Romany Studies

This paper discusses images of Romani music and musicians circulated over global new media networks. I argue that the web acts as a new social space for imaginary  Pan-Balkanism. The text tries to seek for the features of some musical events (idioms and practices) that are common in the Balkans in two ways: as an activity of professional musicians in the field of ethnic music, and as relationships of the audience and musicians to these practices and idioms. The research interest focuses on the participation of Romani musicians from the Balkans in the music and media industry. The research field is the recorded music that inhabits the realms of new media. Observations on the media landscape give us the outlines of the common- Balkan features ol Romani music in two aspects: as a Balkan musical idiom (musical styles, instruments and ensembles, musical imagery) and as musical practices through the image of Romani musicians from the Balkans.
Keywords: Media music; Ethno Jazz; Balkan Beat; Gypsy Punk; Remix

This paper discusses the ambivalences with which National Socialist authorities, especially courts, treated women and men who were classified with the racialising label of "Zigeunerin"/"Zigeuner". The analysis of cases from the district of Styria (parts of todays provinces of Styria and Burgenland) renders visible how the persecution of these people by regular courts for 'offences' such as "unauthorised change of workplace" or "unauthorised border crossing" shows no clearly distinguishable pattern, and can by no means be classified only as racist policy. For instance, codes such as "herumzigeunern" (to wander around, literally "to gypsy around") where only applied in these cases to stigmatise so called "asocials" who have been 'racially' classified as "indolent" or "workshy" 'Aryans'.
The routes into mass murder were multiple and complex, rather than linear and transparent. Although the National Socialist state had proclaimed racist ideology as its state doctrine, concrete policies especially on a local level where  neither identical nor homogeneous.

[coordonatori: Cătălina Farcaş şi Nicolae Dorobăţ], [Proiect Socrates. Comenius 2.1 realizat cu sprijinul Comisiei Europene]. [Conţine: Alfabetul limbii rromani; Ghid de conversaţie român – rrom în spaţiul şcolar, Fişă de evaluare; Cheia fişei de evaluare].

Romani camps are to be found all over Italy and host around 40,000 residents. They are known as ‘nomad camps’, implying that their inhabitants are vagrants who do not settle in one place. This article investigates how cultural concepts such as nomadism are employed in Italy to legitimise segregation policy. It also explores the role of space and place in the liaison between the Roma and the Italians. The focus, therefore, is not on the Roma themselves, but on how Italians interact with them and the degree to which Italian public policy and bureaucratic practice form, transform and manipulate their identity. By analysing the circularity of the relationship among stereotypes, labelling and policy, the paper deconstructs the so-called ‘problema zingari’ (‘Gypsy problem’). Finally, it stresses the central role played by the camps as loci of the ‘problem’, both in preserving and reinforcing the status quo and in providing a refuge for people with minimal social and legal rights.

The Gypsies and music Changes in the definition of the gypsy music and the gypsy musician in the past centuries
ABSTRACT The paper presents the changes in the concept of gypsy music and gypsy musicians in recent centuries. We can see what kind of genres are currently being played by Roma musicians.

Europe in the last two decades has gone through unprecedented political, social, and economic transformations. The restructuring of post-WWII welfare systems, the disintegration of Yugoslavia through a series of fratricidal wars, the rise of racist and nationalist movements, and the enlargement of NATO and of the EU to include former socialist countries after the end of the Cold War characterize this period. The new geopolitical order has affirmed a neo-liberal economic doctrine throughout Europe. A by-product of this phenomenon has been increasing marginalization of groups which do not ‘fit’ the new socio-economic regime. Amongst them are millions of Roma, for whom chronic unemployment and social exclusion have become the norm. As a response to their increasing social marginalization, human and minority rights discourses and regimes have emerged, consolidating alongside an embryonic Romani political movement.
This book sheds light on experiences of political participation of Romani citizens in both Eastern and Western Europe, thus contributing to a deeper understanding of the political space that Roma occupy in states within an enlarged EU. The contributors are leading activists, politicians, and scholars involved in critical debates and policy making vis-à-vis Romani citizens. The book analyzes key political experiences and debates salient for the European Union, as well as implications for other ethnic minorities in Europe. It also offers new perspectives on core issues and paradoxes surrounding Romani political participation and mobilisation at the EU, national, and local levels, including case studies from both Eastern and Western Europe.

Mikhail Kizilov. “Unichtozhenie tsygan Simferopolia i “reshenie” tsyganskogo voprosa v okkupirovannom Krymu: popytka pereosmysleniia problemy” [Destruction of the Roma of Simferopol and the “Solution” of the “Gypsy Question” in the Occupied Crimea: an Attempt to Rethink the Problem].” Istorichieskoe nasledie Kryma 32 (2021): 36-56.

