Occupation and ethnicity: Constructing identify among professional Romani (Gypsy) musicians in Romania

Slavic Review

Volumn 60, Issue 1, 2001, Pages 24-48

  Beissinger, Margaret H ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 53249107955     PISSN: 00376779     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2697642     Document Type: Article

References (147)

1. Due to the important distinction between the ethnonyms "Gypsy" and "Rom" - in Romanian, t + ̌igan (pi. t + ̌igani) and mm (pi. romi), I include the original terms from the Romanian quotes in my English translations. This will underscore matters of ethnonym usage, a question examined in detail below. In English, I Anglicize the plural of Rom (Roms), following the helpful suggestion of Victor Friedman.
2. As I will treat below, the assertion that lǎutari speak Romanian brings with it an implicit contrast to other Roms in Romania, some of whom speak Romani.
3. Ian Hancock, "Introduction," in David Crowe and John Kolsti, eds., The Gypsies of Kastern Europe (Armonk, N.Y., 1991), 4-6.
4. On this paradox among lǎutari, see Margaret H. Beissinger, The Art of the Lǎutar: The Epic Tradition of Romania (New York, 1991), 29-35.
5. Fredrik Barth, "Introduction," Ethnic Groups and Boundaries (Boston, 1969), 9-38.
6. Richard Jenkins, "Ethnicity Etcetera: Social Anthropological Points of View," Ethnic and Racial Studies 19, no. 4 (1996): 819.
7. See also Jenkins, "Rethinking Ethnicity: Identity, Categorization and Power," Ethnic and Racial Studies 17, no. 2 (1994): 197-223.
8. For examples of such works, see Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon, The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies (New York, 1972);
9. Ian Hancock, The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution (Ann Arbor, 1987);
10. Crowe and Kolsti, eds., Gypsies of Eastern Europe; Angus Fraser, The Gypsies (Oxford, 1992);
11. David Crowe, A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia (New York, 1996).
12. See, for instance, Will Guy, "Ways of Looking at Roma: The Case of Czechoslovakia" [1975];
13. Milena Hübschmannová, "Economic Stratification and Interaction: Roma, an Ethnic Jati in East Slovakia" [1984];
14. and Alaina Lemon, "Roma (Gypsies) in the Soviet Union and the Moscow Teatr 'Romen'" [1991],
15. in Diane Tong, ed., Gypsies: An Interdisciplinary Reader (New York, 1998),
16. and Michael Stewart, The Time of the Gypsies (Boulder, Colo., 1997).
17. Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (Garden City, N.Y., 1959), 8, 15.
18. On the communication of cultural difference as social process, see Thomas Hylland Eriksen, "The Cultural Contexts of Ethnic Differences," Man 26, no. 1 (1991): 127-44.
19. Lǎutari in southern Romania are - like the Romanians among whom they live - Orthodox Christians. I do not treat religion among lǎutari here since I did not find it to be a salient feature of their identity construction.
20. The sites of my ficldwork included villages (Blejeşti, Mârşa, Preajbǎ, Cartojani, Celei, Corabia) and cities (Bucharest, Craiova, Târgovişte); one family of musicians I interviewed was from a village in Transylvania (Ceuaş). All of the musicians remain anonymous in order to protect their privacy.
21. On music and song per se as performed by lǎutari, see Beissinger, Art of the lǎutar.
22. The number of Roms in Romania is much disputed but at least 1 million. Elena and Cǎtǎlin Zamfir, T + ̌iganii: Între ignorare şi îngrijorare (Bucharest, 1993), 60.
23. The Ethnic Federation of Roms in Romania estimates 2.5 million. Emmanuelle Pons, T + ̌iganii din România (Bucharest, 1999), 7.
24. Wallachia and Moldova were historical regions located in the south and northeast of present-day Romania, respectively. In Hungary and especially Transylvania (central and northwest Romania), many Roms were serfs. Fraser, Gypsies, 107-10.
25. Ian Hancock, "Introduction," in Ian Hancock, Siobhan Dowd, and Rajko Djurić, eds., The Roads of the Roma (Hertfordshire, Eng., 1998), 14-17.
