Historicizing Roma in Central Europe: Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice [1° ed.] 0367471981, 9780367471989

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Series
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Figures
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: a longue durée of segregation against Roma: inside of whiteness
Critical whiteness as the only option for epistemic justice for Roma in Central Europe: methodological grounds
Remapping postcolonial Central Europe: the book’s structure
Part I Whiteness: the never-ending story of epistemic injustice against Roma
1 Whiteness: a locus for doing race
Roma in Central Europe: obsession with whiteness
Critical whiteness: options for justice
Whiteness in Europe: the over­determination of racism
Central European resistance to critical whiteness: between overt reactionism and implicit eliminativism
Conclusion
2 Obscure racism: from national indifference to whitening Roma
National indifference in Central Europe: obscuring race and class
Fixing Jewish identity: in the footsteps of whiteness
Normalizing Roma: whitening the past
Conclusion
3 The post­socialist shift in pathologizing: from disabled Roma to disabled socialism
Pathologizing vs. normalizing: the two extremes of “whitening” Roma
Victimizing Roma: a (post­)socialist pathway of objectification
Historicizing as a possible response to pathologizing: toward epistemic justice
Conclusion
4 The limits and options of historical narratives concerning Roma in Central Europe
The normalizing and pathologizing of Roma as traditional narratives
Exemplary narratives in historicizing Roma: ruptures vs. continuities
Critical narratives of Central European history: losing Roma in transition
Quasi­genetic narratives of Roma: missing historical evidence
Conclusion
Part II The (in)educability of Roma: Central Europe between overt and enlightened racism
5 The inception of whiteness: the Grellmannian intersections of European Roma
The Grellmannian dichotomies: introducing colonial discourse to the “Gypsy issue”
Non­human “Gypsies” vs. human Europeans: struggling for progress
Eternal children vs. masterful adults: unapproachable assimilation
The bestiality of “Gypsy” women vs. the whiteness of European men: toward the radical divergence of racial difference
Conclusion
6 Global racial order comes to Central Europe: the puzzle of “White Gypsies” at the dawn of the twentieth century
Racial intermixture in the Western world: the inception of racial intersectionality
Postcolonial Europe in the focus of outsiders and insiders: deepening (non)whiteness
The threat of racial mixing in Central Europe: belligerent outsiders
Other Europeans? The view of benevolent outsiders
The response of insiders: adapting whiteness
Roma in the focus of insiders and outsiders: signifying peripheral Europe
Conclusion
7 The institutionalization of a racialized approach to Roma in the 1920s–1940s: rooting the stigma of an insecure population
A racialized approach to Roma in police surveillance: between the challenges of a global security agenda and nation­building
The doctrinal racism of František Štampach and Robert Ritter: the resonance of political will and personal choice
Schooling the (in)educable? The intraracial hierarchy of “Gypsy primitives” in action
Desirable “Gypsies” vs. unwanted others: an effective false antinomy in racializing Roma
Conclusion
8 In (re)search of inclusion: Roma under the pressure of de­historicizing between the 1950s and 1990s
Introduction
Post­Porajmos racism: whitening memories to exclude Roma
Roma in the global agenda of population studies: insecure populations vs. human progress
The “Gypsy issue” in the international agenda of human adaptability: the crystallization of the racist community
Implications for segregative practices: the outputs of the IBP in Czechoslovak policies concerning Roma
De­historicizing Roma in Czech socialist fiction: visualizing whiteness
Conclusion
Conclusion: epistemic justice for Central European Roma: toward the unlimited negation of whiteness
Index

Citation preview

Historicizing Roma in Central Europe

In Central Europe, limited success in revisiting the role of science in the segregation of Roma reverberates with the yet-­unmet call for contextualizing the impact of ideas on everyday racism. This book attempts to interpret such a gap as a case of epistemic injustice. It underscores the historical role of ideas in race making and provides analytical lenses for exploring cross-­border transfers of whiteness in Central Europe. In the case of Roma, the scientific argument in favor of segregation continues to play an outstanding role due to a long-­term focus on the limited educability of Roma. The authors trace the long-­term interrelation between racializing Roma and the adaptation by Central European scholars of theories legitimizing segregation against those considered non-­white, conceived as unable to become educated or “civilized.” Along with legitimizing segregation, sterilization and even extermination, theorizing ineducability has laid the groundwork for negating the capacity of Roma as subjects of knowledge. Such negation has hindered practices of identity and quite literally prevented Roma in Central Europe from becoming who they are. This systematic epistemic injustice still echoes in contemporary attempts to historicize Roma in Central Europe. The authors critically investigate contemporary approaches to historicize Roma as reproducing whiteness and inevitably leading to various forms of epistemic injustice. The methodological approach herein conceptualizes critical whiteness as a practice of epistemic justice targeted at providing a sustainable platform for reflecting upon the impact of the past on the contemporary situation of Roma. Victoria Shmidt is Senior Researcher at the University of Graz in Austria. Her main interest is to deepen the approaches toward race science and racial thinking as agents and structures of nation-­building in Central Eastern European countries. Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky is Associate Professor of sociology at Masaryk University in the Czech Republic. Her current research focuses on media coverage of refugees, border narratives and the migration-­populism nexus.

Routledge Histories of Central and Eastern Europe

Hungary since 1945 Árpád von Klimó, translated by Kevin McAleer Romania under Communism Denis Deletant Bulgaria under Communism Ivaylo Znepolski, Mihail Gruev, Momtchil Metodiev, Martin Ivanov, Daniel Vatchkov, Ivan Elenkov, Plamen Doynow From Revolution to Uncertainty The Year 1990 in Central and Eastern Europe Edited by Joachim von Puttkamer, Włodzimierz Borodziej, and Stanislav Holubec Identities In-­Between in East-­Central Europe Edited by Jan Fellerer, Robert Pyrah and Marius Turda Communism, Science and the University Towards a Theory of Detotalitarianisation Edited by Ivaylo Znepolski A Nation Divided by History and Memory Hungary in the Twentieth Century and Beyond Gábor Gyáni Historicizing Roma in Central Europe Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice Victoria Shmidt and Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky www.routledge.com/Routledge-­H istories-­o f-­C entral-­a nd-­E astern-­E urope/ book-­series/CEE

