CHAPTER 6 CHAPTER 6 – Romania Romania 6.1 First Steps 6.1 First Steps 6.1.1 A Manifesto of the Gypsies Un manifest al ţiganilor Țiganii din Homorod au ținut o mare întrunire la care a[u] luat parte 700 până la 800 țigani, cari au dat în vileag următorul apel: Rugăm pe frații noștri țigani din comitatul Târnavei mari a lua parte la marea adunare țigănească ce se va ține Joi în 16 Ianuarie st. n. în sala Schlosser din Cohalm, la ceasurile 9 înainte de amiazi. Scopul adunărei noastre este de a spune lumii tot ceeace am suferit de sute de ani noi țiganii. Vom alege un comitet țigănesc care va fi obligat a recurge la onoratul Comitet Național Român din Sibiiu și a ruga pe Onoratul Comitet Național Român a ne lua și pe noi țiganii sub scutul Domniei lor. Vă rugăm, fraților de a lua parte în număr cât se poate de mare la prima noastră adu- nare țigănească de care adunare atârnă soarta tristei noastre vieți. Fraților! Nu băgați în seamă nici o osteneală. Toți țiganii din împrejurimile noastre să fie la această adunare, tineri și bătrâni. Această adunare este autorizată de Consiliul Național Român din Cohalm. Comitetul Aranjator, Tiganii din Homorod. ∵ A Manifesto of the Gypsies The Gypsies from Homorod [1] held a large assembly of 700 to 800 Gypsies, who made the following appeal [2]: We ask our Gypsy brothers in the county of Târnava Mare to take part in the great Gypsy assembly that will be held on Thursday, January 16 N[ew] S[tyle] [3] in the Schlosser Hall in Cohalm [4], at 9 o’clock in the morning. The goal of our assembly is to tell the world everything what we, the Gypsies, have suffered for centuries. We will elect a Gypsy committee that will be obliged to resort to the honourable Romanian National Committee in Sibiu [5] and ask the honourable Romanian National Committee to take us, the Gypsies, under their protection. © VesSelin Popov und Elena Marushiakova, 2021 | doi:10.30965/9783657705184_007 This is an open access chapter distributed under the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. - 9783657705184 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:37:58AM via free access 6.1 First Steps 307 We urge you, brothers, to take part as many as possible in our first Gypsy assembly, on which depends the fate of our sad life. Brothers! Get over any trouble! All the Gypsies in our surroundings, young and old, should come to this assembly. This assembly is authorised by the Romanian National Council in Cohalm [6]. Preparatory Committee, Gypsies in Homorod. Notes 1. Homorod – a town in Transylvania. 2. This article from the February 9, 1919 has made a confusion between cause and effect and wrongly presented the manifesto as being the result of an assembly in Homorod, a locality close to Rupea. In reality, the Preparatory Committee of the Gypsies in Homorod only drafted the Manifesto. 3. St[il] n[ou] or ‘New Style’ refers to the Gregorian calendar which replaced the Julian in Roman Catholic countries beginning in 1582. This change was implemented in Orthodox countries much later. Romania adopted new style dating for its civil calendar in 1919 when April 1st became April 14th, 1919. The Romanian Orthodox Church continued to use the Julian calendar until October 1924. Before the 1918 Union, various provinces which were to become part of Greater Romania had different calendars (Banat, Transylvania and Bukovina, already the Gregorian cal- endar while the Old Kingdom and Bessarabia used the Julian calendar). Hence, in 1919, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, the Roma organisers still had to specify the new style dating. 4. Due to its multi-ethnic population, the town had different names: Kőhalom (Hungarian), Rupea, Cohalm (Romanian), Reps, Räppes, Kuhalme (German) etc. 5. The organisers confused The Central Romanian National Council (Consiliul Național Român Central) with the Governing Council (Consiliul Dirigent). The former was a political body of the Romanians in Transylvania that announced and organised the convening of the Great National Assembly in Alba Iulia, which voted the resolution of the Union of Transylvania with the Romanian Kingdom, while the latter served as the provisory Transylvanian government until the final Union with the Romanian Kingdom (between December 2, 1918 – April 4, 1920). Besides, the latter insti- tution was based in Sibiu and received the Resolution of the Gypsy assembly. 