In any case, in the 14th and 16th centuries the Roma had already reached Bohemia, Germany, France, Italy, Spain and Portugal, and since the 17th century Russia, Denmark, Scotland and Sweden. The clash of Roma, who have a characteristic way of life, with European civilization shows quite mixed feelings – from granting special privileges to discrimination, persecution, eviction and even the killing of large groups of this ethnic group.
As early as 1200, Athanasius, patriarch of Constantinople, instructed Byzantine clergy to forbid their parishioners from associating with “atingoi” because they were teaching devilish things.
Although in 1417 Sigismund, the emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, signed an official treaty with the Roma voivode Ladislas to ensure their safety, slavery and persecution often ensued.
One year after the discovery of America in 1493, the Italian authorities expelled the Roma from Milan. Three years later, in 1496, the German Reichstag accused the Roma of being spies, carriers of bubonic plague and traitors to Christianity. Probably because of this, in 1500, Emperor Maximilian ordered all Roma to leave Germany by Easter. On similar charges in 1557 the Roma were ordered to leave Poland and Lithuania.
From 1385 there is information about the sale of Roma as slaves in Wallachia and Moldova. By court decisions or special laws, the gypsies were deported from France in 1504, Catalonia in 1512 and Sweden in 1525. In 1510, every gypsy found in Switzerland was ordered to be killed. Similar rules were introduced by Denmark in 1589 and Sweden in 1637.
In 1530, an act was issued in England banning Roma from entering the country and requiring those living in the country to leave within 16 days. Failure to comply with this requirement may result in confiscation of property, imprisonment and deportation. The act was amended by the Gypsy Act of 1554, which condemned the Roma to leave the country within a month. Dissenters were executed.
But the first real anti-Gypsy legislation was created in 1538 in Moravia and Bohemia, which were then under Habsburg rule. Three years later, after a series of fires in Prague blamed on the Roma, Ferdinand I ordered them expelled from his estates.
In 1545, the Augsburg Diet decreed that “whoever kills a gypsy will not be accused of murder.” However, the mass killings that followed prompted the government to eventually intervene and “ban the drowning of Roma women and children.” Apparently the Catholic Church did not take a good look at the dark-skinned newcomers either. Pope Pius V in 1586 called for the expulsion of all Roma from the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1661, Oliver Cromwell’s son, Richard, ordered the transportation of the Roma in England and Scotland to the plantations in Jamaica and Barbados to be subjected to “forced submission forever.”
In 1710, Emperor Joseph I ordered “all adult Roma men” to be hanged without trial or sentence, while women and young men were beaten and banished forever. In addition, “those of them living in the Kingdom of Bohemia should have their right ear cut off, and those in Moravia their left ear should be cut off.”
In Germany, Elector George II of Saxony ordered a “Gypsy hunt” as a means of exterminating this population
In 1721, Emperor Charles VI ordered the extermination of all Roma in Germany.
In 1722, Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm outright declared all Roma over the age of eighteen criminals. Dissatisfied with the monstrous legislation, thousands of armed Roma revolted, but were defeated by German soldiers and tortured to death.
By 1685, Portugal had finally deported all the Roma from its lands to Brazil. In 1660, not by anyone, but by the “Sun King” Louis XIV, the Roma were forbidden to reside in France.
In 1758, in Austria, Maria Theresa launched a large-scale program for the assimilation of the Roma population. To this end, the government is building special huts to replace the gypsy tents. The “new Hungarians” are forbidden to travel, and it is not uncommon for children to be forcibly taken from their parents in order to encourage their “non-Roma” development.
In Hungary, in 1782, two hundred Roma were arrested and tortured, until they were finally found guilty of false accusations of cannibalism.
Beyond this blacklist, however, there are examples in history of better treatment. English status from 1596 gives them special privileges that are lacking for other vagrants. A similar law was passed by France in 1683. In Russia, Catherine the Great declared the Roma “slaves to the crown,” a status that surpassed that of the serfs. At the same time, however, some special measures keep Roma away from major Russian cities. Although Gypsies in Wallachia, Moldavia and Transylvania were sold into slavery until the 19th century, slave-born Roma Stefan Razvan managed to become Prince of Moldova. In Wallachia, slavery was abolished by law in 1847, and in Moldova in 1844.
After the Liberation of Bulgaria, with the adoption of the Tarnovo Constitution, the gypsies in our country formally enjoyed equal rights as other Bulgarian citizens. On February 20, 1901, however, a government came to power with Prime Minister Petko Karavelov. The first job of the new cabinet is to draft a law amending the election law. It contains an amendment banning gypsies from voting. The motive – their votes are the easiest to buy. With small amendments, this restriction has been in force in that country for 35 years. The paragraph with this ban was completely deleted in the electoral law only in 1937 by the will of Tsar Boris III.
Perhaps the most devastating persecution of Gypsies was during World War II, when they were among the first victims of Nazi atrocities. A total of about 2 million gypsies die in concentration camps or other means of mass extermination, including inhumane medical experiments.
In the post-war period, in many places the Roma remained an oppressed group, especially in the Soviet Union and other Warsaw Pact countries. Even in 1980, Roma women in Czechoslovakia were forced to undergo sterilization to limit the Roma population.
On April 8, 1971, the first Gypsy Congress was held in London
Its aim was to unite and systematize the efforts of the international Gypsy movement, as well as to draw the attention of the world community to the problems of Gypsies in a minority position: education, poverty, segregation. A common gypsy anthem and flag were adopted at the meeting. The anthem is the song “Djelem, jelem” by Zarko Jovanovic from 1969. The flag depicts the blue sky, the green earth and the red wheel of constant movement.
