Gypsy nationality. History of the origin of the gypsies. Nomadic lifestyle of gypsies
Gypsies can now be found in all corners of the planet, except perhaps Antarctica. In European countries alone their number is 12 million. I invite you to learn 11 national habits and characteristics of the Gypsies, some of which will greatly surprise you.
"Gypsies" is a collective term, the same as "Slavs", "Caucasians", "Scandinavians" or "Latin Americans". Several dozen nationalities belong to the gypsies. In many regions of Russia you can still find gypsy camps, they smell of Pushkin's Bessarabia, their language is a rough verbal lump, and their clothes are an endless holiday.
A 14-year-old girl for gypsies is already a potential bride. At weddings and other celebrations where you can dance, all girls over 14 years old will dance until the very end of the celebration, because they know that the fathers of their sons are currently watching and evaluating them. An unmarried gypsy 19 years old is already an old maid.
On her wedding day, the bride is redeemed in kilograms or “in jars” of gold. The bride's father or brothers, if there is no father, set the price themselves, for example two three-liter jars filled with gold rings, chains, etc.
On the wedding day, gypsies have one exciting moment for everyone, when the older women of the family take the bride into the bedroom and check whether she is a virgin or not. Actually, deflowering is right there, for closed doors, and it happens - without any participation of the groom. Afterwards, the guests are shown a snow-white sheet or shirt with a blood stain on a beautiful large tray.
For example, there is unlikely to be a wedding between Kotlyars and Russian gypsies, since this is tantamount to a wedding with a non-gypsy. The gypsies of one state see the gypsies of another state as a special people and never maintain contact. Russian gypsies are mostly Orthodox, Crimean and Palestinian are Muslim, Croatian are Catholic.
A gypsy family must have at least one son. If an heir is not born, then they no longer take risks and take a boy from the orphanage. Moreover, the child can be anyone: Bashkir, Russian, red-haired, freckled, fair-haired, blue-eyed. This is partly the reason for the myth that gypsies kidnap children.
A child is most often sent to school so that he learns to read, write and count, since from the age of six to eight children are accustomed to adulthood - they begin to help their parents in trade. Therefore, if a gypsy child after the third grade still goes to school for lessons, and does not help his parents in the market, it means that he is wasting his time instead of learning the family business.
If a gypsy has a two-story house, no woman can climb to the second floor if a man is on the first. This law is still observed today.
Women still wear two skirts and an apron. Below the waist, a woman is considered to be “dirty” and “unclean.” The touch of her skirt can “desecrate” not only any object, but also a person. Therefore, the underskirt is considered unclean, since it touches the woman, and the second one is also considered unclean, since the lower one is still a little dirty. Only the apron is considered clean. You can touch it, lean dishes against it, wipe your hands on it.
They have an internal court
In the event of a dispute, respected gypsies gather to listen to the parties' arguments for and against. For gypsies, this is an important moment in the settlement of relations, and it is not subject to publicity. Punishments can be very different. One of the most serious ones was “they gave me 24”. The guilty gypsy is forced to leave the community and is given 24 hours to do so.
Gypsies are a people without a state. For a long time they were considered to have come from Egypt and were called the “pharaoh’s tribe,” but recent research disproves this. In Russia, the gypsies have created a real cult of their music.
Why are gypsies “gypsies”?
Gypsies don't call themselves that. Their most common self-name for gypsies is “Roma”. Most likely, this is the influence of the life of the gypsies in Byzantium, which received this name only after its fall. Before that, it was considered part of Roman civilization. The common “Romale” is the vocative case of the ethnonym “Roma”.
Gypsies also call themselves Sinti, Kale, Manush (“people”).
Other peoples call Gypsies very differently. In England they are called gypsies (from Egyptians - “Egyptians”), in Spain - gitanos, in France - bohemiens (“Bohemians”, “Czechs” or tsiganes (from Greek - τσιγγάνοι, “zingani”), Jews call gypsies צוענים (tso 'anim), from the name of the biblical province of Zoan in Ancient Egypt.
The word “gypsies”, familiar to the Russian ear, conventionally goes back to the Greek word “atsingani” (αθίγγανος, ατσίγγανος), which means “untouchable”. This term first appears in the “Life of George of Athos,” written in the 11th century. “Conventionally,” because in this book “untouchables” is the name given to one of the heretical sects of that time. This means that it is impossible to say with certainty that the book is specifically about gypsies.
Where did the gypsies come from?