Historicizing Roma in Central Europe

Between Critical Whiteness and Epistemic Injustice Victoria Shmidt and Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky

First published 2021 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN and by Routledge 52 Vanderbilt Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business © 2021 Victoria Shmidt and Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky The right of Victoria Shmidt and Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing-­in-­Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging-­in-­Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-­0-­367-­47198-­9 (hbk) ISBN: 978-­1-­003-­03409-­4 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Apex CoVantage, LLC

Contents

List of Figuresviii Acknowledgmentsix List of Abbreviationsx

Introduction: a longue durée of segregation against Roma: inside of whiteness

1

Critical whiteness as the only option for epistemic justice for Roma in Central Europe: methodological grounds  4 Remapping postcolonial Central Europe: the book’s structure  7 PART I

Whiteness: the never-ending story of epistemic injustice against Roma13 1

Whiteness: a locus for doing race

15

Roma in Central Europe: obsession with whiteness  15 Critical whiteness: options for justice  16 Whiteness in Europe: the over-­determination of racism  18 Central European resistance to critical whiteness: between overt reactionism and implicit eliminativism  19 Conclusion  21 2

Obscure racism: from national indifference to whitening Roma National indifference in Central Europe: obscuring race and class  25 Fixing Jewish identity: in the footsteps of whiteness  27 Normalizing Roma: whitening the past  30 Conclusion  33

25

vi  Contents 3

The post-­socialist shift in pathologizing: from disabled Roma to disabled socialism

36

Pathologizing vs. normalizing: the two extremes of “whitening” Roma  36 Victimizing Roma: a (post-­)socialist pathway of objectification  38 Historicizing as a possible response to pathologizing: toward epistemic justice  40 Conclusion  41 4

The limits and options of historical narratives concerning Roma in Central Europe   The normalizing and pathologizing of Roma as traditional narratives  44 Exemplary narratives in historicizing Roma: ruptures vs. continuities  45 Critical narratives of Central European history: losing Roma in transition  46 Quasi-­genetic narratives of Roma: missing historical evidence  49 Conclusion  51

44

PART II

The (in)educability of Roma: Central Europe between overt and enlightened racism55 5

The inception of whiteness: the Grellmannian intersections of European Roma

57

The Grellmannian dichotomies: introducing colonial discourse to the “Gypsy issue”  57 Non-­human “Gypsies” vs. human Europeans: struggling for progress  60 Eternal children vs. masterful adults: unapproachable assimilation  62 The bestiality of “Gypsy” women vs. the whiteness of European men: toward the radical divergence of racial difference  63 Conclusion  65 6

Global racial order comes to Central Europe: the puzzle of “White Gypsies” at the dawn of the twentieth century Racial intermixture in the Western world: the inception of racial intersectionality  69

69

Contents vii Postcolonial Europe in the focus of outsiders and insiders: deepening (non)whiteness  74 The threat of racial mixing in Central Europe: belligerent outsiders  75 Other Europeans? The view of benevolent outsiders  79 The response of insiders: adapting whiteness  82 Roma in the focus of insiders and outsiders: signifying peripheral Europe  84 Conclusion  90 7

The institutionalization of a racialized approach to Roma in the 1920s–1940s: rooting the stigma of an insecure population

98

A racialized approach to Roma in police surveillance: between the challenges of a global security agenda and nation-­building  99 The doctrinal racism of František Štampach and Robert Ritter: the resonance of political will and personal choice  105 Schooling the (in)educable? The intraracial hierarchy of “Gypsy primitives” in action  112 Desirable “Gypsies” vs. unwanted others: an effective false antinomy in racializing Roma  117 Conclusion  121 8

In (re)search of inclusion: Roma under the pressure of de-­historicizing between the 1950s and 1990s

127

Introduction  127 Post-­Porajmos racism: whitening memories to exclude Roma  128 Roma in the global agenda of population studies: insecure populations vs. human progress  138 The “Gypsy issue” in the international agenda of human adaptability: the crystallization of the racist community  139 Implications for segregative practices: the outputs of the IBP in Czechoslovak policies concerning Roma  145 De-­historicizing Roma in Czech socialist fiction: visualizing whiteness  147 Conclusion  155

Conclusion: epistemic justice for Central European Roma: toward the unlimited negation of whiteness

166

Index171

Figures

6.1 White “Gypsy” children in Prekmurje 70 6.2 “Black Gypsies” and their physical degradation 88 7.1 The mixed “Gypsy” family: racial signifiers remain predominant among children 102 7.2 The comparison of Europeans and “Gypsies” 110 7.3 The phases of assimilation of European “Gypsies” 119 8.1 White supremacy in Můj přítel Fabian (My Friend the Gipsy, 1953)149 8.2 White supremacy in Můj přítel Fabian (My Friend the Gipsy, 1953)150 8.3 “Backwardness” of Roma in Můj přítel Fabian (My Friend the Gipsy, 1953) 150 8.4 Pavel Křiž as Miroslav Dudek in Kdo se bojí utíká (Who Is Afraid, Flees, 1986) 152 8.5 Pavel Křiž as Miroslav Dudek is playing Bach to Romani children in Kdo se bojí utíká (Who Is Afraid, Flees, 1986) 153 8.6 Romani children are dancing to their teacher’s instruction in Kdo se bojí utíká (Who Is Afraid, Flees, 1986) 153 8.7 “White love” in the background of a “Gypsy” wedding in Kdo se bojí utíká (Who Is Afraid, Flees, 1986) 154

