Jan Ort: The Roma as Agents of the “G*psy Ques­tion”. Belonging, Mobility and the Resettlement Policy in Socialist Czechoslovakia, Karolinum Press: Prague 2024.

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Das Buch untersucht die Assimilations­politik des kom­mu­­nis­tischen Regimes in der Tschecho­slowakei der 1960er-Jahre, die durch die Zwangs­umsied­lung tau­sender Roma-Familien deren Lebens­weise zer­stören sollte. Statt nur die staatliche Per­spektive ein­zu­nehmen, be­leuchtet der Autor die konkrete Umsetzung vor Ort und stellt die Erfah­rungen sowie die Hand­lungs­fähig­keit der Roma selbst in den Mittel­punkt, die die staatlichen Maß­nahmen oft auch für ihre eigenen Lebens­strate­gien nutzten.

Verlagsbeschreibung (Karolina Press):
The story of Romani people in communist Czecho­slo­vakia has long been framed by a dis­crimi­natory policy of assimi­lation, and thus by fatal inter­ven­tions into Romani family ties and their broader socio-cultural systems. Para­doxi­cally, such a narrative failed to satis­facto­rily integrate the per­spective of the Roma them­selves, who often associ­ated the same period with an un­prece­dented expe­rience of social inclusion and material security. In his book, Jan Ort examines the state policy that in the mid-1960s aimed at the defi­nitive elimi­nation of “G*psy back­ward­ness” through the place­ment of thousands of Roma families in non-Roma society, thus becoming a symbol of the social enginee­ring inter­ven­tions of the commu­nist regime in the lives of Czecho­slovak Roma. In contrast to the pre­domi­nant focus on the per­spective of state autho­rities, the author seeks to map the practice of this policy in specific places, with an emphasis on the expe­riences and agency of the Roma them­selves, especially those who had their homes in eastern Slovakia. Read the rest of this entry »