Where did the gypsies come from: the mystery of a nomadic people

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

The origins of the Roma are shrouded in legends, and history is full of examples of discrimination and genocide.

Intrusive beggars, mystical fortune tellers, virtuoso musicians - there are a great many legends and myths about gypsies. People's attention is always drawn to those who are strikingly different from themselves. So the Gypsies have never been deprived of it - their semi-nomadic way of life, traditions, language and way of existence have generated and still give rise to various fantastic legends.

Roma, Sinti, Lyuli - many different gypsy communities exist on the globe. But they all came out of the same point. For a long time, scientists could not establish the ancestral home of the Roma, until modern methods of analysis made it possible to confirm the theory put forward back in the 18th century.

The origin of the gypsies is the Indian trace

The main problem in studying the history of the origin of the Roma is the lack of written sources. Scientists can only rely on linguistic and ethnographic methods. In the 18th century, the German scientist M. Grelman, on the basis of the latter, put forward the hypothesis that the ancestral home of the Gypsies is India. He compared the physical characteristics of the gypsies and their language with the appearance and language of the inhabitants of India and found a lot in common.

Gradually, other researchers began to join him. The most widespread version is the appearance of the gypsies in the northwest of India. Other scholars believe that the ancestors of the Gypsies were originally from central India and moved north only in the 5th century AD. e. One thing is certain - the fantastic theories of the 18th and 19th centuries, according to which the gypsies were called immigrants from Egypt (a notion of the gypsies themselves, which took root well among the Europeans) or the descendants of the population of the sunken Atlantis, finally died in the twentieth century.

Scientists prove the kinship of the Roma with the Indian peoples by the similarity of their culture with the traditions of Indian nomadic tribes. For example, Nats still sell horses, take bears and monkeys to villages and show tricks. Banjars wander from one village to another and are engaged in trade.

Sappers are famous for their snake charming tricks, badi for their music, and bihari for their circus arts. All these tribes or castes are similar in appearance to the Gypsies, but many researchers believe that in fact there is no genetic connection between them and the Roma people. Such tribes are called "gypsy-like".

Roma gypsies: Byzantine heritage

There are quite a few theories of the origin of the self-designation of European gypsies, "Roma". Until recently, the prevailing version among scientists was that this word comes from the name of one of the lower castes in India. It is indicated, for example, by the self-designation of the people “Roma” or “Roma” (also “house” or “scrap” in other variants).

Linguists believe that this word goes back to the Indo-Aryan "d'om", where the first sound can be pronounced in different ways. Probably, this name has even more ancient roots. Scientists have suggested that it comes from the word "ḍōmba", which in classical Sanskrit meant a person from a lower caste. But there is another version, according to which the self-name of the gypsies comes from the Sanskrit word meaning "drum".

However, modern researchers trace the history of the word "Roma" from the Byzantine period of the existence of the Gypsies in the 12-14 centuries. A long stay in the "empire of the Romans" left an imprint on the language of the nomads - they borrowed many Greek words. This hypothesis was put forward at the beginning of the 20th century by the researcher A. Sinclair. Modern scholars are inclined towards this theory, while noting that it was in Byzantium that a community of nomadic peoples and a Gypsy identity developed.

In Russian, the Gypsies got their name from the "Life of St. George of Athos". True, scholars are still arguing over who exactly was meant in the 11th century document. Perhaps, the author did not call the Roma people at all, but a widespread sect. Be that as it may, the name stuck in the language.

In other languages, for example, in English or Spanish, gypsies are called similar words, which come from Egyptians - Egyptians. This name did not appear by chance, since, having first appeared in Europe, the Roma declared that they came from Egypt. The dark skin and unusual language convinced the Europeans, and they began to call the Roma people Egyptians, and later - "gitanos" or "Gypsies". However, there are other variants of the names - for example, the French call the Roma “Bohemians”, and in many languages the name, derived from the word “black”, has stuck.

Roma in Europe - from persecution to genocide

Scientists still cannot come to a consensus regarding the beginning of the migration of the Roma ancestors from India. Researchers agree on one thing - most likely, the transitions were made in small groups and in different directions. Part of the migration flow went through the Middle East to Egypt and the Maghreb countries - and stayed there. Another, today's Roma, ended up within the Byzantine Empire sometime in the 11th century.

Life among the Greeks was quite simple - the authorities did not persecute newcomer nomads, they quietly worked as blacksmiths, helped the local population and even converted to Orthodoxy. However, they stayed in isolated groups and away from their neighbors. Who knows what such a state of affairs would ultimately lead to, but in the 15th century the camps set off again - already to Central and Western Europe. This is due to the ongoing wars and the Ottoman conquest of Asia Minor and the Balkans.

In Western Europe, Roma said that they were Christians expelled from Eastern countries, suffered for their faith, or simply pilgrims. At first, local residents and even the authorities helped them - provided them with money, food and shelter. They wandered to different cities, lived at the expense of the population, and then left, quite often returning again. Of course, this spoiled the image of the martyrs of the faith. And the closeness of the gypsy community gave rise to a variety of rumors among ordinary people, sometimes the most fantastic.

Gradually, anti-Roma laws began to spread almost throughout Europe, at first simply forbidding them to live in the country, and then simply sentencing the male population to execution. So, for example, the English law of 1554 ordered to put to death every male gypsy.

One of the most difficult periods in the history of this ethnos was the Second World War. The "Nuremberg Laws", known primarily for the fact that they dealt with the solution of the "Jewish question", also affected the Roma. About half a million Sinti (as the German branch of the Roma was called) died at the hands of the Nazis. This nomadic people were persecuted in the puppet states of the Hitlerite regime.

Today, despite the policy of the OSCE, the Council of Europe and human rights organizations to combat discrimination against Roma, laws restricting them have not been abolished everywhere. So, for example, in Italy they have the right to live only in the province of Veneto and on the island of Sardinia.

Nikita Nikolaev