Publications and Research

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2020

Abstract

This essay proposes that the invisibility of so-called Gypsies in Middle Eastern and Central Asian historiography derives from two linked phenomena. First, the work of nineteenth- and twentieth-century European and North American philologists, medievalists, and ethnographers delegitimized the Strangers’ languages, along with the cultures and histories that these languages expressed. The erasure of Strangers from modern historiography was nearly total. Secondly, the category of Strangers was transformed in the wake of the Holocaust as Roma activists drew on Nazi racial categories to base Roma identity on linguistic criteria.

Comments

This is the author's accepted manuscript of an article finally published as: Richardson, Kristina L. "Invisible Strangers, or Romani History Reconsidered." History of the Present, vol. 10, no. 2, 2020, pp. 187-207. doi: https://doi.org/10.1215/21599785-8351823

Share

COinS
 
 

To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately,
you may Download the file to your hard drive.

NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window.