#roma people

[mapsontheweb]

Share of people in Europe with unfavorable opinion on the Roma People

[nosferatu-roberteggers]

I remember many people said this film was racist against Romanians, but it had a Romanian expert? I think many were saying it was more racist than the original or wtv

And those people are such the experts in Romanian history and culture they couldn’t recognize the Inn scenes take place in Hunedoara (Transylvania), and kept talking about Romania in general as if regions aren’t diverse. I don’t know who’s “stereotyping”; the trolls online who think Romania (or any country) is a monolith, or the director who spend years researching Transylvania (including on site), hired experts and a Romanian crew, and set part of his story in a particular location and cultural background these “online experts” can’t identify. Transylvania has a very particular history and culture, why are they talking about Romania in such broad terms?

I only remember one review in particular going on about this topic, but the moment they said the ritual to locate the vampire’s grave was “all so ridiculous, so divorced from any actual superstitions or customs” it became clear they have no idea what they are talking about. This ritual is well documented by folklorists, present in several Eastern European countries, and there’s even a scene recreating it in 1973 Serbian horror cult classic “Leptirica” (which Eggers named as one of his cinematic inspirations, by the way; that scene comes directly from this film). That whole review is a meaningless rant by someone who thinks they are some sort of intelectual authority based on their nationality, neglecting this story is set in the 19th century, not in nowadays Hunedoara; again, they can’t even identify it’s Hunedoara County (“an an[o]ymous Romanian village in the “Carpathian Alps”), nor that Hutter ends up in Bukovina, when the costumes give away the location (“show, don’t tell”). Someone who knows Romanian history and culture is able to recognize these details.

Most of these accusations are really about the source material; you can blame it on Bram Stoker, not Robert Eggers, Murnau or even Werner Herzog. The Romani work for Dracula, it is what it is. However, here, the Roma characters are played by actual Romani, not only actors but dancers, as well. The dance and music are culturally Romani. These characters speak Romani, not Romanian like the Innkeepers. Their cultural background was deeply researched even though they have little screentime. Name another Dracula based film or tv show (out of the around 200 out there) that went to these lengths to represent 19th century Romani culture. Or Transylvania for that matter. These people crying xenophobia are the one who wanted Exoticism and Orientalism, not authenticity and historical accuracy. Probably the same people who went on and on about Count Orlok having a moustache, or couldn’t recognize the Cossack inspired look.

[global-musings]

Roma from Czechoslovakia and Romania (1960's) - Josef Koudelka

[andreeavrabie4228]

Look, I know that our own history is taught like shit in romanian schools and most of you likely had a conservative teacher who was still missing Ceaușescu, depicted all of our figures in a heroic posture and used to display historical movies made back in the communist era by Sergiu Nicolaescu (who basically invented a whole new history while directing them) during their lessons. And yes, I know that in this context the probability that you've learned anything about the minorities from this country are very low.

But guess what: It's 2025 already, and if we want any sort of change then we have to change our mentalities as well and understand the dark, unhonorable side of our history.

For hundreds of years romani people were enslaved by boyars (romanian noble men) and the orthodox church. It would take me testaments to write in order to describe all the horrors these people went through throughout history. Even some of the most seemingly innocent common sayings and phrases from our language such as "Te-ai înecat ca țiganul la mal." ("You drowned like a gypsy on the shores.") have terrifying origins. Back in WW2, around 11.000 romani people of romanian origins died in Holocaust, along with 380.000 romanian jews. To this day this minority still faces discrimination and marginalization, and any sort of change or progress instantly receives criticize.

Taking the romani people's culture and fetishizing, romanticizing, exoticizing it while simultaneously spreading the exact same negative stereotypes these people are associated with is just cultural appropiation and a cosmeticized form of racism. The english word "gypsy" is derived from "egyptian", due to this erroneous idea that romani people come from Egypt. The romanian word "țigan" is significantly worse, because it comes from the greek "athinganos" and means "untouchable", as romani people were considered impure. Both of these words are pejorative.

