The article is an abridged version of the Dr Marcel Courthiade. The paper contains a concentrated Roma vision for construction of national identity. Also, the common ancestry of the Roma and their country of origin are traced. The Roma interpretation for the ancient history of their people is presented: mighty, rich, educated and glorious kings; the “Goleden Age”; and the devastating attack by Mahmud of Ghazni which led to the destruction of the holy town of Kannauj. The slavery and exiles of the Roma population which followed set the beginning of multi-century long sufferings, humiliations and persecutions.

The paper aims at presenting new information concerning the Ottoman (short timar) tax registry TD 370 from 1530, comprising the Ottoman administrative unit region (beylerbeylik) of Rumelia (the Eastern Balkans, mostly the current-day Bulgarian lands). The historical record TD 370 offers a copious picture of the structure of the Ottoman society and the integration of the Roma into its different strata during the first half of the 16th century. An attempt for interpretation of the data on the geographical distribution and the quantitative parameters concerning the Christian and Muslim Roma, the Roma travellers and Roma settlers making their living through cultivating is offered. In addition, tax obligations and occupations of the Roma in the non-agrarian sphere are discussed as well as the integration of a substantial part of the Roma in the military organisation of the muselems. The data on the Roma are presented in the appendix, a translation-excerpt of TD 370.

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The article presents a picture of the Roma in our lands during the times of Ottoman Domination, from the 14th to the 19th century. Regarding these dramatic times, the author has used authentic testimonies and scholarly texts by researchers of the Roma. Their way of life (traditional occupations and skills), their military duties within the empire, the taxation system imposed on them, their attitude to religion, have been studied in the article. The author has traced the specific way in which the Roma fitted into the institutions of the Ottoman Empire, their particularity as a community living parallel with, yet isolated from, the others, and the attitude of those others towards them. During their long centuries of life in the Balkans within the Ottoman Empire, the Roma succeeded in preserving their specific way of life, their crafts and culture, thereby demonstrating their power of endurance.

This article examines the policies of successive regimes towards the Roma communities of Bulgaria, encompassing the Ottoman period, the independent Kingdom of Bulgaria from 1878 to 1944 and the period of Communist rule from 1944 to 1989. Throughout, an attempt is made to identify and understand the themes and motivations behind various policies, arguing that while successive regimes frequently implemented similar policies, the underlying intentions were often significantly different. This article also attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of government policies, and to identify and explain the brief periods where oppression was relaxed and Roma culture and identity was actively promoted.

This paper is an attempt for deconstruction of a division of a Roma group and the differentiation of subsidiary groups which started autonomous life as „totally different“ communities. The primary hypothesis is that the rejection of the new group is not as much a result of trivial „conflict of interests“ and „competition for limited resources between Roma subgroups“ as it is an endeavour of the new Bulgarian political elite to impose „cultural homogeneity“ during the formation of a nation state and to legitimise its right to define social norms and values. On the other hand, the local Roma groups have also rejected the newcomers – due to conformity with the requirements of the macro society, fear of sanctions, but also taking into consideration how to raise their own status and sustain the hierarchy among the different subgroups. The analysis is based on a document study and field work among the Roma subgroups in the town of Sliven. Even though it looks like a particular case at first sight, some of the investigated mechanisms of „gemmation“ of an ethnic group probably have a more universal meaning.

The paper discusses the question about difficulties and possible approaches for quantifying the Roma communities – both for sampling survey purposes and operations policies’ needs. The point of departure of the analysis is the thesis for the multiple and fluid character of the Roma identity. “Roma” is not just a meta-group, but a complicated construct whose contents depends on the interpretative framework of any of the involved in the debate parties. In addition, the Roma identity to a large extent situational and reflexive, defined alternatively in relation to the non-Roma (gadjo). From historical perspective, this model of identification is not just a result of century long discrimination and prejudice. The discrimination and prejudices themselves have been inevitably a consequence of the modernisation process in which the way of life of the Roma has been into more and more serious contradiction to the established disciplinary structures of the settled population and respectively with the existing religious and secular hierarchies. The same process has deepened in the course of consolidation of the nation states during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Today, in the conditions of the post-modern society, the century long challenges facing the Roma become the challenges of larger strata of the non-Roma. That is the question: how the existing social and political systems inscribe and reflect the multiple identities of the post-modern citizen. In this way, the Roma inclusion might turn out to be an important laboratory for working out approaches regarding to inscribe the post-modern diversity of identities in the existing (in most cases modern) institutional frameworks. With regards to the quantification of the Roma population the author reaches the conclusion that for a real progress in relation to the Roma inclusion its exact definition and count are not necessary. Methods which reflect the fluidity of the term “Roma” should be used and political priorities which lead to collection of data. The author provides examples for such approaches in the field of quantitative sampling surveys.

The paper presents a theoretical-empirical study on a problem concerning the role of the press to support and reproduce racism in social structures. Special attention is paid to the latent participation of the liberal newspapers in the systemic stigmatisation of the Roma.The factors favouring stigmatisation and social exclusion of the ethnically different and especially the Roma have been explored. Content and discursive analyses results regarding publications on the Roma in several national dailies (Ataka, Dnevnik, Dnes.bg, Klasa, Monitor, Novinar) for the period August 2010 – February 2011 are presented. The analysis is based on the primary topics of the publications reflecting negative stereotypes, prejudices and social distances towards the Roma: the Roma as a “threat to the nation”, as “social parasites”, as a “demographic threat”, as “criminal offenders”.

