Gypsies

Gypsies or Gipsies [from Egypt, because of an inaccurate idea that Gypsies came from a so-called Little Egypt], a traditionally nomadic people with particular folkways and a unique language, found on every continent; they often refer to themselves as Roma. Their language, called Romany, belongs to the Indo-Iranian family and is closely related to the languages of NW India. Their blood groupings have been found to coincide with those of S Himalayan tribes, and genetic mutations they possess are otherwise found only among Indians and Pakistanis. Gypsies worldwide are estimated to number between 10 and 12 million.

In the course of their wanderings, Gypsies have occasionally mixed with non-Gypsy neighbors and have sometimes settled down, but they have clung tenaciously to their identity and customs. Their physical type has remained largely unaltered; most Gypsies are dark-complexioned, short, and lightly built. Their bands are still ruled by elders. Gypsies have usually adopted the religion of their country of residence; probably the greater number are Roman Catholic or Orthodox Eastern Christian. Each year in May they gather in S France from all over the world for a pilgrimage to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer. Gypsies usually travel in small caravans and make their living as metalworkers, singers, dancers, musicians, horse dealers, and auto mechanics. Gypsy women are famous as fortunetellers.

It is believed that they came originally from NW India, which they left for Persia in the 1st millennium A.D. Probably during their sojourn in Persia, they became divided into three main tribal divisions: the Gitanos, the Kalderash, and the Manush. Later they moved northward and westward, and are recorded as first appearing in Western Europe in the 15th cent. Alternately welcomed and persecuted by civil and religious authorities, they moved from country to country until they had spread to every part of Europe by the beginning of the 16th cent. They arrived in North America in the late 1800s.

In modern times, and especially since the beginning of the 20th cent., various nations have attempted to end their nomadic lifestyle by requiring them to register and to go to school and learn trades. Some 500,000 perished in gas chambers and concentration camps during World War II. In 1956 the Soviet Union decreed that the last wandering Gypsy bands in that country be gradually settled in places of their choice. The countries of E Europe, where the great majority of Gypsies live, adopted similar measures under Communist rule, and most Gypsies eventually found economic and social protection, if not full acceptance. However, following the fall of Communism in the early 1990s, persecution of the Gypsies arose once more in E Europe, and by the early 21st cent. most faced increased discrimination and lived in poverty. In 2005 eight E European countries and the World Bank backed a ten-year program intended to improve the Gypsies' socioeconomic status.

Bibliography

See G. Borrow, The Romany Rye (1857, new ed. 1949, repr. 1959); I. H. Brown, Gypsy Fires in America (1924); Gipsy Petulengro's autobiography, A Romany Life (1935); J. Yoors, The Gypsies (1967); D. Kenrick and G. Puxon, The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies (1972); D. Mayall, Gypsie-Travellers in Nineteenth Century Society (1988); I. Fonseca, Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey (1995).

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Gypsies 

(self-designation, roma), a people, or more accurately an ethnic group with a common origin and language, found in Europe, Southwest and South Asia, North Africa, North America, South America, and Australia.

The Gypsies are called tsygane in Russia, gitanos in Spain, Bohémiens or Tsiganes in France, Zigeuner in Germany, zíngaros in Italy, Heidens in the Netherlands, Cigany or Pharao nérek in Hungary, mustalaiset in Finland, and Çingene or Çingane in Turkey. According to various sources, they number between 2.5 million and 8 million; a few estimates raise the figure as high as 10–12 million. There are 209,000 in the USSR, according to the 1979 census. During World War II approximately 20,000 Gypsies in Central and Eastern Europe were exterminated by the Nazis. The Gypsies speak the Romany language, which is divided into several dialects; usually they also speak the languages of the peoples among which they live or wander.

Modern scholarship has borne out the theory that the ancestors of the Gypsies emigrated from India. This theory was first advanced by the German scholars J. Rüdiger and H. Grellmann in the late 18th century and A. F. Pott in the 19th century and by the Slovenian scholar F. Miklosich in the 19th century.

