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The invention of a folk, the imposition of a standard language, the claim over a national territory, and the naturalization of ‘imagined communities’ were all part of the nationalist projects that swept throughout Europe and Latin America in the second half of the nineteenth century, as Benedict Anderson shows (1983). In this section I discuss the Romanian nationalist project in relation to Roma in two ways: first, by showing that Roma stand out from other ethnic groups and minorities across Europe, in that they did not go through this process in the nineteenth century; and second, by showing the changing role of the Roma in the development of Romanian nationalism.

Roma do not have a territory to claim as exclusively theirs, and their Indian origins have not engendered a ‘return to the motherland’ type of nationalism. The ethnic nationalisms hegemonic in the region do not help us to understand how Roma relate to their homelands. Similarly, the focus during post-socialism on ‘distinct cultures’ erases how Roma and other ethnicities have interacted across centuries. The 2002 Roma Fair made this process visible through the presence of Rudara, as I have demonstrated above.

The relationship between Roma and the development of Romanian nationalism has changed since the nineteenth century. While in the mid nineteenth century Romanian nationalism was a subaltern cause, just like the emancipation of Roma slaves, after Romanian independence the two causes were no longer congruent. Many nineteenth-century abolitionist-nationalists predicted a seamless transition of the Roma into the Romanian nation post-emancipation and post-independence and did not foresee that Roma would continue to be marginalized in the new nation. As Étienne Balibar (1991, 54) argues: ‘racism is not an “expression” of nationalism, but a supplement of nationalism or more precisely a supplement internal to nationalism’ (emphasis in original). While Balibar focuses on Jews as the inside Others and fails to mention Roma, Roma fulfilled the same role – albeit from a different place in the social order. As ethnic nationalism essentialized identities into Self and Other, the Ţigani served as the abject Other, despite the abolition of slavery, as Roma were the most impoverished in society.

In the early twentieth century, Roma were extremely heterogeneous. Some groups maintained a nomadic lifestyle, while others became more or less integrated in rural or urban settings. Several groups preserved their crafts, often considered Roma specialities, such as tinkering and woodcarving but with the advent of industrialization, Roma lost their monopoly over crafts and attempted to respecialize. Some received small land plots after the land reform of 1918–1920, a process that accelerated Roma assimilation and by the end of World War I traditional Roma crafts had almost completely disappeared. In urban areas, Roma used their skills in industry and construction, while in the countryside they worked as unskilled labourers on collective farms (Achim 1998, 156). The collection of recyclables and trading on the black market constituted alternative survival strategies for some Roma. It is therefore ironic, given the almost complete extinction of traditional crafts, that the focus of current EU policies for Roma is on the revival of these crafts, as testified by the Programme of Revaluing Traditional Crafts at the 2002 Roma Fair. This is problematic because it facilitates coercive mimeticism, in this case the association of authentic Roma with certain skills and occupations.

Nationalism remained a powerful ideology in Romania under socialism as the country metamorphosed ‘from capitalist colony into socialist satellite’ (Verdery 1991, 73). The situation of the Roma did not improve politically, and state propaganda denied their plight completely. As far as ethnic minorities were concerned, Communist ideology attempted to erase differences by drawing on the general claim that all people were equal. The phrase ‘cohabitating nationalities’ replaced the term ‘minorities’; however, Roma were not recognized among them. Roma were not seen as an ethnic minority, but as a social condition to be overcome; assimilation policies regarding Roma aimed to change their lifestyle and turn them into ‘good’ Romanians, full citizens of the socialist state.⁷