III.
Texts Containing General Information about the Roma
A. General Academic
Studies about the Roma
ACTON, Thomas A., and Paul KEGAN. Gypsy Politics and Social Change.
London: Routledge, 1974.
This is a work on Romany political and social
movements in Europe.
BALIC, S., et al., eds. Romani Language and Culture. Sarajevo, Institut
za Proucavanje Nacionalnih Odnosa, 1989.
This is a collection of articles written for
the 1986 Conference on Romani Language and Culture in Sarajevo. Many of
the articles address the linguistic consequences of Romany migrations.
BATAILLARD, P. “De l’apparition et de la dispersion des Bohemiens en Europe.”
Bibliotheque
de l’Ecole des Chartes. Vol. 5, 1834-1844, pp. 348-75, 521-52.
This author advances his theory that the Roma
originated as the blacksmiths of the Bronze Age, in the central region
of the Western Alps.
BERLAND, Joseph C. and Matt T. SALO, eds. Peripatetic Peoples. Nomadic
Peoples.Vols. 21-22. Montreal: Commission on Nomadic Peoples, International
Union of Anthropological and Ethnological Sciences, 1986.
This fine collection of essays by prominent Romany
specialists has essays on the Roma in France, Eastern Europe, the Balkans,
North America, Great Britain, and Bulgaria.
CHATARD, R. P., and Michel BERNARD, eds. Zanko (Chef tribal chez les
Chalderas): La tradition des Tsiganes, conservee par aristocratie de ce
peuple...Documents. Paris: La Colombe, 1959.
This collection of documents gathered by Chatard
and presented by Bernard recounts the daily life of the Kalderas, a Romany
tribe.
COHN, Werner. The Gypsies. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1973.
This account, which applies the Addison-Wesley
modular anthropology program to the Roma, describes Romany cultural values
and resistance to assimilation.
COLLOCI, A. A. Gli Zingari. Turin, 1889.
An Italian work, this account focuses on Romany
history, their origins, and their movement into and throughout Europe.
DUNA, William A. Gypsies: A Persecuted Race. Appendix reprinted
from Land of Pain: Five Centuries of Gypsy Slavery, by I. Hancock. Minneapolis:
Duna Studios, 1985.
This study emphasizes the persecution of the
Roma throughout history, but especially during the Holocaust.
ESTY, Katharine. The Gypsies: Wanderers in Time. New York: Hawthorn
Books, 1969.
This book is a popularistic history of the Roma
from their migration from India in the Middle Ages through the mid-20th
century.
FONSECA, Isabel. Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey.
London: Chatto & Windus; New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1995.
This narrative describes the Roma as a landless,
twelve-million minority and emphasizes their Eastern European history and
migrations. It includes a well-selected bibliography, 50 illustrations,
and 3 maps.
FRASER, Angus. The Gypsies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 1992,
2nd ed. 1995.
This general history is composed of nine sections,
each with one or more chapters. The Romany migration alone is detailed
in five sections, beginning with their early migrations from Persia and
Armenia, through their experiences in the Ottoman Empire, to the renewed
migration of the nineteenth century. The historical account ends with the
most recent emigrations, especially from Romania and the former Yugoslavia.
GHEORGHE, Nicolae. Romanies in the CSCE Process: A Case Study for the
Rights of National Minorities with Dispersed Settlement Patterns. Warsaw,
1994.
This report on the debates at the 1993 CSCE Human
Di-mension Seminar in Warsaw, Poland is authored by one of Europe’s most
prominent Romany activists.
GREENFELD, Howard. Gypsies. Crown Publishers, 1977.
This treatment of Romany life includes their
history, traditions, customs, occupations, Asian origins, and the impact
of modernity on traditional life inside their kumpania.
GRELLMANN, H. M. G. Die Zigeuner: Ein historischer Versuch ueber die
Lebensart und Verfassung, Sitten und Schicksale dieses Volks in Europa,
nebst ihrem Ursprung. Dessau and Leipzig: Auf Kosten der Verlags-Kasse
und zu finden in der Buchhandlung der Gelehrten, 1783; 2nd ed., Gottingen,
1787. English translation, Dissertation on the Gypsies, London, 1787; 2nd
ed., London, 1807; French translation, Metz, 1788 and Paris, 1810; Dutch
translation, Dordrecht, 1791.
