Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov will give a lecture at the Slavic-Eurasian Research Centre at Hokkaido University in Sapporo, Japan

Anotácia:

Roma Civil Emancipation before WWII. National and transnational dimensions and the problems of the standardisation of the Romani language 

The processes of Roma civic emancipation are an integral part of the shared history of the peoples of Central, Southeastern and Eastern Europe (CSEE) during the modern era. They originated in the 19th century in the conditions of the region’s three large, multinational empires – the Austro-Hungarian, Ottoman and Russian empires – and were part of the general processes of national formation in their frameworks. The situation changed radically after the end of the First World War. In the new realities of the ethnonational states, the processes of Roma civil emancipation acquired new dimensions. Only the multinational USSR offers a new, different model. In our lecture, we will outline the processes of Roma civic emancipation in the individual countries of CSEE in their national and transnational dimensions. This will include a fact-based overview of the goals and objectives of Roma civil society organisations in countries across the region and their activities in terms of national and transnational dimensions of Roma civic emancipation. We will pay special attention to the modern reading of Roma history before the Second World War and the attempts to construct it from the point of view of the development of the contemporary Roma movement and today’s realities.

An inseparable part of the processes of Roma civic emancipation which are continuing even nowadays are efforts for standardisation and codification of the Romani (Gypsy) language, including the issue of choosing a suitable alphabet on the level of individual countries and internationally. This process started from the first attempts in the early USSR when the Cyrillic alphabet was adapted for the Romani language, a basic dialect was chosen, and the standard version for the territory USSR was codified. For a long time in other countries, sporadic publications in Romani appeared using vernacular and a writing system in countries where Roma lived. The first attempt to create one internationally accepted standard of the Romani language was initiated at the 1st Romani Congress in 1971 in London. It was finalized by elaborating on an “international” alphabet at the 4th Congress of the International Romani Union in Warsaw in 1990. Individual countries of CSEE continue to try to standardize the Romani language and its introduction in education with variable and volatile effects.