In the Middle Ages, Gypsies in Europe were considered Egyptians. The word Gitanes itself is a derivative of the Egyptian. There were two Egypts in the Middle Ages: upper and lower. The gypsies were so nicknamed, obviously, by the name of the upper one, which was located in the Peloponnese region, where their migration came from. Belonging to the cults of lower Egypt is visible in the life of even modern gypsies.
Tarot cards, which are considered the last surviving fragment of the cult Egyptian god Thoth, were brought to Europe by the gypsies. In addition, the gypsies brought the art of embalming the dead from Egypt.
Of course, there were gypsies in Egypt. The route from upper Egypt was probably the main route of their migration. However, modern genetic research has proven that gypsies do not come from Egypt, but from India.
The Indian tradition has been preserved in Gypsy culture in the form of practices for working with consciousness. The mechanisms of meditation and gypsy hypnosis are largely similar; gypsies are good animal trainers, just like Hindus. In addition, gypsies are characterized by syncretism of spiritual beliefs - one of the features of current Indian culture.
The first gypsies in Russia
The first gypsies (serva groups) in the Russian Empire appeared in the 17th century on the territory of Ukraine.
The first mention of gypsies in Russian history occurs in 1733, in Anna Ioannovna’s document on new taxes in the army:
“In addition, for the maintenance of these regiments, determine taxes from the gypsies, both in Little Russia and in the Sloboda regiments and in the Great Russian cities and districts assigned to the Sloboda regiments, and for this collection, identify a special person, since the gypsies are not included in the census written."
The next mention of gypsies in Russian historical documents meets in the same year. According to this document, the Gypsies of Ingermanland were allowed to trade horses, since they “proved themselves to be natives here” (that is, they had lived here for more than a generation).
A further increase in the Gypsy contingent in Russia came with the expansion of its territories. When part of Poland was annexed to the Russian Empire, “Polish Roma” appeared in Russia, when Bessarabia was annexed - Moldavian Gypsies, after Crimea was annexed - Crimean Gypsies. It must be understood that the Roma are not a mono-ethnic community, therefore the migration of different Roma ethnic groups took place in different ways.
On equal terms
In the Russian Empire, Gypsies were treated quite friendly. On December 21, 1783, a Decree of Catherine II was issued, classifying the Gypsies as a peasant class. Taxes began to be collected from them. However, no special measures were taken to force the enslavement of the Roma. Moreover, they were allowed to be assigned to any class except nobles.
Already in the Senate decree of 1800 it is said that in some provinces “gypsies became merchants and townspeople.”
Over time, settled gypsies began to appear in Russia, some of them managed to acquire considerable wealth. Thus, in Ufa lived a gypsy merchant Sanko Arbuzov, who successfully traded horses and had a good, spacious house. His daughter Masha went to the gymnasium and studied French. And Sanko Arbuzov was not alone.
In Russia, the musical and performing culture of the Roma is appreciated. Already in 1774, Count Orlov-Chesmenky summoned the first gypsy choir to Moscow, which later grew into a choir and marked the beginning of professional gypsy performance in the Russian Empire.
At the beginning of the 19th century, the serf gypsy choirs were freed and continued their independent activities in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Gypsy music was an unusually fashionable genre, and the Gypsies themselves were often assimilated among the Russian nobility - marriages with Gypsy girls were quite common famous people. Suffice it to recall Leo Tolstoy’s uncle Fyodor Ivanovich Tolstoy the American.
Gypsies also helped Russians during wars. In the War of 1812, Gypsy communities sacrificed large sums money for the maintenance of the army, they supplied the best horses for the cavalry, and Gypsy youth went to serve in the Uhlan regiments.
TO end of the 19th century centuries, not only Ukrainian, Moldavian, Polish, Russian and Crimean gypsies lived in the Russian Empire, but also Lyuli, Karachi and Bosha (since the annexation of the Caucasus and Central Asia), and at the beginning of the 20th century, Lovaris and Kolderars migrated from Austria-Hungary and Romania.
Currently, the number of European gypsies, according to various estimates, ranges from 8 million to 10-12 million people. There were officially 175.3 thousand people in the USSR (1970 census). According to the 2010 census, about 220 thousand Roma live in Russia.
For centuries, the origins of the Gypsies have been shrouded in mystery. Appearing here and there, camps of these dark-skinned nomads with unusual morals aroused the burning curiosity of the settled population. Trying to unravel this phenomenon and penetrate the mystery of the origin of the gypsies, many authors built the most incredible hypotheses.
