HEDERA'S FAMILY
THE ROMA IN EUROPE
he Roma
flag is blue for the sky, green for the earth and a red waggon wheel.
These are Aryan nomads from India, arriving in Europe in the
Middle Ages. In Romania they were slaves from the fourteenth
to the nineteenth centuries. Genocide is practised against
them.
I have the great privilege of their friendship and I wish to share this also with you.
Files on this website:
Alleluia italiano. Hedera is singing in Italian though really her languages are Rom and Romanian. Her words are a complete and most beautiful theology - though she cannot yet read. || Alphabet English || Blue/green italiano/ English || Child/Mother English || Cradle English. On making gypsy cradles || Fioretta italiano/ English/ portoghese || Gypsy English. An essay on our friendship with Hedera embedded in an essay on Florence and Gypsies || How to Raise a New-Born Child || Lord's Prayer English || Padrenostro italiano || Mercy/Cruelty English || Myriam di Nazareth || Paola Cecchi, Rom in Italy English || Rom e Firenze, italiano || Via Crucis italiano/English/francese/spagnole/tedesco || Francis Alexander, St Zita, The Gypsy and the Madonna italiano/English || Rose's Story || Karen Graffeo, Now Let Us Praise the Rom: || FACCIAMO DUNQUE L'ELOGIO DEI ROM (GLI ZINGARI) ||A CD is also available with these files. It will benefit Hedera and her family. Who makes, as we have taught her (having ourselves been taught by Florence's maestro in this craft, Enrico Giannini), marbled paper. Send address and donation, stating whether you want either the CD or marbled paper or both. (They are not easy to pack up together!)
FOTOGRAFIE DI KAREN GRAFFEO
Relevant Books in the Biblioteca e Bottega Fioretta Mazzei, Florence's 'English' Cemetery, where we have taught Rom parents to write their names so they will not lose their children
Rom Studies:
Alla perifera del mondo: Il popolo dei rom e dei sinti escluso dalla storia. Ed. Isabella D'Isola, Mauro Sullam, Guido Baldoni, Giulia Baldini, Gabriele Frassanito. Milano: Fondazione Roberto Franceschi, 2003. With CD. Università di Firenze, 2003.
Isabel Fonseca. Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey. New York: Random House, 1996. Father Matthew Naumes, 2001.
Gianni Berengo Gardin. La disperata allegria: Vivere da zingari a Firenze. Firenze: Centro Di, 1994. Paola Cecchi, Firenze, 2003.
Jean-Pierre Liégeois. Gypsies: An Illustrated History. Trans. Tony Berrett. London: Al Saqi Books, 1986. Jane and Philip Weller, Hampshire, 2003.
Le strage nazifasciste a Firenze e Provincia: Trasmettere la memoria. Catalogo della mostra fotografica 27 gennaio-10 febbraio 2002, Gallera Via Larga, Via Cavour, 7r, Firenze. Firenze: Amministracione Provinciale di Firenze, Istituto Storico della Resistenza in Toscana, 2002. Michele Gesualdi, Firenze, 2003.
Romano Lil 4 (2001). Roma
William M. Sloane. The Balkans: A Laboratory of History. New York: Eaton and Mains, 1914. Syracuse University, Florence, 2005.
Antonio Tabucchi. Gli Zingari e il Rinascimento: Vivere da Rom a Firenze. Firenze: Feltrinelli, 1999. JBH
Portfolio on Hedera, etc.
Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald. Gypsies of Britain: An Introduction to their History. London: Chapman and Hall, 1946. Jane and Philip Weller, Hampshire, 2003.
Duncan Williamson. Fireside Tales of the Traveller Children. Twelve Scottish Stories. Illustrated, Alan B. Herriot. New York: Harmony Books, 1983. Arizona State University/Mesa Public Library, Tempe, 2004.
Our Library in Florence will always welcome further
materials concerning the Rom
And on the Victoria Discussion List the following suggestions were made for leads for research:
The list of material about the Victorian Roma/Gypsies is long, indeed, but it's a rich and fascinating topic. If you want contemporary accounts, the second half of the century saw the advent of the "Gypsyologists." You might start with The Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society. It started in 1888, I think.
You might also look at some of
the individual C19 Gypsy Scholars/Scholar Gypsies like George
Borrow (The Zincali [1841], Lavengro [1851], and
The Romany Rye [1857]), Richard Burton (The
Jew,
The Gypsy, and El Islam [1898],
Francis Hindes Groome, Charles Godfrey Leland, et al.
For more recent examinations of
the "Gypsy Problem" in the century, see David Mayall, Gypsy-Travellers
in Nineteenth-Century Society (Cambridge: Cambridge UP,
1988) and Gypsy Identities, 1500-2000: From Egipcyans
and
Moon-men to the Ethnic Romany (London: Routledge, 2004);
George K. Behlmer, "The Gypsy Problem in Victorian England," Victorian
Studies 28 (1985): 231-53; Brian Vesey-Fitzgerald, Gypsies
of Britain: An Introduction to
Their History (London: Chapman & Hall, 1944); Thomas
Acton, Gypsy Politics and Social Change: The
Development of Ethnic Ideology and Pressure Politics among
British Gypsies from Victorian Reformism to Romany Nationalism
(Boston: Routledge & Paul, 1974).
The book-length studies are quite good and offer longer, more nuanced considerations, but if you want a shorter and quite informative introduction to the subject, the Behlmer article is a fine place to start.
The past 10-15 years have also seen a handful of doctoral dissertations on the subject, including those by Audrey Shields, Michelle Mancini, Mary Burke, and myself.
I don't think it's out yet, but Deborah Nord's Gypsies in the British Imagination, 1807-1930, is listed as forthcoming this year from Columbia UP (I think), and based on an excerpt I heard her read at NAVSA, it promises to be intriguing.
Lance Wilder, Victoria List
And Gipsy Smith, His Life and Work (New York:
Fleming H. Revell, 1901). was also suggested. While the
discussion list went on to mention Elizabeth Barrett Browning's
Marian Erle in Aurora Leigh, Robert Browning's Pied
Piper, George Eliot and Matthew Arnold.
Links
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people
http://www.vurdon.it/english.htm
European Roma Rights Centre http://www.errc.org/
Gypsy Lore Society, now based in the United States: http://www.gypsyloresociety.org/index.html
Baylor University http://www3.baylor.edu/~Charles_Kemp/gypsy_health.htm
http://sca.lib.liv.ac.uk/collections/gypsy/intro.htm
The Stories Exchange Project http://www.stories-exchange.org Funded by the World Bank, The Stories Exchange Project is an experiment in generating global dialogue about the Romany experience and tensions between the Roma and the white majority worldwide. Visitors to the site are invited to comment on articles and discussions and to share their own stories. Available in English and Cesky, the site offers summaries of workshop discussions, text excerpts from dramatic performances, video clips of the film Stories Exchange Project, as well as poignant passages from interviews of project participants.
Keep Exploring Google, both websites and
images
AGRUSTIC SOMNACUNI || ROMANY || CRADLE || LET US PRAISE THE ROM || CHUPPA || MEDIATHECA
'FIORETTA MAZZEI' || 'ENGLISH' CEMETERY || AUREO ANELLO || Daniel-Claudiu
Dumitrescu/ Julia Bolton Holloway
© 2012
Blessed Olive Branch, Kenyan olivewood bowl, William Morris Print