Anastasoaie2003 Roma in Ro Historiography(1)-Libre (1)

8/11/2019 Anastasoaie2003 Roma in Ro Historiography(1)-Libre (1)

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ROMA/GYPSIES IN THE HISTORY OF ROMANIA:

N OLD CHALLENGE FOR ROMANIAN

IDSTORIOGRAPHY

Marian Viorel Anastasoaie

Achim, Viorel. Tiganii m storia Romaniei (The Gypsies in the History o fRomania) (Ed. Enciclopedidi, 1998), 202 pp.

Nastasa, Lucian and Andrea Varga ( eds. ). Minoritiifi etnoculturale, Miirturiidocumentare. Tiganii din Romania, 1919-1944 ( Ethno-culturalMinorities -Documents: The Gypsies in Romania, 1919-1944)(CRDE, 2001), 683 pp.

Potra, George. Contribufiuni la istoricul figanilor din Romania (Contributionson the History of Gypsies in Romania) (Ed. Curtea Veche, 2001;originally published in 1939), 333 pp.

With Esquisse sur l histoire, les moeurs et la langue des cigains(1837) Mihail Kogalniceanu inaugurated the Romanian research traditionon Roma/Gypsies.

1His essay drew upon various historical works and on

his direct contacts with Gypsies in Moldavia in order to provide adescription of various Gypsy groups and of their language. Conceived fora Western public (published at Berlin) exotizing in some aspects, theessay, nevertheless, was a liberal plea for the emancipation from slaveryof Gypsies. Later on, in 1855, Kogalniceanu himself was instrumental inthe legislative process of emancipation.

Except of some ethno-linguistic works in the 1870s, the scholarlypublications on Roma attended the period between the two World Wars,especially in the 1930s. Two works, in particular, become importantreferences, one published by an historian (George Potra) and the other by

1"Gypsies" and "Roma" do not always denote the same thing. "Rom", pl. "Roma" is a

self-designating name of those members of the Indic-origin diaspora, living all over theworld, but mostly in Europe, speaking a dialect of Romani. Historically, others havenamed these people "Gypsies", "tigani", "cigany", "Zigeuner", names that have beenoffensive. But not all so-called "Gypsies" are "Roma", since there are groups which donot speak Romani and do not identify themselves as such. In my text, I will use "Gypsy,Gypsies" when the word was written and used as such, in various periods of time, but Iwill use "Roma" when referring to individuals or collectivities rather then the offensive"Gypsies".

ROMANIAN JOURNAL OF SOCIETY AND POLITICS, Volume 3, Number I, pp. 262-274

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an ethnographer (Ion Chelcea). 2 Potra's book was the first historicalsynthesis on the subject in the Romanian historiography. It was conceivedin a monographic pattern, including besides the historical narrative, chapterson names, topography, a Romany-Romanian and Romanian-Romanylexicon, and, very important, a consistent collection of documents from1483 to 1804. Potra's style is not at all analytic, on the contrary is quitedescriptive, sometimes impressionistic, full of details, hard to follow in the

mass of various sources, abundantly cited. Nevertheless, in spite of minorinstances when he is peddling some general stereotypes on Roma, Potra issympathetic to their cause. 3

Viorel Achim' s book Tiganii fn istoria Romaniei (Gypsies in theHistory of Romania) is the most recent historical work on this subject.Published 60 years after Po tra' s book, it fills a huge gap in the research onthe subject. Achim, a historian specialized in the medieval history ofSouth-Eastern Europe, has accomplished difficult task. Drawing on thesecondary literature and new archive materials, he composed a historicalnarrative with nerve and good capacity. of synthesis.