Europeans first heard about gypsies more than five hundred years ago. The mysterious tribe, as if in search of the promised land, wandered from country to country, crossed seas and oceans, penetrating both Australia and America.
And everywhere the gypsies cast spells, sang, told fortunes and danced until they dropped, cast spells on snakes, led trained bears on chains, treated and trained horses, worked as blacksmiths and tinkers. Alienated by settled life and traditional crafts, indifferent to peasant labor, but not striving to become one of the city dwellers, they were strange and suspicious. Aliens - that’s what they would be called today, but in past centuries they were considered almost aliens. If, moreover, we recognize that the gypsies were definitely never angels in the flesh, and need often forced them to resort to dishonest means of extraction (and when they decided to steal, they did it with the recklessness inherent in everything), then it is easy to understand , why the gypsies were feared, disliked, sometimes it reached the point of hatred. In Europe, gypsies first appeared in the 14th century (according to some other sources, in the 15th century), and already from the 16th century, repressive measures were used against them.
The key to the mystery of the origin of the gypsies was found at the end of the 18th century by German linguists E. Grüdiger and G. Grellman. They noticed that the most important root words of the Romani language belong to the northwestern Sanskrit dialects. Scholars have also tried to find the reason for the exodus of the Gypsies from India in Persian texts. Hamza from Isfahan, writing in the mid-10th century, talks about the arrival in Persia of twelve thousand musicians - zotts (one of the names of gypsies). Half a century later, the great poet and chronicler Ferdowsi, the author of “Shah-name,” mentions the same fact: in 420, the Indian king presented the Persian Shah with ten thousand “luris” - musicians. G. Grelman believed that the gypsies come from the Suder caste, which at the beginning of the 14th century was inhumanly persecuted by the Brahmins. IN ancient history In Kashmir, references were found to camps of “domis” - musicians, blacksmiths, thieves, dancers. They belonged to one of the lower castes, whose name translates as “dog eaters.”
This is what G. Grelman said about the semi-legendary origin of the gypsies and the reasons for their appearance in Europe:
“When the strong and powerful Timurleng, or Tamerlane, under the pretext of exterminating idols, conquered the north-western part of India in 1399 and glorified his victories with extreme cruelty, a wild tribe of robbers, called gypsies and living in Guzurat and especially near Thatta, escaped. This tribe, which consisted of half a million people and owned countless treasures, was called in its Guzu-rat language - Rum (people), and because of its black skin color - Kola (black), and because of its residence on the banks of Sind - Sints" (Sind is now a river Ind).
In Persia, the Gypsy language was enriched with a number of words that were subsequently discovered in all European dialects. Then, according to the English linguist John Simpson, the gypsies split into two branches. Some of them continued their journey to the west and southeast, others moved in a northwestern direction. This group of gypsies visited Armenia (where they borrowed a number of words conveyed by their descendants right up to Wells, but completely unknown to representatives of the first branch), then penetrated further into the Caucasus, enriching themselves there with words from the Ossetian vocabulary.
Ultimately, the gypsies end up in Europe and the “Byzantine” world. Since that time, references to them in written sources are found more and more often, especially in the notes of Western travelers who made pilgrimages to holy places in Palestine.
In 1322, two Franciscan monks, Simon Simeonis and Hugo the Enlightened, noticed people in Crete who looked like the descendants of Ham; they adhered to the rites of the Greek Orthodox Church, but lived, like the Arabs, under low black tents or in caves. In Greece they were called "atsiganos" or "atkinganos", after the name of a sect of musicians and fortune tellers.
But most often, Western travelers encountered gypsies in Modon, a fortified and largest port city on the western coast of the Seas, the main transit point on the way from Venice to Jaffa. They were mainly engaged in blacksmithing and, as a rule, lived in huts. This place was called Little Egypt, perhaps because here, among the parched lands, there was a fertile region like the Nile Valley. This is apparently the basis for the idea, which at one time was very widespread, that the Gypsies are immigrants from Egypt. And their leaders often styled themselves dukes or counts of Little Egypt.
Greece diversified the vocabulary of the gypsies, and it also gave them the opportunity to get acquainted with the way of life of other peoples, since here, at the crossroads of civilization, they encountered pilgrims from all over the world. Pilgrims enjoyed many privileges compared to other travelers, and when the gypsies set off again, they were already posing as pilgrims.