Acknowledgments

We would like to thank our colleagues who have read the manuscript, in part or in whole, and who have made useful suggestions: Elena Maruschiakova, Veselin Popov, Karl Kaser and Christopher Donahue. We would like to single out the following for special thanks: Christian Promitzer for his concrete help with the general conception of Part II and Will Gay for sharing his research experience, decisive for completing the last chapter. For providing access to primary sources, we would like to express our appreciation to all the archives in which the materials were collected. Our special thanks go to Petra Golja and her colleagues (Archive of the Group of Anthropology, Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia); Jaroslava Fikejzová (The National Film Archive Library in Prague); Milena Běličová (Archive of the National Museum, Prague); and Dušan Slačka (Museum of Romani Culture, Brno). The authors would like to acknowledge the assistance of Mikhail Tsyganov in conducting archival studies in Prague and Ljubljana. We would like to express our appreciation to Kseniya Brailovskaya and Konstantin Gerbeev for conducting library research undeniably important for completing the text. The staff of IQ Roma Service, Brno, deserves many thanks for all its help in making it possible to discuss the preliminary outputs of the survey with Roma. Victoria Shmidt would like to thank all students at the Faculty of Education, Masaryk University, Brno, who participated in the course “Education for Roma: Surveillance vs. Empowerment” between 2017 and 2019, and who have contributed to writing this book as friendly future readers. The research for this text was sponsored by the Grant Agency of the Czech Republic, as part of the project “Child Welfare Discourses and Practices in the Czech Lands: The Segregation of Roma and Disabled Children during the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries” (15–10625S), and “Die Rassenkunde: Unentdeckte Macht des Aufbaus der Nationen” [Race Science: The Undiscovered Power of Building the Nation] by the FWF Austrian Science Fund (2674-­G28). This research was also financially supported by the Grant Agency of Masaryk University, through the student research project “Migration and Contemporary Societies: Cultural Sociological Perspectives,” project number MUNI/A/1157/2019.

Abbreviations

Archives Archiv Akademie Věd České republiky  Archive of the Academy of Sciences (AAV) Archive of the Group of Anthropology  Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (AGA) Archiv Karlovy univerzity  Archive of Charles University (AUK) Archiv Muzea romské kultury  Archive of Museum of Romani Culture (MRK) Archiv Národního Musea, Praha  Archives of the National Museum, Prague (ANM) Archiv Univerzity Komenského  Archive of Comenius University (UK(A)) Archiv Ústavu antropologie Přirodovědecké fakulty Masarykovy University Archive of the Institute of Anthropology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Masaryk University (AUA) Národní filmový archiv, Praha  National Film Archive, Prague (NFA) Státní oblastní archiv v Třeboni  State Regional Archives in Třeboň (SOA in Třeboň) Štátny archív v Košiciach  State Archives in Kosice (SaK)

Introduction A longue durée of segregation against Roma: inside of whiteness

In 1783, Heinrich Grellmann brought forward an analogy between “Gypsies” and African American slaves in order to stress the power of Europeans to civilize those considered non-­white: “It may be hoped, that while we are endeavouring to ameliorate the condition of our African brethren, the civilisation of the Gipseys, who form so large a portion of humanity, will not be overlooked.”1 In 1897, Leopold Glück offered linguistic and anthropological grounds for differentiating the “Gypsy” populations of Bosnia and Herzegovina, whose language evidenced their common Indian origin, but whose historical traces varied and led to two different “Black” and “White” profiles: While the first remain half-­nomadic and continue travelling during the warmer time, the latest are sedentarized. The Black Gypsies practice their religion, their women walk undressed, and they speak their own language. The White, sedentarized, Gypsies have rejected their religion, dress their women and adapt the rules of the regions where they settle.2 In 1943, Eva Justin opened her dissertation aimed at providing a solid argument against the previous politics of assimilation, and in the theoretical grounds for forced sterilization of Roma, she compared them to “white trash,” one of the target groups for the U.S. eugenic agenda: “The whole society does not want to continue more than one-­hundred years of dangerous state policy, and we all claim right now: ‘No Gypsy trash!’ [Nicht-­Zigeuner-­Gesindel].”3 In 1960, Eva Bačiková, an expert for the Ministry of Education and Culture in Czechoslovakia, directly criticized the previous trend to equate African Americans with Roma, typical of the socialist public discourse: Led by positive intents to demonstrate that Gypsy children are successful too, able to achieve something too, our teachers present their Gypsy students as trained animals in the circus and sometimes they piggyback on the Gypsy topic. “Look, what our Gypsy children could do!” – our teachers say. At school, they are taught to sing their Gypsy songs as if they are a compliant choir of black slaves. Also, Gypsy children know neither Czech and Slovak folk music nor the pioneer songs.4

2  Introduction In 1970, Milena Hübschmannová5 interpreted the outcomes of her qualitative survey among non-­Roma respondents by comparing their approaches towards the “Gypsy issue” with the practices of segregation against indigenous populations and African Americans: The Gypsy issue has a world analogy. Its general character stems from the compatibility of the status of the minority group with the dominant society. History persuades us that the approaches which the dominant society applies to solving the issue of minorities in different places of the Earth are compatible.6 Her own approach to reject the labeling of Roma as asocial criminals also stemmed from the compatibility between Roma and savages, namely, the description of the Gabon tribe by Schweitzer: In his book, On the edge of the primeval forest, Albert Schweitzer shares a very interesting example, namely, that the Gabon tribal people do not accept theft by those who do not belong to their tribe as an immoral act. The action, which is defined by “whites” as “lifting” is as natural for the Gabon as taking the fruits of Nature. I suppose that the same approach to evaluating theft was relevant for those Roma sentenced to the most extreme isolation.7 In 1976, the Czech educator Josef Štěpán, who was responsible for retraining socialist teachers in schools for Romani children, stressed the potential of comparing Roma and savages: “It would be interesting to think about the analogy between the ethnic group of Gypsies and the ethnic groups [tribes living on the island of Celebes, now known as Sulawesi], living at a low level of social development.”8 In 1993, the Hungarian psychologist Tamás Bereczkei applied the controversial approach by Philippe Rushton to exploring the reproductive strategies of Hungarian Roma. Rushton had ascribed to African Americans the predominance of an r-­strategy of selection more compatible with animals than with white individuals, to whom Rushton prescribed a K-­strategy.9 Later, this approach was reproduced by Serbian and Czech scholars.10 In 2004, Bob Hepple proclaimed a “second wind” for the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in the Brown v. Board of Education case, which had overturned the segregation of African Americans, applying the terms of the case to strategic litigation for the rights of Roma in Europe because “the ‘rights of man’ or ‘civil rights’ are a common inheritance of humanity.”11 The analogies between Romani and non-­white populations – mainly African Americans and the indigenous groups of America and Australia – has a long historical tradition in shaping arguments in favor of either segregation or integration. Further, looking upon Roma as a non-­white “race” established one of the core channels for translating whiteness to Europe. However, discussing the issues concerning Roma in Central Europe in terms of critical whiteness remains

