Tsiganology

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The Tsiganologie ( Gypsy customer , Gypsy science ) deals with the history, culture and origin as " Gypsy " designated socio-cultural and ethnic groups. The name, research direction and premises of tsiganology are controversial and are criticized or rejected, especially by racism research.

Conceptual

The term “Tsiganology” or “Tziganology” can be translated as “Gypsy science”. The term and its derivatives "tsiganological" and "tsiganologist" are used by researchers who are interested in Roma and other groups that they categorize as " gypsies ". Like the orientation of this research itself, the designation is “decidedly rejected by Sinti and Roma civil rights activists.” The “Tziganology” or “Gypsy science” as an attempt to scientifically classify and describe a being of “Gypsyism” reminds one “of racial ideological practices in the National Socialism".

Development of "Tsiganology"

To the older story

Gypsy research and Gypsy science go back to the early modern period. Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann (1756–1804) is considered to be the first gypsy researcher with scientific standards in the German-speaking area with his publication, Historischer Experiment über die Gigeuner, which was influential across Europe . Concerning the way of life and constitution, manners and destinies of this people since their appearance in Europe and their origin.

Tsiganology experienced an upswing in the 19th century. Above all in connection with the reorganization of the police and the beginning systematic recording of " Gypsies " and "Gypsy wanderers", but also in the course of a contemporary romantic "Gypsy fashion", a large number of gypsy research was created. Around the turn of the twentieth century societies for gypsy research were founded, for example the Gypsy Lore Society in Great Britain in 1888 as an international association of those interested in the study of "gypsies" and "travelers".

The Racial and Population Biology Paradigm in the 20th Century

During National Socialism, Gypsy research experienced its “scientific” racialization, which Grellmann had already started with, but was now carried out comprehensively and exclusively. Scientific, administrative, police and political institutions turned to the "solution of the Gypsy question" from this perspective. The Racial Hygiene and Population Biology Research Center (RHF) was of outstanding importance for the practical implementation of a policy of elimination and, ultimately, extermination . The research contributions of the tsiganologists of the RHF around their head, the doctor Robert Ritter , provided the data necessary for the genocide of the Central European Roma . After the end of National Socialism, the doctor and hereditary hygienist Hermann Arnold continued this variant of Gypsy research, expressly referring to the research of the RHF. Arnold determined the West German gypsy discourse until the 1980s.

More recent approaches and their critical reception

In view of the scientific, political and moral discrediting of "Gypsy Studies" and "Gypsy Research", representatives of this research interest switched to the term "Tsiganology" in the 1980s. The change of term, it was said, was accompanied by a break with the orientation of research which in the past had often been directed against the objects of investigation. Looking at the history of research, it was declared that they did not want to pursue a “continuation of police science”. Rather, the intention is to "unmask stereotypes and correct dishonest to aggressive opinions."

The protagonists of this re-establishment of Gypsy research were the pedagogue and prejudice researcher Joachim S. Hohmann and the "Project Tsiganology" founded in 1978 by the Giessen sociologist and theologian Reimer Gronemeyer, which emerged from one of the marginal group projects typical of the time, a "Working Group on Marginality". The early collaborators included the ethnologists Mark Münzel and Bernhard Streck , to whom the ethnologist Georgia A. Rakelmann later joined.

Since 1990, Hohmann has published studies on tsiganology and folklore as a scientific book series . After his death (1999) Wolfgang Wippermann took over the editing. He was now editing under the new programmatic series name Sinti and Roma Studies. Publications on the history of the Sinti and Roma and on antiziganism . A last publication appeared in 2003.

From the "Project Tsiganology" came the journal Gießener Hefte für Tsiganologie in 1984 , the first episode of which was published until 1986. A second series appeared under the name Tsiganological Studies from 1990 to 1992. Based on a European minority of - according to the editors - "Gypsies", the magazine published texts of various origins "on a wide range of tsiganological topics". It was important to her not only to depict "the trail of blood ... with which the majority have repeatedly shaped the common history", but also to represent "the cultural independence and alternative", the minority culture and the minority environment for the majority society.

Above all, the representatives of the Giessen project assumed a relative cultural cohesion and collectivity of those they called "Gypsies". A characteristic of these members of a peripheral and premodern, if not archaic “tribal society” is their collective, liberal “obstinacy”. He is directed energetically against the forces of integration into a “uniform industrial society” and tenaciously adheres to a “[all] Gypsy way of life”, which includes “nomadism”. “Gypsies” represented a tribal, non-European ethnic pattern, which - according to Mark Münzel - can also be observed among Indians and Hawaiians. They lived an "ethnic culture not integrated into the European value system".

