Marija Šerifović
Who was Marija Šerifović?
Serbian pop singer who won the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 with the song 'Molitva', bringing the contest to Belgrade the following year. She is one of Serbia's most successful recording artists.
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Marija Šerifović (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Marija Šerifović, a Serbian pop singer, was born on November 14, 1984, in Kragujevac, central Serbia. She started her recording career at 14 in 1998, making a name for herself early on in the regional music scene. Throughout her career, she has released six studio albums and many singles, gaining recognition as one of Serbia’s top female pop vocalists. Her voice is well known for ballads, and she’s appreciated for the emotional depth and technical skill in her performances.
Šerifović attended the First Kragujevac Gymnasium for her secondary education and later studied at Megatrend University. During her academic years, she also worked hard on her music career, growing her audience in Serbia and the surrounding former Yugoslav regions. Her music incorporates pop and soul influences, and her live shows have earned her a loyal fan base that has stayed with her over the years.
A major milestone in Šerifović’s international career came in May 2007 when she represented Serbia at the Eurovision Song Contest in Helsinki, Finland. Singing the ballad 'Molitva' by Saša Milošević Mare and Vladimir Graić, she won the contest, marking Serbia's first Eurovision win as an independent country after separating from Montenegro. This win drew international attention to Serbian pop music and led to Serbia hosting the contest in Belgrade in 2008.
Šerifović was awarded the Artistic Marcel Bezençon Award at Eurovision 2007, recognizing her performance and the song as the most outstanding artistically. She has also received two MAC Awards, honoring musical achievements in the former Yugoslav countries. Besides recording and performing, she has impacted the Serbian music industry as a judge on the popular reality TV singing competition Zvezde Granda from 2015 to 2025.
Šerifović has kept a high profile in Serbia and is often mentioned as one of the country's most successful recording artists. Her career spans nearly 30 years, and she continues to play a key role in the regional pop music scene.
Before Fame
Marija Šerifović grew up in Kragujevac, the fourth-largest city in Serbia, known for its industrial and cultural past. She showed a talent for singing early on and recorded her first song in 1998 at the age of fourteen, stepping into a music industry that was changing as the political and social turmoil of the 1990s in the former Yugoslavia was gradually replaced by more stability and cultural openness in Serbia.
Her early years matched a time when Serbian pop music was making a comeback both at home and in the region. During her teenage years, Šerifović trained and performed while finishing her schooling at the First Kragujevac Gymnasium, after which she enrolled at Megatrend University. By the time she won the Serbian national selection for Eurovision in 2007, she had amassed nearly ten years of professional experience, which gave her the stage presence and vocal maturity that set her performance of 'Molitva' apart from many of her competitors.
Key Achievements
- Won the Eurovision Song Contest 2007 in Helsinki with the ballad 'Molitva', the first and to date only Eurovision victory for Serbia as an independent country
- Secured Serbia's right to host the Eurovision Song Contest 2008 in Belgrade as a result of the 2007 victory
- Received the Artistic Marcel Bezençon Award at Eurovision 2007 for outstanding artistic merit
- Released six studio albums across a recording career spanning more than two decades
- Served for ten years as a judge on the Serbian television singing competition Zvezde Granda, one of the most prominent music programmes in the region
Did You Know?
- 01.'Molitva', the song Šerifović performed at Eurovision 2007, is entirely in Serbian, making it one of the few Eurovision-winning entries performed entirely in a non-English language in the contest's modern era.
- 02.Serbia's Eurovision 2007 victory was historically notable because it was the country's very first year competing as an independent nation, having previously competed as part of Serbia and Montenegro.
- 03.Šerifović won the Artistic Marcel Bezençon Award at Eurovision 2007, a prize awarded by music journalists to the entry considered most artistically distinguished in that year's competition.
- 04.She served as a judge on Zvezde Granda, one of the most-watched singing competition programmes in Serbia and the region, for a continuous period of ten years from 2015 to 2025.
- 05.Šerifović made her recording debut in 1998 at the age of fourteen, meaning she had been a professional recording artist for nearly nine years before her Eurovision victory brought her to international attention.
Family & Personal Life
Awards & Honors
| Award | Year | Details |
|---|---|---|
| First prize of the Eurovision Song Contest | 2007 | — |