26. Sam Beck, "The Origins of Gypsy Slavery in Romania," Dialectical Anthropology 14 (1989): 57-58.
27. For an overview of European Romani music, see Carol Silverman, "Rom (Gypsy) Music," in Timothy Rice, James Porter, and Chris Goertzen, eds., Garland Encyclopedia of World Music (New York, 2000), 8:270-93.
28. See also The World of Music 38, no. 1 (1996), devoted to studies of Romani music and musicianship.
29. Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, 2d ed. (Cambridge, Eng., 1992), 66.
30. Crawford Young, The Politics of Cultural Pluralism (Madison, 1976), 50.
31. Crowe, History of the Gypsies, 107-8.
32. For an alternative chronology of Romani slavery in the Romanian Principalities, see Nicolae Gheorghe, "Origin of Roma's Slavery in the Rumanian Principalities," Roma 7, no. 1 (1983): 12-27.
33. Hancock, Pariah Syndrome, 16-17;
34. Viorel Cosma, Lǎutarii de ieri fi de azi, 2d ed. (Bucharest, 1996), 22.
35. Viorel Achim, T + ̌iganii în istoria României (Bucharest, 1998), 33.
36. Nicolae Iorga, Istoria literaturii românes + ̌ti, 2d ed. (Bucharest, 1925), 1:27;
37. Cosma, Lǎutarii de ieri şi de azi, 22-24.
38. On lǎutar history, see Beissinger, Art of the Lǎutar, 16-23.
39. Cosma, Lǎutarii de ieri şi de azi, 24.
40. Cosma, Lǎutarii de ieri şi de azi, Ibid., 15.
41. These distinctions were explained in Mihai Kagǎlniceanu, Esquisse sur l'histoire, les moeurs et la langue des Cigains connus en France sous le nom de Bohémiens (Berlin, 1837);
42. see Achim, T + ̌iganii in istoria România, 36-37.
43. Achim, T + ̌iganii în istoria României, 37, 79.
44. In this regard, the example of African-American musicians provides a striking parallel to Romani musicians and their relationship with dominant society; and in the case of Romanian Romani musicians, the parallels are even closer given the historical experience of slavery, which both Roms and Black Americans endured. Much as hierarchical divisions based on occupation emerged among Romani slaves, among African-American slaves, rank was according to the types of work they were assigned. Furthermore, as with lǎutari, whose status was elevated among slaves, Black musicians were also more privileged than other slaves. See Roger Abrahams, Singing the Master: The Emergence of African-American Culture in the Plantation South (New York, 1992) .
45. This is according to Romani sociologist Vasile Burtea, "Neamurile de romi şi modul lor de viat + ̌ǎ," Sociologie Româneascǎ, 1994, no. 2-3:257-73.
46. Achim, T + ̌iganii în istoria României, 171-72.
47. See also Jean-Pierre Liégeois and Nicolae Gheorghe, "Romii: O minoritate a României: Anexa," in Minority Rights Groups International Report (Oradea, Romania, 1996), 2-3.
48. On postemancipation, see Hancock, Pariah Syndrome, 37-48;
49. see also Achim, Tiganii în istoria României, 76-119.
50. Serfdom was outlawed in Transylvania in 1848. Fraser, Gypsies, 222-26.
51. See Bálint Sárosi, Gypsy Music (Budapest, 1978).
52. Carol Silverman, "Bulgarian Gypsies: Adaptation in a Socialist Context," Nomadic Peoples 21/22 (1986): 52.
53. See Andrijana Gojković, "Romi u muzičkom životu naših naroda," Zvuk 3 (1977): 45-50,
54. and "Music of Yugoslav Gipsies," Traditional Music of Ethnic Groups - Minorities 7 (1986): 187-94;
55. T. P. Vukanović, "Musical Culture among the Gypsies of Yugoslavia," Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 3d ser., 41 (1962): 41-61;
56. and Timothy Rice, "The Surla and Tapan Tradition in Yugoslav Macedonia," Galpin Society Journal 35 (1982): 122-37.
57. Achim, Tiganii în istoria României, 128.
58. See Radu Ioanid, The Holocaust in Romania: The Destruction of Jews and Gypsies under the Antonescu Regime, 1940-1944 (Chicago, 2000).
