The area of contemporary Romania

Until liberation

However, this occurred only in the south of the Danube River. In the north, the Romanian principalities of Walachia and Moldavia, although subdued, preserved their autonomy (as vassals of the Ottomans) and the possibility to continue the gradual enslavement of the Roma who arrived there. The deprivation of liberty on a large scale of the Romani people is a phenomenon specific to these two Romanian-speaking states. It happened and ended without much awareness in the public conscience, although it involved such a big number of people. At the half of the 19th century, when they were freed, it is estimated that the Roma from the area of contemporary Romania comprised 7% of the local population (approximately half of the worldwide Romani population at that time) (1). Obviously, the percentage was much higher in the area of the former states of Walachia and Moldavia.

There are not yet some valuable studies that could shed a necessary light on this historical issue. Namely, why did it happen and why that area? A preliminary explanation would be that the region was a passing stage for the numerous invasions of the migrant populations from Ukrainian and Asian steppes, especially when aiming at Constantinople and South Europe. As a consequence, the local Romanian people remained for centuries in few numbers, sparsely populating a region with a backward economy. As the chronicles of those times narrate, the territory was mostly covered with forests, where the people were hiding for safety (Codru-i frate cu românul - "The woodland is the Romanian's brother", a saying from those times).

The arrival of the Roma coincided with the coagulation of the two states in the first half of the 14th century. At that particular time the territory was to recover from the invasion of the Mongols and the subsequent attacks of their local heirs, the Tatars. Any new addition of population might have been perceived as enhancing the chances for survival of the newly created political entities. This might explain why the local leadership, instead of trying to banish them, like in the other European states, they took immediate interest in organizing their status. Moreover, the documents of that era constantly present them from the angle of their useful skills (metalworking, woodworking, horse breeding etc.), wanted for the economic development and for the strengthening of the states.

At the beginning, all Roma arriving in these two countries were placed under the jurisdiction of the state's ruler. They had to pay an annual tax to the state's treasury (since the ruler's jurisdiction was indistinct to the state's jurisdiction, they meant the same thing) and they were supposed to travel within the borders of the country to sell their handicrafts. When necessary, they were summoned to work at the construction of the state's infrastructure (roads, bridges, buildings etc.). Soon, they were forced to contribute also at consolidating the local power infrastructure. The ruler used to give, among other donations, groups of Roma to persons that distinguished themselves in upholding the government (the newly created local aristocracy). Also, the Crown sponsored the creation of Orthodox Christian monasteries in strategic places, endowed too with groups of Roma. Often, these monasteries were some economic enterprises managing much needed resources for export, like salt and copper mines, exploited with Romani workforce.

Further on, Roma living in the states of Walachia and Moldavia were considered falling in one of the three categories: those of the state, those of the Orthodox Christian Church and those of the private persons. Also, any Romani person arriving there was considered propriety of the state, unless being a citizen of the Ottoman Empire (this was possible since other European states did not consider them citizens). When these two states enjoyed times of military strength in the local Southeastern European context, their rulers resorted also to kidnap Roma from the neighboring countries, in order to increase the number of slaves. Thus, in 1445, Vlad Ţepeş captured 12,000 Roma, bringing them into Wallachia, in 1471, Stephen the Great, brought into Moldavia 17,000 Roma. While the rest of Europe persecuted and expelled our ancestors, the two Romanian states prohibited the departure of any Romani person. Thus it appeared and it lasted for some centuries a tripartite state of affairs for the Romani population in Europe: denial of citizenship and persecution in the West, citizenship in the Ottoman Empire, while the two Romanian states became a huge prison for the Roma living there and for anyone who dared to enter.

The possibilities to avert this situation were minimal, because, among other factors, of the pattern of arrival in small groups without a central organization and also because of the cultural differences between Roma and the other people in considering the politics. There are accounts about Roma who escaped from slavery and lived in difficult to access areas in the Carpathian Mountains. They were named Netoţi in the Romanian language.

For the rest of them the situation worsened gradually as the fiscal obligations grew heavier and as some of them were given to private persons and to the Orthodox Church. Subsequently, the Church and the aristocracy forced to settle a part of their Roma, these groups finding themselves in the worst situation, since the involvement in the personal lives was much stronger. They were settled in separated localities or in suburbs at the fringes of the Romanian localities. Some of them were requested to live and work at the owner's household. A peculiarity of this slavery system was that the owners used to count their "possessions" by families, not by individuals, as in other systems. However, when selling slaves among themselves, these masters, if necessary for reaching a deal, resorted to breaking families, in spite of the pain caused.