When dealing with Roma in Romania, one particular question hasstirred the imagination of historians: which are the origins of Romaslavery, how to explain this particularity of the Romanian history? t is inthis condition that Gypsies were first mentioned in 1385 in an offiCialdocument emitted by the voivode o f W allachia, Dan II, establishing theassets of a monastery, that included 40 families of figani (Gypsies). Theanswers of historians have generally oscillated between two positions. Theearliest interpretation, proposed by Nicolae Iorga and adopted by others,including G. Potra, was that Gypsies came together with Tartars in themid-13th century, during their invasions of Central Europe. 4 Gypsieswould have already been made slaves by them and subsequently passedinto the hand of Magyars or Romanians as prisoners of war during theircombats with their masters. The enslavement of prisoners of war, which

were kept for ransom or domestic activities, was a Tartars' war practiceand that their Romanian and Magyars foes used too. It this way, theW allachians and Moldavians borrowed the institution of slavery and

2 George Potra, Contribufiuni Ia istoricul figanilor din Romania FundatiaRegele Carol I, 1939); Ion Chelcea, Tiganii din Romania. Monografie etnografica (Ed.Institutului Central de Statistica, 1944).3 He was even involved for a short period of time in the 1930s in the Roma civicmobilization movement. See Lucian Nastasa and Andrea Varga (eds.), Minoritafietnoculturale, Miirturii documentare. Tiganii din Romania, 1919-1944 100-102.4

Nicolae Iorga, Anciens documents du droit roumain (Paris I Bucureti), 22-23. For arepresentative collection o f articles on the Gypsy slavery see Vasile Ionescu (ed.), Robia

{iganilor fn Tiirile Romtine: Moldova (A ven Amentza, 2000).263


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Tartars and Gypsies as slaves. More official documents from the15t centur y mention together figani and tatari slaves. With the time,Gypsies slaves outnumbered and assimilated the Tartar ones, whichresulted into equalizing the term figan with rob (slaye).

The other interpretation, inspired by linguistic studies. of Romanilanguage suggesting that an important part of its vocabulary was of Greekorigin, says that Gypsies arrived from the south of the Danube. Achimadopts this interpretation and accredits the idea that Gypsies were alreadyslaves in the Byzanthium Empire and in medieval states of Bulgaria andSerbia. According to him, Gypsies had slave status at their arrival in theRomanian Principalities.

There is also a third interpretation suggesting that initially at theirarrival from the south of Danube, Gypsies were free, but gradually theywere enslaved by the crown and local nobility in need of their labor forceand skills in various crafts. 5 I found this interpretation particularlyinteresting because, in contrast with the others (including those of Potraand Achim), it explains not only the origin of Roma slavery, but also theplace of Gypsy slavery within the political economy of Romanianprincipalities.

The Gypsy slavery was defined by the medieval institutional structureof state (the crown), the nobility and the Church. All these institutionsowned Gypsy slaves, their juridical status being regulated originally by acustomary law, but later on, in the first half of the 17th century, laws ofByzantine origin were added. The crown was predominant over thenobility and the church regarding Gypsy slaves, and its power wasenforced by special functionaries dealing with the figani slaves. Potra andespecially Achim describe in details the structure and evolution of slaverysystem. A combination of fiscal obligations and work obligations wereimposed on Gypsies, varying from one type of owner (the state, nobility ormonasteries) to another. Significantly, the slaves of the monasteries andnobility were exempted from financial obligations to the state, an importanteconomic privilege to their owners.

The first term for "slavery" was first mentioned in a documentfrom the mid-15th century with the Slavic form holop, the Romanian formrob, roaba appearing only at the beginning of the 1 h century. For severalcenturies, though, the term tigan was used currently for "slave", and it alsosignified the ethnonim for the population of Indic origin. 6

5 P. N. Panaitescu, "The Gypsies in Walachia and Moldavia: A Chapter of EconomicHistory," Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 3115, 1941, 58-72, and Nicolae Gheorghe,"Origin of Roma's Slavery in the Rumanian Principalities" Roma, 711, 1983, 12-27. Seealso Sam Beck, "The Origins of Gypsy Slavery in Romania," Dialectical Anthropology,14, 53-61.6 Ion Radu Mircea, "Termenii rob, i holop in documentele slave i romane," in