After a long stay in Greece and life in neighboring Romania and Serbia, some of the Roma moved further to the west. Their political situation in territories that had repeatedly passed from the Byzantines to the Turks, and vice versa, it was difficult. And so the gypsies created a myth that, having left Egypt, they were at first pagans, but then they were converted to Christianity, then they returned to idolatry again, but under the pressure of the Christian rulers-monarchs they accepted Christianity for the second time and are now making a pilgrimage to to the whole world in atonement for numerous sins. These emerging legends about the origin of the gypsies, about the reasons for their wandering lot, include both political savvy and a spell from dangerous people, lordly anger, unexpected misfortunes, etc.
Thus, dear reader, the magic of the road is born, first of all, as a means to protect yourself and your loved ones from numerous imaginary and real troubles that are possible along the way.
And the paths of the Gypsy people diverge more and more, breaking up into separate paths. But each group of gypsies that has begun an independent journey across Europe tries to justify their intentions and give their nomadism a meaningful character. Great myth-makers and romantics, the gypsies skillfully combined practicality and the beauty of fiction in their “legends.”
The earliest Russian official document mentioning gypsies dates back to 1733 - Anna Ioannovna’s decree on new taxes for the maintenance of the army:
In addition, for the maintenance of these regiments, determine taxes from the gypsies, both in Little Russia and in the Sloboda regiments and in the Great Russian cities and districts assigned to the Sloboda regiments, and for this collection, identify a special person, since the gypsies are not included in the census . On this occasion, the report of Lieutenant General Prince Shakhovsky explained, among other things, that it was impossible to include gypsies in the census because they do not live in courtyards.
The next mention in the documents occurs a few months later and shows that the Roma came to Russia relatively shortly before the adoption of the decree on taxes and secured their right to live in Ingermanland. Before this, apparently, their status in Russia was not defined, but now they were allowed:
live and trade horses; and since they showed themselves to be natives of the area, it was ordered that they be included in the capitation census wherever they wished to live, and placed in the regiment of the Horse Guards
From the phrase “they showed themselves to be natives here,” one can understand that there was at least a second generation of gypsies living in this area.
Even earlier, about a century, gypsies (serva groups) appeared on the territory of modern Ukraine. As we can see, by the time the document was written they were already paying taxes, that is, they were living legally.
In Russia, new ethnic groups of Roma appeared as the territory expanded. Thus, when parts of Poland were annexed to the Russian Empire, Polish Roma appeared in Russia; Bessarabia - various Moldovan gypsies; Crimea - Crimean gypsies.
The decree of Catherine II of December 21, 1783 classified the Gypsies as a peasant class and ordered that taxes and taxes be collected from them in accordance with the class. However, Gypsies were also allowed, if they wished, to attribute themselves to other classes (except, of course, the noble, and with the appropriate lifestyle), and by the end of the 19th century there were already quite a few Russian Gypsies of the bourgeois and merchant classes (for the first time, Gypsies were mentioned as representatives of these classes, however , back in 1800). During the 19th century, there was a steady process of integration and settlement of Russian Gypsies, usually associated with an increase in the financial well-being of families. A layer of professional artists has emerged.
At the end of the 19th century, not only settled gypsies sent their children to schools, but also nomadic ones (staying in the village in winter). In addition to the groups mentioned above, the population of the Russian Empire included Asian Lyuli, Caucasian Karachi and Bosha, and at the beginning of the 20th century also Hungarian gypsies: Lovari, Ungari (Romungr), as well as Hungarian and Romanian Kelderars.
The revolution of 1917 hit the most educated part of the Gypsy population (since it was also the wealthiest) - representatives of the merchant class, as well as Gypsy artists, whose main source of income was performances in front of nobles and merchants. Many wealthy gypsy families abandoned their property and went into nomadism, since nomadic gypsies during Civil War were automatically classified as poor. The Red Army did not touch the poor, and almost no one touched the nomadic gypsies. Some Roma families emigrated to European countries, China and the USA. Young gypsy boys could be found both in the Red Army and in the White Army, since the social stratification of Russian gypsies and serfs was already significant by the beginning of the 20th century.