The Roma who arrived in Transylvania, the other medieval state now part of contemporary Romania, found a society divided along ethnic lines. Three groups, the (mostly Hungarian) nobility, the Saxon (i.e. German) burghers and the Szeklers, united by the pact of mutual aid Unio Trium Natiorum (Latin for "Union of the Three Nations"), held the political power. The rest, mostly Romanians, were considered tolerated. The political leadership gave to the Roma the status of an ethnic group not belonging to the UTN. There were also Romani slaves in areas formerly included in Walachia, like Ţara Făgăraşului or the estate of the Bran castle (2). In the 18^th century Transylvania was gradually occupied by the Habsburg Empire and subsequently the Roma of this territory were subjected to the 18^th century’s assimilationist policies.

The slavery system from Walachia and Moldavia came to an end by the half of the 19th century, after some decades of debate among the Romanian leadership. The main reasons were that it was not anymore profitable and that it hindered a desired industrial development, but also for an image change, because of the will to be perceived in the West of the continent as a modern European area. The process stretched on more stages. A preliminary one occurred when the Habsburg Empire conquered a part of Moldavia, Bukovina, in 1775. In 1783 a law freed all the Roma from that territory. In Walachia, in 1843, they were freed the slaves of the state, in 1847, those of the Orthodox Church and, in 1856, those of the private persons. In Moldavia, in 1844, they were freed the slaves of the Church and of the state, and in 1855, those of the private owners. Finally, in 1861, the Roma from Bessarabia (a part of Moldavia conquered in the meantime by the Russians) gained their liberty along with other categories of people from the Russian Empire.

About the liberation and the modernization process

Formally, it might be considered that the Roma from this area finally had the chance to live a normal life together with the other citizens. In fact, the very management of the liberation made clear that nothing changed, it was just a conjuncture that required this historical event. This political decision was a part of a series of reforms aiming at modernizing the nascent Romanian state (resulted from the unification of Walachia and Moldavia in 1859), reforms that expressed strong bias against the Romani minority. They ensured the continuity until today of the general attitude that Roma are not indeed citizens with rights and obligations.

When they were freed, they did not receive anything from the assets accumulated by their work, in order to be able to start a new life. Instead, in the case of the settled ones, they were just thrown out of the estates by landlords enraged because of the new law, their only property being the clothes on themselves. Besides the long-term consequences, it caused so much suffering since the liberations took place in the winter time (December 1855 in Moldavia, February 1856 in Walachia), leaving thousands of people in cold without food. Those who received compensations were the landlords (from the state): 10 galbeni/person in Wallachia, 8 galbeni/settled Rom and 4 galbeni/nomadic Rom in Moldavia. Thus many Roma were compelled to start again a nomadic life.

The next years marked the institutionalization of the concept of "guilty Rom", as many hungry Roma traveling in the country were blamed for any mishap in the life of the non-Romani people, spurring the increase of violence against our ancestors. The Romanian state did not promote any serious policy to protect the rights of the ethnic Romani citizens and to repair the previous injustice. Instead it began enforcing a series of laws aiming at constructing a double-standard policy for its citizens. Like the law from 1868, which permitted that every locality had the right to choose to allow or not nomadic Roma to stay on its territory.

Continuing the modernizing reforms, it followed a different policy when organizing a land reform. This time, the need for the improvement of the landless peasants' situation (the overwhelming part of the ethnic Romanian population) was taken into account. As they were working for centuries (together with the settled Roma, until liberation) on the estates of the landlords and of the Church (that accumulated together most of the land), it was considered that they have a right on it. Thus, they received the possession of two thirds of the land in 1864 and further, in 1921, of anything exceeding 100 ha of property (a measure confined to ethnic Romanians, as the settled Roma were previously expelled from the estates). These measures helped defusing a conflictive situation and paved the way for a real empowerment and integration in the state structures of these previously disenfranchised people and their descendants. Together with the rest of the ethnic Romanians they created the modern Romanian nation, whose outlook monopolized the public space in the Romanian state.