The Gypsy nationality took form only after the ancestors of the Gypsies left India, possibly because of Muslim invasions, late in the first millennium A.D. Settling initially in Southwest Asia, they long remained on the eastern outskirts of the Byzantine Empire. Between the 13th and 15th centuries the Gypsies migrated first to Southeastern and Eastern Europe, then to Central and Western Europe, and later, in the 19th century, to North Africa, North America, South America, and Australia. They were welcomed in Western Europe in the early 15th century, but as public opinion changed, they were persecuted as vagrants who earned their living by fortune-telling and begging. The Gypsies were outlawed and became subject to deportation and even execution. Not until the late 18th century were they regarded more tolerantly in Europe.

The Gypsies divided into settled, semisettled, and nomadic groups. A wandering band of Gypsies is a group that moves within a definite, traditionally established territory and is led by an elected chieftain, the voivode. The voivode officially represents the band in dealings with the administrative organizations of the country in which the band wanders; he also acts as a judge, resolving internal disputes. Women play a subservient role in the band; they are ruled first by their fathers and then by their husbands, and they are totally responsible for feeding the family. Settled and semisettled Gypsies practice the religions of the peoples among which they live, easily converting to a new faith when they move. Nomadic Gypsies adhere to traditional superstitions and rituals. Many Gypsies have retained their time-honored occupations: metalworking, woodworking, basket weaving, horse raising, and fortune-telling. Many have preserved the traditional Gypsy skills and art forms, including instrumental performance, song, dance, acrobatics, and animal training.

The Gypsies made their way into Russia by two routes: from the south in the 15th and 16th centuries they came through the Balkans; in the 16th and 17th centuries they came from the north through Germany and Poland. Before the October Revolution of 1917, Gypsy men in the cities engaged primarily in horsedealing, and Gypsy women practiced fortune-telling; the wandering Gypsies were mostly beggars, fortune-tellers, and, sometimes, blacksmiths and tinsmiths. The Gypsies who took up residence in St. Petersburg and Moscow in the period beginning in the 1830’s lived a settled life, and many of them belonged to choral ensembles.

After the October Revolution of 1917, a number of decrees were issued by the Central Executive Committee and the Council of People’s Commissars of the USSR. Of particular importance was the decree of Oct. 1, 1926, “On Measures for Aiding the Transition of Nomadic Gypsies to a Working and Settled Way of Life.” In 1931 the Romen Moscow Theater was established. During the Great Patriotic War of 1941–45, Gypsies fought in the ranks of the Soviet Army and in partisan detachments.

On Oct. 5, 1956, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued the edict “On Reconciling Vagrant Gypsies to Labor.” Some Gypsies have made the transition to a settled, working way of life. In the USSR, they have the same right as other peoples to obtain a secondary and higher education, and they may choose any profession; not all Gypsies, however, use these rights.

Since the 1960’s a number of measures for improving the Gypsies’ legal status have been adopted in the countries where they live. Organizations have been established that study ways to raise the Gypsies’ socioeconomic and cultural level. Examples are the Comité International Rom (founded 1971) in France, the Institute of Contemporary Romani Research and Documentation in Great Britain, the Komitia Lumiaki Romani and’e Amerika in the USA, and the Indian Institute of Romani Studies (1973) in India. An international congress of Gypsies was held in London on Apr. 8–12, 1971, and an international Gypsy festival took place in Chandigarh, India, on Mar. 25–27, 1976.

REFERENCES

German, A. V. Bibliografiia o tsyganakh: Ukazatel’ knig i statei s 1780 po 1930 gg. Moscow, 1930.
Pott, A. F. Die Zigeuner in Europa und Asien, vols. 1–2. Leipzig, 1964.
Miklosich, F. Über die Mundarten und die Wanderungen der Zigeuner Europas. Vienna, 1872–80.
A Catalogue of the Gypsy Books Collected by R. A. Scott Macfie. Liverpool, 1936.
Voux de Foletier, F. de. Mille Ans d’histoire des Tsiganes. [Paris, 1970.]
Black, G. F. A Gypsy Bibliography. Ann Arbor, Mich., 1971.
Catalogue of the Romany Collection Formed by McGrigor Phillips D. U. Edinburgh, 1962.
Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, old series, 1888–92, vols. 1–3; new series, 1907–16, vols. 1–9; third series, London, 1922—, vols. 1—.
Etudes Tsiganes. Paris, 1955—.
Roma, Chandigarh, 1974—, vols. 1—.

T. V. VENTTSEL’