Vasile Ionescu (ed.), Robia figanilor tn Tiirile Romane: Moldova, 61-74.264

In practical terms, slaves were treated as commodities, being soldand bought, or exchanged for animals things. The ow ner did not havethe right to kill a slave, theoretically the law punishing with death such anact. Marrying a slave meant becaming a slave too. Apparently, throughoutthe 16th and 17th centuries, the inter-marriages between (figani) slaves andserfs or free people was relatively frequent. But in the 18th century, thispractice was forbidden by law.

From an economic point of view, Gypsy slaves were a source ofincome and providers of skilled labor force in various crafts, such as metalworking or gold exploitation. n forgery they had a quasi-monopoly in theRomanian Principalities.

In spite of their very important economic role, Gypsy slaves weremarginalized, considers as outsiders. They were treated with greatestcontempt and even if they were Christians they were buriedfrom the rest of the population. Most of them were nomads or practiced

th th aseasonal mobility, even at the end of the 18 century. mce en, espec1 yon the monasteries' territories, they started to be used in agriculture. But itwas in the second half of the 18th century, in the Habsburg Empire (whichincluded Transylvania and Banat at that time) when Gypsies came toexperience the forced sedentarization and assimilation policies ofEmpress Maria Theresa ( 1740-1780) and Joseph II ( 1780-1790). Therrauthoritarian policies aimed at transforming Gypsies into new peasants ornew Hungarians, b ut they were half-heartedly implemented by the nobilityand local authorities unwilling to loose their previous privileges over Gypsiesand to support the costs of Gypsy education. These policies were abandonedafter the death of Joseph II. At this point, Achim unconvincingly suggeststhat the "natural" process of Gypsies sedentarization in the 18th and 19thcentury in the Romanian Principalities was more effective that theauthoritarian Habsburg policies in Transylvania. Thus, this process wasfavored by the "more open character of the Romanian society, where, in

spite of slavery, social barriers could be overpass more easily" (Achim, p.69). Indeed, there were cases of slaves that became free or married with(Romanian) serfs, but these were marginal situations that did not erasetheir "pariah status" (Ian Hancock). 7 As for the "natural" character ofsedentarization of Gypsies, Achim contradicts hi1nself when he is showing -that in fact sedentarization was pursued by slave owners and regulated by

th . d . ththe state during the first half of the 19 century, m or er to mcrease elabor force in agriculture tha t became gradual ly capitalistic. after theTreaty of Adrianopol (1829).

7 Ian Hancock, The Pariah Syndrome (Ann Arbor: Karoma Publishers, 1987).

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The exceptional collection of 365 items of documents from thestate archives edited by Lucian Nastasa and Andrea Varga at Cluj helps usto better grasp the major events in the lives of Roma from 1919 to 1944,including the emergence of Roma civic associations (during the 1930s)and the Gypsy persecution by the regime of Marshall Ion Antonescubetween 1942-1944.

The first major initiative to create a national association o f Gypsies

came from the priest CalinicI.

Popp Serboianu, who allegedly spokeperfect Romany and published in 1929 a monograph on Roma in French.This put him into contact with the Gypsy Lore Society, which inspiredhim to organize a civic association for this minority. In 1933, in contactwith other Roma, especially musicians,.he initiated the General Associationof Gypsies from Romania, having educational and social care objectives.In the same time, Gheorghe Lazarescu-Lazurica, a Roma businessman setup a rival organization, the General Union of Romain Romania (GURRhereafter in the text), in the same year. Interestingly enough, this incipientprocess of Roma civic organization was under the surveillance of statepolice. Thus, documents from the police archives published in Nastasa &Varga helps us to understand the constraints, which molded this process ofcivic organization. Lazarescu-Lazuridi obtained the support of the OrthodoxPatriarchy (by which he was declared a missionary) for its initiative andaccused Serboianu of trying to convert Gypsies to Greek-Catholicism (seedocuments 25-28). ll parallel he tried to ally with other political parties,such as the National-Agrarian Party and the fascist Iron Guard( ). Actually,since its beginning the GURR tried to obtain as much support andrecognition as possible from the Church, political parties and Roma elites,and repeatedly declared its loyalty to the King.