Introduction 3 fragmented, or even more, an unwelcome theoretical pathway because of the multiple in-­betweenness of Central European identity, as Ondřej Slačálek explained in his imaginary dialogue with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak: Dear Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, you asked whether we were also postcolonial. It seems that you were looking to the post-­communist countries for partners in experience, dialogue and solidarity. We are very sorry, but you will not find what you were looking for in Central Europe. Your question may cast light on some features of the post-­socialist experience, but when we pose it rigorously we find barriers to the transfer of concepts at the analytical level, and in terms of the development of solidarity, on the level of political action. The basic barrier is that the fundamental anxiety of Central European countries is fear of being expelled from the West and put on to the same level as the colonised countries.12 Building upon the ideas of Slavoj Žižek, we might say that in the background of this fear, it is possible to recognize the identification of Central Europe with the West and with whiteness, not “imaginary,” but “symbolic” – autonomous from the prescriptions to be aligned with Europeanness through experiencing and negating European identities.13 While “imaginary identification” involves identifying “with the image of the other inasmuch as we are ‘like him,’ ”14 “symbolic identification” aims to emancipate from such desirable but adopted patterns, through experiencing the identification with the other “at a point at which he is inimitable.”15 A part of this process, the ambivalent attitudes toward each of its former masters, has led Central Europe to sublimate the past and practice “reverse racism” – against those seen as barbarian colonizers. Being in line with Western (white) standards also includes the contemporary equation of progress with human rights, offering the option of labeling both the Nazi and the Soviet regimes as barbarian and anti-­European, especially with regard to the politics concerning minorities. This double opposition, barbarian colonizers vs. “masters” who aimed to enlighten, and Central Europe vs. the colonies of the Western world, inclines scholars to measure the region’s own history of segregation in contrast to the extreme transgressions of the Nazi regime and to avoid accepting historical responsibility for the politics concerning minorities, which are measured against the atrocities of the Nazis. Among other driving forces, avoiding the reflection of such historical continuities aggravates the overdetermination of racism in the various realms of life for those relegated to proving their whiteness – namely, Roma.16 Following Levine-­Rasky, we could say that in response to the threat of its loss, the identity of postcolonial Central Europe continues to be reproduced through mass education, popular culture, urbanization and migration.17 In the case of Roma, the argument in favor of injustice and segregation in education continues to play an outstanding role due to a long-­term focus on the limited educability of Roma. Over the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries, ineducability operated as a key theorized argument in favor of the most extreme forms of

4  Introduction segregation, including forced sterilization and even extermination. Along with legitimizing segregation, theorizing ineducability laid the groundwork for negating Romani capacity as subjects of knowledge, which hindered practicing their identity and quite literally prevented Roma in Central Europe from becoming who they are.18 Due to its sacralized role in emancipation from a colonial past, the whiteness of Central Europe seems to be not only invisible but untouchable with regard to overcoming epistemic injustice  – fostering a long-­term deficit of credibility to those outsider groups whose knowledge has no status19 and limiting or even blocking access to collective interpretative resources, which places Roma at an unfair disadvantage when it comes making sense of their social experience.20

Critical whiteness as the only option for epistemic justice for Roma in Central Europe: methodological grounds Miranda Fricker views epistemic justice as a regulator of the production and consumption of knowledge. While testimonial justice nurtures an economy of credibility, hermeneutical justice allows access to collective hermeneutical resources. Introducing these two interrelated types of justice immediately leads Fricker to a particular way of historicizing injustice as the output of practicing identity power, directly dependent upon shared social-­imaginative conceptions of social identities.21 As a socially situated capacity to control the actions of others, power produces the prejudices that represent a historical-­constitutive form of “bad epistemic and moral luck” – for those who segregate as well as those who become the objects of applying such power.22 This core concept in Fricker’s approach prescribes accepting historical responsibility rather than attributing blame: There have always been prejudices . . . but the prejudices that may be in the air at any given time change with history. We need a conception of human beings as formed by the attitudes of their time yet capable too of taking a critical stance towards those attitudes.23 Historicizing epistemic injustice calls for recognizing the cultural-­historical setting of prejudices as opposed to abstract transhistorical conceptualization. Contextualizing prejudices provides the grounds for a further step, namely, recognizing historically available and unavailable critical concepts in order “to distinguish exceptional moral judgements from routine ones, producing injustice, and to explain how a piece of moral progress – the move away from a practice . . . is possible.”24 Moreover, the task of differentiating routine and exceptional judgments faces a potential vacuum of hermeneutical resources for recognizing injustice: “[D]ifferent groups can be hermeneutically disadvantaged for all sorts of reasons, as the changing social world frequently generates new sorts of experience of which our understanding may dawn only gradually.”25 The inevitability of postponing hermeneutical justice provides the grounds for better understanding the power of prejudices which “can control our actions even despite our beliefs.”26

