Abstract
<p>From the beginning, academic research on Gypsies in Western Europe has presented their nomadic way of life as their most important and essential feature, a key pillar of their community identity. Measures for their sedentarisation were perceived as a shackle in a chain of persecutions, and the policy of sedentarisation conducted in the 1950s–1970s in Central, South-Eastern, and Eastern Europe has continuously been interpreted as an example of the crimes of the communist regimes against the human and cultural rights of Roma. What has been missing, however, in these interpretations is the stance on the issue of nomadism as expressed by the Roma themselves and, more specifically, by the Roma civic elite: namely, by the Roma activists who initiated the Roma civic emancipation and created the first Roma organizations in the regions. In recent years, a need to critically re-think the field of Romani Studies in order to take into account the viewpoint of the studied community comes in the foreground of academic and civil society discussions. Such re-consideration is unavoidable also in studying the field of Roma history. This article strives to fill this knowledge gap and to initiate a new discussion about the issue of the so-called Gypsy nomadism. The viewpoints on this issue, coming from the Roma civic elite itself, are presented primarily on the basis of historical evidence from the interwar period, but are not limited to its framework. Finally, later historical developments in the issue of Roma activists’ approach to Gypsy nomadism will also be outlined, including its contemporary dimensions.</p>
Highlights
Up until now, in the field of Roma history research, the main focus has been on the various policies pursued towards Roma/Gypsies, without showing their own attitudes towards these policies
A clear vision in the attitude of Roma activists towards the nomadic way of life of the Gypsies in the discourse of Roma civic emancipation emerges for the first time in Romania
As could be seen from the sources, the attitudes towards the nomadism of the Roma civic elite in CSEEE during the interwar period took different forms, oscillating between two poles. This was the de facto total disregard of the Roma nomads, and on the other, the repeated calls for the state to end their nomadic lifestyle and create conditions for sedentarisation. The latter was especially clear in Romania and the USSR where, in the interwar period, a policy of land re-distribution and programs for land allocation were conducted
Summary
In the field of Roma history research, the main focus has been on the various policies pursued towards Roma/Gypsies, without showing their own attitudes towards these policies. The purpose of the article is to present the Roma perspective on community issues (with the example of Gypsy nomadism), as perceived in the context of new civic nations, of which the Roma are a part Even though this perspective includes quite diverse and uneven discrete country-specific parts, it is subordinated to a common vision for the future of their community. At the end of 1919, a new electoral law was passed, which introduced a compulsory vote for all Bulgarian citizens, and in this way the settled Muslim Gypsies once again obtained their electoral rights; deprived from suffrage remained only persons without a permanent residence (i.e., Gypsy nomads) No voice in their support was raised after the changes in the Election Law, nor even later in the 1930s, when the organization Istikbal was transformed into the Common Mohammedan-Gypsy National Cultural-Educational and Mutual Aid Union. The attitude of the pioneers of the Roma civic emancipation in the Balkans concerning Gypsy nomads in the period up to WWII can be reduced to total ignorance (and only in some cases a firm distinction from them)
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