So That You Count on Us Too. Political and Social Engagement of Roma and Their Efforts to Establish a Romani Organization in Postwar Czechoslovakia
Abstract
A book on the efforts of Czechoslovak Roma during 1945-1969 to participate in the negotiation of Roma directed approaches and policies, from local administration level to the central level institutions, and to establish an organization that would represent their interests in the negotiations with state representatives. In the context of Czech/Slovak historiographym the book presents innovative approaches to the study of the situation of the Roma in the Czechoslovak society in several respects: i) the authors focus on the perspectives of the engaged Romani representatives (which also leads to tracing back written sources of Romani provenance); ii) the authors approach the activities and proceses in focus as a multilateral negoation on the central as well as regional levels (which leads to the de-homogenization of the particular groups of actors including "the Roma" as a group as well as the "state" or the "communist regime" as monolithical actors); iii) the authors focus on the reginal perspective which allows for a more detailed insight in the negotiation of the implmentation of central policies on the local level and its regional impact.
The book also includes the reprint of 12 archival documents from different Czech and Slovak archives, mostly of Romani provenance, which are related to the efforts of the Roma in Czechoslovakia to participate in the formulation and implementation of the policies focused on the "Gypsy population" between 1945-1969. The documents are accompanied by extensive commentatires that include for example also the biograms of the main Romani actors in the socio-political struggle, concentrated on their experience and position in the time in focus, thus filling up another important "white spot" in the historiography of the Roma in post-war Czechoslovakia.