Introduction 5 In this way, epistemic justice revises one of the central issues of historicity, “the tension between stability or continuity on the one hand and change or development on the other,”27 and one of the palpable risks of historical narration is sacrificed to “a paradox consisting of explicit skepticism of modernization and implicitly ascertained criticism of the past.”28 While historicizing should be led by the mission to overcome the extant routine of social interpretative habits that continue to serve injustice, the genetic narrative of injustice maps the practices aimed at reestablishing justice through revising the impact of whiteness. Comparing Fricker’s approach with two other ways of conceptualizing the role of knowledge in segregation – the violence of knowledge (Edward Said) and the collision of recognition vs. redistribution (Nancy Fraser, Jürgen Habermas and Axel Honneth) – points to the potential of epistemic justice for historicizing whiteness in Central Europe. Originally, the violence of knowledge has concentrated on the postimperial realm of social knowledge. Jeffrey Guhin and Jonathan Wyrtzen29 explore different but overlapping forms of the violence of knowledge: the violence of essentialization, epistemic violence and the violence of apprehension. The violence of essentialization decontextualizes local and personal experience, opposing it to global notions mostly drawn from the Western “cultural archive.” Stressing the contrast between the right progressive values and local approaches claimed to be “dangerous” due to their “backwardness,” epistemic violence relegates the knowledge of locals to the margins of the Western academy, destroying and preventing its production. The adherents of Said tend to indict the violence produced even by knowledge that is not essentialist in its origin, but from particular contexts, arguing that such violence of knowledge reinforces segregation. For instance, “knowledge about local culture, society, or religion often not totally inaccurate . . . was then used to produce markers of native identity, the purpose of which was to reinforce a hierarchy between European colonizer and native colonized.”30 Labeling this type of violence as the violence of apprehension, Guhin and Wyrtzen focus on those who abuse their power by using such static categories of native identity. Relevant examples can be found in the practice of the removal of children from indigenous populations because of the ostensive inability of their parents to ensure a proper education – according to the opinion of child protection services.31 While this matrix is fruitful for mapping epistemic injustice, its focus on the opposition between postimperial and local knowledge represents the inevitable risk of transforming any knowledge into a tool of epistemic injustice: “ [I]f culture can stand up against the State and not only add to its power, then there is some possibility for more or less accurate knowledge that does not immediately contribute to the three violences we describe.”32 Prescribing this pathway toward social knowledge not only misses the task of recognizing hermeneutical resources suitable for restoring epistemic justice but also ignores the specifics of the violence of knowledge produced in postcolonial Central Europe, where theories affiliated with the Western academy remain seemingly untouchable for critical revision. Indeed, attachment theory or racial assimilationism, elaborated by the scholars of Central Europe, are still seen in opposition to the pressure of Soviet dogmatic pseudoscience. The deconstruction of these theoretical arguments requires not

6  Introduction only applying the violence of knowledge matrix but also recognizing the historical wrongs of these theories concerning minorities – in terms of whiteness – and accepting responsibility for their reproduction. The limits of the violence of knowledge concept reverberate with an important dilemma: the consistent negation of injustice vs. the risk of producing trivial knowledge that embeds the case of Central Europe in a range of contexts limited by understanding biopolitics as “a specific modern form of exercising power.”33 The recently disseminated trend to recognize in the knowledge produced by anthropologists or eugenicists in Central Europe an instrument of biopolitics “calls into question the topology of the political.”34 For instance, the shift from an organicist concept of biopolitics as the intention of the state to be aligned with biological laws to racist biopolitics aimed at designating an “authoritarian, hierarchically structured, and racially homogeneous community of people’s body”35 has varied from country to country due to different political backgrounds, including the vicissitudes of the colonial experience and the scenarios of deliberation. The collision of redistribution vs. recognition emphasizes another dilemma in historicizing epistemic injustice as the grounds for restoring justice: the inevitable asymmetry between the intention to be a virtuous hearer (and to stop producing testimonial injustice) and the impossibility of avoiding the pressure of shared stereotypes. Opposing redistribution (social equality, access to social rights) to recognition (various practices of acceptance and tolerance) is often seen through the lens of the complex relationship between justice and democracy.36 A very early approach developed during the “golden age” of the welfare state sets forth the role of social rights in promoting democratic rights, but changes in the global labor market and migration have transformed the role of citizenship and brought into focus the role of democratic rights for promoting social rights. Also, this approach faces the issue of recognition – accepting Otherness even within limited access to social rights. Honneth and Fraser offer two ways to cope with this dilemma. While Honneth emphasizes the role of social rights for ensuring recognition, in the late 1990s Fraser had stressed the prerequisite of recognition for practicing democratic rights but also opposed them to social rights.37 In this dichotomy, she mentions post-­socialism in particular as a primary factor in reproducing the dilemma of recognition vs. redistribution.38 Later, Fraser reinforces the role of the political in exploring possible ways toward justice. In an interview given to George Yancy in 2015,39 Fraser reconstructs this argumentation by introducing another dichotomy, expropriation vs. exploitation, which differentiates “laborers” and “slaves.” She easily transforms the question asked by Yancy (“In what specific ways must capitalism, because it is always already linked to racism, be restructured?”) into “Is it possible to abolish racial oppression without abolishing capitalism?” answering in terms of ideological affiliations: Contra traditional understandings of socialism, an exclusive focus on exploitation cannot emancipate working people of any color; it is necessary also to target expropriation. . . . By the same token, contra liberal and “progressive” anti-­racists, an exclusive focus on discrimination, ideology and law, is not

Introduction 7 the royal road to overcoming racial oppression. . . . Both projects require a deeper radicalism – one aimed at structural transformation of the overall social matrix, at overcoming both of capitalism’s exes [expropriation and exploitation] by abolishing the system that generates their symbiosis.40 The theoretical dualism between structure and culture has led Fraser’s critics to rearrange the relations between economic and interpersonal drivers of injustice to emphasize the multilevel contradictions palpable at the micro-­institutional and local levels, in contrast to the macro-­structural approach offered by Fraser. According to Judith Butler, the polarization of economic and cultural justice as analytically distinct does not reflect the complex political realities and intersections of justice claims.41 Indeed, what are the prerequisites for being able to practice recognition? How can we ensure the production of the knowledge indispensable to practicing recognition? These questions mark the main critical point in the debates between Fraser and her critics, regarding what the “proper” historically situated knowledge of modern society is, and who produces this knowledge. The recent attempts to apply Fraser’s matrix to the issue of Roma inevitably emphasize neoliberal politics as a main factor in reproducing structural violence against Roma42 and neglect the task of specifying the historical continuity between (1) the long-­ term history of applying analogies with non-­white people to Roma and (2) contemporary moral campaigns against Roma stemming from the migrant “crisis.” Fricker, who consistently interlinks epistemic injustice with other types of injustice, introduces a solid argument in favor of reflecting the various factors leading to recognition as a part of practicing epistemic justice. The core driving force of epistemic injustice – identity power – “typically operates in conjunction with other forms of social power. Consider a social order in which a rigid class system imposes an asymmetrical code of practical and discursive conduct on members of different classes.”43 While epistemic injustice reestablishes the relationship among social settings, the position of a single hearer or producer of knowledge directly depends on social status: “[H]ermeneutical marginalization entails marginalization of a socioeconomic sort, since it entails non-­participation in professions that make for significant hermeneutical participation (journalism, politics, law, and so on).”44 Applying this approach to Central Europe allows us to revise simplistic views of the socialist period as a period of economic equality and to deepen our understanding of particular forms of structural injustice established and fixed during that period. In this turn, the impact of historical continuities on reproducing injustice calls for recognizing the driving forces behind structural violence – with a focus on whiteness as an agent and a structure of nation-­building in Central Europe.