Since the 1980s, Bernhard Streck in particular, on the history of the minority under National Socialism, was of the opinion that the National Socialist persecution of Gypsies was less racially and more socially motivated. The regime was concerned with the "elimination of grievances, less of people". An assessment of the crimes against the minority as genocide like the Shoah is prohibited.

The positions of the “Tsiganology Project” and, in part, the work of Joachim S. Hohmann were problematized from both academic and minority sides and the results were sharply criticized. They damaged “again and lastingly” (Katrin Reemtsma) the relationship between professional science and the minority. The spokesmen for the minority now self-confidently and ready for conflict represented an independent point of view that opposed the ethnologists. In the 1980s, the civil rights movement supported by them and their supporters vehemently demanded the state and legal recognition of the German Sinti and Roma as an ethnic minority alongside the other national minorities and the political and social recognition of the National Socialist crimes as genocide. In their eyes, the research of the Giessen tsiganologists had to harm these efforts.

The critics turned

  • against a socially romantic interpretation of Hermann Arnold's theses of an alleged “natural” backwardness of the groups subsumed under “Gypsies” or against “socially romantic traits” of the tsiganological concept
  • against an ethnicization of social explanatory models, which “de facto” amounts to criminalization or at least general degradation to objects of social work
  • against a "content simplicity" of the tsiganological research, which is scientifically "inadequate". It correlates with conspicuous methodological deficits. Empirical authenticity is only suggested with “hints and photos”
  • against the way ethnologists deal with the National Socialist crimes against the minority. They would play down the genocide and "more or less" deny the racist motive.
  • against “playing off the mass extermination of the Gypsies against the murder of the Jews”. Streck still falls behind Arnold if he does not start the “real racist turn” in the Nazi gypsy persecution until 1942.
  • against Streck's language, which comes close to "an apology for mass murder". Streck says that “gypsies” “had to die as carriers of bacteria, as 'idiots' because they could not read and write, and as saboteurs of the German cause because they did not want to work”.

In the late 1990s, students and postgraduates took up the ethnological paradigm again. They had gathered around Bernhard Streck, who after the fall of the Wall took the place of Dietrich Treide , head of the Ethnological Institute at the University of Leipzig, who had been dismissed "due to lack of need" . The group founded a "center for tsiganological research", which continues the Giessen "tradition [e]". In 2005 a “Forum Tsiganological Research” (FTF) was established. On the basis of an interactionist approach, they dealt with “Gypsy cultures” on a transnational, national and local level. The focus was on Eastern Europe. The image of gypsies represented within the forum, however, was far reaching and encompassed "groups of gypsies who settle from the Bosporus to northern India or China".

According to the information provided by Bernhard Streck, “Gypsies” were understood as “service nomads”. Streck saw the group label “Gypsies” as a “time-honored term”. "Serious tsiganology" did not go along with the "weakly legitimized renaming [to Roma or Sinti and Roma]." With this self-image, the Leipzig tsiganologists, like their Giessen predecessors, were once again in conflict with the self-advocacy of the minority and at least alone in German-language research . They have been accused of reproducing the old antigypsy stereotype of the "eternal gypsy".

With the book Gypsies. History and Culture , which was to appear in 2010 by Beck-Verlag, Streck intended to present an essence of his tsiganology. Shortly before publication, the publisher canceled the publication.

In the meantime, Streck has retired and no longer publishes on the topic. The Tsiganological Forum has ceased its activities. The last conference took place in 2011, the last edition of the group circular "Tsiganological Research" appeared in April 2012.

The leading anti-Semitism and prejudice researcher Wolfgang Benz notes that the Gießen and Leipzig research, colloquia and seminars alone "strengthened the antiziganistic resentment towards the alleged peculiarity of the 'nomad people of the' gypsies'". Overall, the ethnological approach is a "wrong track".

International aspects

The international association "Gypsy Lore Society", which has existed since the end of the 19th century and whose headquarters have been in the USA since 1989, promotes studies on "Gypsy and Traveler cultures". What is meant are cultural studies not only on "Rom, Romanichels, Cale, Sinti, Ludar, Romungre", but also on "Irish Travelers, Scottish Travelers" and others who would live "the Gypsy way" in the sociographical filling of the term "Gypsies". The aim is to establish a close network between different sciences and areas that deal with relevant aspects and topics. Furthermore, the dissemination of accurate and well-founded information should lead to a better understanding of the diversity of the groups. The society founded the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society in 1888 . In 2000 this journal was renamed Romani Studies , turning away from the sociographical "Gypsy" definition .