After the Civil War, gypsies from among the former merchants who became nomads tried to limit their children’s contact with non-gypsies and did not allow them to go to school, in fear that the children would accidentally reveal their families’ non-poor origins. As a result, illiteracy became almost universal among the nomadic gypsies. In addition, the number of settled gypsies, whose core was merchants and artists before the revolution, has sharply decreased. By the end of the 20s, the problems of illiteracy and large quantity nomads in the gypsy population have been observed Soviet Power. The government, together with activists from among the Roma artists remaining in the cities, tried to take a number of measures to solve these problems.
Thus, in 1927, the Council of People's Commissars of Ukraine adopted a resolution on assistance to nomadic gypsies in the transition to a “working sedentary lifestyle.”
At the end of the 20s, Roma pedagogical technical schools were opened, literature and press were published in the Roma language, and Roma boarding schools operated.
During the Second World War, according to latest research, approximately 150,000-200,000 Roma in Central and Eastern Europe were exterminated by the Nazis and their allies (see Roma Genocide). Of these, 30,000 were citizens of the USSR.
On the Soviet side, during the Great Patriotic War From Crimea, along with the Crimean Tatars, their co-religionists, the Crimean Gypsies (Kyrymitika Roma), were deported.
The Roma were not only passive victims. Gypsies of the USSR participated in hostilities as infantrymen, tank crews, drivers, pilots, artillerymen, medical workers and partisans; Gypsies from France, Belgium, Slovakia, the Balkan countries were in the Resistance, as well as Gypsies from Romania and Hungary who were there during the war.
Gypsies are a people covered in myths and legends. Well, at least start with whether they are a single people, and who can be considered a gypsy? The gypsies themselves consider themselves to be either Sinti, Kalo, or Keldari. In addition to the well-known European Roma, there are also Balkan “Egyptians” and Ashkali, Middle Eastern Dom, Transcaucasian Bosha, Central Asian Mugat and Chinese Einu. The surrounding population classifies them as gypsies, but our gypsies are unlikely to recognize them as one of their own. So, who are the gypsies, and where did they come from?
Gypsies-Ursari. Image borrowed from wikimedia foundation
In the beginning a legend
Previously, gypsies lived in Egypt between the Tsin and Gan rivers. But then a bad king came to power in this country and decided to turn all Egyptians into slaves. Then the freedom-loving gypsies left Egypt and settled around the world. I heard this story as a child in the Belarusian city of Slutsk from an old gypsy grandfather who worked at the local bazaar. Then I had to hear and read it in different versions. For example, that the gypsies come from the island of Tsy on the Ganges River. Or that the gypsies dispersed to different sides, crossing the Tsy-Gan River.
Oral history does not last long. As a rule, more or less truthful information about historical events only three generations survive. There are exceptions, such as the ancient Greek poems about the Trojan War or the Icelandic sagas. They conveyed news about events centuries ago. But this happened thanks to professional storytellers. The gypsies did not have such storytellers, so myths took the place of truthful information. They were created on the basis of legends of local peoples, biblical stories and outright fables.
The Gypsies do not remember that the name of their people comes from the Greek word “atsigganos”. This was the name of a medieval Christian sect of sorcerers and fortune tellers originally from Phrygia (now the territory of Turkey). By the time the gypsies appeared in Balkan Greece, it was destroyed, but the memory of it was preserved and was transferred to a still little-known people.
In some countries, gypsies are still called Egyptians (remember English word Gypsies or Spanish Gitano). This name also has its origins in the Balkan Peninsula, where people from Egypt for a long time They traded in magic tricks and circus performances. After the conquest of Egypt by the Arabs, the flow of magicians from there dried up, but the word “Egyptian” became a common noun and was transferred to the gypsies.
Finally, the self-name of European gypsies “Roma” sometimes refers to them as immigrants from Rome. We will talk about the real origin of this word below. But, if we remember that in the Middle Ages the inhabitants of Byzantium called themselves nothing less than Romans, then we again return to the Balkan Peninsula.
It is curious that the first written mentions of Gypsies are also associated with the Balkan Peninsula. The life of the Greek monk George of Athos, written in 1068, tells that shortly before his death, the Byzantine emperor Constantine Monomakh turned to some Indians to clear his gardens of wild animals. In the 12th century, to the displeasure of Orthodox monks, gypsies in Constantinople sold amulets, told fortunes, and performed with trained bears. In 1322, the Irish pilgrim Simon FitzSimons met them on the island of Crete. In 1348, a record of gypsies appears in Serbia, in 1378 - in Bulgaria, in 1383 - in Hungary, in 1416 - in Germany, in 1419 - in France, in 1501 - in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
In the Middle Ages, the arrival of settlers was always welcomed by the feudal lords, as they counted on cheap labor. In 1417, Emperor Sigismund of Luxembourg even issued a safe conduct to the gypsies. But very soon the European monarchs became disillusioned with the newcomers. They did not want to settle in a specific place and were more like vagabonds. Already in the 15th century, laws began to be passed aimed at expelling the Gypsies. Moreover, in some cases, violators faced the death penalty. The gypsies left and returned. They had nowhere to go, since they did not remember where their homeland was. If their homeland is not the Balkan Peninsula, then where did they come from?
