Periodic Reporting for period 4 - RomaInterbellum (Roma Civic Emancipation Between The Two World Wars)
Période du rapport: 2021-03-01 au 2023-02-28
Over the past two decades, the Roma issue has become one of the most current topics in European public space and also became especially relevant in academia. Despite this, there are still under-researched topics, and such was until recently, the history of the Roma in the period between WWI and WWII and the appearance and development of social and political projects proposed by Roma. In this time span, Roma started to be politically institutionalized and, at the same time, also subjected to a variety of controversial policy practices. The present project successfully accomplished the ambitious goal of filling in this gap.
Within both academia and public perception, as well as in the discourse of key political actors and Roma activists, one comes across the ingeminate statement that Roma history has been primarily written by non-Roma and that, because of the absence of a writing tradition, Roma voices have been widely left out of history and that Roma are nothing else but passive recipients of different state governments’ policies. Based on our in-depth historical research conducted throughout Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe so far, the project is able to offer a corrective point to this overarching narrative.
Through relying on documents, critical rereading and rethinking of historical sources and older research, this new approach, a norm in other fields of history, will overcome the legacy of a Roma history that has too often been blighted by stereotypes and myths. Through this, the project contributed to overcoming extant stereotypes present in society about Roma as a nation without history and even within academic circles, where a belief is met that there are not sufficient, preserved and written historical sources concerning Roma past to allow for the emergence of Roma History as a field in its own right.
In our research, we were able to discover a large amount of new, largely unknown sources which strongly contradict these claims. In the archives and libraries across the region, we have found numerous documents, written not only about Roma but also by Roma themselves, that shed light not only on wide-ranging Roma vision(s) about the problems of their time and desired future for their communities, and that also reveal their place and role in specific historical events which shaped the world after the Great War.
The project also created a publicly accessible database of sources representing the social and political endeavours of Roma. This, together with publications, is a major contribution to the study of the history of Roma movements and state measures towards them in the Interwar period.
The overarching goal of the project - to incorporate the history of Roma, or Europe’s largest minority, into the mainstream of European and global historiography was achieved in full.
Within both academia and public perception, as well as in the discourse of key political actors and Roma activists, one comes across the ingeminate statement that Roma history has been primarily written by non-Roma and that, because of the absence of a writing tradition, Roma voices have been widely left out of history and that Roma are nothing else but passive recipients of different state governments’ policies. Based on our in-depth historical research conducted throughout Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe so far, the project is able to offer a corrective point to this overarching narrative.
Through relying on documents, critical rereading and rethinking of historical sources and older research, this new approach, a norm in other fields of history, will overcome the legacy of a Roma history that has too often been blighted by stereotypes and myths. Through this, the project contributed to overcoming extant stereotypes present in society about Roma as a nation without history and even within academic circles, where a belief is met that there are not sufficient, preserved and written historical sources concerning Roma past to allow for the emergence of Roma History as a field in its own right.
In our research, we were able to discover a large amount of new, largely unknown sources which strongly contradict these claims. In the archives and libraries across the region, we have found numerous documents, written not only about Roma but also by Roma themselves, that shed light not only on wide-ranging Roma vision(s) about the problems of their time and desired future for their communities, and that also reveal their place and role in specific historical events which shaped the world after the Great War.
The project also created a publicly accessible database of sources representing the social and political endeavours of Roma. This, together with publications, is a major contribution to the study of the history of Roma movements and state measures towards them in the Interwar period.
The overarching goal of the project - to incorporate the history of Roma, or Europe’s largest minority, into the mainstream of European and global historiography was achieved in full.
PI (Prof Elena Marushiakova-Popova) worked on setting up the office and the project. She worked on the Recruitment of PDRF, identified and selected local consultants and did preliminary planning of the database. In collaboration with the IT technicians, she, with the support of Co-I (Veselin Popov), also set up the project’s web page. Elena managed, coordinated and organised the project and constant mutual exchange meetings with the team to brainstorm and share resources. She also coordinated the research activities of the whole team while conducting her own research, including desktop research and research in archives across the region.
RF (Prof Veselin Popov)supported and assisted the PI in managing, coordinating and organising the RomaInterbellum Project in all aspects. He assisted the PI in the overall management and administration of the project. In collaboration with the PI and IT technicians, he was active in the initial set-up of the web page of the project; he also assisted the PI in coordinating the research of the whole team and in supporting the career development of PostDoc Research Fellows in the project, while conducting his own research, including desktop research and research in archives.
