Thesis Format
Monograph
Degree
Doctor of Philosophy
Program
History
Supervisor
Schumacher, Frank
Abstract
This dissertation examines the driving forces of antiziganism/ antigypsism/ antițiganism in Romania and the means to which they violently manifested in Romanian society from the unification of the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia in 1859 to the end of the Second World War in 1945. The study moves away from the perception of mass violence as an explosion of violence and brutality towards a more developed understanding of how societies violently target and suppress individuals deemed as “unwanted” and “the other”. More than another study of a “forgotten Holocaust”, The Perpetual “Outsiders” expands our understanding of how we conceptualize genocide as a process rather than an event epitomized by the Holocaust. The work expands our understanding of the persecution of the Roma as a spatial or temporal event and frames it as a phenomenon that has culminated as a result of instances of violence stemming from regional circumstances.
Antiziganism is inexplicably intertwined with the social and cultural processes of Romanian nation-state formation. Throughout Romanian history, Roma have been subjugated, marginalized, and persecuted. The Romanian government and its collaborators used violence to contain, control, and eradicate the group. In a quest to modernize and create a homogenous community of belonging, nation-states target individuals deemed as “inferior” and “unwanted”; particularly those viewed to poses the potential to threaten the stability of the state. Since its unification in 1859, the Romanian state has actively targeted the Roma, first through assimilation, and when such efforts did not bear fruit, through physical isolation. Sown through deep-rooted antiziganist discourses, the Roma were labelled as “less-than”.Public discourses depicted the group as an external factor, “a foreigner” or “an alien” within Romanian society.
Summary for Lay Audience
Throughout Romanian history, Roma have been discriminated against, subjugated, marginalized, and persecuted. The use of violence both by the state and society has been unending and relentless. Approximately 80% of acts of antiziganism/ antigypsism/ antițiganism (defined as processes of discrimination, ignorance, racism, and prejudice against the Roma) are unrecorded.[1] The ethnic group has been labelled and depicted as “less-than”, “unwanted”, and “inherently different” from the dominant ethnic group, ethnic Romanians. This form of ethnic and cultural domination cemented through notions of othering marked the Roma as socially, culturally, and biologically inferior to their Romanian counterpart.
Antiziganism lies at the epicenter of these individualistic, institutional, and societal discriminatory projections funneled through and resulting from the long-standing Romanian nation-building project. In a quest to modernize and create a homogenous ethnic community, nation-states actively target individuals who do not conform to the set ascriptions of belonging and thus lie physically and imaginatively outside the nation. The stereotypical assumptions pertaining to Roma’s work, traditional lifestyle, criminality, as well as their “unwillingness” to conform to the social and cultural ascriptions of the dominant society, have made the group targets of state-sanctioned policies. Since its unification, the Romanian state has targeted the Roma first through assimilation, and when such efforts did not bear fruit, through physical isolation. The Romanian state marginalized, isolated, and deported approximately 26,000 Roma to Transnistria during World War II where more than 11,000 were victims of genocide.
[1] Jan Selling et al., Antiziganism: What’s in a Word?. In Proceedings from the Uppsala International Conference on the Discrimination, Marginalization and Persecution of Roma (Newcastle upon Thyne, Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013), xix.
Recommended Citation
Stoica, Cristina Teodora, "The Perpetual “Outsiders”: Romanian Policies Targeting Roma between 1859-1945" (2024). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 10218.
https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/10218
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