Still awaiting a victory, Bosnia & Herzegovina don't have that great a record at Eurovision.  I personally think their worst songs have done well and their better ones have done worse, but that's neither here nor there.  Their best result until last year (7th in 1999) was a far cry from their other string of really rather dire results, mostly in the low to mid teens.  In 2005 they had high hopes with their song by Feminnem, the only tribute to 50 years of Eurovision, but could unfortunately notch up just 14th place, finding themselves in the Semi-Final of 2006.  When there, they pulled out all the Balkan stops and entered beautiful ballad by Hari mata Hari, securing a strong 2nd place in the Semi and 3rd in the Final.  This is their best result to date and they automatically find themselves qualified for the 2007 Final.

 

 

19 year old Marija Sestic was the internal choice for Bosnia and Herzegovina to send to Eurovision with the song ‘Rijeka Bez Imena’.  The song’s a very ethnic sounding Balkan ballad – the lesser of two female ones in it this year (her main comparison being the much better Serbian entry).  The song sounds like something Bosnia & Herzegovina would have entered before the language rule was freed in 1999 and I must say I don’t find it overly impressive.  It’s pleasant, and Bosnia have enough neighbours to help this pick up points, but I just don’t see it making a huge impression – I don’t think it’s rousing our powerful and ends with a rather lame finish.  Not one of my faves this year, and I wouldn’t have high hopes.  It’s not terrible, but it’s nothing very special at all.

 

 

This is just so old and dull - and it doesn't really kick start the competition.  Having Spain come after them will kick start the competition, so I imagine this will be completely forgotten about come the voting and will solely be saved by friendly neighbours from the nul pointer.

 

 

No change, dull, boring and will only be supported by neighbours.

 

 

I have to be honest here: Bosnia and Herzegovina was never one of my favourite songs, and nor was it going to be, but on the night it was very easy to appreciate the beauty of the song, the beauty of the singer, and the beauty of the performance.  This was certainly one of the more appropriate stage performances of the evening and Marija sang particularly well.  Unfortunately, this simply wasn’t the best song to start with, which really hindered its chances, although, on the same token, if Bosnia and Herzegovina had have been performing alongside, or closer in any way to Serbia, they may have lost out on even more votes.  Despite not being a huge fan of the song, it was well performed and sung, and although the voting was extremely dirty, 11^th place was a respectable placing for this offering.  As for my prediction, I was rather far out considering I said that this would only pick up neighbourly votes.  Even though for the majority of their points this was the case, 11^th is a brave bit better than 17^th-19^th, so wrong again!