Matéo Maximoff (January 17, 1917 - November 24, 1999) was a French writer of Romani ethnicity and also an Evangelical pastor.
Matéo’s father was a Kalderash Rom from Russia, Matéo’s mother was a Manouche ‘Gypsy’ from France. She was a cousin of Django Reinhardt. Matéo was born in Barcelona, Spain.
His father was a cauldron maker by profession. That was him who taught Matéo to read and write, evidently, Russian letters and to count to ten. The father also told much about Russia, about Kalderash history, about different Roma and countries. He died when Matéo was 14. Matéo worked as a cauldron maker from his teen age, so he could feed himself and his younger brothers and sisters. Matéo also taught his brothers and sisters to read and write. Later, in a prison, Matéo also learnt to write in French.
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Blessed Ceferino Giménez Malla is an official Saint Patron of Catholic Gypsies. His holliday is the 4th of May.
Ceferino Giménez Malla was born in Spain, of a Catholic Cale (Spanish Gypsies) family. His father was a cattle-trader, and so was he. For forty years Malla lived as a nomad. He was married since a teenager but never had children.
In 1912 Malla married his wife Teresa in a church and bought a house in a Spnish town Barbastro. They also adopted Teresa’s niece Pepita, who was an orphan. Teresa died in 1922, and Pepita’s descendants live in Spain in our days.
Ceferino wasn’t literate but he visited church and knew much about his faith and about the Bible. He taught Christianity to Cale and Spanish children.
After his wife had died Malla began a career as a catechist, under the guidance of a priest-professor, Don Nicholas Santos de Otto.
Malla also resolved disputes between Cale and Spanish people. In 1926 Malla became a member of the Franciscan Third Order. From 1931 he participated in “Night Adoration”.
During the Spanish civil war Malla tried to defend a priest from republican soldiers. They both were arrested and then shot with other priests and believers.
According to a legend, soldiers asked him if he had weapons. He answered: “Yes, and here it is” and showed them his rosary.
Malla died holding rosary in his hands, shouting: “Long live Christ the King!”. His body was never found.
Ceferino Malla was proclaimed as Blessed on May 4, 1997.
I used the article I had written for Wikipedia.
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.
During the WWII sisters Pankovs showed themselves as real patriots. Luba and Natasha were daughters of Nickolay Pankov (also an outstanding Rom, who is famous, for example, for his translation of a Pushkin’s poem “Gypsies” to Romani language). The girls’ father wanted them to receive higher education. But when Hitler’s Germany declared the war to the USSR, the sisters left their studies and began working in Moscow armour plants. “It’s not time for studies now,” the girls told their father. Working to the point of exhaustion, the Romane girls made shells for rocket projectors.
They made up for it after the war and both graduated from institutes. You can read their short biographies below.
Natalia Pankova (1924-1991). A Research Assistant of the Institute of Organic Subroducts and Dyes, where she had worked for 35 years. Her professional career was successful. For example, she has authored 30 advanced developments of cyanide dyes (she received the inventor certificates for them). Natalia had many talents: she sang and danced very well, painted with pencils and water-colours.
Lubov Pankova was born in 1925. She’s a PhD in Biology in the field of human and animal physiology. She have been working mainly in the area of clinical physiology. She’s a Senior Research Assistant of a physiological laboratory of the Central Institute of Expert Examination of Labour Capacity and Labour Organization for Disabled. Her researches were on machinery of intercentral relations and their abnormalities and compensations. Lubov also worked for the Academy of Science of USSR and pedagogical institutes, where she gave lectures on human and animal physiology, higher nervous activity and anatomic and physiological peculiarities of children and teenagers. Moreover, she authored and co-authored several study books on those subjects and more than 50 scientific works which were published mostly in central press. Lubov Pankova has done a lot for preserving and recording national history. She has written her memoirs which are waiting for publication.
The Pankovs sisters are representatives of an old famous Russian Romani dynasty which gave many outstanding Gipsies to the world.
Thanks to Nickolay Bessonov for the information, which was edited and translated by me
Alexandre Baurov is just one of thousands Gypsies who fighted against Nazis in the World War II.
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.
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