This treatise is one of the first to establish
the Indian origins of the Roma and one of the first to claim that they
are racially inferior.
GRONEMEYER, Reimer. Zigeuner im Spiegel frührer Chroniken und Abhandlungen.
Giessen: Focus, 1987.
This collection of essays deals with the history
of the Roma in Europe from the 14th through the 18th centuries. Most of
the entries here are primary source documents in German or Latin and provide
further clues into the significant Romany presence in Europe during this
period.
GRONEMEYER, Reimer, and Georgia A. RAKELMANN. Die Zigeuner, Reisende
in Europa: Roma, Sinti, Manouches, Gitanos, Gypsies, Kalderas, Vlach und
andere. Cologne: Dumont Buchverlag, 1988.
This is an historic overview of the European
Romany tribes emphasizing their socio-cultural differences across centuries
and borders while underlining their similarities.
GROOME, F. H. The Gypsies in National Life and Thought of the Various
Nations throughout the World, ed. E. Magnusson. New York: Frederick
A. Stokes, 1891.
This rather modest article provides only limited
insight into the history and culture of the Roma in Europe, and only mildly
reflects the significant contributions of this Romany scholar to the broader
world of Romany studies, particularly in the area of folklore.
HALEY, William J. “The Gypsy Conference at Bucharest.” Journal of the
Gypsy Lore Society, Third Series 13, no. 4 (1934): pp. 182-90.
This article marks an event in the Romany international
movement during the first half of this century: the 1933 International
Romany Conference in Bucharest.
HALL, Elsie M. “Gentile Cruelty to Gypsies.” Journal of the Gypsy Lore
Society, Third Series 11, no. 2 (1932): pp. 49-56.
This is a description of historic European intolerance
for the Roma within gentile civilization.
HANCOCK, Ian. The Pariah Syndome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution.
Michigan: Ann Arbor, 1987.
This book pays particular attention to the institution
of Romany slavery in Wallachia and Moldavia, and links the stereotypes
that have for so long haunted the Roma in the Western world to the plight
of the Roma in the 20th century. The author is a prominent Romany scholar
and activist.
HANCOCK, Ian. “The Romani Diaspora.” The World and I (March 1989):
pp. 613-23.
This article describes how European Romany migrations
occurred within multinational empires, where the basic rule was to divide
the population in order to dominate them more easily.
HEINSCHINK, Moses F. and Ursula HEMETEK. Roma: Das bekannnte Vol-Schicksal
und Kultur. Vienna: Böhlau, 1994.
This interesting and eclectic collection about
the Roma in Europe over the past five centuries is a welcome addition to
the growing body of scholarship on this important group. In addition to
a good look at the history of the Roma, this fine study also surveys the
status of the Roma in the post-communist nations of Eastern Europe and
the Balkans. It also discusses in some depth the plight of the Roma throughout
Europe during the Holocaust.
HOHMANN, Joachim S. Zigeuner und Zigeunerwissenschaft. Marburg:
Guttandin und Hope, 1980.
This is a book about what the author terms ‘the
Roma and Romany science’.
HUNT, Bernice Kohn. The Gypsies. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1972.
This rather textbookish work looks at Romany
history, language, customs, and daily life, though without much scholarly
insight.
KENRICK, D. Gypsies from India to the Mediterranean. Toulouse: CRDP,
1993.
This presentation of Romany history covers the
exodus from India in the tenth century and subsequent settlements and wanderings
across Europe.
LIEGEOIS, Jean-Pierre. Roma, Tsiganes, Voyageurs; Roma, Gypsies, Travellers.
Strasbourg: Council for Cultural Cooperation, 1987; revised ed. 1994.
This collaborative work is drawn from the research
of Romany specialists throughout Europe. It includes documentation of official
policies towards the Roma, as well as information about their origins and
wanderings, demography, language, social organization, family, religion,
economic status, culture, and lifestyle.
LIEGEOIS, Jean-Pierre. Mutation tsigane: la revolution bohemienne.
Brussels: Edition Complexe, 1976.
