Roma: A Nation Without a Homeland,Common Language, or Written Language –A Case Study of Plovdiv, Bulgaria

Krasimir Asenov

ContentsIntroduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Origin of the Romani Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4Overview of Roma Language Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6The Roma Community in One Bulgarian City: Plovdiv . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Challenges for the Scholarly Community Studying the Roma . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16

AbstractRegardless of the Roma presence in Bulgaria for over six centuries, today ourmacro-society, as well as a certain number of researchers who study that com-munity and their language, still do not possess enough knowledge, nor do theydifferentiate well enough the cultural matrices of the different Roma communi-ties. Today over 100 Roma groups and subgroups live in Bulgaria. Exactly howmany of those groups actually belong to the Roma ethnic group is hard to say. Thecultural unification of the Roma and their attribution to the imaginary Romacommunity and its respective groups, subgroups, and communities with close

K. Asenov (*)Cultural Anthropologist, Plovdiv University, Plovdiv, Bulgariae-mail: krasimirasen@gmail.com

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019S. D. Brunn, R. Kehrein (eds.), Handbook of the Changing World Language Map,https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73400-2_218-1

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cultural characteristics to those of the true Roma create both a terminological anda classificatory chaos. This confusion reflects directly on the correct knowledgeabout the culture of these communities and on the results of the policies forintervention. In this chapter, the reader is introduced to the cultural features of thelargest Roma community in Bulgaria, called millet, Turkish gypsies, and yerlii.The research is based on studying the four Roma neighborhoods in Plovdiv,Bulgaria.

KeywordsRoma culture · Roma language · Roma identity · Bulgarian Roma · Millet ·Turkish gypsies

Your homeland is not where you were born; it is where you were fed.Roma proverb

Introduction

For centuries, on the European continent, as a silent witness to the rise and fall ofempires and civilizations, a certain community has existed that is also stigmatizedand persecuted and invisible and intrusive. In short, it is a people without a homelandand without a script of their own, the gypsies. Their origin, veiled in mystery,suppositions, and legends, continues to be a center of debate and conjectureamong scholars. Who are the Roma? The native Dravidian population ofMohenjo-daro or of its destroyers, the Aryans? Chaldeans-diviners or subjects ofthe pharaohs? The servants of ancient Atlanteans, who coded the entire knowledgeof the mythical civilization in the aural vibrations of their language – Romanes – ormaybe they are descendants of nomads and herdsmen from the Iranian Plateau?

With no written tradition of their own, the Roma know their history as told andretold by “others,” by “strangers.” This is why that history often remains distant andunrecognizable for the greater part of the members of various Roma communitiestoday. The absence of historical narratives from their own sources “liberates” theRoma from their past. Memory comes with duty; “amnesia” liberates. Freed fromtheir past, just like the mythical lotophagi (or lotus-eaters – the mythical tribe whichused to inhabit the Libyan coast of Africa and eat the fruit of the lotus. Anyone whotasted this fruit would forget their past). Roma people can be part of any history –that of khan Asparuh of Bulgaria, of Saint Basil the Great, of the pharaohs, of theGupta dynasty, of the Hephthalites or Sheikh Ardashir I Papak, of Sheikh BahramGur, etc. At the same time, any territory can be recognized as their homeland.

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While a significant number of the peoples of Oikumene, after the unwritten periodthat lasted until 3000 BC, started describing their cultural, military, technological,and other achievements, the Roma continue to lack their own script, famous andpopular archeological and cultural monuments. Without a heroic epos, mausoleums,pantheons, cenotaphs, or any other powerful nation-shaping instruments, withoutany consciousness for a shared historical and cultural belonging, and without acollective identity that is scattered across the world, and also dependent andfragmented, the Roma are deprived of the usual factors determining the formationof a nation, which in turn predetermines the absence of a Roma state.

It is important to mention at the very beginning of this chapter that due to the lackof their own historical memory, the historiography which today provides informationabout the Roma is not the history of the Roma. It is a history about the Roma, writtenby non-Roma people, who normally do not know the culture, the language, and therich diversity of gypsy/Roma groups and communities.

Some communities create their culture by remembering and preserving (i.e., theJewish imperative “. . .observe and remember. . .” which is part of the hymn LekhahDodi that greets “Queen Shabbat” as she arrives), while others, like the Roma, forgetand borrow.