59. See also Henry R. Huttenbach, "The Romani Pořajmos: The Nazi Genocide of Europe's Gypsies," Nationalities Papers 19, no. 3 (1991): 373-94.
60. Quoted in Crowe, History of the Gypsies, 134.
61. See Crowe, History of the Gypsies,
62. and Hugh Poulton, The Balkans (London, 1993).
63. See David Crowe, "The Gypsy Historical Experience in Romania," in Crowe and Kolsti, eds., Gypsies of Eastern Europe, 61-79,
64. and Achim, T + ̌ganii în istoria România.
65. On Bulgaria, see Silverman, "Bulgarian Gypsies"; on central Europe,
66. see William McCagg, "Gypsy Policy in Socialist Hungary and Czechoslovakia, 1945-1989," Nationalities Papers 19, no. 3 (1991): 313-36.
67. The most notable state-run folklore festival was "Cîntarea Românici" (The singing of Romania). See Sperant + ̌a Rǎdulescu, "Traditional Musics and Ethnomusicology under Political Pressure: The Romanian Case," Anthropology Today 13, no. 6 (1997): 8-12.
68. See Sperant + ̌a Rǎdulescu, "Consequences of the Political Changes in Romanian Peasant Music," Revue roumaine d'histoire de l'art 31 (1994): 27-30.
69. On comparable prohibitions in Bulgaria, see Carol Silverman, "Reconstructing Folklore: Media and Cultural Policy in Eastern Europe," Communication 11 (1989): 141-60.
70. See Zoltan Barany, "Living on the Edge: The East European Roma in Postcommunist Politics and Societies," Slavic Review 53, no. 2 (Summer 1994): 321-44,
71. and Barany, "Grim Realities in Eastern Europe," Transitions 1, no. 4 (1995): 3-6.
72. See also David Crowe, "The Gypsies of Romania since 1990," Nationalities Papers 27, no. 1 (1999): 57-67,
73. and Judith Latham, "Roma of the Former Yugoslavia," Nationalities Papers 27, no. 2 (1999): 205-26.
74. Katherine Verdery, "Nationalism and National Sentiment in Postsocialist Romania" [1993], What Was Socialism, and What Comes Next? (Princeton, 1996), 97-98.
75. See also Dan Pavel, "Wanderers: Romania's Hidden Victims" [1992], in Tong, ed., Gypsies, 69-73.
76. On music and Roms in postcommunist Romania, see Sperant + ̌a Rǎdulescu, "Metisaje şi globalizǎri muzicale," Secolul 20: Balcanismul 7-9 (1997): 108-12.
77. On cast European music in the 1990s, see Mark Slobin, ed., Retuning Culture: Musical Changes in Central and Eastern Europe (Durham, 1996).
78. See also Ljerka Vidić Rasmussen, "Musical Practice of Nomadic Rom in Bosnia," in Matt T. Salo, ed., 100 Years of Gypsy Studies (Cheverly, Md., 1990), 203-13,
79. and Rasmussen, "Gypsy Music in Yugoslavia: Inside the Popular Culture Tradition," Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 5th ser., 1 (1991): 127-39.
80. Donald Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley, 1985), 110.
81. Elena Marushiakova, "Ethnic Identity among Gypsy Groups in Bulgaria," Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 5th ser., 2 (1992): 107.
82. Liégeois and Gheorghe, "Romii," 1.
83. Rena C. Gropper, Gypsies in the City (Princeton, 1975), 38.
84. See Agatta Drǎgulescu, Ovidiu Lungu, and Adrian Neculau, T + ̌iganii: O abordare psihosociologicǎ (Iaşi, 1996), 41-59.
85. Agatta Drǎgulescu, Ovidiu Lungu, and Adrian Neculau, T + ̌iganii: O abordare psihosociologicǎ Ibid., 65-66.
86. Stewart, Time of the Gypsies, 13.
87. Dénes Szánthó, "Gypsy Musician, 1968," New Hungarian Quarterly 9 (1968): 156.
88. A young Romani musician from Skopje told me emphatically that between musicians like him and Macedonians "there are no problems, no differences! We are all people."