It is hard to know how much was political strategy or true religiousmilitantism in the Union's status declaring that "all members of the Unionshould fight for the Orthodox Church, despising the sects that try to

corrupt our souls" (Nastasa &Varga, p. 120). Probably more politics, as itwas also the case with the recommendation to vote for the NationalLiberal Party in 1933, allegedly the favored to win the elections.

In 1934 Lazarescu-Lazurica is loosing the leadership of the Unionto one of his collaborator, Gheorghe Niculescu, as he is suspected of notbeing a Rom. Interestingly, this accusation was used by LazarescuLazurica himself towards Popp-Serboianu. Claim of being a real, authenticRoma, or on the contrary accusations of not being one is a device that willbe used also after 1989 to gain legitimacy and power among Roma elites.Niculescu, a florist businessman and councilor at the Ministry of Labor,proved to be an energetic leader. He obtained the juridical status for thePnion, secured the protection of the Orthodox Patriarchy against his

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rivals, and developed filials all over the country. In Match 1938, followingKing Carol IT s coup d etat all political parties and associations wereabolished, which put an end to the inter-war Roma civic activism.

During the 1930s Romanian nationalism was gaining momentumwith the ascension of fascism. Even if the Jews were the principal targetsof xenophobic feelings and attacks, Gypsies were not spared of it. In hisfifth chapter "The Gypsy policy of the Antonescu Regime", Achim

extensively treats the racist pseudo-scientific discourse regarding Romaand the deportation of 25,000 Gypsies in Transnistria between 1942-1944.The book edited by Nastasa and Varga contains more than 200 documentsregarding this tragic episode.

Achim shows how concerns for a "Gypsy problem" (in parallelwith the "Jewish problem") appeared in various publications prepared byadepts of bio-politics and eugenics such as Iuliu Moldovan and I.Facaoaru. They seemed preoccupied by the "dangers" that Gypsies couldconstitute for the "ethnic purity of Romanian people". Intermixing orassimilation of Gypsies into Romanian population would have constituteddangers that needed to be combated by means of sterilization and intermentinto forced labor camps.

These types of ideas influenced also Ion Chelcea, a professionalethnographer who published in 1944 a consistent ethnographic study ofvarious Roma communities. He carried out his research in the 1930s andestablished a classification of Gypsies into "village Gypsies" (craftsmen,few speakers of Romany), or rudari Romanian-speaking Gypsies"and "nomad Gypsies". According to him, each category has a certainpsychological type, "apparently emancipated" for the first one, "natural"for the second and "speculator" for nomads. He was particularly intriguedby the second category, the Gypsies, considered not so interestingby other Gypsiologists who were more attracted by the nomadic Romanyspeaking communities. For a nationalist ethnographer, but still a rigorousthinker, Chelcea founded arguments for a non-Gypsy origin of asdescendents of ancient Dacian-Thracian population. Their material culture,area of extension (the north and south of Danube) and their self-declaredDacian origin made Chelcea to win over the racial argument (the noticeddarker-skin of observed This saved them a better place in thepolitical solution that Chelcea envisaged for the "Gypsy problem". Accordingto him, the Rudari could be assimilated into the Romanian population. 9 Asfor the nomad Gypsies they should be deported in Transnistria and fromthe "village Gypsies" only a minority of musicians and craftsmen neededto be spared, the rest to be colonized or sterilized. 1

9Ion Chelcea, Tiganii din Romania. Monografie etnografica, 99.