The crossing of cultural boundaries with ease is a phenomenon that is a charac-teristic of the Roma communities. The facility with which they borrow culturalmodels from other communities, after which they adapt or tailor those models totheir needs, is amazing. Free of the burden to preserve their own centuries- ormillennia-long cultural models, the Roma create their own eclectic cultural sampleswhich can easily be replaced when the need arises.

Although the vast majority of the Roma in Plovdiv are Muslims, over the lastdecades, they have embraced the Christmas holidays as part of their own culturalcalendar. Since recent times, Valentine’s Day has turned into a holiday that bringspleasant emotions to the younger ones. The day of St. George is also celebratedamong the community in one form or another. Interestingly enough, religiouspilgrimage to sacred places and temples (tekke) of the heterodox Aliani people(a religious sect in Islam) is also popular among the Roma in Plovdiv – an interestingphenomenon, provided that more than 90% of the population of these neighborhoodsconfess orthodox Islam. Another element of the culture of the studied communitythat contradicts their official confession is the cult of and communication withdomestic spirits called Baba or Bubba. Until the beginning of the twentieth century,dozens of small houses “inhabited” by domestic spirits, usually located in the yard,existed in the Roma quarters of Plovdiv. Since the introduction of more radicalIslamic sects in the city, much of those small spirit houses have been knocked down,and now very few have remained.

Roma: A Nation Without a Homeland, Common Language, or Written. . . 3

A domestic spirit house in Harman Mahala, Plovdiv

The burning of candles and prayers in front of icons in Orthodox temples is also acommon practice for part of the population of the Roma quarters. Nontraditionalnames such as Ronaldo, Melissa, Susanna, Fabian, Silvia, Musa (Moses), Isa (Jesus),Harun (Aaron), Idris (Enoch), Hawa (Eva), etc. are becoming increasingly common.

Origin of the Romani Language

When discussing the ethno-cultural characteristics of the Roma communities, it isnecessary to take into account the lack of written culture of their own. Thisphenomenon creates significant limitations for understanding the various Romacommunities. The cultural models created by the Roma display low temporalcontinuity. Without their own historical memory and memoirs, the cultural memoryof the Roma is “mobile” – it moves along with the community itself. The temporalrange of that memory does not exceed 60–70 years. Everything that happened tothem before that time is “wrapped” in amnesia – origin, migration, and cultural

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patterns. All that is remembered is all what can be verbally learnt from parents andgrandparents. Therefore, language plays the role of a “reservoir,” a “bank,” wherethe cultural identity of the community is preserved.

The scarce information about the historical, demographic, and socioculturalprocesses of these communities, usually residing in ethnically delineated “ghettos,”is a consequence of them lacking their own epigraphic habits. No written artifactshave been left by the community that describe their lifestyle, culture, or history.Thanks to the interviews with the oldest people in the Roma neighborhoods,recordings have been made of part of their history, cultural models, and changes intheir spoken language from the beginning of the last century to the present day. Inthis way, many rituals, customs, and occupations have been described, some ofwhich have long been abandoned in the community, such asMartufal (a spring ritualof virgins), a ritual of cleansing after an act infidelity, a child stealing ritual, rituals ofconceiving, love spells, separation spells, etc.

Despite the lack of “reservoirs” for preserving their own cultural heritage, themembers of the Roma communities continue to be the living carriers of their owncultural distinctiveness even today. Unlike other peoples with a “written” history, theRoma are phenomenal in their successful preservation of their own (separate,dynamic) authenticity. It is most often the case that the culture of a people is aconsequence of their history. Deprived of their history, the Roma are also deprived ofa wide range of stable cultural models – archeological, historical, architectural, andwritten, among others.

The lack of an epigraphic transfer of the specific culture is compensated by theRoma community with an intensified vivid verbal communication. It serves to forgeexceptionally stable and durable familial and generational ties, and at the same time,it serves as a prerequisite for the high levels of social support within the family,across generations, and within the community itself. Therefore, the role of thelanguage of communication is invaluable for the Roma communities; in fact, it isthe main component which the entire Roma culture is built on.

