Vukov was born in
Šibenik. In 1959, he achieved instant fame by winning the Opatija Music Festival in his singing debut, with the song "Mirno teku rijeke" (). During the 1960s, he was one of the most popular singers in
Yugoslavia, appearing at the
Eurovision Song Contest 1963 with the song "
Brodovi" () and at the
Eurovision Song Contest 1965 with the song "
Čežnja" (). In the aftermath of the 1971
Croatian Spring movement, he was branded a
Croatian nationalist by
Yugoslav authorities and had his apartment searched by the
police during the 1972 wave of arrests of Croatian Spring leaders. Vukov was touring Australia at the time. His wife warned him not to return to Yugoslavia to avoid arrest, so instead he went to
Paris where he lived with his parents-in-law, returning to Yugoslavia four years later in 1976. By that time, the authorities had lost interest in his case, but his singing career was effectively over; he was blacklisted, barred from performing publicly and all his records were pulled out of stores. In 1978, he graduated from the
University of Zagreb's
Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FFZG) majoring in
philosophy and
Italian. In 1989, an album of his new songs, albeit without his name on the cover, reappeared in Croatian music stores, signalling the political change. Later that same year, Vukov made a public comeback with a series of 14 sold-out concerts at the
Vatroslav Lisinski Concert Hall in
Zagreb. On 17 November 2005, while descending the stairs in the Parliament building, Vukov slipped and fell, sustaining a serious head injury. He was hospitalised and underwent surgery, but fell into a coma shortly afterwards. In March 2006, according to his doctors, he was in a
persistent vegetative state with no chance of recovery. However, in November 2007, Vukov was reported as being conscious at times, aware of his surroundings, and his condition was described as stable. He died in Zagreb in September 2008 aged 72. ==References==