10 Ion Chelcea, Tiganii din Romania. Monografie etnografica, 100-101.

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Chelcea published his book in 1944, when already approximately25,000 Roma had been deported already in Transnistria. He was not aRomanian Ritter, 11 but his book could be interpreted, like Achim suggests,as a barometer of the xenophobic atmosphere that existed in Romania atthat time. Achim shows how the deportation was the initiative of MarshallIon Antonescu. He raised the problem of adopting measures against Gypsiesin the Ministries' Council Meeting on 7 February 1941. In May 1942Antonescu ordered in urgency a study regarding the organization andlogistics of the deportation of nomad Gypsies in Transnistria. The InteriorMinistry ordered to its employees to be carried out a census of nomadcommunities as well as of the sedentary ones that had been previouslyconvicted or lacking the possibilities to "live honestly through work"(Nastasa &Varga, p. 273).

The deportation of the nomad Gypsies was launched at the end ofMay 1942 and their displacement was done in caravans overseen by unitsof gendarmes. In July it is ordered the registration of the sedentaryGypsies previously convicted or without livelihood, with the exception ofthose incorporated into the army or already registered to be incorporatedand their families. Their deportation, planned initially for August, was

done in September 1942.Overall, at the end of September 1942 the deportation of allegedly

all nomad Gypsies (11,441 persons) and sedentary Gypsies (13,176 men,women and children) was accomplished. However, there were manyabuses committed by gendarmes and policemen in charge of thedeportation, especially by deporting a certain number of families of Gypsysoldiers or of those registered to go into the army. There were also ofcases when unregistered Gypsies for deportation volunteered to depart, inorder to be with their families or because they believed the rumors thatthey would received plots of land in Transnistria. The collection edited byNastasa and Varga contains a number of complaining letters addressed to

authorities by Gypsy soldiers or members of their families as well asGypsies that were registered as "dangerous" by authorities. They constitutean interesting material, "micro-biographies" as Lucian Nastasa characterizedthem in his preface, sheding light on the lives of many Roma families wellintegrated into the Romanian society. They were musicians, forgemen,bussiness men, some of them had been soldiers in the previous war, andothers refusing to be consideres as "Gypsies", There were cases of Romanianswriting in favour of Gypsies pleading not to be deported as they werehonest and very useful craftsmen. As an example, the National Railway

Robert Ritter (1901-1951), Gennan eugenist and criminological biologist, who contributedto the formulation of the Nazi policies of genocide towards Gypsies.

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Society was demanding that their Roma employees should not be deported,being very important for its activities. All in all, these reactions were notaccomplished by other protests or complaints from public or politicalfigures, with the notable exception of Constantin Bratianu, the leader ofthe :National Liberal Party. There are no traces of protests from the ranksof Roma elites (probably intimidated) that were making public figuresome years before.

There was also variation in the ways regional Gendarmeriesproceeded during deportation. As an example, the Gendarmeryverified scrupulously the lists of those registered for deportation andavoided abuses due to local policemen that "out of an aversion towardsGypsies or mistaken interpretation of orders enlisted [Gypsies] that werenot to be evacuated" (Nastasa & Varga, doc. 234, pp. 436-438). Butapparently the abuses were so numerous that the Ministry of Interiorordered an inquiry to find the number of Gypsies that there had beenabusively sent in Transnistri a (Nastasa & Varga, doc. 304, pp. 520-522).