The events from the half of the 19th century reflected the changes occurred in the world view of the non-Roma of those times, among which our ancestors lived. The modern crisis of identity determined the non-Roma to define them by the new ideology of nationalism, which leveled somehow the previous differences of attitude towards Roma in Europe.

In the area of the contemporary Romania, for example, the attitude towards Roma until the half of the 19th century can be described as guided by the greed, the lack of morals and of self-respect of the Romanian leadership. The latter denied the rights of an entire minority and exploited it without addressing the conflict between the supposed ethics they boasted and the reality that invalidated them. The Roma did not find any possibility to stop the injustice and that is the way five centuries passed. Generation after generation of non-Roma grew up without questioning whether this was good or bad, considering that situation as normal, that this is the way Roma are supposed to live. This is because they never recognized the existence of the Romani culture with its internal coherence. Thus there were blocked any chances for intercultural communication.

When the nationalist tide arrived also in the territory of the contemporary Romania, the non-Roma began the unending quest for the right definition of their identity. Until then, they took for granted the self-image they had about themselves. When the pre-requisites of this self-image were gradually shaken by the advancement of the modernity, they opted for the continuity of their approach (namely, still considering the previous type of self-image as the true identity), this time by creating and codifying it semi-consciously, as opposed to other groups' self-images (3). The same as other non-Roma touched by nationalism, the ethnic Romanians organized their new identity by enclosuring and claiming any feature considered as enhancing the image of the newly created Romanian nation and by rejecting or keeping in limbo anything perceived as negative.

This behavior was reflected also in the relation with the Roma. Until the half of the 19th century the non-Roma simply rejected the existence of the Romani culture without feeling the need to explain their decision. From those years on, they had to bring reasons, to build their standpoint, since among the people who embraced nationalism, usually if an identity issue is not publicized and codified, it is considered it does not exist.

Their approach shows continuity with the pre-nationalist age. They opted for denying the Romani culture and their pattern was, and it still is, to claim any Romani feature or fact (about whom the public conscience does not have an obvious ethnic label for it) either as Romanian, if it is perceived as positive, or as Gypsy, if considered negative. For the Romani features that have an obvious ethnic label, they already were rejected as void of any value and because of the inability of most of the non-Roma among whom we live to accept the existence of our culture.

The Roma neither were interested in nationalism to build too a nationalist identity in order to defend their rights, nor did they find another possibility to bring the truth to the public conscience. Consequently, the latter, lacking adequate tools to discern the truth, considered as true the Gypsy image. If the Roma did not create a public image, this did not mean that their place in the new organization of the public conscience would remain empty; it was filled instead with the disrespect for other cultures of an important part of the non-Roma. This process happened, with local variations, in any other area where Roma have lived. It replaced the previous bondage from Romania, the citizenship in the Ottoman Empire and the rejection from the rest of Europe with a social prison where Roma, apparently free, were locked by the rest of the society. They found themselves unaccepted in the emerging modern world, the status of a minority that neither is assimilated nor it is accepted as it is having an overwhelming weight, as always until now in the Romani history. Then the Gypsy image conveyed among non-Roma became a self-fulfilling ideology that has built a life of its own, away from reality, developing a vicious circle. The disfranchisement determined lower lifestyle standards and frustration among Roma, which made possible for non-Roma to uphold as true the existence of the Gypsies from their minds and thus to find reasons to continue the injustices.

In Romania, this process secured an approval for the anti-Romani bias in the modernizing reforms from the half of the 19th century. Thus it began a "motivated" and organized economic disfranchisement that continues until today. In the same time, at the cultural level, it began the gathering and the organizing of the available information about the people from the Romanian state and their history, in order to build their image in the emerging modern world. Regarding the facts belonging to the Romani culture or its contribution to the local ethos (in the absence of the Romani participation in this process), it was applied the pattern described above. If something does not have an obvious ethnic label it is presented either as Romanian if it is perceived as positive or as Gypsy if negative.