Remapping postcolonial Central Europe: the book’s structure As long as whiteness operates as an invisible but influential framework for injustice, including unequal access to producing and disseminating knowledge concerning segregation against minorities, historicizing Roma in Central Europe calls

8  Introduction for redefining the formation of postcolonial Central Europe as orchestrated by the desire to obtain whiteness. This book aims to solve two interrelated tasks: (1) to deconstruct the contemporary obstacles to accepting the legacy of whiteness in the history of Roma in Central Europe and (2) to retell the history of Roma as a genetic narrative of whiteness in the region. The book consists of two parts. Part I aims to fix the entire apparatus of collective social meaning effectively geared toward keeping the obscured experience of whiteness out of sight.45 Part II explores the ineducability of Roma as a structuration of whiteness, a product of practices racializing Roma and one of the core arguments made by those who produced whiteness – scholars and public experts. The first part of the book, “Whiteness: the never-­ending story of epistemic injustice,” redefines whiteness as a key source of the ongoing reproduction of epistemic injustice against Roma in Central Europe, even amid attempts to restore access for Roma to provide testimonies and produce collective hermeneutical resources concerning their experience. It is thematized according to three main post-­socialist pathways in historicizing injustice against Roma that moderate the exchange of testimonies: (1) pathologizing the past of Roma; (2) normalizing (whitening) Roma by embedding their history in transnational and transhistorical concepts such as human rights; and (3) remarginalizing collective and individual memories of Roma concerning the daily practices of survival as the core for understanding the historical continuities in injustice and the attempts to overcome them.46 We focus on the outward and inward commensurability of each of the pathways with injustice in terms of whiteness and options for achieving justice. While these pathways have moved beyond the frontiers of academia and started to influence public discourses concerning Roma, including massive visualization efforts in films, exhibitions, museum expositions and memorials, we examine them as either providing or blocking the options for restoring epistemic trustworthiness to Roma, ensuring two distinct components – competence and sincerity – as well as the frameworks for emancipating scholars from the pressure of whiteness. Part II, “The (in)educability of Roma: Central Europe between overt and enlightened racism,” historicizes the idea of the (in)educability of Roma in line with its dual role in producing whiteness. Recognizing justice as a process aimed at radically negating injustice, rather than a maximally abstracted rational idealization of human beings, calls for a clear criterion of historically significant events that initiate or constitute ruptures, mutations or, more generally, transformations in social forms of injustice.47 By exploring different approaches to theorizing the (in)educability of Roma and their historical interrelation, we revise the racialization of Roma as a process of “layering” (the partial renegotiation of some elements while leaving previously established elements in place) and “conversion” (using existing practices and discourses in the service of new goals)48 of the theorized arguments and the practices that led to multilevel segregation of Roma as non-­white, including the negation of their capacities as the subjects of knowledge about themselves and their past.

Introduction 9 The main sources for this analysis include academic journals, as well as materials housed in the State Archives in Košice, Slovakia (SaK); the Archive of the Group of Anthropology, Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia; the Třeboň Regional Archives, Czech Republic; the Archive of the Museum of Romani Culture, Brno, Czech Republic; the Archive of the Institute of Anthropology, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic; the Archive of the National Museum in Prague; and the Archive of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic in Prague. The retrospective analysis in the four chapters comprising Part II collocates chronological and thematic approaches to historical narration that represent four interrelated time-­space realms that have infiltrated education with whiteness: (1) one of the earliest attempts to establish the politics of enforced assimilation of Roma during Maria Theresa’s reforms, reflected in an essay by Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann (1756–1804); (2) the application of recapitulation theory to defining the status of postcolonial Central Europe in the global racial order and using the argument regarding the presence of “White Gypsies” either in favor of or against defining Central Europe among whites; (3) the interrogation of two main approaches for institutionalizing a racialized approach to Roma between the 1920s and 1940s and constructing Roma as an ineducable ethnic group at high risk for social security: either mixing with “lower” racial groups or, conversely, the lack of biological drift; and (4) the growing meta-­racism during the postwar period, explored through deconstructing the politics aimed at ensuring inclusion of Roma and revising the crystallization of the international community of racially minded experts. Cynthia Levine-­Rasky stresses the importance of understanding how the meaning of whiteness has been constructed in the social imagination in particular times and places. While “philosophical, theological, and scientific thought converged to produce a comprehensive rationale for the distinction between whiteness and all deviations from this ideal,”49 our historical responsibility cries out for comprehensive deconstruction of this pathway.

Notes 1 In 1807, Grellmann’s thesis was translated into English and published in London. Stylistically, and in terms of content, this English translation fully reproduced the original German version of Grellmann’s text. We used this translation – without changing the orthography and syntaxes. Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann (1807) Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing Their Manner of Life, Occupations and Trades, Marriages and Education, Sickness, Death and Burials, Religion, Sciences, Art, London, William Ballintine, p. 99. 2 Leopold Glück (1897) Zur physischen Anthropologie der Zigeuner in Bosnien und der Hergegovina: Die mohammedanischen Zigeuner [About the Physical Anthropology of Gypsies in Bosnia and Hercegovina: Muslim Gypsies], in Wissenschafliche Mitteilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina [Scientific news from Bosnia and Hercegovina], Vol. 3, Wien, S. Gerold Sohn, pp. 403–433. 3 Eva Justin (1943) Lebensschicksale artfremd erzogener Zigeunerkinder und ihrer Nachkommen [The Destiny of Gypsy Children Brought Up Out of Families and

