Women in the circle of the “royal” Kwiek family in the Second Polish Republic (1918–1939)

Abstract

The article looks at women who belonged to the Gypsy elite represented by the Kwiek family/clan (Kalderash group), a subject which has not been discussed in historical terms so far. Based on Polish press sources – those related to the activities of the surviving Kwiek family – the following issues are analyzed: the wives of the royal Kwieks are presented and information about their activities is provided. In the study, particular attention is paid to the most active woman – Julia Kwiek, the wife of Matejasz Kwiek, who, after the death of her husband, became the leader of Warsaw Gypsies and had aspirations to represent all Gypsies in the Second Polish Republic. The article also focuses on the attitude of men from the Kwiek family towards Romani women. The moral and cultural issues as well as the professional situation of the fortune tellers, herbalists, and folk healers in the Kwiek family/clan are discussed in the context of the anti-vagrancy and anti-beggar campaign initiated in the capital city in the early 1930s. The paper focuses primarily on the attitude of the Kwieks towards those challenges. The last issue raised in the study is the problem of active resistance of nomadic Romani women against attempts to be dominated by men in family relations. This was manifested by their escapes from camps or places where young girls were held or handed over to male individuals, against their will, based on well-established tradition. The main thesis of the article refers to the discernible attitudes of women in the Kwiek circle, who, through their activities and through their life choices, resisted the power of men and tried to break the strict dependence on cultural, religious, or customary norms of the Kwiek family, and more widely in nomadic or seminomadic groups.This article was published open access under a CC BY licence: https://creativecommons.org/licences/by/4.0.