The Government of Transnistriaregulated the situation of deportedRoma through a decision taken on 18 December 1942. This stipulatedtheir settlements in groups of 150-350 persons in villages that were to beused as labor force in local collective farms or workshops. The work wascompulsory for those of age between 12 and 60 years old. But in realitythe conditions of lodgment, nutrition for the deported Rom a were tragic bytheir consequences. They were lodged in overcrowded houses withoutproper clothing or combustible to confronts the harsh winter temperatures.Food was not assured regularly, lacking for weeks. The hygienic conditionswere missing and terribly favorable for outbreak of epidemics, as thesubsequent events proved. A terrible epidemic of typhus made uncountablevictims among the deported. It is not clear how many Roma have died in Transnistria, but Achim gives an estimation around half of the 25,000deported persons. This is below other previous estimations, that there were

around 36,000 victims.12

Many Roma tried to escape from Transnistriaand to return back home, and a number of them succeeded in spite ofcontrols. In the spring of 1944, as a result of the Soviet offensive, theterritory of Transnistria was evacuated, including the surviving Roma.Between April and September 1944 (when the armistice was signed withthe Allied Powers), the returned Roma were submitted to a strict regime ofcontrol by police, and were assigned to compulsory work, especially inagriculture.

12 See Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon, The Destiny of Europe s Gypsies (London:Heinemann); Radu Ioanid, Evreii sub regimul Antonescu (Ed. Hasfer, 1998).

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Viorel Achi m is trying to compare Antonesc u' s policy towardsGypsies with that of the Nazi Germany. According to him, the Nazi policywas a racial one, gradually developed, from forbidding the civil rights forRoma in the beginning to a later extermination. he appreciatethat the deportation in Transnistria had as a model the German policies,but in spite of some similarities, the policy towards Gypsies of Antonescuregime was independent of what was happening in Germany and Reichoccupied countries" (Achim, p. 151). Transnistria was a foreign territory,occupied and administered by Romanians, a region for the deportation ofJews, Gypsies and other "unwanted" elements. Even if there were numerousvictims, Achim appreciates, the deportation of Gypsies cannot be judge das a planned extermination measure. Nevertheless, according to AndreaVarga's conclusions the operation was an extermination measure (Nastasa

Varga, p. 638). The central government was well informed of the livingconditions of those deported, in spite of the attempts of the governor ofTransnistria, Gh. Alexianu to cover the facts.

The history of Roma during communist period (1947-1989) wasmore difficult to reconstitute as Achim himself recognizes. The access toarchives is not completely open and there are not many studies of this

subject. The se constrai nts made th at . he chapte r treating this period isquite weak. Nevertheless, Achim offers some reference points that will beuseful for further research.

What was characteristic of the Romanian communism was first,the non-recognition of an ethnic status for Roma, unlike the case of otherminorities, such as Hungarians and Saxons. Secondly, the communistleadership developed relatively late policies (at the end of the 1970s) toaddress the problems of Roma, in comparison with countries like Hungary,Czechoslovakia or Yugoslavia, which developed programs referring toRoma situation as early as the 1950s. 13 Overall, it seemed that Romabenefited with the rest of Romanians of the social welfare of the communistregime, such as access to a lodgment, employment, social assistance andeducation. Nevertheless, it seems that towards the end of the 1970s, thepolitical leadership became aware of the need to accelerate the socialintegration of Roma, by using various measures such as sedentarization,employment, official paper registration, and education. The program'simpact was evaluated six years later, in a 1983 report of the PropagandaSection of the Party's Central Committee and it considered a partialfailure. The full employment was not achieved, as there were concerns

13 For a particularly instructive discussion of Hungary, see Michael Stewart, "CommunistRoma Policy 1945-1989 as Seen through the Hungarian Case," in Will Guy (ed.),Between Past and Future: The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe (University ofHertfordshire Press, 2001), pp. 71-92.

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related to Roma delinquency rate as well as their health condition. Their"backward mentality" and their allegedly negative attitude towards workwere blamed for the failure of the program. The Party leadership plannedmore significant financial resources in order to achieve its objectives, butthe economic crisis of the 1980s buried the project. There were also morenegative party's decisions that particularly affected Rmna communitiessuch as those decreeing the confiscation of the gold held in private possession

in 1960 and 1978 when gold was confiscated by state authorities fromKalderash communities.Overall, Achim evaluated the communist state policies towards

Roma as aiming at the cultural and ethnic assimilation of Roma (Achim, p.162). Further research is needed in order to evaluate their impact on thediversity of Roma communities.