Ancestral home in India
In 1763, Transylvanian pastor István Valý compiled a dictionary of the Romani language and concluded that it was of Indo-Aryan origin. Since then, linguists have found many facts that confirm his conclusion. In 2004 – 2012, works by geneticists appeared who determined that the ancestral homeland of the gypsies should be sought in the north-west of India. They found that most Roma men are descended from a small group of relatives who lived 32 to 40 generations ago. Fifteen centuries ago they left their native places and for some reason moved west.
The evidence of the Indian origin of the Roma is so clear that in 2016, the Indian Ministry of External Affairs declared the Roma to be part of the overseas Indian community. Therefore, if you want to find out how many Indians live, for example, on the territory of Belarus, add another 7079 Belarusian gypsies to the 545 people from India!
At the same time, neither linguists nor geneticists have yet precisely determined which ancestors of which modern Indian people (after all, many peoples live in India!) are related to the Gypsies. This is partly because northwest India is home to different tribes. There are especially many of them in the states of Gujarat and Rajasthan. Perhaps the ancestors of the gypsies were one small tribe. After they went west, they had no close relatives or descendants left in India.
“Wait, how can this be! - someone will exclaim. “After all, there are gypsies in India!” Travelers write about Indian gypsies in blogs and film them. I myself had to see in the north of India representatives of the people who are called “Banjara”, “Garmati”, “Lambani” and so on. Many of them continue to lead a nomadic lifestyle, living in tents and engaging in begging or petty trading. The attitude of Indians towards them is approximately the same as that of Europeans towards the Roma gypsies. That is, despite all the tolerance and romantic fairy tales, very bad. However, “Banjara-Garmati” are not gypsies. This people has its own history. He comes from Gujarat, but began to lead a “gypsy” lifestyle only in the 17th century. The Banjara Garmati and the Gypsies are indeed distantly related, but no more so than other tribes and peoples of northwestern India.
How did the gypsies end up in the west?
In 2004, British historian Donald Kendrick published the book “The Gypsies: From the Ganges to the Thames.” He tried to summarize all known information that could shed light on the appearance of gypsies in Europe. His work is only a version; it contains many indirect facts and controversial conclusions. Nevertheless, it looks plausible, and it is worth retelling it very briefly for Russian-speaking readers.
The westward migration of Indians to the neighboring Persian Empire began more than 1,500 years ago. The Persian poem Shahnameh talks about this in lyrical form. Allegedly, Shah Brahram Gur, who ruled in the 5th century, turned to one of the Indian kings with a request to send Luri musicians. Each musician received a cow and a donkey, as the Shah wanted the settlers to settle on the land and raise new generations of musicians. But more often Indians moved to Persia as mercenary soldiers and artisans. D. Kendrick notes that in Iran the ancestors of the gypsies could get acquainted with tents. Later, the “vardo” wagon will become a symbol of the nomadic gypsies in Europe.
In 651, Persia was conquered by Muslim Arabs. The Arabs knew the Indian settlers as "Zotts". Perhaps it comes from the Jat people, who in our time live just in the north-west of India. The Zotts formed a kind of state in the lower reaches of the Tigris and Euphrates, collecting tribute from passing merchants for the use of trade routes. Their arbitrariness angered Caliph Al-Mu'tasim, who defeated the Zotts in 834. He resettled some of the prisoners to the area of the city of Antioch on the border with Byzantium. Now this is the borderland of Turkey and Syria. Here they served as shepherds, protecting the herds from wild animals.
In 969, the Byzantine emperor Nikephoros captured Antioch. Thus, the ancestors of the Gypsies ended up within the Byzantine Empire. For some time they lived in eastern Anatolia, where a significant part of the population was Armenians. It is not without reason that many linguists discover borrowings from Armenian in the Gypsy language.
