The Roma in Romanian History

The Roma in Romanian HistoryINTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
I. THE ARRIVAL OF THE GYPSIES ON THE TERRITORY OF ROMANIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
1. The Gypsies’ Migration to Europe . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
2. First Attestations on the Territory of Romania . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
3. When did the Gypsies Arrive in the Romanian Lands? . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
4. The Territory of Romania in the context of the European Migration of the Gypsies (Fourteenth to Fifteenth Centuries) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 20
II. THE GYPSIES IN THE ROMANIAN LANDS DURING THE MIDDLE AGES. SLAVERY . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
1. The Age and Origin of Slavery in the Romanian Lands . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
2. Categories of Slaves . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
3. Slavery under the Romanian Ancien Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
4. The Social and Legal Situation of the Gypsies in Transylvania . . . . . . . 42
5. The Position of the Gypsies in the Economy of the Romanian Lands . . 45
6. Way of Life. Nomadism and Sedentarisation. Marginality . . . . . . . . . . 51
7. Social Organisation. The Leaders of the Gypsies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
8. The Situation of the Gypsies in the Romanian Lands and in Other European Countries—A Parallel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65
9. The Policy of Sedentarisation and Assimilation of the Gypsies Promoted by the Habsburg Authorities in Transylvania . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
III. EMANCIPATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
1. The Gypsies in the Romanian Principalities in the First Half of the Nineteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 87
2. Abolitionist Trend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
3. The Laws of Emancipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103
4. Social Evolutions after Emancipation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 112
5. The Emancipation of the Gypsies in the Romanian Principalities and the Second Great Migration of the Gypsies (from the Mid-Nineteenth Century to the Beginning of the Twentieth Century) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 120
6. The Gypsies in Bukovina under Austrian Rule (1775–1918) . . . . . . . . 127
7. The Gypsies in Bessarabia under Tsarist Rule (1812–1918) . . . . . . . . 130
8. The Gypsies in Transylvania in the Nineteenth Century . . . . . . . . . . . 132
IV. THE GYPSIES IN INTER-WAR ROMANIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
1. The Situation of the Gypsies in the Inter-War Period. Integration and Assimilation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
2. “Organisation”. The Emancipation Movement of the 1930s . . . . . . . . 153
V. THE POLICY OF THE ANTONESCU REGIME WITH REGARD TO THE GYPSIES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 163
1. Racist Concepts in 1930s and 1940s Romania and the Gypsies . . . . . . 163
2. The “Gypsy Problem” during the Antonescu Regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167
3. Deportation to Transnistria (1942–44) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 170
4. The Policy of the Antonescu Regime with Regard to the Gypsies and the Fate of the Gypsies in Europe during the Second World War . . . . 180
VI. THE GYPSIES DURING THE COMMUNIST REGIME. A FEW POINTS OF REFERENCE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 189
VII. THE CURRENT SITUATION OF THE GYPSIES (ROMA) IN ROMANIA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
1. The Social Situation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
2. Towards a Modern Roma Ethnicity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 212
MAP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 222 INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225
INTRODUCTION
In traditional approaches, the history of Romania could be written without reference to the Gypsies.* For a long time, history was regarded as being about those who were in the centre of historical events. The Gypsies, how- ever, have never been a part of “History with a capital H”. For centuries, on Romanian territories they were kept in a state of collective slavery. Emanci- pation from slavery in the mid-nineteenth century did not secure their com- plete integration into modern Romanian society, due to the nature of the conditions in which it took place. They have continued to occupy, even until the present day, a marginal social position. Even when writers of Romanian social history came to regard the masses as being in the vanguard of history, they paid but little attention to those on the margins of society, where the Gypsies were largely to be found. Similarly, not even the study of ethnic minorities and inter-ethnic relations has paid attention to the Gypsies. As a result of historical conditions, the Gypsies have almost never expressed themselves in the public domain as an ethnic group, and have consequently failed to awaken any particular interest in their past. The chapter about the Gypsies in the ethnic history of Romania is yet to be written.