While "Gypsy Studies" is nowhere to be found, "Romani Studies" are represented as a field of research at the universities of Manchester , Greenwich and Austin . The name distances the research direction from the traditional "tsiganology". She has a self-image that is contrary to "Gypsy research".

In 1991 the “Studii Romani”, a society for minority studies, was founded by Bulgarian social and humanities scholars. The main aim is to research various ethnic, religious and cultural aspects of the Roma minority in Bulgaria and the Balkans. The sponsors also include representatives of ethnological "Gypsy research".

In the Czech Republic there is a degree program called “Romistika” in Czech at the Charles University in Prague . It was founded by the Romany expert Milena Hübschmannová . The subject of teaching and learning was assigned to the Institute for South and Central Asian Studies (Ústav jižní a centrální Asie) of the Faculty of Philosophy. The course content is designed to be interdisciplinary. It is assumed that the various Roma groups have their own "Roma culture". Their anthropological, historical, political, religious, folkloric, literary and other "elements" should be researched and presented. The essentialist approach to this concept is controversial. As early as 1996, Katrin Reemtsma pointed out that the European Roma are “not a homogeneous people” and that “cultural contact, cultural change and intercultural relations” are “central characteristics of culture” of the minority. The Czech institution is subsumed under "Tsiganology" by the Leipzig School of Tsiganology.

The "European Academic Network on Romani Studies" sponsored by the European Union aims to support the social inclusion of Roma. It is scheduled for the period from 2011 to 2015. “Gypsy research” is not carried out in this project, which only relates to Roma.

In contrast to the "tsiganological research" carried out in German-speaking countries until a few years ago, Romani Studies and Studii Romani relate exclusively to Romany-speaking groups. They have a different self-image than "tsiganology" or "gypsy research", so they cannot be equated with, but only compared with them.