The interest in Romani language, or Romanes, as it is more often referred to inBulgaria, therefore, is quite justifiable. Temporally speaking, the language is themost sustainable cultural capital that Roma communities possess. In this respect,Russian researcher Sanarov (1971) is skeptical: he states that everything knowntoday about the Roma, for certain, is just the story of the origin of their spokenlanguage. Moreover, it is unsure whether the ancestors of the present-day Roma werethe original bearers of the Romani language spoken today in Europe (Sanarov 1971,pp. 59–67). In fact, in a detailed study of the original gypsy language, anotherRussian scholar (of Armenian origin), Papazyan (1901), states that linguists considerthe Romani language a mixture of seven languages spoken in India: Hindi, Marathi,Punjabi, Sindhi, Gujarati, Bengali, and Odia (formerly romanized as Oriya). In itspresent form, the Romani language does not resemble any of these languages due tothe influence of languages of the different countries where the gypsies lived orresided long enough to lose the original grammar of their own language. At the

Roma: A Nation Without a Homeland, Common Language, or Written. . . 5

same time, many of the words have been replaced or have lost their originalmeaning. Famous Slavicist Franc Miklosich believes that the gypsy language isvery close to one of the modern Indian languages spoken in the province of Sindh(modern-day Pakistan), which borders the Balochistan province in the same countryand used to be under the rule of the Bombay (Mumbay) rajas. That is why theGypsies themselves have often used the Sindhi endonym (Sinthi) to designate andmaintain their ethnic identity. Many linguists assume that the homeland of thegypsies is India, while the tribe from which they originate is that of the Jats fromthe Sindh region (Papazyan 1901, pp. 93–157).

The language of the Roma is also the basis on which the most widely dissemi-nated thesis about their origins is formed, that is, the one that locates Roma ancestorsin the Indian subcontinent. This hypothesis is based entirely on the discovery of thetheology student István Vali, who in 1763 discovered a great similarity between theRomani dialect of the Hungarian gypsies and the language of a group of studentsfrom southwestern India. Independently, in 1777, German Johann Rüdiger comparedvarious gypsy words with dialects from Hindustan; he too discovered a certainsimilarity. Following the publication of these results in 1782, the Indian origin ofthe gypsies has been considered to be undisputedly proven (Pamporov 2006,pp. 12–13).

However, Alexey Pamporov challenges that thesis, considering that it is builtentirely on linguistic studies, which implicitly hide probable catches. The sameauthor adds: “... in other words, the positioning based on the modern languagegroups, especially of nomadic and semi-nomadic type, is academically incorrect,since it is often not known where they come from” (Pamporov 2006, pp. 12–13).

Some believe that language itself cannot be the only definite identifier of ethnicidentity, as this assumption is prone to hidden traps – the use of a particular languagedoes not a priori assign its bearer to the ethnic community which is the originalbearer of that language.

Overview of Roma Language Research

Between 1900 and 2003, over 2560 scientific papers exploring the Romani language(Romanes) were published worldwide. Attempts to systematize the knowledge ofgypsies have been made since the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. AndrewBorde in 1547 is considered the first researcher to publish a scientific work devotedspecifically to the gypsies. In 1677 in Leipzig, Jakob Thomasius, with his philo-sophical treatise, made the first attempts to establish a scientific discipline calledromology. The works of German researchers Grellman (1783, 1787) and Rüdiger(1782, 1785), who in their studies substantiated the theory of the Indian roots of thegypsy language, mark a new stage in the study of that language. Systemic linguisticstudies of the gypsy language can also be found in the works of Pott (1844–1845)and Miklosich (1872–1880).

Based on studies of the gypsy language, at the end of the nineteenth and thebeginning of the twentieth century, detailed studies of the various dialects of the

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gypsy language were also published. The publications of Finck (1907) and Patkanov(1887) dealt with various aspects of the Lomavren language, the language spoken bythe Bosha (Posha, Lom) gypsies in Armenia, as well as in limited areas of Georgia,Azerbaijan, and Syria. Lomavren is a language spoken by a very small group ofgypsies and is threatened with extinction. The language of the Dom gypsies (Domarilanguage) was also thoroughly explored in 1914 by Macalister.

In modern times, the use of new methods for studying world languages, such asglottochronology, provides us with new information about the changes of the gypsylanguage over time. Through this method it is possible to analyze the degree ofproximity of the dialects of the gypsy language in Europe and Asia, as well as theirrelationships with the Indo-Aryan languages of Hindustan.

