemedia.Shewas invitedeverywhereandbyeveryone–topor- trayherselfinthefilmTesnakoža(TightSkin), toopenfactories,toadvertisenewproducts, toattendfairs,toconversewithpoliticians... Nobody intheentertainmentworldof Yugoslaviahadpreviouslymadesuchsmart businessmoves.Thankstothe ideasandvi- sion of her thenmanager Raka Đokić, with every successive concert, music video and Na vrhuncu popularnosti Brena se udala za proslavljenog tenisera Slobodana Bobu Živojinović At the peak of her popularity, Brena married celebrated tennis player Slobodan ‘Boba’ Živojinović

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