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The Development and Institutionalization of Romani Representation and Administration. Part 3a: From National Organizations to International Umbrellas (1945–1970)—Romani Mobilization at the National Level

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 November 2018

Ilona Klímová-Alexander
Ilona Klímová-Alexander*
Affiliation:
Tempe, Arizona, U.S.A. ilona@cantab.ne
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Extract

This article is the third in this Nationalities Papers series, following “Part 1: The Legacy of Early Institutionalism: From Gypsy Fiefs to Gypsy Kings,” which covered the period from the arrival of Gypsies to Europe until the mid-nineteenth century (Vol. 32, No. 3), and “Part 2: Beginnings of Modern Institutionalization,” describing the birth of the first modern forms of ethnically-based political and social organizations established by Romani elites from the nineteenth century up until the Second World War (WWII) (Vol. 33, No. 2). The article concentrates on developments between two significant landmarks in the history of Romani mobilization—the end of WWII in 1945 and the institutionalization of a permanent international Romani body in the form of a World Romani Congress, held for the first time in 1971. The time period covered in this article is distinguished from the previously covered periods by the emergence of the following phenomena: (1) modern Romani political organizations at the national level, (2) their unification through international Romani umbrella organizations, (3) some limited Romani participation in non-Romani mainstream political or administrative structures, (4) an international Romani evangelical movement, (5) reconciliation between Romani political representation and the Catholic Church, (6) national institutions created by various governments to aid the administration of policies on Roma, (7) rapid growth of non-governmental organizations addressing Romani issues, and (8) some limited cooperation between Romani organizations and intergovernmental organizations.

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Articles
Information
Nationalities Papers , Volume 34 , Issue 5 , November 2006 , pp. 599 - 621
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Copyright © 2006 Association for the Study of Nationalities 

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References

Notes

1. These phenomena are virtually new as they were virtually absent from the time periods covered in the previous two articles. Item 3 might have rarely occurred already pre-1945 but to my best knowledge its occurrence has not yet been publicized. Items 4 and 5 started only in the period in question. As for item 6, there was in fact one forerunner institution of this type in the inter-war period (see Part 3c). Item 7 is new in its unprecedented scope. As described in Part 2, there were some attempts by Romani leaders to bring about item 8 already in the inter-war period but in vain.Google Scholar

2. Jean-Pierre Liegeois, Gypsies: An Illustrated History (London: Al Saqi Books, 1986), p. 144. See also Andre P. Barthelemy, “Berufung und Sendung der Zigeuner in Welt und Kirche,” in Die Ziegeuner: Ihre Berufung und Mission (Rome: Pontifical Council for the Pastoral Care of Migrants and Itinerant People, 1989), p. 28.Google Scholar

3. For details, see Jean-Pierre Liegeois, Mutation tsiganes (Paris: PUF, 1976), Chapter 4; Walter Starkie, “The Gypsy Pilgrimage to Saint Sara (1951),” Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, Vol. XXXIII, Nos 1–2, 1954, p. 26.Google Scholar

4. Liegeois, Mutation tsiganes, pp. 149–150. He would, however, not mind such title and would find it amusing. Anne-Marie Gentily, “Un ‘Sionisme’ gitan: Conversation avec Vaida Voivode III,” La Terre Retrouvee, 15 September 1961.Google Scholar

5. In theory, this is a group of patrilineally related extended families. In practice, however, not all members of a particular vitsa are patrilineally related. Rena C. Gropper, “Urban Nomads—The Gypsies of New York City,” in Transactions of the New York Academy of Sciences, Series II (New York: New York Academy of Sciences, 1967), p. 1051.Google Scholar

6. Ian Hancock, “The East European Roots of Romani Nationalism,” Nationalities Papers, Vol. XIX, No. 3, 1991, p. 259; Jerzy Ficowski, The Gypsies in Poland: History and Customs (Warsaw: Interpress, 1991), p. 37.Google Scholar

7. Ficowski, The Gypsies in Poland, pp. 37–38.Google Scholar

8. Martina O'Fearadhaigh and Janine Wiedel, Irish Tinkers (London: Latimer, 1976), p. 10; Electa Bachman O'Toole, “An Analysis of the Life Style of the Travelling People of Ireland,” Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, Vol. LI, 1973, p. 74; Sharon Gmelch, Tinkers and Travellers: Ireland's Nomads (Dublin: O'Brien Press, 1975), p. 82; Artelia Court, Puck of the Droms: The Life and Literature of the Irish Tinkers (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1987), pp. 32–33, 217, footnotes 73, 74.Google Scholar