While in the nineteenth century researchers from around the world began tosystematically examine all aspects of gypsy culture (including the language and itsdialects), genealogy, as well as their numbers and locations, in Bulgaria this kind ofscientific interest and research is missing during that period. This statement does notbelittle the work of generations of Bulgarian researchers including Drinov (1883,1936), Sarafov (1883, 1903), Irechek (1899), Ishirkov (1910), Popov (1916), Mis-haykov (1920), Danailov (1930), Chankov (1935), Batakliev (1930), Deliradev(1937), Miletich (1902), Romanski and Razboynikov (1918), and others who, inone way or another, broach the gypsy subject in their works from the late nineteenthto early twentieth centuries. Analysis shows that the scientific interest in gypsies inthe abovementioned authors’ works is too fragmented and in a way episodic, whichis a consequence of both of the public and the political attitudes at that time. Thelatter were directed more toward the Turkish and the Greek communities in Bulgariabut also because of the purely objective difficulties that accompanied someonestudying the gypsies, considering that many of them still led a nomadic or semino-madic way of life, which made them difficult to locate, count, and study.

Following the communist coup in 1944, the subject of the ethnic structure of thepopulation and of the Bulgarian gypsies was cast on a new ideological and politicalbasis. Changes in the number and distribution of the gypsies in most cases werelimited to presenting the demographic structures of the population by ethnic groupand the number of gypsies by administrative district, especially following the 1965census (Sugarev et al. 1974). This “information gap” was further strengthenedfollowing the 1960s and during the yet another so-called revival process, whichwas the turning point of the long-term policy of assimilation by renaming theMuslim gypsies and the Muslim Bulgarians (known also as Pomaks).

A more considerable interest in the Roma research field in Bulgaria only devel-oped in quite recent times, since the 1990s, and that mainly among ethnologists andsociologists. In contrast, Bulgarian historians remained out of the picture. In spite oftheir late inclusion in the Roma debate, some prominent Bulgarian researchersmanaged to impose Bulgarian tsiganology (or romology – the scientific field ofstudying the language, the culture, and the history of the gypsies/Roma) on an

Roma: A Nation Without a Homeland, Common Language, or Written. . . 7

international level, thanks to their extensive research. Among those researchers areMarushiakova and Popov (1993, 2000, 2012) and Pamporov (2006, 2007, 2009). Inrecent years there has been a significant increase in number of publications dealingwith the various Roma communities in Bulgaria in the field of local studies. Theseinclude the research by Sabotinova (2002) and Kolev and Krumova (2005). In thefield of family system, there are studies by Zdravkov (2009, 2012, 2013); in genderstudies and violence in Roma families, the studies by Karamihova (1998, 2002,2003a); in leadership studies are publications by Nunev (2008); and in the ethnicstructure of the population and in particular of the Roma are studies by Bozhikovet al. (1993), Geshev (1995), Ninov (1999), and others. The subject of Romaevangelists was dealt with by Slavkova (2008). Today, it is safe to say that theinterest in Roma communities in Bulgaria and their culture is not decreasing, but onthe contrary, it is on an upward swing.

What is the state of the Roma language in the Plovdiv Roma neighborhoods? Theresults unambiguously show that the disappearance of the Romani language in thestudied quarters of predominantly Roma population, not only in Plovdiv but in othercities as well (Asenovgrad, Pazardzhik, Haskovo, Burgas, and Varna), is due to bothnatural and subjective factors: the inability of the individual Roma communities toupdate their language, to generate new words, and to adapt them to the newconditions, raising the need for constantly borrowing new words from the surround-ing macro-communities. The Romani language is not well-adapted to the constantlychanging world. The linguistic layers of the Romani language allow its use mainlyon a daily, social, and household level. Borrowing of foreign words undoubtedlyleads to a decrease in the authenticity of the Romani language, at the expense of thegrowing number of loan words. As a result, the effectiveness and resilience of thecollective cultural body of the Roma are diminishing. And if the insufficient amountof hemoglobin in the blood leads to anemia and the body becomes sick, the lack ofauthentic words and terms in the Romani language leads to linguistic anemia, whichcauses the cultural body of the Roma to gradually lose its vital strength andsignificance.

The other important and in this case subjective factor for the disappearance of theRomani language is the emergence of a flexible self-identity, which can be referredto it as faceted identity. Just like the several facets formed during processing ofprecious stones, the Roma studied here have several identities. This can be attributedto the effort Roma people make to avoid the negative gypsy stigma. Usually in suchcases, the Roma identify themselves as Turks – within Bulgaria itself and as Turks orBulgarians while abroad. By maintaining the myth of their non-Roma origin, theRoma adopt newer social roles which drastically divert them not only from theirRoma identity but also from the Romani language. The new habitus (see Bourdieu)predetermines new behavior and actions, for example, speaking in Turkish language,dressing as Turks, shopping in Turkish shops, watching Turkish television, going toa mosque, meeting with Turks, etc. In those cases, the Romani language is a burden,and it is abandoned, or it is used as a secret language in other situations.