For example, the ethnicity of the Romani cultural personalities who lived until the half of the 19th century was presented as Romanian or not specified, to make the people believe they were Romanians. Like in the cases of Anton Pann (who, among other creations, composed the national anthem of Romania) or Ion-Budai Deleanu. These people lived in a time when the society did not ask purposely their ethnicity when judging their work. They did not think yet in terms of boundaries: this is of my group... this is of your group... Afterwards, for those born in the modern age it would have been very difficult to become cultural personalities in the broad society if they would have declared their real ethnicity. Usually they hid it for the sake of their career. Thus it was created the appearance of the lack of cultural personalities among Roma.

On the other hand, if a fact or feature is perceived as negative, it is labeled as Gypsy, many times even when it is of non-Romani origin. Also the level of negativity is perceived as much more increased when it is situated by non-Roma on the Gypsy side of the world (as compared to a similar fact placed by non-Roma on the non-Romani side). This is reflected very much at the official level, on the behavior of the state authorities. It is well known that many times a Rom receives a higher penalty than a non-Rom for a similar offence. Also, too often, when there are not found the perpetrators of an offence, there are accused and convicted with concocted proofs Roma who happened to be nearby when the perpetration occurred.

The official Romani history on the territory of Romania is reduced to almost nothing. It is not presented to the public conscience how the Romanians and Roma began together the construction of the Romanian political entities, the Romani contribution to their survival and to their subsequent economic development. There are not presented the injustices of the slavery system and afterward of the state authorities in the modern era. In the history textbooks from Romania it does not appear anything relevant about the existence of Roma on that land.

There is total silence about the Romani influences in the local culture. For example, the most used modality to create a Romanian surname (4), by adding the ending -escu, is similar with that used by the Roma. The traditional way to find somebody's family affiliation, used by Roma worldwide, is to ask kasko san? ("whose are you?"). To answer in Romani, it is used the father's name at the oblique case (by adding the affix -es-) followed by the adjectival affix -ko, an affix found in most Indo-Aryan languages, with a double function: to express possession, affiliation and to adjectivize a noun. Thus, for somebody who is the son of Yon, the answer is Yonesko (“of Yon”) or as the Romanians pronounce and write it, Ionescu. A less used Romanian pronunciation is -aşcu, in the previous example the result being Ionaşcu. A difference that appears also in Romani, depending on the sounds previous to the affix, for example, the most used one, -es-, in lesko ("his"), but -as-, in the above case kasko ("whose"). In Romanian, this vowel change comes mostly concomitantly with a variant of the name's pronunciation, changing e to ă: Petru - Petrescu, but Pătru - Pătraşcu, Pavel - Pavelescu, but Pavăl - Păvălaşcu. In Romanian, only the creation of a family name from the mother’s name is directly understandable in this language. Names like Aioanei, Amariei, Avădanei, Ababei mean in Romanian “a Ioanei” (of Ioana), “a Mariei” (of Maria), “a vădanei” (of the widow), “a babei” (of the old woman). The other role of the affix -ko, to adjectivize a noun, is also present in the Romanian language: prieten ("friend") - prietenesc (friendly); cer ("sky") - ceresc (“something related to the sky").

Or the use of the postposition -te, to designate a place, to make the locative aspect of a noun, a derivation borrowed in Romanian to create the name of localities. “At Bucur” is expressed in Romani as Bukureste or, as the Romanians pronounce and write it, Bucureşti (in English, Bucharest, the capital of Romania). Here too, the other variant of pronounciation is present, for example, Dărăşti. It is notable that Romanian localities with such names appear mostly in the territory of the former states of Walachia and Moldavia (where there are areas with about half of the localities ending in -eşti/-ăşti). In the Central and Western parts, also in Dobruja, areas that did not experience the slavery, this naming is very rare. In the Romanian language these two suffixes intersected, thus an initial plural of the family name ending in -esci/-eşci (in the example from above, Ionesci/Ioneşci), nowadays perceived as archaic, transformed into -eşti (Ioneşti), under the perception of a human plurality in such patronymic-based locality names, changing the final -e from Romani -este into-i, the Romanian mark of plural. In Romanian, the ending in -e remained in the other use of this this postposition, when employed for creating an adverb from a noun: in Romani, Gajikano ("non-Romani") - Gajikaneste ('in the non-Romani manner"); in Romanian, român ("Romanian") - româneşte ("in the Romanian manner"); orăşean ("townsman") - orăşeneşte ("in the townsmen's manner"). The sad fact is that the only borrowings officially presented are selections of words like a merli ("to die"), a mardi ("to beat") etc. that could only help to cast a bad image on Roma. As for borrowings of cultural customs, just to remember the use of tilak on the forehead, made of ash (especially at children), benghi in Romanian, to preserve a state of well-being and cast away the bad spirits (again its Romani origin is largely unknown).