89. For a brief discussion of settlement patterns in six villages in Romania where lǎutari live, see Sperant + ̌a Rǎdulescu, "Gypsy Music versus the Music of Others," Martor 1 (1996): 138-42.
90. During the interwar period, however, many lǎutari evidently did live in Ferentari (personal communication, Rǎdulescu).
91. Silverman, "Bulgarian Gypsies," 59.
92. Hübschmannová, "Economic Stratification and Interaction," 241-42.
93. Szánthó, "Gypsy Musician, 1968," 156.
94. This does not mean, however, that lǎutari never perform with Romanians; they do, but only with professional musicians.
95. There are about 150,000 nomadic Roms in postcommunist Romania. M. Bǎcanu, T + ̌iganii: Minoritate nat + ̌ionalǎ sau majoritate infract + ̌ionalǎ? (Bucharest, 1996), 49.
96. Fierari were among the first Roms in Romania to abandon Romani; many assimilated and became well educated. Liégeois and Gheorghe, "Romii," 3.
97. Hübschmannová, "Economic Stratification and Interaction," 236-41, 255. Blacksmiths also are prestigious among Roms in Slovakia (236-45).
98. Jane Cowan, Dance and the Body Politic in Northern Greece (Princeton, 1990), 102.
99. Liégeois and Gheorghe, "Romii," 4;
100. Lemon also points out that Romani performing artists in the Moscow Romani Theater comprise an elite among the local Roms. Lemon, "Roma (Gypsies) in the Soviet Union," 147-48.
101. See also Alaina Lemon, Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Postsocialism (Durham, N.C., 2000).
102. Hübschmannová, "Economic Stratification and Interaction," 241.
103. Guy, "Ways of Looking at Roma," 37.
104. As Lemon notes, Roms who perform in the Moscow Romani Theater "see themselves as 'more civilized' than rural or traveling Roma, and speak of their responsibility to educate the others, to 'raise the cultural level.'" Lemon, "Roma (Gypsies) in the Soviet Union," 156;
105. see also Alaina Lemon, "In Russia, a Community Divided," Transitions 1, no. 4 (1995): 12-18.
106. Szánthó, "Gypsy Musician, 1968," 156.
107. Lemon, "Roma (Gypsies) in the Soviet Union," 156.
108. Stewart, Time of the Gypsies, 93.
109. Gropper, Gypsies in the City, 30.
110. On notions of caste and jat in the context of east European Roms, see Hübschmannová, "Economic Stratification and Interaction."
111. In Slovakia, occupational endogamy among Romani groups is typical. Hübschmannová, "Economic Stratification and Interaction," 245-46.
112. Among Hungarian Romani musicians, "Gypsies . . . almost never marry girls who are not Gypsies." Szánthó, "Gypsy Musician, 1968," 156.
113. When a woman's closest lǎutar relative (by descent) is her grandfather, it means that her mother was the daughter of a lǎutar but married a non-lǎutar.
114. Because lǎutari travel frequently for their jobs, marriages can take place between men and women from the same village or city, from different villages or cities, and from both village and city; all of these combinations are relatively common. Hübschmannová also notes the "spatial mobility" of Romani musicians on the job in Slovakia, thus affecting their choice of wives. Hübschmannová, "Economic Stratification and Interaction," 257-59.
115. Urban lǎutari sometimes perform with family members though ensembles are more often composed of unrelated musicians.
116. Hübschmannová, "Economic Stratification and Interaction," 244.
117. See Anne Sutherland, "Gypsy Women, Gypsy Men: Paradoxes and Cultural Resources," in Joanne Grumet, ed., Papers from the Sixth and Seventh Annual Meetings, Gypsy Lore Society (New York, 1986), 104-13.
118. See also Rena C. Gropper, "Sex Dichotomy among the American Kalderaš Gypsies" [1951], in Tong, ed., Gypsies, 219-32.
