It is important to put the Romani experience in the proper historical and socioeconomic context, which is to a large extent determined by the geographic focus of this book. Quite simply, Eastern Europe has been the less developed and less progressive part of Europe. The region's comparative backwardness has been a long-standing phenomenon rooted in its geographic situation as well as in historical, political, economic, and social developments and trends dating from the Middle Ages. Suffice it to say that by the time the Roma arrived in the Balkans in the thirteenth century, that part of Europe in many respects was already manifestly behind Western Europe.

This chapter is divided into three sections. The first and second parts analyze the Roma's conditions and relationships to state and society in the imperial era and the interwar decades, respectively The third section addresses the persecution and survival of the Gypsies during World War II. The conclusion summarizes the impact of regime change on the shifts in Romani marginality and changing state policies from the Middle Ages to the mid-twentieth century.

PART I. THE GYPSIES IN THE IMPERIAL AGE

The objective of this section is to show the differences in Romani marginality in the two major East European empires. The disparate philosophies and organizing principles of these states that belong to the same regime type created dissimilar conditions for the Roma, as well as for other ethnic groups.