The Scandinavian ‘Gypsy friend’

Abstract

ABSTRACT In this article we examine how a particular ‘Gypsy friend’ persona was adopted and developed by two pioneering pre-war Gypsylorists, the Finn Arthur Thesleff (1861–1920) and the Dane Johan Miskow (1862–1937). The ‘Gypsy friend’ persona, we argue, was a compound of the fearless explorer, the missionary’s selfless paternalism, the disinterested, questing scientist and the eccentric anti-bourgeois bohemian. After looking at how this masculine persona was expressed in earlier scholarship, not least the influential Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, we turn to Thesleff and Miskow to see how they adopted, applied and revised the trope, with attention, finally, to its implications for inter- and postwar treatment of Scandinavian Roma.