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In both cases, Romani language appears to be impractical, unprivileged, andunprestigious, and as such begins its expulsion from the cultural matrix of thestudied communities. The vast majority of the people in the Roma quarters ofPlovdiv neighborhoods consciously adopted Turkish as their mother tongue, whilethe rest use Bulgarian. It is a phenomenon which has to do with avoiding discrim-ination and persecution on the one hand and with the mere physical survival incertain historical periods. In this respect, with regard to the ease which foreigncultural elements are loaned, a rather interesting question can be asked: havingadopted Turkish, Bulgarian, or other languages, didn’t the Roma in fact adopt thelanguage called Romani/Romance just as well? In fact, at the dawn of their formationas an ethnic group or at some point later – during their early migrations – is itpossible that the Roma adopted their language from its original bearer?

The Roma Community in One Bulgarian City: Plovdiv

The cultural identity of the community studied here (who define themselves asmillet) has been formed mostly within the nuclear and the extended family then inthe next of kin or in the “clan” and only then in the community (these processes aretypical of the community in the Roma quarters of Plovdiv, as well as of other milletcommunities across Bulgaria (in Asenovgrad, Pazardzhik, Haskovo, Stara Zagora,Varna, Burgas, etc.)). Bearing in mind this arrangement of dependency, the nuclearand the extended family play a key role in the formation of the culture of the Roma.As far as the community itself goes, its role is more supportive rather than formative.The community is that unifying frame within which the families create their culturalmodels. This is why the connections inside the nuclear and the extended familiesdisplay almost the same level of intensity and have the same power of influence. Thefamilies construct the network of kinship, whereby the line of kin has representativefunctions and affords invaluable symbolic capital. Within the limits of the quarter, itis not that important whether one is educated, wealthy, or famous – unless one doesnot belong to a big and powerful family, they are vulnerable. These are the clans thatbuild the community. The community in the Roma quarters of Plovdiv is definitelyan acephalic one (with no single leader), while the internal relations are regulated bypotestarian mechanisms (from the Latin potestas – power). Potestarity is a form ofpublic authority in pre-class and early class societies which have no political andstate institutions and attributes.

In the Roma quarters of Plovdiv, the vast majority of the residents do not definethemselves as Roma or gypsy, irrespective of the fact that the population aroundthem identifies them as such. This starting point calls for an a priori revision andadaptation of the scholarly apparatus which is used when researching communitiesthat define themselves as Roma – burgudzhii (a Roma subgroup of predominantlyOrthodox Christian confession, whose main trade is blacksmithing); kaldera (thekalderashi Roma are also known as “Serbian” or “Hungarian” gypsies, whose

Roma: A Nation Without a Homeland, Common Language, or Written. . . 9

traditional religious orientation in Bulgaria is the Eastern Orthodox Christianity,while those in Western Europe and North America are Catholics; the name of thisgypsy subgroup derives from caldera – the Romanian for cauldron); ludari(or rudari, who identify themselves as Vlachs or Vlach gypsies and speak a dialectof the Romanian language); kalaidzhii (a Roma subgroup of Orthodox Christianconfession, known for the bride markets they organize, where the kalaidzhii com-munity from all over the country gathers in order to buy or sell a girl for a bride);zagundzhii (an unprestigious Roma subgroup who immigrated from the lowerDanube plain (Wallachia) in Romania; millet (the largest Roma community inBulgaria who speak Turkish language and are of Islamic confession, while the vastmajority identify themselves as Turks; Plovdiv is the center of that community), etc.

At the brides market: girls of the kalaidzhii Roma group for sale

Because of the significant cultural differences (more than 100 Roma groups andsubgroups are identified in Bulgaria), the representatives of the different Romagroups often use Bulgarian language to communicate with each other.

The way the population of the four Roma quarters (Stolipinovo, Sheker Mahala,Haji Hasan Mahala, and Harman Mahala) in the city of Plovdiv has been defined,namely, as Turkish gypsies or Horohane Roma, yerlii (or even more incomprehen-sible correlations such as erlii and arlii), serves as a good example of widespread useof terms which have been inadvertently introduced into the scholarly language forlack of knowledge of the language of the respective ethnic community.

