Description

The Rudari and Boyashes are a Romanian-speaking population in Romania, Serbia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Greece, Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovakia. Until now there is the dominant opinion among many people, that these minority-groups are assimilated, originally Romany-speaking gypsies (Roma) who lost their language and culture.

Therefore, the case of the Rudari and Boyashes points to a central problem of research into gypsies-groups everywhere in the world: Are all Roma at the same time gypsies? This question can only answer who understands marginal groups as the Rudari and Boyashes in the context of their culture, internal organization, and social relations. Their history provides the opportunity to understand social processes from the development of social sub-systems up to ethnicity.

In the meantime, the discussion reached the people themselves. For many among the Rudari and Boyashes their unclear origin means a big uncertainty, because they are neither accepted by the Romanians nor the Roma as belonging to their communities. But others succeed in taking advantage of this situation, by they relate themselves as required to one of the two groups.

2009, 200 pages, softcover, 12 black-and-white illustrations, 3 maps, 20.5 cm x 14.5 cm;
ISBN: 978-3-938533-29-1