literature

  • Tobias von Borcke, field research. Reflections on the latest tsiganology from Leipzig , in: Alexandra Bartels, Tobias von Borcke, Markus End, Anna Friedrich (eds.), Antiziganist conditions 2. Critical positions against violent conditions, Münster 2013, pp. 114–137
  • Tobias von Borcke: "Gypsy" science with a guilty conscience? The tsiganological research forum at the University of Leipzig. In: Antiziganism. Social and historical dimensions of “gypsy” stereotypes. Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma, Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 3-929446-31-6 , pp. 224–242 ( online )
  • Joachim S. Hohmann : Handbuch zur Tsiganologie (= Studies on Tsiganology and Folkloristics. Vol. 15). Lang, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-631-49321-5 .
  • Fabian Jacobs, Johann Ries (Ed.): Roma / Gypsy cultures in new perspectives - Romani / Gypsy cultures in new perspectives (= publications by the Institute for Ethnology at the University of Leipzig. Vol. 1). Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2008, ISBN 3-86583-255-5 .
  • Joachim Krauss: "Gypsy continuum" - the constant over space and time in the description of Roma in theory and empiricism. In: Jahrbuch für Antisemitismusforschung 18, 2009, pp. 161–181
  • Sören Niemann: A nomadic culture of freedom. From the dream of tsiganology. In: Wulf D. Hund (Ed.): Zigeunerbilder. Pattern of racist ideology. DISS, Duisburg Institute for Language and Social Research, Duisburg 2000, ISBN 3-927388-74-2 , pp. 31–50.
  • Ulrich Friedrich Opfermann , About ants and crickets. On continuities in recent and recent German Gypsy research. In: Antiziganism. Social and historical dimensions of “gypsy” stereotypes. Documentation and Cultural Center of German Sinti and Roma, Heidelberg 2015, ISBN 3-929446-31-6 , pp. 200–222 ( online )
  • Katrin Reemtsma : Sinti and Roma. History, culture, present. Beck, Munich 1996, ISBN 3-406-39255-5 .
  • Romani Rose : The New Generation and the Old Ideology. Gypsy research as usual? In: grandstand. Journal for the Understanding of Judaism. Volume 21, Issue 81, 1982, pp. 88-107
  • Martin Ruch: On the scientific history of German-language "Gypsy research" from the beginning to 1900. Freiburg 1986
  • Jan Severin: "Between them and us there is a strangeness that can hardly be overcome." Elements of racism in the "Gypsy" pictures of German-speaking ethnology. In: Markus End, Kathrin Herold, Yvonne Robel (eds.): Antiziganist conditions. To criticize an omnipresent resentment. Unrast-Verlag, Münster 2009, ISBN 3-89771-489-2 , pp. 67-94.
  • Nina Stoffers: Streck, Roma and other Gypsies (manuscript version) , minutes of a discussion. In: Blickpunkte. Tsiganologische Mitteilungen, 7th edition, April 15, 2010, pp. 9–11
  • Wim Willems: In Search of the True Gypsy. From enlightenment to final solution. London 1997
  • Karola Fings, Sebastian Lotto-Kuschein: Tsiganology. In: Michael Fahlbusch , Ingo Haar , Alexander Pinwinkler (Hrsg.): Handbuch der Völkischen Wissenschaften. Actors, networks, research programs. With the collaboration of David Hamann, 2 vol. De Gruyter Oldenbourg, Berlin 2017, ISBN 978-3-11-042989-3 , pp. 1148–1157.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Society for Threatened Peoples , Human Rights for Sinti and Roma in the Federal Republic. In: Joachim S. Hohmann (Ed.): Sinti and Roma in Germany. Attempt to take stock. Frankfurt / M. et old. 1995, pp. 275-305, here: p. 278.
  2. ↑ For the history of gypsy research see z. E.g .: Wim Willems: In Search of the true Gypsy. From Entlightenment to Final Solution. London 1997;
    older, but still worth reading: Martin Ruch: On the history of science of German-language "Gypsy research" from the beginning to 1900. Freiburg 1986.
  3. ↑ Second edition. Translations into English and French. Göttingen, 1787.
  4. ↑ This and the following information in: Sören Niemann: A nomadic culture of freedom. From the dream of tsiganology. In: Wulf D. Hund (Ed.): Zigeunerbilder. Pattern of racist ideology. Duisburg 2000, pp. 31-50.
  5. ↑ Joachim S. Hohmann: Handbuch zur Tsiganologie. Frankfurt am Main 1996, p. 11.
  6. ^ Reimer Gronemeyer: Gypsies and Non-Gypsies. In: Reimer Gronemeyer, Georgia A. Rakelmann: The Gypsies. Travelers in Europe. Cologne 1988, pp. 201-219, here: p. 219.
  7. ↑ Joachim S. Hohmann: Gypsies and Gypsy Science. A contribution to basic research and to the documentation of the genocide in the “Third Reich”. Marburg 1980, p. 19.
  8. ↑ Sören Niemann: A nomadic culture of freedom. From the dream of tsiganology. In: Wulf D. Hund (Ed.): Zigeunerbilder. Pattern of racist ideology. Duisburg 2000, pp. 31-50, here: pp. 32f.
  9. ↑ More recent editions cannot be proven. It is not known whether the magazine has since been discontinued.
  10. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from December 15, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. ; Archived copy ( memento of the original from February 23, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. As of December 28, 2009. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-giessen.de @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.uni-giessen.de
  11. ↑ See ao:
    Mark Münzel, Bernhard Streck (Ed.): Kumpania and control. Modern disabilities of gypsy life. Giessen 1981