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Location of the four Roma quarters and micro-quarters in Plovdiv

At the heart of the ambivalence in defining the local Roma people as yerlii is theignorance among scholars of the existing Turkish language dialects. Given that thegenesis of that definition can be chronotropically attributed to the Ottoman period(the term yerlii, as Pamporov states, was introduced by Bernard Gilliat-Smith in1916 (Pamporov 2008, p. 16). This anachronism in present conditions undoubtedlybrings ambiguity and even misinterpretation. The majority of the population of thefour ethnically distinct neighborhoods of Plovdiv is usually defined as Roma of theyerlii group or Horohane Roma, meaning they are Turkish gypsies. These exonymsencounter fierce resistance from the community residing in the abovementionedneighborhoods. The word yerliya has a Turkish root – yer, meaning a place(geogr.) – but in the neighborhoods of Plovdiv, it above all means land. Hence, theyerliya is perceived as “a person possessing land,” “a wealthy, rich person.”

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Pamporov, therefore, very correctly notes (Pamporov 2008, p. 16) that the term yerliiis merely introduced (Pamporov 2008, p. 16) for “academic convenience” and thatsuch a Roma group does not actually exist.

The argument that many of the yerlii or Horohane Roma (Turkish gypsies) stillspeak Romanes is misleading. In field studies in 2015, it was found that the so-calledTurkish gypsies in the abovementioned Plovdiv neighborhoods actually speakTurkish, dotted with archaisms which in the modern Turkish language have beendropped or are only used in some isolated areas of Turkey. Examples include mekteb,school (instead of okul); beygir, horse (instead of at); karı, woman (instead of bayan,kadın, hanım); kızan, child (instead of çocuk), etc. The isolation of Turkish-speakingethnic communities in Bulgaria, from the liberation (1878) until the end of the lastcentury, stopped the dynamics and modernization of their spoken language, which inturn required borrowing from the Bulgarian language, in order to achieve full-fledged communication in line with the new socioeconomic, technological, political,etc. conditions. Research has clearly shown that in the spoken Turkish language ofthe population of the Plovdiv neighborhoods in discussion, Bulgarian words andexpressions are still constantly present. After the political changes at the end of thelast century and through the free access to the electronic media of Bulgaria’ssoutheast neighbor, a process of “upgrading” the Turkish language in the PlovdivRoma neighborhoods began.

The use of the term yerlii for the local Plovdiv Roma adds additional polysemy tothe correct ethnic definition of this population. Some believe that the Turks and theautonyms Turks and millet, as the vast majority of the Turkish-speaking communityin the Plovdiv Roma neighborhoods (including Harman Mahala) identifies them-selves, are more correct. For the smaller non-Turkish-speaking Roma community, itis appropriate to use the term Roma/gypsies-burgudzhii, as they identify themselves.Fieldwork in the studied neighborhoods reveals that the population is divided intotwo groups: (1) Turks, who also use the autonym millet as their ethnic marker,synonymous to Turks, and (2) Roma, who identify themselves as gypsies-burgudzhii. The latter often use the exonym Horohay to refer to the Turkish-speaking community of the neighborhood, who in turn refer to the Roma as çingeneor burgudzhii.

Irrespective of the technological communicative affordances which eliminate thespatial and geographical dimensions qua limitation, cohesion (e.g., marriages, cul-tural, commercial, joint activities, etc.) is not observed between the different locallydistinct Roma communities at this stage (e.g., between the populations ofStolipinovo quarter – the largest Roma “ghetto” in Europe and the Roma quarterof Humata in the town of Lom, or, e.g., with Maksuda quarter in Varna). This findingreveals there are considerable cultural differences among the different Roma com-munities. It also shows that the mechanistic typologization of the separate Romacommunities in Bulgaria, which is reproduced on various levels, is an atavisticprocess revealing deep ignorance in the field of Roma studies. Still, it should bestated in no vague terms that the degree of integration of the different Romacommunities in the macro-society in Plovdiv is not the same. The factors that

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influence the levels of integration are directly related to the culture, the attitudes, andthe ethnic, social, and spatial distance between the Roma on the one hand and themacro-society on the other hand.