9. Since this section serves only as a background to my own research, here I do not attempt to provide my own analysis and instead rely on analyses of others.Google Scholar

10. Not all groups, however, practised this strategy and in some cases the position of voit and an internal traditional leader would be held by the same person. Ignacy-Marek Kaminski, The State of Ambiguity: Studies of Gypsy Refugees (Gothenburg: University of Gothenburg, 1980), p. 247.Google Scholar

11. Barany, Zoltan D., The East European Gypsies: Regime Change, Marginality, and Ethnopolitics (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002), pp. 143–144; Kaminski, The State of Ambiguity, pp. 206, 244–250.Google Scholar

12. This was more so the case in Slovakia than in the Czech lands in which many Roma no longer lived in traditional communities.Google Scholar

13. For example, through marriage or becoming a god-parent to a child of a traditional leader as described by Kaminski for a Slovak community and Puxon for an Irish community. Kaminski, The State of Ambiguity, pp. 228–236; Grattan Puxon, “The Romani Movement: Rebirth and the First World Romani Congress in Retrospect,” in Thomas Acton, ed., Scholarship and the Gypsy Struggle (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2000), p. 97.Google Scholar

14. Barany, The East European Gypsies, pp. 144–145; Kaminski, The State of Ambiguity, pp. 201–237.Google Scholar

15. Thomas Acton, Gypsy Politics and Social Change: The Development of Ethnic Ideology and Pressure Politics among British Gypsies from Victorian Reforms to Romany Nationalism (London: Routledge, 1974), pp. 220–226.Google Scholar

16. Angus Fraser, The Gypsies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), p. 317.Google Scholar

17. David M. Crowe, A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1996), p. 222; Puxon, “The Romani Movement,” p. 94; Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon, The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies (London: Sussex University Press, 1972), p. 205.Google Scholar

18. Thomas Acton, personal communication, December 2001.Google Scholar

19. Crowe (A History of the Gypsies, p. 20) puts the date to 1946.Google Scholar

20. Barany, The East European Gypsies, pp. 144–149; Grattan Puxon, Road of the Rom (Skopje: Suto Orizari, 1975), pp. 163–169; Crowe, A History of the Gypsies, pp. 20–23, 222–224; Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov, Gypsies (Roma) in Bulgaria (New York: Peter Lang Verlag, 1997), pp. 34–36; Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov, “Bulgaria: Ethnic Diversity—A Common Struggle for Equality,” in Will Guy, ed., Between Past and Future: The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001), p. 375.Google Scholar

21. Barany, The East European Gypsies, pp. 144–149; Jean-Pierre Liegeois, Roma, Gypsies, Travellers (Strasbourg: Council of Europe, 1994), p. 254; Puxon, Road of the Rom, pp. 163–169; Crowe, A History of the Gypsies, pp. 20–23, 222–224; Marushiakova and Popov, Gypsies (Roma) in Bulgaria, pp. 34–36; Marushiakova and Popov, “Bulgaria: Ethnic Diversity,” p. 375.Google Scholar

22. Bartosz, Adam, “The Social and Political Status of the Roma in Poland,” Roma, No. 40, January 1994, pp. 17–18; Alaina Lemon, “Russia: Politics of Performance,” in Will Guy, ed., Between Past and Future: The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001), p. 233; Jerzy Ficowski, “The Gypsy in the Polish People's Republic,” Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, Vol. 35, 1956, pp. 36–37; Barany, The East European Gypsies, pp. 147–148.Google Scholar

23. Note that the first Romani organizations in communist Czechoslovakia also came into being one year after a Soviet invasion ended the Prague Spring of 1968 (see later in this article and Part 3b).Google Scholar

24. Michael Stewart, “Communist Roma Policy 1945–1989 as Seen Through the Hungarian Case,” in Will Guy, ed., Between Past and Future: The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001), pp. 75–80; Martin Kovats, “Hungary: Politics, Difference and Equality,” in Will Guy, ed., Between Past and Future: The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001), p. 337.Google Scholar

25. One of the most successful ones was started in 1951 in Nogradmeyer and some of its members managed to get seats on the town council. Puxon, Road of the Rom, p. 142.Google Scholar

26. Stewart, “Communist Roma Policy 1945–1989 as Seen Through the Hungarian Case,” pp. 75–80; Puxon, Road of the Rom, p. 142; Barany, The East European Gypsies, p. 145; Kovats, “Hungary: Politics, Difference and Equality,” p. 337.Google Scholar