Courthiade, Marcel; Grigore, Delia [Editori coordonatori:] 2016, Omagiu. Gheorghe Sarău. Profesorul Gheorghe Sarău: O viață dedicată limbii rromani. Volum colectiv la aniversarea a 60 de ani de viață. Professor Gheorghe Sarău: a Life Devoted to the Rromani Language. Collective Volume at his 60th Birthday. O siklǎrno Gheorghe Sarău: jekh ӡivipen dino e rromane ćhibǎqe. Khethanutno Lil k-ol 60 berśa  lesqe ӡivimasqe. Redactor: Lavinia Pencea. Redactor EUB: Alexandru Dan. Copertă și DTP: Laurențiu Mușoiu. București: Editura Universității din București, 2016, 508 p., ISBN: 978-606-16-0765-5 [Volum realizat în cadrul Departamentului de Hungarologie, Studii Iudaice și Rromani al Facultății de Limbi și Literaturi Străine - Universitatea din București. Referenți științifici: lect. dr. Ana Bărbulescu - Universitatea din București, lect. dr. Reka Maria Pupp - Universitatea din București, Pr. Dr. Marcel Courthiade - INALCO - D. Asie du Sud & D. Europe], [apărut: 21 decembrie 2016].

This is a book about the diversity and intensity of prejudices against Romani people in a liberal, progressive, democratic, enlarged Europe. This is a book about a European dilemma - how to reconcile the European creed of law, justice and freedom for all, with social and political practices that exclude, debase, degrade, Romani people.

This book proposes a critical reframing of understanding prejudice and racism in society: a shift from prejudice as antipathy to prejudice as harm inflicted by indignity. Although social psychology has perhaps the most respected and the most successful tradition of scientific analysis of social issues and social problems, the investigation of prejudices that stem from the societal transformation, diminution or denial of moral worth of human beings (and the various conditions and contexts that create and promote it) remains a marginal concern. Insights from dynamic and influential intellectual currents in social sciences can reinvigorate and reorient a renewed social psychology of racism. By opening intellectual dialogues with kindred fields social psychologists can create broader foundations for the exploration of the various, active, paradoxes lodged at the heart of the social expression of prejudice in liberal democracies.

The book contains the original text in Azeri and translations into Russian an Ukrainian with an introduction article and comments in Russian.

Bu ilk buraxılışda «Romlar digər ədəbiyyatlarda» seriyası oxucuların diqqerinə bizde az tanınmış hekayə azərbaycan yazıçısı Süleyman Sani Axundov teqdim ederik. Bu hekayə dərc 100 illiyi bu il gəlir.

В первом выпуске серии «Ромы в литературах других народов» вниманию читателей предлагаем малоизвестный у нас рассказ азербайджанского писателя Сулеймана Сани Ахундова «Чернушка», 100-летие опубликования которого приходится на этот год.

Resumen Reflexiones en torno a la identidad cultural de los gitanos de España enfocadas desde la sociolingüística y en relación a la autodefinición, el idioma, la identidad grupal y la convivencia intercultural. Abstract Reflections on the cultural identity of Spanish Gypsies focussed from the sociolinguistical field and in relation with selfdefinition, language, community identity and intercultural coexistence

The domineering scholarly point of view at present is that in the folklore of European Roma there is nothing that they could bring with them from their homeland – India. It is the common opinion that the ‘gypsies’ everywhere borrowed myths, fairy tales, legends and folk beliefs from the peoples in whose milieu they had to live.
This paper will demonstrate for the first time the Indian origin of several mythological motifs and of one specific folktale plot which were recorded from the Roma speaking a dialect of the Vlax group. Previously these materials were not studied on the background of Indian traditions because the source they had come from was undeservedly considered by many scholars to be spurious. It must be noted that most obvious and convincing parallels to these myths and folklore motifs are found not in the Sanskrit literature, but in the traditions of Indian tribes.

The problem of music and musicians' market has been a very important aspect of the functioning of Gypsy music in Bulgaria. It concerns both the folk and popular music that is performed by Gypsy professionals to serve the needs of different types of communities rural and urban, having ver- satile ethno-confessional profile (Bulgarians, Gypsies, Turks, Bulgarian Muslims, foreigners). The music

Статья содержит образцы речи, календарно-обрядовой поэзии, традиционные благопожелания и тосты на украинском и цыганском языке. В статье проанализированы традиционные праздничные блюда: кутья, взвар, пасха, вареники; обряды, направленные на обеспечение благополучия семьи; предсказания судьбы и др. Некоторые обряды и праздники впервые описываются в контексте цыганской культуры. В основу исследования легли полевые этнографические материалы, собранные в 2013-2020 гг. в Херсонской, Львовской, Одесской обл. Украины, Белгородской обл., Ставропольском и Краснодарском крае РФ.