Fed with such "cleaned" information, the broad society can only continue to believe that its imaginary Gypsies are not able to do anything good. The result of this organized straying from the reality is probably unique in the modern history. Usually, the contemporary populations cannot resist to the lure, the magic of the nationalism. Here are not counted the few populations still living geographically isolated, unaffected by the modernity. Once found out the mechanism, combined with a very possible chance of infringement from other groups' nationalisms, then usually there is nothing to stop a group in constructing its own image in a nationalist manner. Or, the alternative is the assimilation to other group's nationalism.

In this context, the case of Roma is that of a population living on the continent that produced the modernity and the nationalist ideology, population with a certain cultural influence in some areas with high Romani presence, but neither embracing nationalism, nor becoming assimilated. The consequences are the exclusion from the modern social organization and the retroactive wiping off of any serious references about this people.

In a country like Romania, with the strongest Romani presence, this phenomenon attains unbelievable levels for a modern human society, based on a supposed democracy with freedom of speech. It is not about a population disappeared long time ago, but a minority comprising 2.5% (the official results of the 2002 census) and 10 -12% (unofficial estimations, because many Roma choose to decline the real ethnic identity for fear of discrimination) of the total population. Also, among those who do not consider themselves Roma, about 50% have Romani ancestors (some of them even with entire Romani ancestry) (5), as a result of a centuries-long assimilation policy. The cultural and genetic Romani contribution to the make-up of the ethnic Romanians is comparable to that of the Dacians or Slavs, however, due to the process described above, the non-Romani society is able to behave as nothing like this exists. Only before elections there are perused by the opponents the ancestries of the candidates, hoping that the presentation of some Romani ancestors would disqualify them as true Romanians.

The slavery lasted much longer and had a much stronger impact in Romania than in USA, however now, 150 years after its end, very few people know that it ever happened, the official history of the Romanian state still shuns it. It was once a debate for and against its cessation, in the decades '40s and '50s of the 19th century (for example, Uncle Tom's Cabin saw one of its first translations from Europe in the Romanian language), confined mostly to the Romanian elite. It was an occasion for some non-Romani abolitionists to write sympathetically about Roma, probably the only writings of this kind about us, but, as the disgraceful way of carrying out the liberation and the subsequent events would prove, they were only a deceiving appearance. If there were also some well-meaning non-Romani persons, probably, as it usually happens, they could not pass beyond the wall of acceptance and respect for other cultures. Consequently, they got stuck into a paternalistic attitude and an intercultural communication and collaboration became impossible. They were never interested about what the Roma would have to say. They considered inhuman the Roma’s plight, but that did not mean they considered the Roma as civilized, to wit they were just abolitionists not also antiracists. They did not think the Roma were their equals at that time; they may be, but in the future, if they “civilize”. The following enacting of the invisible social prison made sure that the Roma could not be accepted as collocutors in a social dialogue, to collaborate for the betterment of a multicultural society. And thus it began a strange and less visible chapter of the modern history.

The modern age

Deprived of sustenance means and facing violence from the state authorities and the non-Roma, many were compelled to emigrate. The weight of the departures was so massive that it determined the decrease of the percentage of the Roma living in Romania from the worldwide Romani population from about 50% (by the half of the 19th century) to about 10-15% today. They emigrated in almost every country of Europe and also to the other continents, modifying the shape of the Romani presence worldwide. Most of the Roma living outside Europe and Middle East arrived from Romania, directly or indirectly.

This migration determined, among those who remained in Romania, the change of ratio between those belonging to a caste and those without any affiliation. The percent of those without caste increased considerably, because they did not have the community organization that would have eased the emigration. A sociological study published in 1993 by Cătălin Zamfir and Elena Zamfir (6) shows that at the beginning of the '90, only about a third of the Roma from Romania had caste affiliation. For example, the Kalderash/Kăldărari, who are the best known caste crystallized in this country (because of their numerical presence outside it), were found only as 5% from the Romani population in Romania. Many castes are new ones, created after liberation from Roma without affiliation.