10  Introduction Observation Under Them], Doctoral Thesis, Friedrich Wilhelms Universität, Berlin, p. 32. 4 Jan Štrup and Eva Bacíková (eds.) (1960) Zkušenosti z práce mezi cikánským obyvatelstvem 1. sborníček [The Experience of Working among Gypsies: First Part], Praha, Osvětový ústav v Praze [The Institute of Enlightenment], p. 3. 5 Milena Hübschmanová (1970) Co je tzv. cikánská otázka? [What is the So-­called Gypsy Problem?] Sociologický Časopis, 6, 2, pp. 105–120. 6 Ibid, p. 109. 7 Ibid, p. 113. 8 J. Štěpán (1976) K lateralitě mentální retardovaných žáků cikánského původu [About the Laterality of Mentally Retarded Students of Gypsy Origin], Otázky defektologie, 8, pp. 316–320, 317. 9 Tamás Bereczkei (1993) r-­Selected Reproductive Strategies Among Hungarian Gypsies, Ethology and Sociobiology, 14, pp. 71–88. 10 Jelena Čvorović (2004) Sexual and Reproductive Strategies Among Serbian Gypsies, Population and Environment, 25, 3, pp. 217–242. 11 Bob Hepple (2006) The European Legacy of Brown v. Board of Education, University of Illinois Law Review, 4, 5, pp. 605–625, 609. 12 Ondřej Slačálek (2016) The Postcolonial Hypothesis: Notes on the Czech “Central European” Identity, Annual of Language & Politics and Politics of Identity, 10, pp. 27–44, 40. 13 Slavoj Žižek (1989) The Sublime Object of Ideology, London and New York, Verso. 14 Ibid, p. 121. 15 Ibid. 16 Cynthia Levine-­Rasky (2013) Whiteness Fractured, Surrey, Ashgate, p. 13. 17 Ibid, p. 18. 18 Miranda Fricker (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 19 Levine-­Rasky, p. 11. 20 Fricker, p. 1. 21 Ibid, p. 4. 22 Ibid, p. 103. 23 Ibid, pp. 81–82. 24 Ibid, p. 107. 25 Ibid, p. 151. 26 Ibid, p. 15. 27 Stefan Benz (2017) Measurable Effects of Denominations on Narrative Patterns: The German Case of Diversity in Narrating Histories, Historical Social Research/Historische Sozialforschung, 42, 2, pp. 170–196, 171. 28 Ibid, pp. 179–180. 29 Jeffrey Guhin and Johnathan Wyrtzen (2013) The Violence of Knowledge: Edward Said, Sociology and Post-­orientalist Reflexivity, in Julian Go (ed.) Political Power and Social Theory: Postcolonial Sociology, Bradford, Emerald Insight, pp. 231–262. 30 Ibid, p. 244. 31 Shannon O’Gorman (2013) Towards a Second-­ Order View of Child Protection Placement-­Related Decision-­Making, Child and Family Social Work, 18, pp. 403–416. 32 Guhin and Wyrtzen, pp. 257–258. 33 Thomas Lemke (2011) Biopolitics: An Advanced Introduction, New York, New York University Press, p. 9. 34 Ibid, p. 31. 35 Ibid, p. 11. 36 Katrin Toens (2007) The Dilemma of Regress: Social Justice and Democracy in Recent Critical Theory, European Journal of Political Theory, 6, pp. 160–179. 37 Ibid, p. 165.

Introduction 11 38 Nancy Fraser (1997) Justice Interruptus: Critical Reflections on the “Postsocialist” Condition, New York, Routledge. 39 Between November, 2014 and December, 2015, George Yancy interviewed 19 philosophers who specialize in various aspects of the topic of race for the New York Times philosophy column, “The Stone.” In 2017, a book featuring all the interviews (On Race: 34 Conversations in a Time of Crisis, Oxford, Oxford University Press) was published. 40 George Yancy (2017) On Race: 34 Conversations in a Time of Crisis, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 164. 41 Kevin Olson (ed.) (2008) Adding Insult to Injury: Nancy Fraser Debates Her Critics, New York, Verso. 42 Angéla Kóczé and Márton Rövid (2017) Roma and the Politics of Double Discourse in Contemporary Europe, Identities, 24, 6, pp. 684–700. 43 Fricker, p. 15. 44 Ibid, pp. 155–156, emphasis in original. 45 Ibid, p. 153. 46 Julia Sardelić (2018) In and Out from the European Margins: Reshuffling Mobilities and Legal Statuses of Romani Minorities between the Post-­Yugoslav Space and the European Union, Social Identities, 24, 4, pp. 489–504, 492. 47 Roy Bhaskar (2008) Dialectic: The Pulse of Freedom, London, Routledge, p. 41. 48 Kathleen Thelen (2003) How Institutions Evolve: Insights from Comparative Historical Analysis, in James Machoney and Dietrich Rueschemeyer (eds.) Comparative Historical Analysis in the Social Sciences, New York, Cambridge University Press, pp. 208–240, 213, 225, 228. 49 Levine-­Rasky, p. 157.

Part I

Whiteness The never-­ending story of epistemic injustice against Roma

1 Whiteness A locus for doing race

Roma in Central Europe: obsession with whiteness “When I got my bachelor diploma in social pedagogy, I was joking that Bc.1 should mean Bílý cikán [White “gypsy”]. If I were to get Mgr.,2 I would become mimořádně geniální Rom [exceptionally gifted Roma],” Joška, one of my Romani colleagues, told me a few years ago. Within this joke, those familiar with the history of Roma in Central Europe can immediately recognize several interrelated sociocultural layers. The capital “B” in “Bílý,” indicated by putting his hand up, and the lower-­case “c” in “cikán” (hand down) sharpen the division between white superiority and those non-­whites that socialist authorities had refused to acknowledge as an ethnic group. Obtaining a university degree is seen as a prerequisite for becoming whiter, and moving to a higher degree, from bachelors to masters, correlates with replacing the pejorative “cikán” by the respectful “Rom.” This long-­term and ambivalent role of education as somehow proving the ability to acquire a collective and individual “me” calls for an exploration of the (in) educability of Roma, one of the central arguments underpinning various policies concerning Roma in Central Europe over the last four centuries. Central Europe should be seen as a region that has produced one of the most influential pathways for racializing Roma. Conceptualizing (in)educability has shaped a specific path of racialization by melting together various analogies, between Roma and animals, children, indigenous populations of other countries, Jews and African Americans. The Austro-­Hungarian Empire and its successor states introduced and rooted the politics of enforced assimilation of Roma, which called for systematic legitimation of policies such as the enforced placement of Romani children into institutions, tough surveillance over both nomadic and sedentarized Roma, sterilization and even extermination. This long history of segregation has relied on flourishing scientific arguments aimed at negating the possibility for Roma to become “civilized.” Historically determined, the position of Roma as intractably non-­educable infiltrated various conceptions in favor of opposing Roma to core Europeans, and such a view continues to be propagated in different realms and localities. In Slavic countries, Roma have been situated at the lowest levels of various racial hierarchies, opposed to Jews and Turks,3 as well as to those groups of Rusyns or