Following the killing of three German officers in the vicinity of Leskovac, southern Serbia, in early December 1941, Leskovac’s town officials were asked by the occupying forces to select citizens for summarial retaliatory execution. The officials, loyal to Milan Nedić’s ‘Government of National Salvation’, recommended that the Germans round up people from the Arapova Dolina district of the town, an almost exclusively Roma neighbourhood. According to recent historical research, a total of 310 people were executed on a small field in the neighbourhood, at the foot of Hisar hill, which dominates the town’s landscape. These numbered 293 Roma, 6 Jews and 11 Serbs, some of whom were already being held captive by the occupiers and collaborators on suspicion of having committed other crimes.

In 1971, while designing the Monument to the Revolution, Serbian architect Bogdan Bogdanović (1922-2010) heard of this story. He decided to create a small memorial to commemorate those executed at Arapova Dolina. This monument consists of a central composition of 15 stone blocks, hewn from the local green limestone flanked by two inscribed stones, one of which dedicates the monument to 500 people executed at the site, amongst whom 320 were Roma. The monument is set within a commemorative garden, and includes a ceremonial pathway. The monument was opened on 11 December 1973, the 42nd anniversary of the execution.

While Bogdanović’s main monument in Leskovac is celebrated by the town and included in touristic ephemera, the monument at Arapova Dolina is rarely mentioned outside of occasional news articles detailing commemorations at the site in December each year. Furthermore, although the Monument to the Revolution was placed under Regional protection (Serbia’s second-highest level of monumental protection and recognition) in 1992, the monument at Arapovina Dolina was only afforded Municipal level protection (the lowest-level of protection offered for monuments within the country) in 1994. The mass execution at the site and, in particular, the method of selection of victims is considered by many to be a ‘major shame’ upon the town, and it is unlikely that the municipality would ever promote this memorial site to outsiders.

Today, although the monument itself is in a relatively good state of preservation, the gardens and commemorative pathway are overgrown (although there is evidence that it has been partially maintained by the local community through the type of plants evident), and the site is used to store recycled building materials by the local Roma community.

The lack of maintenance and use of the site as a storage area bring about an interesting question: Whose memorial is this? This paper will discuss who should be responsible for safeguarding the commemorative nature of the site, how this should be done, and why it is important to understand different uses of the site by the Roma community, to whom this monument is primarily dedicated.

Após 30 anos da Constituição brasileira, acumulam-se evidências de exceção ao princípio da igualdade de proteção jurídica a minorias e grupos vulneráveis, como a restrição a direitos a LGBT e imigrantes. Entretanto, há ainda um grupo mais esquecido pela Constituição e pelo direito brasileiro: o povo cigano. Esse texto pretende reconstruir historiograficamente a condição de estado de exceção atribuída ao povo cigano, reafirmando uma cultura de discriminação e vulnerabilidade. Desde um ponto de vista teórico pós-colonialista e crítico, o artigo pretende recontar parte dessa história cultural e jurídica que não encontra abrigo em propostas hegemônicas de igualdade e propriedade privada.

Reflecting on European colonialism in 1950 - at a time when discussions about what we now know as the European Union emerged in western Europe, Aimé Césaire wrote, . . . Europe is morally, spiritually indefensible. This idea is fairly commonplace in much of the post-colonial world and it has some purchase within certain academic and intellectual circles elsewhere. And yet, in the process of denouncing the widely noted presence of racism in Hungary, thirty-six leading Hungarian intellectuals have, in a recent public document, felt compelled to thank France, and through France, a generic, trans-historical notion of Europe, for what they saw as the latter's profound, longue-durée goodness. It is partly my concern for the economic hardship, political marginality, cultural discrimination, and social exclusion faced by the Romanies of eastern Europe and partly the precision with which the Letter articulates the topos of west European moral superiority - a central pattern of European identity discourse - that prompts me to raise the following initial questions: How is it possible to denounce racism by referring to Europe, especially western Europe, the main historic source and promoter of racism as we know it today? What purpose does the genre of the open letter serve and how does it function? How does the signatories' implicit project of geopolitical self-positioning relate to the theme of the West as an object to be emulated, long dominant in the modern history of east-central European ideas of emancipation?