The existence of such a big number of Roma without caste affiliation was also, for a long time, a feature specific only to Romania (in the second half of the 20th century it appeared also in other East European countries because of the Communist assimilationist policies). It was determined by the forced settlement of some Romani groups in the times of the slavery and by the assimilationist pressure stretched during many centuries. They could not maintain the internal regulations that used to preserve a coherent community. Some lost their identity and were integrated into the Romanian, Hungarian or Turkish ethnic groups. Usually, they passed through an intermediary stage, when they considered themselves Gypsies, self-identifying with the negative stereotypes conveyed among non-Roma. Consequently, they shunned everything expressing the Romani ancestry and they struggled to behave like the non-Roma.

However, the rest, the majority of them, did not lose their identity, repeating the failures of the assimilationist policies from Spain and the East of the Habsburg Empire. The peculiarity of the Romanian case was that the policy was enforced much longer and in a different manner. Until the liberation, the Romanian leadership and the private owners were not interested in losing workforce by permitting the assimilation of the Romani individuals. Their ideal was to create a mass of servants internally uprooted from their identity and externally uprooted from the rest of the society. The fictional Gypsy image, created among non-Roma, fitted the best this purpose. Thus, even when some started to consider themselves Gypsies and desired to integrate themselves into the majority, they were kept apart as slaves. The fact that some lost the identity or become confused about it was useful only because the other worldview they were stepping in incriminated them as abnormal, thus depriving them of moral possibilities to fight for their rights.

Among Roma kept under slavery, there appeared a variety of approaches, making them the Romani branch with the most considerable internal differentiations. As already said, some could not resist and began a process of assimilation. Others crystallized into some of the most purist Romani castes. They observe elaborate purity rules that uphold the identity and the self-respect against the vicissitudes of history. Between these extremes it developed a continuum of many other approaches, ranging from old and well established castes enforcing a community organization, to Romani communities who could maintain more or less an internal coherence, then to crushed communities where Roma lived as individuals and then to Roma living outside any community, among non-Roma.

After the liberation, those who ceased to consider themselves as Roma or who used to suppress their identity had the possibility to assimilate and mix with the majority. Among the rest, the continuum of approaches to the personal identity evolved under the new circumstances. The new social prison, compared to the previous slavery, the same as before, barred any possibility of social integration as an ethnic Rom, but it interfered lesser in the personal and community life, letting the Roma to make their own decisions. In this context, it surfaced the difference between those belonging to a caste and those without affiliation. In the former case, they continued to live the usual Romani community life that provides a certain physical and material security. In the latter case, they found themselves in an uncertain area, without established Romani patterns to deal with it (the "classical" situation being of a clear differentiation between non-Roma and Roma belonging to a caste by ancestry and by observing its purity rules and customs). As the time passed, movements occurred in both directions, as some of them organized into new castes, while some communities of older castes saw the destruction of their social fabric, leaving their members to live their life on their own (especially during the Communist regime). Somehow, it mattered that those without caste were not a drop in the ocean, they were many, a sizeable part of the local population, in a society that as a whole was already influenced by the Romani culture.

There appeared and developed among them a very diverse range of lifestyles and outlooks. Regarding the social relations with other Roma, they range from extended and strong networks, fulfilling some of the roles of a caste, to Roma living on an individual basis in a Romani community without internal organization or isolated among non-Roma. Regarding the personal outlooks about the ethnic identity, they also vary from plain assurance and observance of customs to uncertainties and confusions, then to various degrees of assimilation among non-Roma. Obviously, every such outlook has to consider the prevalence of the Gypsy image in the broad society and the denial of the existence of the Romani culture perpetrated by many non-Roma. Some manage to cope with it and to preserve their self-esteem, other succumb to various degrees of self-hatred by internalizing and identifying with some of the features of the Gypsy image. Some of the latter choose to abandon the self-identification as Roma, by suppressing any obvious Romani feature or because they are already acculturated. Some choose and manage to live among non-Roma according to the Romani way of life, but in the same time avoiding anything that could reveal the real identity. This may be accompanied by a personal continuity of self-identification as Romani or by a lack of interest about the personal ethnicity.