This book discusses the Opre Roma! movement (an
approximate translation being, Stand Up for Your Rights, Roma!).
LIEGEOIS, Jean-Pierre. Tsiganes. Paris: La Decouverte, 1983; Gypsies:
An Illustrated History, abridged translation by T. Berrett. London: Al-Saqi
Books, 1986.
A socio-linguistic account of the Roma from their
origins to their most recent experiences with non-Roma, this book provides
information about this scattered and diverse ethnic group with few records
of their own. The abridged version is filled out with a rich collection
of photographs.
LIEGEOIS, Jean-Pierre, and Nicolae GHEORGHE. Roma/Gypsies: A European
Minority. Translated from the French by Sinead ni Shuinear. A Minority
Rights Group International Report, 1995.
This work highlights the danger of the European
‘exclusion, containment, and assimilation’ policies and offers recommendations
on how the collective identity of the Roma can be accommodated and their
European (forced) migrations altered.
MARTLETT, D. M. M. Munster’s Cosmographica universalis. Journal of the
Gypsy Lore Society, Third Series. Vol. XXXI, No. 3 (1952), pp. 83-90.
This article contains the Latin text of Munster’s
classic account that includes some important first hand information on
the Roma and their origins.
MAYALL, David. Gypsy-Travellers in Nineteenth Century Society. Cambridge
and New York: Cambridge University Press, 1988.
This revision of the author’s doctoral thesis
is useful to historians, anthropologists, sociologists, and philologists
as well as to human rights researchers. It views the Roma as either an
indigenous, itinerant population or an originally foreign group of immigrants.
McDOWELL, Bart. Gypsies: Wanderers of the World. National Geographic
Society, 1970.
This travelogue account of the history and culture
of the Roma in Europe follows the traditional National Geographic approach
of blending personal interviews with a rich collection of photographs.
Topics range from the life of British travellers to the Roma family camp
at Auschwitz during the Holocaust.
MÜNSTER, Sebastian. Cosmographie universalis. Universalis.
Basel: Heinrich Petri, 1550. [French edition, La Cosmographie universelle
de tout le monde, augmentee, ornee et enrichie par Francois de Belleforest,
Paris, 1575].
An important early source on the Roma in Europe,
it describes the Romany use of illicit passes to allow them to move freely
throughout Europe. The first-hand accounts also detail the Roma’s own sense
of origins somewhere beyond the Middle East. Other good sources for samples
of Münster’s work can be found in D.M. M. Bartlett’s Münster’s
Cosmographie Universalis, which is cited elsewhere in this bibliography,
as is another source, Reimer Gronemeyer’s Zigeuner im Spiegel fruhrer Chroniken
und Abhandlung.
MIRGA, A. Human Rights Abuses of the Roma (Gypsies). Testimony before
the subcommittee on International Organiza-tions and Human Rights of the
House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 103rd Cong.,
2nd session, April 14, 1994. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1994, pp. 29-32.
Representatives of the international Roma movement
testify to the historic oppression of the Roma.
ORGOVANOVA, K. Human Rights Abuses of the Roma (Gypsies). Testimony
before the subcommittee on International Organiza-tions and Human Rights
of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, House of Representatives, 103rd
Cong., 2nd session, April 14, 1994. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1994, pp. 26-8.
Along with Drs. Mirga, Gheorghe, and Hancock,
this scholar presented to Congress the history of oppression of the Roma.
PREDARI, F. Origine e vicende dei zingari con documenti intorno alle
propieta fisiche e morali. Milan: Lampato, 1841.
This author opined that the Roma are the descendants
of a ‘prehistoric people who had been turned into nomads by a geological
or political catastrophe’.
PROJECT ON ETHNIC RELATIONS. Prevention of Violence and Discrimination
Against the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe. Princeton, NJ: Project
on Ethnic Relations, 1997.
This is one of a series of publications by PER
that underscores the important grassroots work it is doing with Romany
communities and government officials throughout Eastern and Central Europe
in an effort to ameliorate some of the hardships and prejudice that so
deeply affect Romany life. This brief study is the outcome of a conference
held in Budapest in the spring of 1997, which discussed problems and recommendations
for a change in the harsh prejudicial atmosphere that haunts the Roma in
this part of Europe.