119. Judith Okely, "Gypsy Women: Models in Conflict" [1975], Own or Other Culture (London, 1996), 78.
120. This contrasts with patterns observed among nomadic and seminomadic Roms in North America and Britain, where husbands are not bound, as arc lǎutari, to demanding-albeit uncertain and periodic - professions but rather stay out of the public eye and tend to the politics of the extended family community. Their wives are both responsible for the domestic labor and expected to earn income outside the home (among non-Roms) such as in fortune-telling. See Carol Silverman, "Pollution and Power: Gypsy Women in America," in Matt T. Salo, ed., The American Kalderash: Gypsies in the New World (Centenary College, N.J., 1981), 55-70;
121. see also Gropper, Gypsies in the City, 1975.
122. On job recruitments where an ethnic division of labor is operative, see Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict, 108-13.
123. Hancock, Pariah Syndrome, 37.
124. Barany, "Living on the Edge," 325;
125. Mihai Merfea, Integrarea socialǎ a romilor (Braşov, 1991), 24.
126. The lǎutari from Transylvania (members of a family ensemble) acknowledged that they speak "Gypsy" at home but Romanian or Hungarian in public. For a consideration of varying levels of knowledge of Romani in villages in Romania where lǎutari live, see Rǎdulescu, "Gypsy Music," 138-42.
127. Szánthó, "Gypsy Musician, 1968," 157.
128. See Zamfir and Zamfir, T + ̌iganii, 22.
129. 84: Merfea, Integrarea, 24. Some urban Romani intellectuals have also sought to cultivate Romani, especially since 1989.
130. Tong found that Roms in Greece in the process of assimilating seek to lessen the negative ethnic stigma surrounding them by abandoning Romani. Identity for them is ambivalent "and their attitudes toward Romani reflect this," since it is seen as "a hindrance to upward social mobility." Diane Tong, "Romani as Symbol: Socio-Linguistic Strategies of the Gypsies of Thessaloniki," in Joanne Grumet, ed., Papers from the Fourth and Fifth Annual Meetings, Gypsy Lore Society (New York, 1985), 182.
131. The references to this point are too numerous to be provided here; examples can be found in Liégeois and Gheorghe, "Romii," 6;
132. Carol Silverman, "Music and Marginality: Roma (Gypsies) of Bulgaria and Macedonia," in Slobin, ed., Retuning Culture, 250n1;
133. and Stewart, Time of the Gypsies, 247. In 1971, the first World Romani Congress adopted the Romani form Rom (pl. Roma) as preferable to "Gypsy" and its European cognates.
134. Drǎgulescu, Lungu, and Neculau, T + ̌iganii, 47.
135. Drǎgulescu, Lungu, and Neculau, T + ̌iganii, Ibid., 57-58.
136. Similarly, in 1995, the Romanian government decided "to switch the minority's official designation from 'Roma' to 'T + ̌igani' . . . without informing Romani leaders" in order "to prevent confusion between 'Roma' and 'Romania.'" Zoltan Barany, "Favorable Trends for Romania's Roma," Transitions 1, no. 19 (1995): 28.
137. Nicolae Gheorghe, "The Social Construction of Romani Identity," in Thomas Acton, ed., Gypsy Politics and Traveller Identity (Hertfordshire, Eng., 1997), 158.
138. Lemon, "Roma (Gypsies) in the Soviet Union," 161n3.
139. Gheorghe is an internationally known activist and the head of the General Union of Romanies. Crowe, "Gypsies of Romania since 1990," 63.
140. Pǎun is the president of the Party of Roms. Bǎcanu, Tiganii, 53.
141. Szánthó, "Gypsy Musician, 1968," 156. The translation as "Gypsy" is, I assume, from the Hungarian "Cigány."
142. Noting a similar phenomenon in Greece, Tong noted that yíftos is a derogatory term for Rom in Greece, yet it is frequently employed by Roms among themselves. Tong, "Romani as Symbols," 184.
143. Rǎducanu is a member of parliament who represents the Romanies' Democratic Forum. On postcommunist political developments among Roms in Romania, see Crowe, "Gypsies of Romania since 1990,"
144. and Barany, "Favorable Trends."
145. See Barany, "Grim Realities."
146. Gheorghe, "Social Construction of Romani Identity," 159.
147. A Romani musician from Macedonia also expressed civic disinterest and apathy. He told me that he had no interest in being politically active with other Roms; as he put it, "It's not my thing."