PREHL'AD ROMISTIKY NA SLOVENSKU
THE OUTLINE OF THE ROMANY STUDIES IN SLOVAKIA

Summary/Abstract: The beginnings of a scientific research of the Romanics in Europe lead into the 18th century. Hie book called „Cigáni v Uhorsku (1775- 1776) written by Samuel Augustini ab Hortis, a polyhistorian from Spiš, belongs to a small number of professional monographs written by that time. This work incensed the interest of some other European scientists in clarifying of the origin and the language of the Romanics. The censuses /sats/ of the Romanies, initiated by Miestodržitel'ská rada in 1770-1785. in context of the "queen Maria Teresa regulation", as well as the census of the Romanies In Hungaria in 1893, can be considered as the signs of a scientific interests. Mainly František Štampach dealt with the subject of the Romany studies in Slovakia in 1918- 1938. The collective, documenative and educational work of Ján Kolarčik Fintický (1899-1961), the east-slovak teacher, was not evaluated yet. The results of a long period- research of the ethnographer Emilia Horváthová-Čajánková (1931-1996) bring a new quality in the next period of the scientific interest in the Romany studies. She wrote her first papers and especially the fundamental work of our Romany studies called Cigáni na Slovensku (1964) in a time, when the official politics of our country refused to acknowledge the rights of an ethnic group, own language and culture, and put through an approach of assimilation. In the same time, Eva Davidová wrote her popularly-scientific paper „Bez kolib a Šiatrov" (1956). However, since then a serious scientific interest in the Romanics was for the next twenty years intentionally hindered. The science followed the policy of the state. In the situation of the reformation of the politics the Ethnographic Institute SAS succeeded in editing and publishing of a monothematic volume of the journal Slovenský národopis in 1988, which contained more than twenty articles on Romany studies. The sociologically oriented research of a romány family, performed by the Institute of social sciences SAS in Košice, was also of an importance in that lime. After 1990 occurred the opportunity of an research and publishing the results, Ctibor Nečas, Vladimir Gecelovský, Jozef Drenka, Mária Dubayová published their historical works. The volume Neznámi Rómovia was published by the Ethnographic Institute SAS in 1992. Historian Anna Jurové, ethnologist Arne B.Mann and political scientist Michal Vašečka make a systematic research in Romany studies. The results of the scientific research in Romany studies occur in several volumes from the conferences. However, some results are published in the journal Romano džaniben established in 1994 in Prague, or in the Bulletin of the Museum of the Romany Culture in Brno, which publish some articles on Romany studies written by Slovak scientists, too. There is of remark, that the present state of our knowledge is still unsatisfactory.

• Details
• Contents