27. For details, see e.g. Barany, The East European Gypsies, pp. 117–118; Anna Jurova, Vyvoj romskej problematiky na Slovensku po roku 1945 [Development of Romani Problematics in Slovakia after 1945] (Bratislava: Goldpress, 1993), Chapters 4 and 5.Google Scholar

28. Will Guy, “Late Arrivals at the Nationalist Games: Romani Mobilisation in the Czech Lands and Slovakia,” in Fenton, S. and May, S., eds, The Shaping of Ethnonational Identities: Ethnicity and Nation in Comparative Perspective (London: Macmillan, 2002); Josef Kalvoda, “The Gypsies of Czechoslovakia,” in David M. Crowe and John Kolsti, eds, The Gypsies of Eastern Europe (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1991), p. 102; Miroslav Holomek, “Stav soucasneho hnuti organizace Cikanu-Romu in CSR (The State of the Current Movement of the Organisation of Gypsies-Roma in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic),” Demografie, Vol. 11, No. 3, 1969, p. 216; Jurova, Vyvoj romskej problematiky, pp. 25–26; Tomas Haisman, “Romove v Ceskoslovensku v letech 1945–1967: Vyvoj institucionalniho zajmu a jeho dopady (Roma in Czechoslovakia between 1945–1967: Development of Institutional Interest and its Results),” in Helena Lisa, ed., Romove v Ceske republice: 1945–1989 [Roma in the Czech Republic: 1945–1989] (Prague: Socioklub, 1999), p. 151; Milena Hubschmannova, “cikáni = Cikáni?,” in Reporterova rocenka 1968 (Prague: Reporter, 1968), p. 37; Kaminski, The State of Ambiguity, pp. 199–202; Arne B. Mann, Romsky dejepis [Romani History] (Bratislava: Kalligram, 2000), p. 42; Barany, The East European Gypsies, pp. 115–146; Will Guy, ed., “The Czech Lands and Slovakia: Another False Down?,” in Between Past and Future: The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001), p. 290.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

29. In Presov it was to be Mr Geci and in Kosice Mr Kondas. Their work duties were outlined as: (1) calling meetings of Roma in individual municipalities in order to explain to them that in the new regime they have equal rights with everyone else and that the new regime wants to improve their living standards, and convincing Roma to become productive workers; (2) preparing lists of Roma who despite several warnings did not start regular jobs and who should therefore be sent to forced labour camps; (3) preparing lists of Roma with infectious illnesses to be also sent to forced labour camps where they will be treated; (4) preventing wandering, begging, stealing, black market activities, prostitution, job avoidance and other criminal activities of Roma by informing police when such activities occur; and (5) registering all Roma in their locality. Jurova, Vyvoj romskej problematiky, footnote 38.Google Scholar

30. Haisman, “Romove v Ceskoslovensku v letech 1945–1967,” p. 151; Jurova, Vyvoj romskej problematiky, pp. 25–30; Jan Cibula, Miro Drom—Meine Wege, Schicksal eines Zigeuners, Kurze Chronologie von Jan Cibula, Unpublished manuscript, held in the Museum of Roman Culture, Brno, Czech Republic (Bern: 1986).Google Scholar

31. The reliability of this information is, however, unsure as in other documents Cibula puts forth some unfound claims such as that he was the founder of the first Gypsy organization in Europe, Romani Jekhethanibe—Romani Union. Jan Cibula, Some Details Out of the Biography of Jan Cibula, M.D. (Bern: Romani Union, undated). This organization was by far not the first one in Europe.Google Scholar

32. The same document which talks about this organization in 1952–1954 also states that in 1957 Cibula established with Facuna and Bihary the first official Romani organization, Romani Jekhethanibe, in Bratislava (Cibula, Miro Drom—Meine Wege, Schicksal eines Zigeuners, Kurze Chronologie von Jan Cibula). This might mean that in this year he attempted to register this organization (as researchers mention that in this year there were unsuccessful attempts to establish Romani organizations). He might have continued operating it unofficially afterwards.Google Scholar

33. Ibid.; Kaminski, The State of Ambiguity, pp. 199–202; Eva Davidova, Romano Drom: Cesty Romu (Roads of Roma) 1945–1990 (Olomouc: Univerzita Palackeho, 1995), pp. 192, 203; Jurova, Vyvoj romskej problematiky, pp. 34–54.Google Scholar