Nonetheless, the Gypsies have been a permanent presence in Roman- ian history. From the second half of the fourteenth century onwards, this population of Indian origin has been present in the social and ethnic land- scape of the Romanian lands. For four and a half centuries the Gypsies were kept in a state of slavery on Romanian territory. They were consequently a marginal element in society and had no impact on social developments, in which they were not included. Their status as slaves marked their destiny. The legal emancipation of the mid-nineteenth century was not accompanied by social emancipation. The authorities’ failed attempts to tie them to the soil and to an agricultural occupation only succeeded in perpetuating their
* The terms “Gypsy” and “Roma” are both used throughout the book in com- pliance with the historical reality. “Gypsy” is mostly applied for the past, referring to how those placed in this category have been treated within Romanian society. The term “Roma” represents the new emerging ethnic identity of this population.
marginal status in society. The history of this significant segment of the population of Romania cannot, however, be ignored. At the time of their emancipation in the middle of the ninetheenth century, the Gypsies repre- sented approximately 7 per cent of the population of the principalities, while according to the 1992 census they account for 1.8 per cent of the popula- tion, although the most credible estimates give a figure of approximately 5 per cent.
For a long time interest in the Gypsies was linked to the picturesque aspects of their existence, something that remains valid to a large extent today. In my case, I should acknowledge that what awakened my interest in the history of the Gypsies in Romania and convinced me to study the sub- ject was the need to understand the current situation of this population. In my opinion, the Gypsy population in Romania is an illustrative case for the relationship between the past and the present—a relationship in which, according to the well-known formula, the past explains the present and the present explains the past. This factor strengthens the social value of the present historical study. The history of the Gypsies in Romania is marked by the survival over the centuries of certain characteristics, cultural patterns etc. Their inferior and marginal social condition, their particular symbiosis with the majority population, their distinct way of life, the discrimination on the part of the majority population and other features have persisted to the present day. The fact that the Gypsies were slaves for a long time has marked their way of life in a definitive fashion and explains the inferior social status that they have held until the present day. The separation of the Gypsies from the majority population is a legacy that derives from the social and legal status as slaves that they possessed until the middle of the nineteenth century.
It has been my intention to produce a work that reconstitutes the histo- ry of the Gypsies in Romania from the time of their appearance at the north of the Danube until the present day. I have above all traced the defining ele- ments of the evolution of this population and the most important moments in this evolution. In the organisation of the work I have paid special atten- tion to the long-term aspects of the history of the Gypsies, such as slavery or the processes of integration and assimilation within the majority popula- tion. Similarly, I have paid attention to the emancipation from slavery of the Gypsies, which is important in terms of its consequences, as well as the evolution of their social position after emancipation. I have equally exam- ined the tragic fate of a part of the Gypsy population of Romania during the Second World War. The work in hand is almost entirely one of social and political history. I have referred only in a strictly tangential manner to the cultural specificity of the Gypsy population over time. If, for example, I have referred to the attempts during the 1930s of certain Gypsy intellectuals
2 The Roma in Romanian History
to have the term “Gypsy” replaced with that of “Rom”, I have done so because this instance constitutes an element in the Gypsy emancipation movement of the time.
It was not at all easy to proceed with this scientific inquiry. Genuine contributions to the history of the Gypsies in Romania are few and far between. The history of this population has been neglected in Romanian historiography, while those studies that have been written are, in general, far from meeting contemporary research standards. For a long time in Romania, as it was indeed everywhere, the approach to the question of the Gypsies was dominated by a preoccupation with the sensational. Not even today has this state of affairs been completely overcome. Romology, the generic name attributed to those disciplines that deal with the study of the Gypsies, is a field in which dilettantism continues to be present.