PUXON, Grattan. Roma: Europe’s Gypsies. Minority Rights Report no.
14. London: Minority Rights Group, 1973, 1975, 1983, 1987.
This invaluable collection covers the plight
of the Roma in each European country, with periodic updates. Each edition
contains a modest bibliography and valuable demographic statistics on the
Roma in each European nation.
RAKELMANN, Georgia. Interethnik. Beziehungen von Zigeunern und Nichtzigeunern.
Muenster: Lit Verlag, 1988.
This is a socio-political study of the Roma in
Central Europe generally and Germany specifically, highlighting the predicament
of Romany communities within the surrounding and often hostile culture.
REHFISCH, Farnham, ed. Gypsies, Tinkers, and Other Travellers. London
and New York: Academic Press, 1975.
This collection of essays addresses the Romany
way of life, especially their nomadism, within a general presentation of
Romany kumpania-gadje (community-gentile) interactions in Eastern and Western
Europe, as well as in America. It includes numerous bibliographical references.
SCHWAB, Gert and Edgar Wupper. Zigeuner: Potät emer Randgruppe.
Luzern und Frankfurt: Verlang C. J. Bucher, 1979.
Richly illustrated with photographs of the Roma
from throughout Europe, this study looks at the history of the Roma’s European
experience. It contains some documentation on various groups such as the
Kalderas, the Gitanos, and the Manusch, and discusses the important II
World Romani Congress. It ends with a bibliography of important sources
on the Roma.
RISHI, W. R. Roma: The Punjabi Emigrants in Europe, Central and Middle
Asia, the USSR, and the Americas. Patiala: Punjabi University, 1976.
This is an examination of the Roma’s language
(including the etymology of many key Romani words such as Rom, gadje, etc.),
religion, exodus, and subsequent migrations, beginning with their departure
from the Punjab region.
SERBOIANU, C. J. Popp. Les Tsiganes. Paris: Payot, 1930.
This summary of Romany history offers information
about the medieval European migrations of the Roma and their more modern
life.
SIMSON, James. A History of the Gypsies, with Specimens of the Gypsy
Language. London: Sampson Low, Son and Marston, 1871.
This book discusses the origins of the Roma and
their migrations. It also includes a study of their civilization from a
linguistic perspective.
SINGHAL, Damodar P. Gypsies: Indians in Exile. Meerut, India: Archana
Publications for Folklore Institute, 1982.
This rather superficial history of the Roma begins
with their movement out of India in the Middle Ages after the region was
invaded by Muslim forces. Unfortunately, it is marred by stereotypes and
some rather unscientific conclusions.
VAUX DE FOLETIER, Francoise de. Mille ans d’histoire des Tsiganes.
Paris: Fayard, 1970.
An overview of the major phases of Romany history
and their principle patterns of migration, this work also looks at the
history of the Roma through the eyes of non-Roma, and has ample information
on Romany culture, religion, and music.
VAUX DE FOLETIER, Francoise de. Le Monde des Tsiganes. Paris: Espace
des hommes Berger-Levrault, 1983.
This well-illustrated overview of the Roma by
a prominent French specialist emphasizes the importance of nomadism to
Romany culture. The author feels that the only countries where such characteristics
are not significant is in Spain and Romania, where the Roma were forced
to settle.
WEDECK, Harry Ezekiel. Dictionary of Gypsy Life and Lore. Written
with the assistance of W. Baskin. London: P. Owen, 1973.
This source on the Roma includes numerous references
to various dictionaries and encyclopedias on this topic.
WILLIAMS, P., ed. Tsiganes: identite, evolution: actes du colloques
pour le 30eme aniversaire des Etudes Tsiganes. Paris: Syros Alternatives:
Etudes Tsiganes, 1989.
This collection of articles about Romany ethnicity,
prepared for the 30th International Conference on the Roma in Paris in
1986, emphasizes the mutual bonds existing between kumpania and gadje society.
YOORS, Jan. The Gypsies. London: George Allen & Unwin, 1967.
The author describes the Lovara Roma and their
wanderings through Western Europe and the Balkans.
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