Cultural appropiation means assuming the symbols of a marginalized community without carrying - let aside understanding - the harsh reality of discrimination, and mediatizing this image for profit while never adressing the social injustices these people face and remaining indifferent whenever something horrifying happens to them. You do not pay homage, you're just perpetuating the same problems amd issues that exist for too much time already.

[beautiful-basque-country]

I actually have a bit of a... charged question. How has the Basque country interacted with the Romani population over the years/how is it currently?

Kaixo anon!

Yes indeed, that's a charged question that will need a lengthy answer.

The short version for the ones not willing to read this whole post, EH treated Roma people basically the same way Spain or France did: BAD.

The first reference we have about Roma people in EH is a document from 1435 where a group of them arrived to Nafarroa from Aragón. The leader of this group presented himself as a "Count of Egypt", and that's why we call them ijitoak in Basque, a word that comes from egiptokoak or "the Egyptians".

Although the kingdom of Nafarroa set no rules against Roma people, after the conquest by the kingdom of Castile this changed and the situation of these people began deteriorating from the 16th century on. The reasons for the ever present prejudice against Roma people may be several: their nomadic lifestyle, not being Catholic, being oftentimes accused of theft, etc.

There were a lot of laws passed throughout the centuries like Roma people would be expelled if they didn't dress or speak as the rest of their neighbors, they couldn't live in towns of 1,000 inhabitants or less, they would be expelled of the towns if they didn't have a proper profession, they couldn't be hosted in barns (of course nobody wanted to host them at home, but it was common practice to let them the barns to sleep the night until this law), etc.

There were two big mass detentions of Roma people, one in Spain in the 18th century and the other in France in the early 19th century. Around, 9,000 Roma were caught in Spain and sent to the Mediterranean area: Andalusia, Murcia and Catalunya mainly. In France, around 475 were caught and imprisoned, sentenced to be sent to the French overseas territories but eventually freed after some time.

In the 20th century, during the dictatorship in Spain they were oppressed and very usually imprisoned under the Law of Idles and Miscreants, that punished those with no specific home and job. In the nazi occupied France, although there are no official numbers, it's known that many Roma citizens were sent to different concentration camps.

In the 60s and 70s in Spain, Roma people - only 5% of them remained nomadic by then - used to live very precariously in the outskirts of the main cities in neighborhoods formed by handmade unsanitary shacks. The city councils took care of these places as late as in the 80s and 90s, building public houses to host them.

Nowadays, although their general situation is much more comfortable than in the past, Roma people still face discrimination and the freaking same prejudices as in the 16th century in EH which is a shame on us as a people. And sadly we're not the only ones: in France in 2010 Sarkozy proposed to expell every Roma that hadn't the French nationality.

After 600 years living with Basques, Roma people here developed their own language called erromintxela, a sort of Basque-Romani pidgin that sadly has less than 1,500 speakers nowadays.

Also, Romas have a role in some of the traditional masquerades here in EH, like the kaskarotak, although some authors defend this socially accepted group wasn't formed just by Roma people, but by agotes and other minorities too.

Still, these traditions are beginning to be questioned as problematic. For example, the masquerade from Zuberoa where beltzak (the blacks) are thought to be based on Roma people and have dirty faces and act wild are opposed to gorriak (the reds) that are believed to represent native people and wear shiny clothes and dance at unison.

Yeah. And not that long ago I read an article against the celebration of kaldereroak that truly had a point, since it seemingly started as a mockery against Kalderash people and even nowadays we see someone in a blackface during the celebration; which yeah, it's terrible, but believe me, here it's not socially percieved as terrible as in the US.

Truth be told, I'd say 90% of Basque people blissfully ignore these celebrations started as a mockery and spread a misrepresentation of Roma people; which isn't an excuse, but it's still a fact 💁‍♀️.

Sorry for the looong post!

[swiftiesbuddie]

Fancasting a non-Romani/white actress as Wanda Maximoff and replying that it’s a personal FANcast and they don’t know any Romani actresses

[green-sky-garden]

Romani and eastern european girlies how it feels to be represented in new Nosferatu movie?

[psikonauti]

Francisco Iturrino (Spanish,1864-1924) 

Two Gypsies, 1901-1903

oil on canvas