Abstract

As one of the projects of the Soviet cultural revolution, the Gypsy project was notable for its unusual success in creating a new literary language and active book publishing. Among its achievements are both original fiction, textbooks and manuals in various fields of knowledge and technics. For instance, the elementary school was almost fully provided with necessary books in Romani. It is noteworthy that Roma women played an active role in the creation of new literature and proved to be not only translators, but also authors of original works in several genres. As the most hardworking author, N. Pankovo, who was distinguished by incredible productivity, should be noted. This project was regularly supported by the state, which allowed the distribution of books at reasonable prices. This project was stopped in 1938, which overwhelmed the narrow group of writers and activists, though it did not lead to fatal personal repressions against them.

Highlights

  • The 1917 October Revolution in Russia proclaimed a series of slogans, such as ‘The land to the peasants’ and ‘The factories to the workers,’ for example

  • Sometimes Romani books published in the prewar USSR, before 1938, were first of all accessed as a simple, but hardly effective tool of communist propaganda (Demeter, Bessonov, & Kutenkov, 2000, pp. 206–207)

  • This cultural project must be considered as a part of the Soviet Cultural Revolution, aimed especially at the development of one so-called ‘culturally backward’ small nation

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Summary

Introduction

The 1917 October Revolution in Russia proclaimed a series of slogans, such as ‘The land to the peasants’ and ‘The factories to the workers,’ for example. Several important aspects of the history and results of the Soviet Roma cultural project have already been carefully observed and thoroughly studied This saves us from repeating the well-known provisions and allows us to move on to the details of the organization of the publishing process. Maxim Sergievskiy finished a fundamental article where the newly born Romani literature was shown to be a very product of the Soviet government’s national and cultural policy and the project was worth to be saved and developed: Gypsy fiction literature is, in the true sense of the word, the brainchild of the Great October socialist revolution: it exists only in the USSR, where Gypsies in 1926 got their own alphabet for writing, for the first time in the world, whereas they are remaining to this day without it in all other countries of the world. Ariste (1904–1990) has resumed only in 1958 (see Smirnova-Seslavinskaya, 2012, p. 194)

Romani Books and Unprecedented Interest in Romani Culture at That Time
Why the Books are More Important than Other Evidences of the Gypsy Project
Archive Sources
Choice of the Basic Dialect as a Political Decision
Why is the Border between Original and Translated Books not Fully Clear?
The Collective Authorship as a Socialist Ideal
The Path to Romani Literature
Publication of Romani Books by Year
The State Support of Romani Books
The Gender Balance in the Romani Literature and the Language Building Project
Sources of Frustration
The First Steps and Challenges
The Afterlife of the Closed Project
Findings
Conclusion
Full Text
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