PDRF (Dr Aleksandar Marinov) was selected through an open competition and joined the team on the 1st of Sept 2017. Immediately after joining the team, he took part in all joint activities. Dr Aleksandar Marinov also had his own individual responsibilities in the project – his research topic focused on Bulgaria. He was responsible for matters with University’s Library and assisted and collaborated with the IT technicians.
From the 1st of Sept 2018, two more PDRFs, namely Sofiya Zahova and Raluca Bianca Roman, joined the team, selected through open competition. Sofiya Zahova conducted research in countries of former Yugoslavia and realised archival research trips in Serbia. Sofiya’s own research topic was the Development of Roma Literature. Raluca Bianca Roman’s research focus was on Romania and Finland. She conducted research trips in archives in the UK, Romania and Finland.
The whole team collaborated daily with PI Elena Marushiakova and RF Veselin Popov, exchanging ideas, brainstorming and sharing resources. All team members participated actively in the regular working sessions and working meetings, including online meetings and discussions, several times a month.
Concerning their individual research – all team members carried out desktop and library research and were involved in gathering, processing, classifying and analysing sources and their selection for inclusion into the database created by IT specialists of the project. All members of the team developed their publications and papers for conferences.
The project team conducted 70 conference and field trips for archival and library research. They made 19 invited presentations and participated in 37 conferences worldwide, participated in 18 international workshops (organised 2 of them), and in 6 conference panels.
The project produced 36 journal publications and ten monographs.
The project also created a publicly accessible database consisting of over 3000 entries.
The project team was directly supported by a network of 21 local researchers/ consultants across Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe and attracted 23 collaborators worldwide. They not only consulted and supported the main team but were also encouraged and supported in conducting their own research work. Thus a mutually beneficial long-term cooperation was established.
RF (Prof Veselin Popov)supported and assisted the PI in managing, coordinating and organising the RomaInterbellum Project in all aspects. He assisted the PI in the overall management and administration of the project. In collaboration with the PI and IT technicians, he was active in the initial set-up of the web page of the project; he also assisted the PI in coordinating the research of the whole team and in supporting the career development of PostDoc Research Fellows in the project, while conducting his own research, including desktop research and research in archives.
PDRF (Dr Aleksandar Marinov) was selected through an open competition and joined the team on the 1st of Sept 2017. Immediately after joining the team, he took part in all joint activities. Dr Aleksandar Marinov also had his own individual responsibilities in the project – his research topic focused on Bulgaria. He was responsible for matters with University’s Library and assisted and collaborated with the IT technicians.
From the 1st of Sept 2018, two more PDRFs, namely Sofiya Zahova and Raluca Bianca Roman, joined the team, selected through open competition. Sofiya Zahova conducted research in countries of former Yugoslavia and realised archival research trips in Serbia. Sofiya’s own research topic was the Development of Roma Literature. Raluca Bianca Roman’s research focus was on Romania and Finland. She conducted research trips in archives in the UK, Romania and Finland.
The whole team collaborated daily with PI Elena Marushiakova and RF Veselin Popov, exchanging ideas, brainstorming and sharing resources. All team members participated actively in the regular working sessions and working meetings, including online meetings and discussions, several times a month.
Concerning their individual research – all team members carried out desktop and library research and were involved in gathering, processing, classifying and analysing sources and their selection for inclusion into the database created by IT specialists of the project. All members of the team developed their publications and papers for conferences.
The project team conducted 70 conference and field trips for archival and library research. They made 19 invited presentations and participated in 37 conferences worldwide, participated in 18 international workshops (organised 2 of them), and in 6 conference panels.
The project produced 36 journal publications and ten monographs.
The project also created a publicly accessible database consisting of over 3000 entries.
The project team was directly supported by a network of 21 local researchers/ consultants across Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe and attracted 23 collaborators worldwide. They not only consulted and supported the main team but were also encouraged and supported in conducting their own research work. Thus a mutually beneficial long-term cooperation was established.
During the duration of the project, we were able to prove that the initial assumption about the availability of “Roma voices” in libraries and archives was correct. Contrary to the widespread belief that such evidence doesn’t exist, the project succeeded in discovering written heritage about the active participation of Roma in social life during the Interwar period. PI and her team were able to discover in libraries and archives thousands of documents proving that Roma were not only passive recipients of policy measures but also active architects of their lives. Along with this, the documents discovered show the contradictory policies of individual countries towards Gypsies (as they were called at that time) in which the discriminative and repressive measures were often combined with indifference and/or paternalistic approach for integration and efforts for welfare, health and educational improvement and even “affirmative action” in the early Soviet Union.