In 1418, the wealthy burghers of Zurich were startled by the sudden appearance of a camp of foreigners outside their city's walls. The new arrivals were, according to a later chronicler, "strange/ and never before seen in this land". Although their clothes were ragged, they paid for all of their food and wore much gold jewellery. People believed them to be exiles from Egypt. Over the following decades, similar tales of these exotic travellers would emanate from cities as far afield as Barcelona (1447) and Vilnius (1501). These accounts recorded the arrival of the Roma people, and the beginnings of their troubled 600-year history in Europe.
This volume is less about the Roma themselves than about European imaginings and prejudice toward them. This approach is necessary because the Roma, as a nomadic people with a primarily oral culture, have left few traces for historians. What information we have about them comes from outsiders. From very early on, myth, confusion and prejudice soaked these accounts. The Roma's image was framed and defamed first by medieval chroniclers and rulers' decrees, and later by 18th-century anthropologists, 19th-century ethnographers and early 20th-century criminologists and ruthless racial pseudoscientists.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1422873872/1691045657/articles/qH2dZ-F8L1691057655368/9670641601.jpg]
Europe and the Roma: A History of Fascination and Fear
by Klaus-Michael Bogdal Allen Lane, 608 pages, £40
From the start, the newcomers were swathed in mystery. Nobody - not even the Roma themselves - knew from whence they came. Their dark complexions led some to assume that they were Tatars, or from Africa. The derogatory English term 'gypsies' derives from the early rumour that they were Egyptians, condemned by God to wander. By 1800, anthropologists had realised that their language was related to Sanskrit, making India the most plausible place of origin. The Roma people's misfortune, this book argues, was to reach Europe just as it embarked upon a tumultuous path toward modernity. Their way of life was p...
This volume is less about the Roma themselves than about European imaginings and prejudice toward them. This approach is necessary because the Roma, as a nomadic people with a primarily oral culture, have left few traces for historians. What information we have about them comes from outsiders. From very early on, myth, confusion and prejudice soaked these accounts. The Roma's image was framed and defamed first by medieval chroniclers and rulers' decrees, and later by 18th-century anthropologists, 19th-century ethnographers and early 20th-century criminologists and ruthless racial pseudoscientists.
[https://cdn.magzter.com/1422873872/1691045657/articles/qH2dZ-F8L1691057655368/9670641601.jpg]
Europe and the Roma: A History of Fascination and Fear
by Klaus-Michael Bogdal Allen Lane, 608 pages, £40
From the start, the newcomers were swathed in mystery. Nobody - not even the Roma themselves - knew from whence they came. Their dark complexions led some to assume that they were Tatars, or from Africa. The derogatory English term 'gypsies' derives from the early rumour that they were Egyptians, condemned by God to wander. By 1800, anthropologists had realised that their language was related to Sanskrit, making India the most plausible place of origin. The Roma people's misfortune, this book argues, was to reach Europe just as it embarked upon a tumultuous path toward modernity. Their way of life was p...
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Bbc History Uk (Digital) - 1 Issue, September 2023