The Roma

August 14, 2003 8:13 AM

The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe. A photographic exhibition. More photos :- The Dream (photographs of Bulgarian gypsies); the gypsies of Romania; the gypsies of Andalusia; urban gypsies in London; gypsies of Pata-Rat, Transylvania. Katarzyna Pollok is a Roma gypsy artist (site partly in German).
posted by plep (11 comments total)

wonderful post, plep. thank you.
posted by stonerose at 8:23 AM on August 14, 2003

For more on gypsy history and culture, there is a very good site at the Gypsy Collections at the University of Liverpool, with sections on the gypsy wagon, or vardo and ,a href="http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/gypsy/appleby.htm">Appleby Horse Fair. Romani.org focuses on Roma political and civil rights. Here's the Roma flag with explanation. The Cybrary of the Holocaust has a pages on gypsies and gypsies in Auschwitz; here is a page on the testimony of a Roma Holocaust survivor. Persecution of the Roma continues today.
posted by plep at 8:28 AM on August 14, 2003

Sorry - the Appleby Horse Fair.
posted by plep at 8:29 AM on August 14, 2003

1) Fascinating. Thanks, Plep.
2) [off topic and geeky] Is horizontal scrolling on websites here to stay then? I seem to be running across it more and more. Don't like it.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 8:37 AM on August 14, 2003

The Patrin Web Journal: Romani Culture and History is probably one of the best sites on Roma history and culture - customs, the Holocaust, the anthem, etc. Unfortunately, good as it is, as the site is hosted on Geocities it probably wouldn't have been a good idea to include it in an FPP.
posted by plep at 8:55 AM on August 14, 2003

Great links, plep! You beat me to the Patrin Web Journal link--I've learned a lot from it. I hadn't realized the extent of codified discrimination/persecution of the Roma across Europe. There was a Roma message board I found interesting too, but I can no longer find it.
posted by lobakgo at 9:45 AM on August 14, 2003

In case anybody else tried to find Pata Rat in an atlas or reference work, it turns out to be "a community living on a garbage dump next to the city of Cluj Napoca" (according to a Eumap report).

(Where's zaelic, Knower of All Things Roma?)

Oh, and great post!
posted by languagehat at 10:18 AM on August 14, 2003

I was in Cluj last week if you must know... and Pata street is the same as always. Right now I am in Balchik, in the Bulgarian Dobrudja. Today I met Roma who speak a dialect I simply can't suss out, it was so mixed with Tatar turkish. The Tatars, on the other hand, are a trip. (What a terribly un-anthropological thing to say, but then again I am on my third mastika of the night in a Balchik internet bar.)

I'll be in Istanbul on Saturday, you can all find me with my Alevi buddies in the Habar bar. Gypsies will have to wait until I go hanging with musicians on Monday (zurla players...)

And those pages: friends of mine. Smart folks. Great post plep - as always
posted by zaelic at 11:37 AM on August 14, 2003

Ah, there you are! Have a mastika for me.
posted by languagehat at 12:21 PM on August 14, 2003

Also see the great, wordless documentary Latcho Drom for a beautiful tone poem about the East-to-West odyssey of gypsy music and dance. It's a bit frustrating for its lack of typical documentary-style information, but makes a gorgeous visual/audio complement to the links above.
posted by mediareport at 12:22 PM on August 14, 2003

Having recently met my birth mother for the first time, I found out my great grandparents were Romanian Gypsies, so this post has an added dimension for me.
Thanks plep, you're one of MeFi's gems, you continually find interesting parts of the web to bring us.
posted by Markb at 4:43 AM on August 15, 2003