Durable and stable deprivation (the state of being deprived of certain benefits) ornegative stereotypes regarding the Roma communities have appeared in all countrieswith any Roma population. The lack of solidarity of participation in the sociopolit-ical and economic life, their inequitable treatment, their asymmetrical integration inpolicies, the presence of assimilatory aspirations, and the enforced westernization ofthe Roma are only some of the universal problems these communities face. Herewesternization should not be equated with modernization, but should be regardedmore as an attempt at marginalizing Roma culture and imposing Eurocentrism(mostly in its Anglo-Saxon version) onto non-western communities such as theRoma. This does not mean there is some existing Occidentalism with regard to theRoma people today. On the contrary, during fieldwork in Dortmund, Germany, theauthor found out that the greater part of the members of the Plovdiv Roma diasporaliving there actively and successfully use the achievements of the western civiliza-tion without losing the essence of their own identity, which, by the way, is verydifficult to fit into the familiar ethno-cultural matrices. The failure on behalf of thenon-Roma to typologize, differentiate, and decode the cultural matrices of distinctRoma communities on national and international level predetermines the resultsfrom the integration policies.

The next to nonexistent cultural diffusion between the macro-society and thecommunity discussed above is in one particular location, Harman Mahala quarter inPlovdiv, which generates increasing difficulties in the communication between thetwo. Seen as both absurd and often incomprehensible to the society in general, theworld of the “ghetto” is not critically reflected upon by its inhabitants. Ground-basedfield research into the two cultural systems developing within the frame of the samecity (Plovdiv) reveals there are various processes operating in sometimes sharplydifferent ways.

Challenges for the Scholarly Community Studying the Roma

Even though it cannot be said that there is a lack of goodwill on behalf of the centraland the local (municipal) authorities in Bulgaria, the, respectively, responsiblestructures at the EU level or some of the nongovernmental and international donororganizations for solving the “Roma issue,” it appears that besides goodwill andfinancial resources, in-depth studies of the separate Roma communities and theirareas of residence are needed. Research has made it amply clear that most of thecurrently adopted contemporary theoretical models and methodological instrumentsin the humanities about cultures and societies very often “gasp for air” when it boilsdown to researching and describing in detail and in addressing in an academicallyappropriate way a certain aspect of Roma everyday life, culture, and history. Thelack of sufficient knowledge about the separate Roma groups is obvious. This “gasp”

Roma: A Nation Without a Homeland, Common Language, or Written. . . 13

in fact hinders the process of creating successful policies for intervention and theinclusion of the various discrete Roma communities into a wider society. Thereasons for this “gap” are to be found in the high levels of heterogeneity of Romacommunities and in the lack of a sufficient number of studies on the Roma conductedfollowing the Anthropology at Home method. Usually anthropologists adopt thismethod to study their own cultures through fieldwork in their own countries (com-munities) (Jackson 1987; Munthali 2001; Peirano 1998).

If more studies based on that method enrich this scholarly field, they wouldclarify some of the misapprehensions and quasi-scientific theses which regrettablysaturate the current scientific literature dealing with the Roma, published in Bulgaria,and around the world.

All in all, it can be claimed that the most important cultural marker of theinhabitants of the ghettoized urban structures of Plovdiv is actually theirinscriptionless culture, which predetermines their unequal position, as opposed toother ethno-confessional communities. Spatial segregation eventually leads to highlevels of unemployment and low educational levels of the residents. The lack of theirown written culture shapes or influences to a great extent their everyday life, their lifestrategies, their position in the social structure of the city, and their roles as aperipheral and service community. This perspective leads to the formation of animplicit ethno-confessional “detonator,” which for many researchers and institutionsis still invisible. New social actors such as the Roma, migrants, people from the“periphery,” and other marginalized communities increasingly declare their presencein the backstage, and it is only a matter of time to actively engage in the “play” takingplace on the big stage. In that same context, Herbert Marcuse thinks that beneath themass of the conservative majority of people lies a layer of outsiders, exploited,persecuted, representatives of other races and of other skin color, unemployed, andincapacitated. Remaining beyond the democratic processes, their lives are theembodiment of the immediate and real need to reject the unbearable conditionsand institutions. In this sense, their opposition is in itself revolutionary, whether theythemselves are aware of it or not (Marcuse 1994). Assuming that the Roma com-munities in Bulgaria are part of these layers (outsiders, people with different skincolor, and vastly unemployed), they are part of the new proletariat (in the sense ofopposition to the macro-society). Those same Roma, who were forced by theCommunist regime in Bulgaria to stop their usual nomadic lifestyle 60 years ago,and some 30% of them nowadays work and live in Western Europe. Undoubtedly,this has a direct impact on the cultural and social image of this population. The newlyacquired social confidence allows them to take prestigious urban areas (in Bulgariaand Europe), which until recently were a privilege of the macro-society representa-tives only – city centers, fancy restaurants, bars, shops, etc. The forming Roma elite,although not united, claims active participation in local authority bodies and variousother institutions. The robust demographic profile of the Roma communities, thestrong and intense family-bonds and relationships, and their readiness to dounprestigious and hard, physical jobs allows us to conclude that the Roma – despitethe lack of common language, own writing, and culture – will continue to be presenton the European scene for a long time to come.