34. Kenrick and Puxon report that the only “justice” done to Romani survivors at the Nuremberg trials was that taken by the Roma themselves. Two British Romani soldiers were allegedly present as guard duty at the military tribunal and in a spur of the moment initiated the killing of five Nazi defendants after one of them refused to stand trial, shouting “Heil Hitler!” (Kenrick and Puxon, The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies, p. 189). Acton, however, believes that this might be an exaggerated memory of Fred Wood, whom he remembers recounting this happening when concentration camps were liberated, not during the trials (Thomas Acton, personal communication, March 2001).Google Scholar

35. In 1956, a German Court in North Rhine-Westphalia finally ruled that a Romani plaintiff had been a victim of racial persecution. This decision was, however, subsequently overruled by the West German Supreme Court, arguing that the plaintiff was deported for “demands of national security.” David M. Crowe, “Roma in Eastern Europe: The Wall in the Czech Republic,” in Meghan Appel O'Meara, ed., History Behind the Headlines: The Origins of Conflicts Worldwide (New York: The Gale Group, 2000).Google Scholar

36. For details, see e.g. Sybil Milton, “Persecuting the Survivors: The Continuity of ‘Anti-Gypsyism’ in Postwar Germany and Austria,” in Susan Tebutt, ed., Sinti and Roma: Gypsies in German-Speaking Society and Literature (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1998), pp. 37–38; Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon, Gypsies under the Swastika (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1995), pp. 22–25.Google Scholar

37. Liegeois, Gypsies: An Illustrated History, p. 252.Google Scholar

38. Gilad Margalit, “Sinte und andere Deutsche—Ueber ethnische Spiegelungen,” in Tel Aviv er Jahrbuch fuer deutsche Geschichte XXVI (Tel Aviv: Institut fuer Deutsche Geschichte, 1997), p. 293.Google Scholar

39. Fraser, The Gypsies, pp. 269, 317; Liegeois, Roma, Gypsies, Travellers, p. 252; Margalit, “Sinte und andere Deutsche—Ueber ethnische Spiegelungen,” pp. 292–293; Michail Krausnick, Wo sind sie hingekommen?: der unterschlagene Volkermord an den Sinti und Roma (Gerlingen: Bleicher, 1995), p. 215; Crowe, “Roma in Eastern Europe: The Wall in the Czech Republic”; Kenrick and Puxon, Gypsies under the Swastika, p. 30; Yaron Matras, “The Development of the Romani Civil Rights Movement in Germany 1945–1996,” in Susan Tebutt, ed., Sinti and Roma: Gypsies in German-Speaking Society and Literature (Oxford: Berghahn Books, 1998), pp. 49–53; Milton, “Persecuting the Survivors: The Continuity of ‘Anti-Gypsyism’ in Postwar Germany and Austria,” p. 37; Susan Tebutt, “Germany and Austria: The ‘Mauer im Kopf or Virtual Wall,’ in Will Guy, ed., Between Past and Future: The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001), p. 272; Kenrick and Puxon, The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies, pp. 189–190.Google Scholar

40. For the full wording of the Charter, see Acton, Gypsy Politics and Social Change, pp. 138–139.Google Scholar

41. The wagon, however, only made it halfway through as the horse lost its shoe on Old Kent Road. Dodds, Gypsies, Didikois, and Other Travellers, p. 50.Google Scholar

42. According to Acton, this was probably the first post-war contact between an international movement for Gypsies and an English movement (Acton, Gypsy Politics and Social Change, p. 149), unless we count the earlier contact with the Gypsy Lore Society (see Part 2). Personal communication with Thomas Acton, London, 14 March 2002.Google Scholar

43. Ibid., pp. 137–152; Angus Fraser, “The Gypsy Problem: A Survey of Post-War Developments,” Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, Vol. XXXII, Nos 3–4, 1953, pp. 89–98; Puxon, Road of the Rom, p. 83; Angus Fraser, “The Travellers: Developments in England and Wales, 1953–63,” Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, Vol. XLIII, Nos 3–4, 1964, pp. 101–102; Dodds, Gypsies, Didikois, and Other Travellers, Chapters 4–13. See Acton for a more detailed summary and Dodds and Fraser for the full account.Google Scholar

44. Acton, Gypsy Politics and Social Change, pp. 140–147; Fraser, “The Gypsy Problem,” pp. 87–89; Fraser, “The Travellers,” p. 92.Google Scholar

45. Thomas Acton, personal communication, March 2002.Google Scholar

46. Grattan Puxon, Roma, Europe's Gypsies (London: Minority Rights Group, 1987), p. 8.Google Scholar

47. For details, see Gropper, “Urban Nomads,” pp. 1053–1055.Google Scholar

48. This is not to say that traditional leadership has not survived at all in CEE.Google Scholar