From Eastern Anatolia, some of the Roma moved to Constantinople and the Balkan Peninsula, and then to other European countries. These gypsies are known to us as "Rum". But another part of the gypsies remained in Anatolia and already during the Turkish conquests they mastered the expanses of the Middle East, Transcaucasia, Iran, and Egypt. They are known as "house". Gypsies “at home” still live in Muslim countries, profess Islam, but separate themselves from the Arabs, Turks and Persians. It is typical that in Israel they cooperate with the authorities and even serve in the Israeli army. In neighboring Egypt, the Domari live near large cities. Among the Egyptians, their women have the dubious reputation of being good dancers and cheap prostitutes.
Journey of the Gypsies to the West in the 5th - 15th centuries
In Armenia, the “lom” gypsies, also known as “boshas,” converted to Christianity and are now almost indistinguishable from other Armenians. In Central Asia, people began to speak the Tajik language and call themselves “Mugat”, although the surrounding peoples more often call them “Lyuli”. In Western China, on the southern slopes of the Tien Shan Mountains and in the oases of the Taklamakan Desert, you can meet very exotic “Einu” gypsies. They speak a strange language that combines Indo-Aryan and Tajik words with Turkic grammar. Einu are ordinary peasants and artisans, not prone to theft, begging or drug dealing. However, their Chinese and Uyghur neighbors treat them with contempt. The Einu themselves say that they came to China from Iran, that is, they are descendants of the medieval Zotts or the same gypsies “home”.
The names “rum” and “house” have a common origin, differing only in pronunciation. But, if “rum” refers our imagination to Rome, then “house” clarifies the true roots of the self-name of the gypsies. In Punjabi language, the word "dam-i" means person or man.
Second coming
So, in the 14th century, the gypsies began to leave the cozy Balkan Peninsula, where they spent several centuries, and move to other European countries. There is nothing surprising in this if we remember that during this period the Turkish conquest of the lands of the former Byzantine Empire took place. However, the number of migrants cannot be called huge. Proof of this are materials about the persecution of Roma by the authorities. As a rule, before the 18th century, Gypsy communities in European countries barely numbered a few hundred people each. In Russia, Gypsies are not mentioned until 1733, and even then they lived only in the Baltic states.
By the 19th century, many European gypsies abandoned their nomadic way of life and somehow fit into the existing social structures, served in the army, participated in the colonial expansion of European peoples. The negative image of the gypsies gradually eroded. Romantic poets sang the gypsies' love for freedom. But in mid-19th century century, a new stream of gypsy migrants poured from the Balkan Peninsula, to whom the definition of free never approached.
Where did they come from? Despite the Turkish invasion, most medieval gypsies chose to remain where they lived before. At the beginning of the 17th century, we discover gypsy suburbs near the Athos monastery, settlements of gypsy artisans in Bulgaria, and even gypsy soldiers in the Ottoman army. While in European countries the gypsies were persecuted, in the Ottoman Porte they were recognized as subjects of the Sultan, paid taxes and in some cases enjoyed a certain independence.
It is not surprising that among the Ottoman gypsies there were many sedentary ones. Some converted to Islam, others remained Christians, and others tried to merge with the local population. This is how a small group of Ashkali gypsies arose in Kosovo, who lived in permanent villages, gardened and spoke Albanian. In Bulgaria, the Roma were more likely to accept the Turkish language and culture.
Village of Romanian gypsies in the 19th century. Image borrowed from wikimedia foundation
However, there was one big exception in the northern Balkans. In the Romanian principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia, gypsies were slaves. It is curious that the very first mention of the Gypsies in Wallachian documents of the 14th century speaks of them as unfree. Most gypsies belonged to the prince, but there were also slaves dependent on monasteries or landowner boyars. Some of the gypsy slaves led a sedentary life, others were allowed to roam, but one way or another they worked for the owner. The owners disposed of their property, allowed or prohibited marriages, tried and punished them. Slaves were cheap in Wallachia. For example, in 1832, thirty gypsies were exchanged for one britzka. In Moldova, in addition to the gypsy slaves, there was a small group of Tatar slaves. Tatars became slaves when they were captured. But how the Roma population ended up in slavery is difficult to understand. There were no hostilities between Romanians and Gypsies.
Slavery was finally abolished only in 1856. Although the Romanian authorities took steps to ensure that the Gypsies mixed with the Romanians, many of the freed slaves chose to move away from their former masters. This was especially true for those who maintained a nomadic lifestyle. Many of the gypsies living in Western European countries, Russia, Ukraine and Belarus are direct descendants of that very later wave of gypsies from Romania.