    Reimer Gronemeyer (Ed.): Stubbornness and help. Gypsies in the social policy of today's social societies. Giessen 1983.
  12. ↑ Mark Münzel: Gypsies and Nation. In: Mark Münzel, Bernhard Streck (Ed.): Kumpania and control. Modern disabilities of gypsy life. Giessen 1981, pp. 13-67, here: p. 17.
  13. ^ Mark Münzel, Bernhard Streck: Brief report on the research project. Cultural Alternative and Integration - The Example of the Gypsies. 1980, p. 1.
  14. ↑ Bernhard Streck: The National Socialist Methods for "Solving the Gypsy Problem". In: grandstand. Journal for Understanding of Judaism , Volume 20, 1981, pp. 53-77.
  15. ↑ On this criticism, among others: Katrin Reemtsma: Exotism and homogenization - reification and exploitation. Aspects of ethnological considerations of the "Gypsies" in Germany after 1945. In: State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg (ed.): Between Romanticization and Racism. Sinti and Roma 600 years in Germany. Stuttgart 1998. See also: [1] , as of December 28, 2008.
  16. ^ Romani Rose: The new generation and the old ideology. Gypsy research as usual? In: grandstand. Journal for the Understanding of Judaism. Volume 21, 1982, pp. 88-107.
  17. ↑ Arnold agreed with them: Hermann Arnold: The Nazi Gypsy Persecution. Your interpretation and exploitation. Aschaffenburg undated (around 1988).
    on the criticism among others: Wolfgang Wippermann: "Like the Gypsies". A comparison of anti-Semitism and antigypsyism. Berlin 1997, p. 201. <be /> Michael Zimmermann: Racial utopia and genocide. The National Socialist "Solution to the Gypsy Question". Hamburg 1996, p. 32.
  18. ↑ a b Wolfgang Wippermann: "Like the Gypsies". A comparison of anti-Semitism and antigypsyism. Berlin 1997, p. 201.
  19. ↑ Katrin Reemtsma: Exotism and homogenization - reification and exploitation. Aspects of ethnological considerations of the Gypsies in Germany after 1945. In: State Center for Political Education Baden-Württemberg (Ed.): “Between Romanticization and Racism”. Sinti and Roma 600 years in Germany. Stuttgart 1998, see also: [2] , as of December 28, 2008.
  20. ^ Romani Rose: The new generation and the old ideology. Gypsy research as usual? In: grandstand. Journal for the Understanding of Judaism. Volume 21, 1982, pp. 88-107.
  21. ↑ a b Michael Zimmermann: Racial Utopia and Genocide. The National Socialist "Solution to the Gypsy Question". Hamburg 1996, p. 32f.
  22. ↑ Ulrich Friedrich Opfermann , From ants and crickets. On continuities in recent and recent German gypsy research , in: Antiziganismus. Social and historical dimensions of “Gypsy” stereotypes, Heidelberg 2015, pp. 200–222, here: p. 215; on Treide see the professor catalog of the University of eipzig: [3] .
  23. ↑ a b Bernhard Streck to the Cologne tsiganologist Rüdiger Benninghaus, April 13, 2004, according to his homepage, as of December 28, 2009.
  24. ↑ [4]  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. As of December 28, 2008.@1@ 2Template: Toter Link / www.uni-leipzig.de  
  25. ↑ Fabian Jacobs, J. Ries (Ed.): Roma / Gypsy cultures in new perspectives - Romani / Gypsy cultures in new perspectives. Leipziger Universitätsverlag, Leipzig 2008, p. 11.
  26. ^ Olaf Günther: Gypsy groups between India and Iran. See: [5] .
  27. ↑ Markus End, Kathrin Herold, Yvonne Robel (eds.): Antiziganist conditions - To criticize an omnipresent resentment. Munster 2009.
  28. ↑ Tobias von Borcke: Field research. Reflections on the latest tsiganology from Leipzig . In: Alexandra Bartels, Tobias von Borcke, Markus End, Anna Friedrich (eds.): Antiziganist conditions 2. Critical positions against violent conditions . Münster 2013, pp. 114–137, here: p. 136.
  29. ↑ Tobias von Borcke: "Gypsy" science with a guilty conscience? The tsiganological research forum at the University of Leipzig. In: Antiziganism. Social and historical dimensions of “gypsy” stereotypes . Heidelberg 2015, pp. 224–242, here: p. 225.
  30. ↑ Wolfgang Benz, Sinti and Roma: The undesirable minority. On the prejudice of antiziganism, Berlin 2014, p. 229.
  31. ↑ See HP of the Gypsy Lore Society: [6] .
  32. ↑ See HP of the Gypsy Lore Society: [7] .
  33. ↑ [8] .
  34. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original from December 26, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. . @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www2.gre.ac.uk
  35. ↑ [9] .
  36. ↑ [10] , as of July 19, 2008.
  37. ↑ On the use of the term “Romistika” in the Czech Roma discourse see: [11] .
  38. ↑ See e.g. B. Roman Centro, December 2007, H. 58/59, pp. 16, 26, 39, available at: [12] .
  39. ↑ The main focus of study is outlined as follows: “The content of the seminars is very broad: One tries to illuminate anthropological, historical, political, religious, folkloristic, literary and other elements of Roma culture.” (“Rozsah zájmů Semináře romistiky je velmi široký: snaží se osvětlovat antropologické, historické, politické, náboženské, folkloristické, literární i jiné prvky romské kultury. ”) Website of the Romistics Institute of Charles University in Prague .
  40. ^ Katrin Reemtsma: Sinti and Roma. History, culture, present. Munich 1996, pp. 60, 69.
  41. ^ Anne Losemann, Henning Schwanke, A Carpathian Journey. Tsiganological observations (work from the Institute for Ethnology Leipzig, Vol. 5), Leipzig 2005, p. 80.
  42. ↑ All information according to the HP of the network: [13] .