There are, of course, some works which deserve a mention: I am indebted to the first Romanian study devoted to the Gypsies by Mihail Kogalniceanu, a work published in 1837 in Berlin under the title Esquisse sur l’histoire, les moeurs et la langue des Cigains, which in 1840 was translated into Ger- man. The writings of Kogalniceanu on the subject are typical of writings on the Gypsies that began to appear in the eighteenth century and which continue to the present day, combining historical data with linguistic, ethnographic, statistical and other data. The author adds his own observations on the Gyp- sies in the Romanian principalities to the general data he provides on the Gypsies, selected with discernment from the works of the time. The author’s own observations, even if they do not reach the standards of scientific research, are very important when it comes to understanding the history of the Gypsies in Romania, since they reflect their situation on the cusp of emancipation. The work of Kogalniceanu constitutes a genuine contribution to this field of research. It was widely used at the time and remains a work of reference even today in the field of Romology.
In the 1840s and 50s, there was a very high level of interest in the “Gyp- sy question” in Romanian society. At a time when the emancipation of the Gypsies was gradually taking place, the problem of slavery occupied an important role in the discussion of ideas. Western-trained intellectuals argued against the old state of affairs, fighting for the abolition of slavery. The press of the time was preoccupied with the subject, which was equally present in political debate. However, preoccupation with the Gypsies remained com- pletely within the domain of the social problem that it represented. At that time, no research discipline developed that would examine the history, lan- guage or folklore of this population. Of course, the priorities of an incipient Romanian science lay elsewhere, but the neglect of the Gypsies from a sci- entific point of view was also done out of motives of image: at the time,
Introduction 3
history was conceived as a factor contributing to the cultivation of national sentiment and the slavery of the Gypsies was not a reason for patriotic pride.
A particular interest in the Gypsies only appeared in Romanian science during the inter-war period. It was then that George Potra’s Contribut,iuni la istoricul t,iganilor din România [Contributions to the History of the Gyp- sies in Romania] (Bucharest, 1939) was published. This work constitutes the first ever synthesis of the history of the Gypsies in Romania. It is built around numerous pieces of documentary data and covers some of the aspects of this problem. Approximately half of the work is composed of a collection of previously unpublished documents dating from the period 1600–1848 containing information on the legal, social and occupational conditions of the Gypsies in Wallachia and Moldavia. George Potra’s work remains use- ful today.
However, the 1930s and the beginning of the 1940s are particularly important in the Romanian scientific study of the Gypsies, because of the ethnographic and sociological studies carried out at that time. The surveys of rural communities carried out by teams from the Romanian Social Insti- tute, led by Dimitrie Gusti, did not avoid families or communities of Gyp- sies living on the edges of Romanian villages. Particular attention was paid to the Gypsies’ relations with the majority population and their economic and social function within the community. There are even a number of stud- ies devoted to these aspects: Domnica I. Paun, “T, iganii în viat,a satului Cor- nova” [The Gypsies in the Life of the Village of Cornova] in Arhiva pentru S,tiint,a s,i Reforma Sociala, X (1932), nos. 1–4, pp. 521–527; Aurel Boia, “Integrarea t,iganilor din S,ant, (Nasaud) în comunitatea româneasca a satu- lui” [The Integration of the Gypsies from S,ant, (Nasaud) into the Village’s Romanian Community] in Sociologie Romaneasca, III (1938), nos. 7–9, p. 351–365. The chief preoccupation of these studies was to examine the process of integration of the Gypsies into Romanian rural society. The stud- ies were deeply committed and subordinated to the imperatives of Roman- ian sociological science, namely to influence the development of rural soci- ety. The work that is most representative of the interest accorded to the Gypsies during this time is that of Ion Chelcea. He carried out a large num- ber of rigorous ethnographic studies of the Gypsies that were based on fieldwork. His book T,iganii din Romania. Monografie etnografica [The Gypsies in Romania. An Ethnographic Monograph] (Bucharest, 1944) is a sizeable ethnographic work of a high standard and of exemplary method- ological rigour. The work brings together practically all of the data of this nature in existence at the time, and, in spite of certain shortcomings due to the ideological climate of the period, it remains the reference book on the subject until today. The sociological and ethnographic literature in Roma- nia about the Gypsies produced in the 1930s…