A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia (Hardcover)

by David M. Crowe (Author)
Key Phrases: tsyganskogo khora, gypsy choruses, gypsy population, Soviet Union, World War, Maria Theresa (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal
Crowe, a historian and scholar who has previously edited a collection of conference papers on this topic, places the Gypsy experience within the context of the development of six nations-Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Russia, and Yugoslavia. Crowe has extensively documented his study, relying upon standard histories, documents, and recently identified sources from the region in many languages. He seeks to present both the contribution of the Gypsies to each nation examined as well as the prejudice they experienced there. He makes the point that until Gypsies are treated more fairly, mistrust between them and other citizens will continue to block their integration into national life. This useful work has a place in regional and larger collections.
Rena Fowler, Humboldt State Univ., Arcata, Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"David Crowe's new history, the culmination of a decades prodigious and painstaking multilingual research, is the most comprehensive and indispensable of its kind in English." --Washington Post Book World

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan (January 15, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312086911
• ISBN-13: 978-0312086916
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.9 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,000,940 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful history of Eastern Europe Roma, September 2, 2002

By	Amber Hansford "amber" (St. Marys, Georgia United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia (Paperback)

Though for my research this book was a bit slim (dealing in pre-1600's) this book is wonderful for anyone interested in the Roma people who populate Eastern Europe. Dealing with both the beautiful and the ugly side of human nature, this book captures how the Roma live and have lived in Eastern Europe and Russia throughout history.

34 of 42 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding must read book., December 15, 1998

By	[e-mail] (Orlando, Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia (Paperback)

This book is the most comperhensive work on Gypsies today. Anyone intrested in Gypsies and their origins should check this out.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An amazing history, March 24, 2008

By	Seth J. Frantzman (Jerusalem, Israel) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: A History of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia (Paperback)

This fascinating survey of the Gypsies of Eastern Europe and Russia offers histories of all the important communities in the East including in Bulgaria, Czechslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Russia and Yugoslavia. Obviously other Gypsy communities are left out, such as those in Greece, Albania and Turkey. But such is life, the book stands alone nonetheless.

Each chapter is a veritable encyclopedia of Gypsy life. For instance on Bulgaria the book describes how Gypsy women refused to don the Muslim veil forced upon Muslim women after the Turkish colonization of Eastern Europe. The book is packed full of data and demographics. For instance we learn that in 1910 there were 120,000 Roma listed on the census and in 1930 the estimate was 140,000. Muslim Gypsies were forcibly expelled from Bulgaria after the war. The book details the various anti-Gypsy laws that existed from Turkish times to the era of fascism and Communism. Usually disguised as `anti-nomadism' laws the target was obvious.

In Czechslovakia the Roma worked as castle musicians and metal workers in the 16th century. In 1780 there were 43,000 Roma in Slovakia. In addition the Gypsys of Slovakia survived the war because of the intervention of the Slovak leader Jozef Tiso and his desire, despite being an ally of Hitler, to have his country free of Nazism. Roma in enighbouring lands were not so luck and the Holocaust destroyed many communities.

In Rumania, long home to one of the largest concentrations of Roma they totaled according to estimates almost half a million or 2% of the population in 1977. In 1992 some claimed there were 2.2 million Gypsies a total of 10% of the population of the country.

In Yugoslavia the Gypsies were part of a patchwork of nationalities that hated one another. One time they were viewed by Serbs in the 1920s as being allied to the Muslim Albanians but later the reverse would happen when the Croatian Ustasha Nazi collaborator Catholic government would exterminate the Gypsy population of Croatia and after the Nato `liberation' of Kosovo the same would happen in 1999 when Muslim Albanians cleansed the land of Gypsies (there had been 14,000 in Kosovo in 1971). In Macedonia the largest Gypsy community was constructed in the 1960s called Suto Orizari. In 1991 there were 200,000 Roma in Macedonia.

This is simply a fascinating book that anyone with an interest in minorities, European history of Gypsies should get. One unfortunate fact: the book does not mention if there were any contacts between Gypsy communities and Jewish ones.

Seth J. Frantzman