„Persecution of the Tulcean Roma, 1927–1947: An Ethnography of Violence“
Romani History Workshop
25 November 2021 at 6 PM (CET)
Grégoire Cousin (University of Verona, Italy) with the draft article „Persecution of the Tulcean Roma, 1927–1947: An Ethnography of Violence“
Discussant: Petre Matei (Elie Wiesel National Institute for the Study of the Holocaust, Romania)
Abstract: Based on the study of one specific community between 1927 and 1947, the Čoroman Roma from Tulcea, in eastern Romania, the chapter offers an anthropological reading of the relationship between written sources in State archives and oral information collected within the community. In the period between the two world wars, the Čoroman circulated for professional reasons in the Dobrudja region. It was on the basis of this circulation that they were transported to Transnistria in 1942, as “Tiganii Nomazi”, Nomadic Gypsies, by the Romanian gendarmerie. After their return from the camps in 1944, the group moved back but was subjected to singular violence in the form of the lynching of 12 men in 1947 in a local village. The author consolidates and examines the individual stories of these events as told to him by the Roma using written archival sources with the aim to underscore the unique roles of the experience of persecution, its chronology, and its actors. Overall the chapter encourages the reader to allow the Tulcean Roma to impose their own vision of their history, from their own perspective, and in so doing to produce an ethnography of violence.
Zoom online registration: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJ0scuusrzMjGdbd_foUTip9c7Ispu753f6V
The draft article will be send to all registered participants on Thursday, 18 November, one week before the session.
Please note that papers presented at the workshop have not been published yet. As a participant of the Romani History Workshop, you hereby agree to respect the intellectual property of the author, i. e. to not reproduce, distribute, display or use their paper, sections of their paper, or their primary sources in any way.
The workshop facilitates in-depth discussions of unpublished texts, such as thesis chapters, draft papers, and book chapters. Our goal is to provide collective feedback to works-in-progress in an engaged, constructively critical, and supportive environment. Contributions by early-career scholars are especially welcome.
If you would like to discuss your work at the Romani History Workshop in January–June 2022, please contact one of the organizers:
Renata Berkyová (berkyova@usd.cas.cz)
Vita Zalar (vita.zalar@zrc-sazu.si)
Théophile Leroy (theophile.leroy@ehess.fr)