In this article, I have explored the effect of two macroeconomic processes on the volume of Roma content in six Bulgarian daily newspapers. Using Eurostat macroeconomic data and press monitoring results produced by an independent nonprofit, I test for the presence of a significant association between the volume of content of Roma related articles and the movement of prices – in particular, the food and non-alcoholic product prices, and the diesel and unleaded 95 fuel prices. Further, the association between the unemployment rate and the volume of content of Roma related articles is tested. Interesting results show that the overall movement of prices is not significantly correlated with the volume of Roma content in the dailies. On the other hand, the unemployment rate and the price of diesel and food products appear to be in a strong and significant association with the volume of Roma content. A similar type of association though cannot be proved when it comes to a nationalistic daily.

The present article focuses on the stereotypes used by 20 print media when publishing on Roma people in Bulgaria. The study answers several research questions: To what extent hate speech matters in relation to the Roma can be found in the Bulgarian press and what type of hate speech cases is replaced with implicitly negative matters? What are the main topics concerning the presence of the Roma in the national press and how are these topics distributed in the different printed media? What is the impact of the topical issues and events from the public agenda on the matters concerning the Roma minority? What are the general trends when it comes to representing the Roma during an election campaign? The research uses a triangulation between the two types of content analysis methods: a standardised matrix for quantitative analysis and open-coding of the key words and traits. An extremely negative stereotyped image is observed focused mainly on their lifestyle compared to their personal traits. The stereotypes are interrelated within a meta-story that more or less sounds like that: The drunken swarthy offenders live in illegal ghetto houses and do not pay their utility bills. They live in large family clans that fight each other depending on the interests of the big bosses.

Elucidating the Roma music and musicians in this paper is exposed on the more general picture of the historical destiny and the current-day situation of the Roma communities in South-eastern Europe. Analyses on the Roma musicians and their music have several aspects. The Roma musical culture on the Balkans is being traced in several directions. One of them leads to the question about the musicianship as a traditional Roma occupation that has developed throughout history in changing social-economic conditions and cultural traditions. Another aspect of reflection is associated with the boundaries and content of the term “Gypsy/Roma music”. It is emphasised that there is no uniform musical language, style and identity shared by all Roma people throughout the world, but there exist musical similarities which are explained through lineal relationships. Special attention is paid to role of the professional Roma musicians within the Balkan musical traditions. Marking off the significant contribution of the Roma musicians for the development of the local musical cultures on the Balkans, it is emphasised that they have ambivalent role in these processes because, on one hand, they are keepers of the tradition and on the other – instruments of the change. Typical for the musical practice of the Balkan Roma instruments and ensembles are outlined. Several aspects concerning the attitudes towards the Roma via images of the Roma music on the Balkans that stimulate a great deal of associations are examined.

The study delineates the dynamic picture of the Roma music on the Balkans. The research interest is both anthropological and culturological, focused on the musical contexts – the functioning of music in the media and the music industryduring the 20th and the 21st centuries. The first part of the study is dedicated to the recorded music on the Balkans during the current-day times: gramophone records from the first half of the 20th century, recorded Roma music from the Balkans at the beginning of the third millennium. Names, titles and phenomena from present times – still waiting to become an object of scientific analytical interpretation, are included in the final section: Roma contributions in the local ethno-pop music on the Balkans, kings and queens of the new Roma music, revival of local Roma practices in the instrumental music. The second part of the study traces the routes of the Balkan Roma music on the globalisation road in the space of the new media: the Internet, as voices and images in the we-media (social networks, video content sharing websites). Some characteristic media images of the Roma music from the third millennium are analysed in the third part: the Balkan Roma contributions to the modern ethno-jazz, the Balkan Beat phenomenon as a local Roma contribution to the world music and the ethno-fusion, the idiom Gypsy-punk. In conclusion, the common for the Balkans concerning the Roma music is generalised into two fields: as a Balkan musical idiom (music styles, instruments and ensembles, musical images) and as musician practices via the figure of the Roma musician on the Balkans. The Roma musicians and their music are mediators and innovators of the musical culture on the Balkans, in Europe and around the world. Their importance grows in the post-modern situation and in global aspect: the Balkan musical contributions of the Roma today acquire global cultural significance.

The text provides us the most comprehensive possible picture of Roma poetry and prose as a unique part of Bulgarian literature. Emblematic names in Roma literature are presented here, ranging from the earliest active authors to those of the present day (from Usin Kerim to Hristo Hristov). Some less well-known and not yet established writers have also been included insofar as they fit into the thematic field of the study. The article traces their literary response to the themes most specific to them, reflected in their literary works: attachment to family and friends, their feeling of ethnic belonging and the dramas related to the attitude of society towards them, the search for the roots of their ancient origin and language, the emotions of love, where they are truly in their element. The article presents a wide picture of the interests of Roma writers in topical issues of their life in Bulgaria, an interest that makes them an inseparable part of our national literature, with its shared European values.