Archive for June, 2007
From Roma Virtual Network.
Romani Dreams is a poetry collection of one of the most famous Romani contemporary authors – Valdemar Kalinin, the winner of the Roma Literary Award from OSI-Budapest in 2003, the Hiroshima Prize for Peace and Culture (2002), and the Poetry Prize at the 8th International Romani Art Festival in Lanciano (2001).
As a poet, Valdemar Kalinin continues the tradition of the Russian Romani Poetic School which was established in the 1920’s century by Nikolay Pankov, Alexander German, Olga Pankova, Georgy Lebedev, Evdokia Orlova, and was revived in 1970-80s by Nikolay Satkevich, Leksa Manush, Karlis Rudevichs, Nikolay Zhemchuzhnyi, etc. Influenced by the folklore tradition, Romani Dreams aims to present the past and present of the Romani culture in its unique language. Moreover, the Belorussian and English translation of the collection allows the non-Romani audience to enter the world of one of the most notable representatives of Romani culture.
Copies of the book are available for review on request from the contact below. Requests for interviews with the author are also welcome.
Contacts:
E-mail: v.kalinin@btopenworld.com or dken@globalnet.co.uk
Phone: +44 (0)207 609 6047
Address: Flat 2, 52 Penn Road, London N7 9RE United Kingdom
Book details: 309pp
Cost: £10.99 + P&P
Published by Stepping Stones School, London 2005.
A bad event happened on May, 18th, 2007. The famous Romano scholar Jan Kochanowski passed away.
He was born on August, 6th, 1920 in the forest surrounding the city of Cracow (Poland). He would have been delighted to meet the late Pope John Paul the 2nd who was born on the same year a few months before him. His motherly clan came from Latvia and had a nomadic lifestyle wandering from Poland to Bielorussia. So he used to live in tents among horses until the age of nine. His father belonged to a traditional military clan and was an officer in the Red Army, he died while defending the city of Smolensk in 1942.
Vania studied at the catholic lyceum of Aglona and passed his final secondary examination in Riga where he also attended his first year university course before the invasion of his country by the Nazi troops. During the war, more than half of his family members were exterminated, he was twice deported and he also escaped twice. After the war he chose France, the Human Rights country, as his new fatherland.
Vania was the first Rom in the world and maybe is still the only one to have brilliantly upheld two doctorate theses : the first one in linguistics at the Sorbonne in 1960, the second in ethno-sociology at Toulouse university in 1984. Having to pay for his studies, his exceptional career was accomplished in extremely difficult and precarious financial conditions. He unceasingly kept on informing the civil society about the charity organisations who were supposed to act for the benefit of his People. He was an activist, fighting against the international corruption. He struggled for the recognition of the huge Roma genocide during the Second World War and for the creation of an International Indo-Romani Cultural Center (CICR) in France.
Fighting intensely for his People’s rights, he practically attended every Romani world congress as a member of the Praesidium. He was one of the first researchers to launch interdisciplinary field investigations through the Balkans with his friend Dr Bernard Ely, and also in India, the Roma’s mother country. There, he was invited by the most famous universities and the most well known pandits. He was the only western scholar to attend the official meeting when Hindi was adopted as the national language of the Indian Union. All over the world he was appreciated and recognised by every ethnic group : Gitanos-Kale, Sinte-Manush, Le Roms, Banjaras from India… etc.
He left us an enormous work, embracing linguistic, anthropologic and ethno-sociological discoveries. His works were published under the names of Jan Kochanowski (his civil name), Vania de Gila (his fatherly mother’s clan) or Vania de Gila-Kochanowski. Among his most recent books : Parlons Tsigane and the prominent Précis de la langue romani littéraire L’Harmattan edit, Le roi des serpents and La prière des loups, bilingual tales and narratives, Wallâda edit[1].
His scientific career shall not overlap his artistical talent. He was the most famous Gypsy dancer of the Paris’ cabarets after the war, a friend of the Dimitrievitchs. He didn’t hesitate to come on stage wherever he was in India[2] during the International Conference “Art, Culture, Literature, Education” in New-Delhi (1995) or at the European congress of the Roma youth in Barcelona (1997) where he was acclaimed. One may notice that both his sons have been following traditional Romani careers, one of them as choreographer in charge of the National ballet companies of the Culture Ministery of Gabon, the other one as a General[3] in the French Air Forces.