14 K. Asenov

Unfortunately, despite the great interest in the Roma, the funds that are beinginvested for their integration into the European macro-societies prove to be spentineffectively, lacking the expected results. What is needed to be done to overcomethis problem? The answer to this question is a capital rethinking of the policiestoward the Roma. Successful policies can only be based on good-quality scientificresearch done by professionals who know in detail the cultural matrix of each Romagroup which the authorities want to invest in. Minding that the Roma groups inBulgaria alone are over 100, it is hardly prudent to apply the same policies for theRoma in Romania, Greece, Hungary, Germany, or Bulgaria. Often, there are cardinaldifferences between the Roma in Bulgaria, to the extent that they can actually beidentified as separate ethnic groups. It is therefore necessary for field researchers toapply scientific methods that allow them to describe the characteristics of theparticular Roma group by producing an ethno-cultural map for that same group.That map needs to be sufficiently detailed so as to answer all questions related to thestudied group: spatial location (distinct area or scattered, spotted spatial distribution),boundaries of the area the group inhabits (permeable or not, clear or fuzzy), the typeof area (naturally formed or institutionally created – as this is of importance), andwhether the community is monolingual, bilingual, or trilingual. It is also important totrace family and friend networks and connections so as to know who forms thepublic opinion in the community, what social networks they use, and with whomthey communicate, because if parents have until recently arranged their children’smarriages, young Roma people today find their future partners mostly throughFacebook, Viber, WhatsApp, etc. It represents an interest for us, and assuminglyfor other researchers studying the Roma, how the Roma people in Bulgaria com-municate on social networks, provided they do not have their own writing: Do theyuse the Latin alphabet or the Cyrillic alphabet? Do they prefer pictograms or audio-video links?

These are significant transformations of the Roma cultural matrices generated byglobal social networks and should be the subject of profound research. Anotherimportant aspect that deserves the researchers’ attention is the figure of the informalRoma leader. Why is their role so ambivalent? Are they genuinely interested inaiding the integration process or merely imitate activity by diverting funds? (Giventhat once the problems of the community are solved, the informal leader will go “outof business,” and informal leaders usually have no other income than the integrationfunds provided).

Another important element that will help the elaboration of better quality pro-grams for Roma problem solving is that the researcher speaks the language of thestudied group. Over the long years of studying the Roma, it has been found that it isvery important what the Roma interlocutors tell us, but it is also important how theysay it or what they are not saying. If one does not know the cultural codes of thestudied community, it is very likely that the research is compromised to a varyingdegree, which affects the effectiveness of the future policies based on any givenresearch. The Roma people talk vividly; their speech intonation and the kinesic andparalinguistic elements of their communication are rather rich and ornamented. That

Roma: A Nation Without a Homeland, Common Language, or Written. . . 15

unique nuance, so characteristic of the Roma, can only be captured by a researcherwho has a more in-depth knowledge of the Roma culture.

Finally, it is important to note that the Roma can be fruitfully studied preciselythrough the localized discourse – within research projects on the locally distinctRoma communities and their areas of residence. This would provide a more realisticidea of the individual culture, state, and needs of the specific Roma community. Thatwill allow the elaboration of policy measures which would be explicitly designed fora given Roma group. Only then can the expected results be more visible. The needfor a careful reading of the new demographic, social, ethno-cultural, etc. processes isimperative and is in the interest of all Europeans societies. The hundreds of Romagroups living across the Old Continent can harmoniously fit in the cultural diversityof the European nations. Because the Roma are not foreigners to Europe, they werehere long before some of today’s European ethno-national communities were evenformed.

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