The self-hatred, regardless of the way of acquirement, unfolds on two levels, internal and/or external. The former is the result of the internalization (through different means of social pressure) of non-Romani prejudices, of features of the Gypsy caricature conveyed among non-Roma. It determines an inner conflict between the person's identity and its disdain as expressed by the Gypsy image. The external level may appear when a person has obvious Romani physical traits and/or the non-Roma know about the Romani identity. It determines a tendency to prove continuously (to the non-Roma, even when not requested) the rejection of the Romani culture and the allegiance to the non-Romani world.The consequences derived from both levels may be directed towards the self, by different degrees of self-despise associated with the exacerbation of the Ego, self-punishment, attempts of containment of self-expression in the Romani manner or even self-destruction. They may be directed also towards other Roma, projecting upon them the violence destined for the Romani self of the individual. The scopes of the two kinds of violence may present some differences, since in the former case, if it occurs a total rejection of the self, it determines also a rejection of personality traits that are not "reviewed" and distorted by the Gypsy image, while in the latter case, the violence against other Roma tends to remain inside the borders of what is caricatured by the notion of "Gypsiness". The violence inflicted upon the Romani people during the history by the self-hating Roma determined a popular acknowledgement that sometimes they can be more dangerous than the non-Roma. This kind of violence is a result of the non-Romani violence and always remains its auxiliary. Both Roma belonging or not belonging to a caste are exposed to social pressure that could cause self-hatred. The resistance depends on the strength of the individuals and of their community (if any). While this phenomenon appears in both cases in diverse degrees and manifestations, those with less Romani social relations, as expected, tend to become easier victims.

The peak of such evolutions was during the Communist regime (1946-1989) because of the denial of the Romani minority’s existence and of the official policy of assimilation. From the liberation until the Communist age, the situation of the Roma was heavily conditioned by the lack of economical resources. The state authorities continued the same disfranchising policies as in the moment of the liberation, considering them “just Gypsies” who are not worth of attention, even guilty of impurifying their European culture. The economical stability of a part of the Roma was based exclusively on their personal diligence. The years of the Second World War saw Romania siding with the Nazi Germany and endorsing its racial policy. Thus, all of the nomad Roma and a part of the settled were round-up and sent to Transnistria, where many of them died. The end of the war brought the Soviet occupation, which helped the local Communists to seize the political power.

The first years of the Communist regime meant violence against those Roma who were presumed owning quantities of gold (Roma’s preferred choice of preserving the wealth). Many of them were tortured and killed. In the same years, it crystallized the Communist state’s denial of the Romani minority’s existence. They were considered only as a social problem, having to become good citizens (i.e. to assimilate). The Romanian Roma did not receive the minimal rights enjoyed by the other minorities (7), moreover there were enforced active assimilationist measures, like bans on the Romani language, dress. The position Ţigan (Gypsy) was preserved in the censuses only to show the gradual solving of the “problem”. That from 1956 found only 0.6% Roma (compared to 1.5% in 1930). In fact both censuses grossly underestimated the Romani population in Romania, since many declared other ethnicity or did not have identification documents. The decrease only expressed the political and social pressure, more Roma denied officially their identity. In that from 1966 there were only 0.3% Roma. However, in 1977, 1.07% declared themselves as Roma, while the Ministry of Internal Affairs estimated the real number at 1,800,000, or 8.35%, proving the failure of the assimilation project. Thus, in the same year, the Communist leadership started a “special program for social integration”. A report from 1983 showed that it did not produce the expected results (8). After the fall of the Communism in December 1989, the Romani population from this country experiences problems similar to other former Communist states of Eastern Europe.

(4) See, for example, the names of the Romanian presidents
(5) According to the sociological survey presented on Realitatea TV, 8 April 2005
(6) Zamfir Cătălin, Zamfir Elena (co-ord.), 1993, Ţiganii între ignorare şi îngrijorare, Ed. Alternative, Bucharest
(7) A joke form those times said that our new ethnic name probably was etcetera, since neither Rom nor Ţigan (“Gypsy” in the Romanian language) appeared in the enumerations of the minorities from Romania
(8) Delia Grigore, Petre Petcuţ and Mariana Sandu, Istoria şi tradiţiile minorităţii rromani, p. 92-96, 2005, Sigma, Bucharest

(9) As presented in the article Rom-Gypsy, the reality vs. the image