Her life was cut short when she died in a car crash at the age of 37, but she continues to be well regarded in the region and she is recognized for her unique singing style and voice.

Armenulić's song "Šta će mi život" (What Do I Need a Life for), written by her friend and contemporary Toma Zdravković, is one of the best-selling singles from the former Yugoslavia.

Born Zilha Bajraktarević[4][5][6][7] in Doboj, Kingdom of Yugoslavia, she was the third of thirteen children in a Muslim and ethnically Bosniak family.

[8] Her father was Mehmed Bajraktarević (1909–1966), owner of a local cake shop called Jagoda (Strawberry), and her mother was Hajrija (1916–2008).

Some of her earliest memories were of her father's absence and the World War II, when mother Hajrija and the children hid in the basement from the Ustasha troops.

The family of thirteen children included Zilha's sisters Mirsada, Hajrudina, Abida, and Ševka, and brothers Hajrudin, Muhamed, Izudin, Abudin, and Ismet.

By the time she reached the eighth grade, all interest in school had been lost and she had made a name for herself locally as prominent kafana singer.

[citation needed] Zilha met her husband, tennis player Radmilo Armenulić, in 1959 when she was singing at the Grand Casino in Belgrade.

[18] After her marriage ended, many men vied for her affection, including politicians Stane Dolanc and Branko Pešić.

[20] Zilha moved to Sarajevo at the age of sixteen in 1954, where she lived with her aunt and sang in local kafanas for money.

[22][23] On a cold night in Leskovac in spring 1958, Zilha was taking walk through a park before a performance at the garden of a restaurant called Hisar in a hotel, when she saw a young man sleeping on a bench.

[24][25] When she heard Toma sing, she was amazed, according to Za društvo u ćošku, written by Aleksandar Gajović, a journalist and cultural worker.

When she was a young girl, her friends would jokingly call her Silvana after watching the film Bitter Rice (1949), because she resembled the actress.

Silvana recorded duet albums with singers Petar Tanasijević, Aleksandar Trandafilović, Slavko Perović and Dragan Živković in the 1960s.

The song became one of the biggest folk hits ever written in Yugoslavia, sold over 300,000 copies, and transformed Zdravković and Silvana herself into superstars.

[31] In a March 1971 interview with the newspaper Novosti, Silvana did not hide the fact that the same rejection and criticism that she faced at the start of her career, continued well into her successful days.

[33][34] Throughout the 1970s and leading up to her death in 1976, she had several hit songs: "Rane moje" (My Wounds), "Ciganine, sviraj sviraj" (Gypsy, Play Play), "Srce gori, jer te voli" (My Heart Burns, For It Loves You), "Grli me, ljubi me" (Hug Me, Kiss Me), "Ja nemam prava nikoga da volim" (I Have No Right to Love Anyone), "Srećo moja" (Happiness of Mine), "Kišo, kišo tiho padaj" (Rain, Rain, Fall Quietly) and "Život teče" (Life Flows).

During a radio interview in Sarajevo in 1973, she stated that she was a fan of fellow sevdalinka singer Safet Isović and called him a "darling.

In early August 1976, just two months before her death, she was on tour in Bulgaria and decided to seize the opportunity to meet with mystic Baba Vanga.

[37] Armenulić and her younger sister Mirsada Bajraktarević were at the opening of restaurant called "Lenin Bar" on 9 October 1976, the day before their deaths.

On Sunday, 10 October 1976, at around 9:15 pm CEST, Armenulić died in a car crash near the Serbian village of Kolari in Smederevo along with her 25-year-old pregnant sister Mirsada and violinist/Radio Belgrade folk orchestra conductor Miodrag "Rade" Jašarević.

[38] Their car was reportedly traveling 130 km/h, when it veered into oncoming traffic lanes at the 60th kilometer of the Belgrade—Niš highway, colliding head-on with a FAP truck driven by 52-year-old Rastko Grujić.

Between 30,000 and 50,000 people attended their funeral, including singers Lepa Lukić and Hašim Kučuk Hoki (who himself died in a near-identical car crash on 26 November 2002).

[44] In 2013, Lepa revealed in an interview that she hasn't driven a car since the sisters' deaths, out of fear that she would share their fate.

[45][46] During the war in Bosnia of the 1990s, Armenulić's mother Hajrija and sister Dina fled their home in Doboj to Denmark.

She said that Armenulić bought the apartment after she divorced Radmilo and planned on living there with her daughter Gordana, but shortly thereafter lost her life.

Radmilo commented to the press, that he was still legally married to Armenulić up until her death and alleged that the apartment was left to their daughter Gordana.

Five years after their mother's death, Silvana's oldest sister Ševka died on 30 September 2013 in Trebinje at the age of 79, leaving Dina the last living of the female Bajraktarević children.

[citation needed] On 10 October 2011, the 35th anniversary of her death, Exploziv, a show on Serbian television channel Prva Srpska Televizija, included a ten-minute segment in which they interviewed some of Armenulić's surviving friends and her daughter, Gordana.

[49] Serb writer Dragan Marković released a biography about her life entitled Knjiga o Silvani (Book About Silvana) on 9 December 2011.