He was a member of the Paris Linguistics Society (1955), as well as of the National Council for the Regional Languages (1988), member of the Latvian union in France (2002) and Transparency International (1998), President of Romano Yekhipe France and he had been appointed Plenipotentiary of the Romani Union at UNESCO in 1984.
[1] Editor : Wallâda 31 les Capucins, 609 boulevard Joseph Collomps 83300 Draguignan
[2] See photographs in “La prière des loups” p147.
[3] Air Commodore (GB) or Brigadier General (US).
Information is from Jean-Claude MEGRET (Balval) , Roma Virtual Network.
Alexander BaurovAlexandre Baurov was from a famous artistic Russian Gypsy family. His ancestors were renowned for singing in choirs of Moscow and St. Petersburg.
Alexandre was born on March, 23rd, 1906. The boy received his first guitar lessons from such masters as Alexei and Michael Shishkin. When he was eleven, Sasha began performing with a Gypsy choir. He danced and played guitar. But the October Revolution deprived choirs of audience, and the young Rom had to find another work.
Around 1920 he began working as an assistant of a steelmaker in Putilov plant. From 1925 to 1933 Alexandre studied in the College of Electromechanical Communications and after graduating started working as a laboratory assistant in the Academy of Communications. But he didn’t give up music. In evenings he performed with a Gypsy ensemble in State Leningrad Variety Theatre.
In 1941, when the USSR entered the WWII, Alexandre as a volunteer was sent to the combat troops. He took his guitar with him. During short minutes of rest Baurov played songs for his friends.
Due to his good technical education Alexandre was appointed an officer. He started as а commander of communication support of the 44th battalion of armoured troops. He took part in fighting for Pulkovo heights. During the attack near Krasnoye Selo the officer-Rom was shell-shocked and wounded in his arm. Baurov was saved from the crashed tank by medics.
After recovery Alexandre Baurov returned to the front with 189th infantry division. Later he was commander of the 1st aeronautic division. This division provided pictures of enemy lines to the Soviet artillery.
At Karelian Isthmus Baurov was wounded in a hip.
The bravery of the Leningrad Rom was marked with promotions and awards. Alexandre was given the rank of captain in 1944. His chest was decorated with an Order of the Red Star and an Order of the Battle Red Banner. He also received an Order of Alexandre Nevsky (a very rare and honourable one) for the forced crossing of Oder river and a Polish Cross of Valor.
Baurov met the Victory in Leipzig, but he didn’t leave the military service. After the Victory he was left in Germany to learn German rocketry. From 1949 to 1955, being already a lieutenant colonel of Engineering Corps, he took part in creating and launching of the first Soviet rockets.
Alexandre Baurov died on February, 18, 1972. Materials related to Baurov’s military service and his war time pictures are now kept in the State Memorial Museum of Leningrad Defense and Siege. He was one of thousands Gypsy soldiers, officers and partisans who took part in the WWII against Nazism.
Thanks to Nickolay Bessonov for the information, which was edited and translated by me
Romani literature in Russia seems to rise again. For the last years three new Romane writers appeared at one time: Anastacia Drobina (several historical romantic stories), Alexey Ilyinsky (”Gypsies. Three centuries in Russia”) and Oleg Petrovich (”The prince of Saporonni clan”). But all of them write in Russian to be published.
And what about books in Romani chib, are they available?
Yes, they are. Commonly serious ones, for adults. But Romane children also prefer to read in native language! Alas, usually they even learn to read using books in other languages. That’s make learning more difficult for them.
That’s why a Romano pedagogue from Ukraine, Yury Ivanenko, decided to publish children books in Romani chib for his own money. He translated to Romani several fairy-tales of a Russian classical poet Pushkin and published two versions of them, with Cyrillic letter (for children in the former USSR) and in Roman letters (for children in other Europe).
Every book costs only 10$, and if you want to read a book in Romani chib or to buy it for your children or just interested, you may ask Yury Ivanenko more about them, his email is elpart@public.kherson.ua .
Speaking about Romane intellectuals in Russia we must undoubtedly mention sisters Pankovs, Natalia and Lubov. Natalia was a chemist, Lubov is a biologist. Both sisters had very high national consciousness and often said that they couldn’t let themselves do anything blamable as they represented their people.
Continue reading ‘Science Careers of Romane Sisters’
