#katitzi

[dynamobooks]

Katarina Taikon: Katitzi (1969)

[storm-butch-blog]

When graphic design ain't your passion

[rufs-org]

Romska Ungdomsförbundet uppvaktade kungaparet

Romska Ungdomsförbundet uppvaktade kungaparet i samband med konungens 70-årsdag. Erland Kaldaras överlämnade det romska folkets gratulationer samt vitboken, Katitizi samt läromedlet Vi läser om romer som gåva.

[studentbokhandeln]

Första två böckerna om Katitzi i nyutgåva. Möt Lawen Mohtadi och Angelica Ström, Katarina Taikons dotter i butiken på onsdag!

[marginss]

Katarina Taikon dansar vid lägerelden under Årstabron i Stockholm, i koreografi av Birgit Cullberg. ...

[kattahj]

Let me tell you about Katarina Taikon (1932-1995). - Katarina Taikon (often called Kati or Katitzi) was born in a Kalderash Romani family, living and travelling in Sweden at a time when the official Swedish policy was to treat "gypsies" so badly they'd voluntarily leave the country. - Katarina's mother (who was gadje, non-Romani), died of tuberculosis. Because she was travelling with her Romani family, she was not allowed into a hospital until a few days before her death. - Between the ages of 3 and 6, Katarina lived in foster care, giving her some basis of comparison for how she was treated as "Ketty Karlsson" and "Katitzi Taikon." - The Taikon family, and other Romani families, were hardly ever allowed to stay anywhere for more than three weeks, even in the winter. At one point when they'd been promised more time than that, her father asked to have his children enrolled in school, but the principal said no, claiming that all other parents would take their kids out of school if the "gypsies" were let in. A teacher took it on her to teach the kids in the afternoons, but the family were kicked out sooner than expected and couldn't continue. - When Katarina was 13, forty members of her clan were allowed to move into a big deserted house in Stockholm and its immediate surroundings. For the first time, she could go to school. She was enrolled in fourth grade and learned all her homework by heart so the teacher wouldn't realize that she was illiterate. - The next year, she was married off to a boy she barely knew. Katarina would later theorize that her father, who was dying of cancer, had made the arrangement to get Katarina away from her abusive stepmother. Unfortunately, that didn't work out so well. Her husband raped and abused her, and at the age of 14 she was taken to the hospital for a miscarriage brought on by abuse. - Right after this, she ran away from her marriage and went to see child services. They told her, "What goes on with your people is none of our concern." Unwilling to give up, she went to a church home for troubled girls, where she was allowed to stay. - In the late 1940s and early 1950s, she acted in films, which, while often exoticizing, gave her a platform to talk about Romani rights. During the filming of the 1948 short film Uppbrott (available here), which had many of her family members as actors, her clan granted her divorce from her husband. - Some years later, she met her second husband, photographer Björn Langhammer. - At the age of 26, she enrolled in adult education along with her older sister Rosa, who was also active in Romani rights. Rosa became a silver smith. Katarina took a business class and opened an ice cream bar. - The sisters fought for other Romani to be given the same rights: modern apartments during the cold winters, education for both adults and children. Authorities claimed that "the gypsies wouldn't want it," but repeated protests slowly swayed them. - As Romani families began moving into apartments, they were met with hostile and sometimes violent reactions. "I'm not a racist, but they're better suited to stay at the trash dump." A woman whose sale of a house caused some local controversy threatened to "donate the house to the gypsies" if the opponents didn't shut up. The permanent camp (ghetto) in Stockholm wasn't fully vacated until 1967. - An experimental summer school for Romani adults was started with the sisters' help. After it was over, the students organized a sit-in to be permitted to continue their education. - In 1963, Katarina Taikon wrote her first book: Zigenerska ("Gypsy woman"). More would follow. - When Martin Luther King came to Stockholm for the Nobel Peace Prize, he and Katarina Taikon met and she told him about the Romani struggle in Sweden. This was not widely publicized in Swedish press, perhaps (as Lawen Mohtadi suggests) because it would have implied that there was institutionalized racism in Sweden. - The Taikon sisters also fought for Romani refugees being allowed to stay in Sweden. Romani immigration had been forbidden up until 1954. (Two Romani women came with the white buses from the concentration camps, but according to some of my sources, they claimed to be French Jews.) A family of Eastern European Romani were, after direct appeals to the government, allowed to stay. Some French Romani families were denied a few years later, with the motivation that France was a democratic country and that thus it couldn't be discriminating against the Romani. - In 1969, tired of trying to talk to adults who wouldn't listen, Katarina wrote her first book for children: Katitzi, an autobiographical story from her own childhood. Twelve more Katitzi books for children and young adults would follow, ending with Katitzi: Uppbrott, which told about her divorce and the start of her film career at the age of 16. - The Katitzi books were highly popular. Despite the descriptions of abuse and discrimination, the main impression of the books was of a strong and resourceful little girl with support from her older brother and sisters. A whole generation of Swedish children grew up with the Katitzi books and had their view of the Romani people shaped by them. - In 1979, the first two books were turned into a TV mini series. - In 1982, Katarina Taikon had cardiac arrest and suffered severe brain damage that put her in a coma, lasting until her death in 1995. - Only the first of the Katitzi books is currently available in book stores in Swedish. It has also been translated to Romani Chib by Katarina's relative, Hans Caldaras, who also wrote the music to the Katitzi mini series. - In 2012, Lawen Mohtadi published her biography of Katarina Taikon: Den dag jag blir fri. - Rosa Taikon is still fighting for Romani rights, at the age of 87. Sources: Den dag jag blir fri by Lawen Mohtadi (plus a speech by her at the international book fair in Botkyrka). Katitzi with sequels by Katarina Taikon. Sofia Z-4515 / Zofi Z-4515 by Gunilla Lundgren, Sofia Taikon and Amanda Eriksson. Eftermiddag p4 Värmland, 2 Oct. 2012 (various archived interviews with Katarina Taikon). Nyhetsmorgon TV4, 26 Dec. 2012 (interview with Rosa Taikon).

[she-who-loves-the-rain]

See a lot of Romany's on my dash and if you want a good book tip, a serie many of us here in Sweden grew up with, you should look for "Katitzi". Both for children and adults. The TV-serie can also be found on Youtube but without subtitles. It's a self biographic book about a Romany girl growing up in Sweden in the 1960's. Katarina also wrote many other books about Romany. 

Katarina Taikon-Langhammer (29 July 1932 at Almby, Örebro - 30 December 1995 at Ytterhogdal, Hälsingland; Sweden) was a Swedish Romany writer and actor, from the Kalderash caste. She was the sister of Rosa Taikon. She was best known for writing the series of books Katitzi, partly auto-biographical (in 1979 it was produced the TV-series with the same name). Katarina Taikon died of brain damage after falling into a coma following an accident.

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katarina_Taikon

Her sister Rosa Taikon is a famous silver smith, her father was the last silver smith of the Swedish Romany:

http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Taikon