A Critical Review of Remembrance: Romani Slavery in Romani Activism, Arts, and Research

Abstract

This article examines how the memory of Romani slavery persists in the contemporary collective consciousness of both Roma and non-Roma in Romania. It explores the tension between social amnesia and efforts to rebuild remembrance through activism, arts, and research as a way to understand the past and facilitate truth-telling and reconciliation. The article examines how – more than 170 years after the final act of abolition of Romani slavery in 1856 during an era of induced oblivion of the memory of Romani slavery – remembrance is beginning, step by step, to be rebuilt through Romani activism, arts, and research contemporary Romania after 1990, when Roma were recognised as a national minority. It analyses the memory of Romani slavery in Romania through the lens of “social amnesia”, a concept coined by historian Russell Jacoby and defined as society's repression of remembrance – the Romanian state rejects its negative past not to be placed in a bad light, as oppressor.