6. The local Romanian National Councils functioned under the leadership of the Central Romanian National Council and ceased their activity on the 6th of February 1919. Source: [No Author]. (1919). Un manifest al ţiganilor. Gazeta Poporului, An 2. No. 6, 1919, February 9, p. 8. Prepared for publication by Petre Matei. Comments The first Roma political manifestation was the Assembly held in Rupea on the January 16, 1919. It benefitted from a large presence of approximately 700-800 participants but remained largely a local event as it targeted only the Roma from one county (Târnava Mare). The Assembly formulated concrete demands: equal rights; settling the nomads; assistance for invalids and widows; land distribution and to be present in communal representation. These claims cannot be easily characterised as either ‘social’ or ‘ethnic’. ‘Social’ requests as land distribution, nomads’ sedentarisation and assistance can be seen also from the perspective of the equal treatment they claimed. Besides, they explicitly - 9783657705184 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:37:58AM via free access 308 CHAPTER 6 – Romania asked equal rights and communal representation. Moreover, by electing a committee, they went a step further from participative to representative. Shortly thereafter, the committee presented the Assembly resolution to the Transylvanian Governing Council (Consiliul Dirigent) in Sibiu which took action to address their requests. On January 27, 1919, the Secretary-General of the Governing Council mandated the prefect of Târnava Mare County to inform the Gypsy representatives on the envisioned measures: “Please notify the representatives of the Gypsies [deleted in original], George Molnar and George Critaoiu [in other documents, he appeared as Crițean], that: 1. All citizens will be equally entitled; Gypsies will not be treated differently; 2. Colonisation of nomads will be solved at a more appropriate time; 3. The invalids and their widows will be taken care in accor- dance with the invalids and widows of all citizens; 4. Minorities will also be represented in the communal representation; 5. Their demand for land redistribution was transposed to the Agricultural Department” (see Matei, 2010a, pp. 467-487; 2011, pp. 135-152; 2013, pp. 449-450). Other Gypsy Assemblies followed in April 1919. On the whole, their manifestations evolved from: 1) the Assembly of the Gypsies from Târnava Mare county at Rupea on 16 January 1919 through; 2) the local Assemblies on 25-27 April 1919 held in several Transylvanian localities and counties to; 3) the National Gypsy Assembly of Dumbrăveni on April 27, 1919. Circumstances were then propitious. Between 1916-1918, Romania had allied itself with the Entante and fought against the Central Powers. After the First World War, as part of the victorious alliance, Romania hoped to obtain the territories inhabited by Romanian majorities. Besides, on December 1st, 1918, The Romanian National Assembly in Alba Iulia had endorsed the Union of Transylvania to Romania. However, despite cer- tain advantages, neither the Union nor the Transylvanian borders were yet settled and had to be first internationally acknowledged. The Paris Peace Conference (1919-1920) was to bring about the recognition of the new political and territorial realities. Until then, the Romanians could only hail the recognition of the Union by different ethnical groups whose support was well received and seen as a means of substantiating Greater Romania. Overall, representatives of different minorities held assemblies where they adhered to the Union while also claiming certain rights. It was this need for legitimacy that fostered political action among the Gypsies. At a time when their support seemed to count, the Gypsy elites saw the opportunity and became politically alert. The rallying of the Gypsies occurred against the backdrop of evi- dent affinity for the Transylvanian Romanians, with whom they shared the same (rural) habitat and the same “Romanian” denominations – Orthodox and Greek-Catholic. The relatively important number of Transylvanian Gypsies was capitalised on in the com- petition among the principal ethnic groups living in Transylvania: the Romanians, the Germans, and the Hungarians. As the Gypsies were in no position to effectively press for these rights, but rather depended on the benevolence of the new administration, they were pleading instead - 9783657705184 Downloaded from Brill.com09/26/2021 08:37:58AM via free access 6.1 First Steps 309 with the Romanians by invoking their ‘Romanianism’. To ensure that they would get their rights, the Roma had to be convincing and pragmatic. The demands formulated in the Assembly of Rupea, in the local assemblies of April, and eventually in the Gypsy National Assembly at Dumbrăveni (April 27, 1919) were similar in structure: a public demonstra- tion of loyalty towards the Romanians and support for the Union, followed by demands for civil rights, equal treatment, and land. Petre Matei 6.1.2 Gypsy Assemblies a) The Gypsy Assembly of Ucea de Jos Onorabilă Adunare Naţională Ţâgăniască în Ibaşfalău, Onorată Şedinţă, Noi supuși aparținători ai comunei Ucia de Josu, plasa Arpașiul de Josu, județul Făgăraș și jur, de relegiune gr[eco] or[ientali] și gr[eco] cat[olici] de profesiune zileri și neguțători. Voim a ne depune următoarea rugare după cum urmează. I. Prima dată din inimile no[a]stre dăm laudă bunului Dzeu și Maiestăți[i] sale Regelui nostru Ferdinand căci ni[-]au eliberatu din jugul barbarilor mag[h]iari.