The 1989 regime change had a significant effect on the lives ofRoma. In economic terms, it meant a worsening situation for most ofthem. The collapse of state economy, with its huge industrial structures,resulted in a massive Roma unemployment. Moreover, the disintegrationof the communist welfare system also affected significant y many Roma.Nevertheless, one major achievement was that they have been recognizedas a national minority.

n 1992, a team of sociologists coordinated by Catalin and ElenaZamfir realized a national survey research on Roma. 14 This has becomethe reference research for policy-makers and NGOs addressing Romaeconomic and social difficulties. Their theoretical model is in fact acombination between a simplified version of a modernization theory and aperspective inspired by the culture of poverty model. According to thernwhat is distinctly characterizing Roma population is a way of life definedas "traditional" that is different from the modern European way of life(sic ). This "European wa y of life" is defined as a combination of aconstant economic activity (generally wage labor), personal investment inhousing conditions, nuclear model of the family and children education (asort of bourgeois-capitalist way of life). Allegedly the Roma way of lifehas not succeeded in translating this model and is characterized bymarginal economic activities (small crafts, recycling or "parasitic"), selfmarginalization, self-denigration, group solidarity, resistance or ambivalencetowards authorities and extensive kinship relationships. Education is notvalued, but a certain entrepreneurial spirit is recognized for Roma. Povertyis also responsible for this lifestyle that is self-reproduced.

All these aforementioned characteristics prevent, in the opinion ofthe sociologists, the transition of Roma to a modern way of life or "gives

14

The conclusions of the research -were published in Elena Zamfir and Zamfir(eds.), Tiganii fntre ignorare i fngrijorare (Bucharest: Editura Alternative, 1993).

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the possibility of a development of a certain way of life, but a deviant one,'mafia type"'. 15 There are two escape solutions . from this situation,according to these specialists. One is assimilation into the majority,mainstream society, which was the strategy most commonly used byRoma. A second, new one is available now, which is "modernization oftheir culture". There is a third situation, but which is not a solution, that isthe maintenance of their actual model, but this would reproduce themarginalization and can provoke social tensions.

This modet adopted uncritically by Achim in his chapter on thepost-89 realities, has major shortcomings, being normative, ethnocentric,holistic and deterministic. In fact the opposition between "a modernEuropean way of life" (allegedly characteristic to the Romanian majority)and a "traditional" one (Roma) is essentially a discursive device thatconstructs an esentialized and problematic Roma identity, but alsoobscures a long history of marginalization and subordination. Moreover, itfavors the "blaming the victim" approach:

Generally, the social behavioqr of Roma community raisesproblems for the whole Romanian society. The lack of respect

towards the law, and towards the unwritten norms of a civilizedbehaviour, is a common sense evidence .. The rejection [of Roma]is due to the life style of Roma (Achim, p. 170).

Overall, in spite of some drawbacks, Achim' s book offers a goodnd the most updated synthesis on the history of Roma in Romania and it

will be a reference book, as Potr a's was at his time, for further research onthe subject. Maybe a starting point would be to do a critique of thedominant, scientific discourses on Roma that could refresh our historicalimagination. The question of Gypsy slavery is not at all exhausted. Whatwere its ideological premises and its place in the political economy of theRomanian Principalities? How "Gypsies" as an "internal other" contributedto the formation of a Romanian national identity? Two periods seem thatneeds further focus on, the post-Emancipation period until the First WorldWar and the communist period. Excellent collections of documents, suchas that edited by Lucian Nastasa and Andrea Varga, will be particularlyneeded in this research effort. We can only hope that the publication ofthese three works will sustain a process of a critical evaluation of the past,a necessary step for setting up a viable social contract in Romania.

15 Elena Zamfir and Catt\lin Zamfir (eds.), iganii fntre ignorare i fngrijorare 36.

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