In the 20th century, in the USSR and other socialist countries, they tried to transfer the gypsies to a sedentary lifestyle. The Nazis exterminated Roma in concentration camps. Thus, during the Second World War, Belarus lost almost its entire indigenous Roma population. The gypsies living with us today are descendants of post-war settlers from other Soviet republics. Nowadays, a suspicious and sometimes outright hostile attitude towards Gypsies is characteristic of all European countries from France to Russia.
Gypsies are not loved, they are admired, but they continue to lead an isolated lifestyle. And so for one and a half thousand years!
In the XIV-XV centuries. In Europe, a nomadic people appeared, known as the Gypsies, whose origin, way of life and language remained a mystery for a long time. Their ancestors did not leave behind a written history, so a variety of theories arose regarding the origin of the people. He seems doomed to eternal wandering and has his own special civilization.
Gypsies are scattered all over the world. They can be found on any continent, but nowhere do they mix with other peoples. Even the number of Roma could not always be determined in certain countries. They often tried to explain the origin of the gypsies with absurd theories, looking at their ancestry from German Jews , even mentioning the inhabitants of the legendary Atlantis.
The emergence of a host of other theories arose from the lack of development of complex issues of ethnography and history of the largest national minority group in Europe, which were the Gypsies. The origin of the people was reduced to three main versions. The theory of Asian roots was supported by Henri de Spond, who associated the Gypsies with the medieval Attingan sect. Many scientists associated this people with the Central Asian tribe of the Siggins, mentioned by the ancient authors Strabo, Herodotus and others. Theory Egyptian origin was one of the earliest, it arose in the 15th century. Moreover, the first gypsies who arrived in Europe themselves spread these legends. This version was supported by English scientists who claimed that the gypsies, on their way to Europe, visited the country of the pyramids, where they acquired their limitless knowledge and skills in the field of sleight of hand, fortune telling and astrology.
The theory of Indian origin arose in the 18th century. The basis for this version was the similarity of the Indian language with the language spoken by the Roma. The origin of the people according to this version is now almost generally accepted. The question of the location of the ancestors of the gypsies in India and the exact time of their exit from the country remains difficult.
The ambiguity of the origin of this people has always been intertwined with the definition of the very concept of “Gypsies”; the origin of this name was often considered not as an ethnic, but as a social phenomenon. In various sources, the name “gypsies” is applied to social groups of the population leading a wandering lifestyle, which are characterized by similar features and specific methods of earning a living, such as fortune telling, small crafts, songs and dances, begging and others.
Indeed, the gypsies, distributed mosaically throughout the world, are heterogeneous in their composition, and it is not always easy to understand how great the differences are between them. They are divided into a number of ethnic groups, which are distinguished by dialects and other local ethnocultural characteristics. Their traditional nomadism cannot be viewed as a kind of romantic wanderlust or chaotic aimless wanderings. The way of life of the people was based on economic reasons. It was necessary to constantly look for markets for the products of the camp artisans, a new audience for their performances.
Ethnocultural contacts of a certain group of gypsies with the surrounding population led to a number of borrowings. An interesting fact is that the gypsies were in no hurry to leave their inhabited territories, even when they found themselves in rather unfavorable conditions. It is known that in many countries they were subjected to severe persecution. And yet, even in the very epicenter of organized violence, there were still survivors. This is kale in Spain, sinti in Germany, travelers in England.
While in the Catholic West the appearance of the Gypsies led to the adoption of laws for their expulsion, in Byzantium no such law was passed. Craftsmen, metalworkers, and animal trainers were highly valued here.
In Russia, the emergence of new ethnic groups of Roma was associated with the expansion of territory. In 1783, according to the decree of Catherine II, the Gypsies of Russia were classified as peasants, and they were ordered to collect appropriate taxes and taxes. If they wished, they were also allowed to attribute themselves to classes other than the nobility. Thus, by the end of the 19th century, there were many Russian gypsies among the merchant and bourgeois classes.
In the 19th century in Russia there was a steady process of integration of the Roma, their settling in permanent places, which was explained by the improvement in the financial well-being of their families. Natural artistry, incorporating many cultures different countries, attracted genuine attention to this people. Russian romances performed by gypsies took on a different coloring. The genre of gypsy romance appeared, founded by Russian composers and poets who were passionate about this culture. A layer of professional artists began to appear.