16  Whiteness Vallachs seen as the most distanced from Slavs.4 In Hungary, they have been seen as belonging to a lower level of hierarchy than Romanians and Slovaks – nations that were under the pressure of eugenic and anthropological arguments about their inferiority from the side of Hungarian experts.5 The extermination of Roma, Jews and Serbians by the Croatian Ustasi regime stemmed from producing an analogy among these ethnic groups as equally inferior.6 Along with massive social injustice, situating Roma at the bottom of racial hierarchies has shaped ongoing epistemic injustice – the systematic negation of the capacity of Roma to be producers and givers of knowledge, to make sense of their own social experiences and to obtain access to testimonial exchange. The taken-­for-­granted suggestion concerning Roma as “serflike or slavelike by nature, who can make their living only from this physical strength . . . artless and unintelligent, without spiritual accomplishments, or with gifts for only non-­literate arts like music”7 continues to exclude Roma from trustful conversation and the ability to forge an essential aspect of their identity,8 relegating the major part of experiencing segregation obscure and unspeakable. Recognizing epistemic (in)justice as a process of testimonial exchange within the production of collective hermeneutical resources calls for historicizing – rethinking – the historical-­cultural settings for producing injustice.9 If epistemic justice reproduces dialogue between the virtue hearer and the giver of knowledge, historicizing epistemic injustice emphasizes the mutation of this dialogue under the pressure of prejudice, “a powerful visceral force . . . those social-­imaginative and emotional commitments that surreptitiously shape hearers’ perceptions of speakers.”10 Representing the conceptual machinery of universe-­ maintenance relative to the concept of “race,” whiteness operates as one of the most powerful sources of the most intractable prejudices. As an unquestioned standard of Western civilization against which everything is measured,11 whiteness has obtained the position of the main broker in communication between those labeled as white and non-­white.

Critical whiteness: options for justice As relevant to the outstanding historical impact of whiteness on segregation, critical whiteness studies have occupied a central position in anti-­racist thinking by addressing whiteness as a social norm.12 Originating from slavery studies,13 several waves of critical whiteness scholars have tried to unpack the “invisible knapsack of white privilege.”14 To the extent that whiteness has started to be seen as a way of “doing” identity,15 one question remains a driving force for new generations of academics and activists: “Should whiteness be reformed, abolished or reconfigured?”16 Current debates between eliminativists, racial skeptics or abolitionists, who aim at minimizing or even eliminating racial terms from lexicons, laws and policies (e.g., Anthony Appiah, Naomi Zack) and critical conservationists, constructivists or pragmatists (e.g., Paul Taylor, Michael Root) who suggest reconstructing concepts such as whiteness and race instead of jettisoning them,17 frame the central issue in critical whiteness studies – how to elaborate a

Whiteness 17 solid platform for deconstructing reactionary theories of whiteness, which have received a second wind from the current “migrant crisis” and the conservative backlash in the public policy of many countries in Central Europe and beyond. Despite their common target, namely, minimizing the impact of racism and the reactionary theories that aim to legitimize it, eliminativists and conservationists vary in their response to the call to “know and measure carefully all the forces and conditions that go to make up the different problems [of those who are successors to whiteness], to trace the historical development of the conditions [of whiteness], and discover as far as possible the probable trend of further development.”18 While the scientific dismissal of discursive categories of race represents an essential conceptual underpinning for eliminativists,19 constructivism accepts race as socially constructed and yet fully “real” – along with the illegitimacy of the hierarchical racial taxonomies established during the Enlightenment era.20 Recognizing not only “white pride” but “white responsibility,”21 constructivists bring forward two main arguments against both branches of eliminativism, either negating any race or focusing on abolishing whiteness: the considerable positive, life-­affirming aspects of non-­white racial identities such as black, Romani and indigenous, and the risk of increasing the invisibility of whiteness within the very attempts to eliminate it.22 In these critical claims, it is possible to recognize the threat of epistemic injustice within eliminativist stances. Indeed, determined by liberal values, the color-­blindness of eliminativism has become “color-­evasiveness,”23 which ignores the role of race as a historical social setting likely to distort the credibility judgments of those labeled as non-­white. This risk of hermeneutical injustice reverberates with the universalization of humanness, part of the core of the invisible norm of whiteness,24 which obscures the task to develop a historically contextualized and socially situated account of racism through a maximally abstracted conception of the human subject that prevents the possession of identity power by those who have not been seen as white.25 One of my Romani colleagues, Zlata, whose family experienced the “dispersion” strategy (placing one Romani family in a small Czech town or village in order to hinder any relations with the Romani community in favor of total assimilation) explains: It was right to let Roma learn to live as whites, but now I do not know who I am. I am neither Roma (because I live like whites) nor white. One time in school, when the teacher who should fill out the forms concerning Roma students publicly refused to do it for me because, according to her, I was not Roma at all, I felt myself strange – because they did it for my sister, whose behavior was much worse than mine. It was so distressing that I said to myself: I am just human. Until such universalized humanity leads to a cognitive commitment to ignore the experience of segregation, the sensitivity of white hearers within testimonial exchange remains limited by such generalization in which whiteness is hidden to knowers.

18  Whiteness A recent example of the consistent epistemic injustice embedded in the eliminativist vision on whiteness can be seen in the approach of the popular Czech moderator Jan Kraus, who invited Romani activist Elena Gorolová26 to his TV show after she made the BBC list of the most influential women in the world.27 Kraus introduces Gorolová as the only Czech woman included in the list by adding: “We have to be happy that any Czech female was included.” Directly and indirectly, Kraus ignores the fact of Gorolová’s Romaness, asking whether only Romani women were sterilized and avoiding any connection between the history of institutional violence and its racial grounds in the Czech past. Kraus comments on the campaign aimed at obtaining reparations for women exposed to sterilization by saying, “Let Babiš28 pay you.” In this attitude, it is easy to identify well-­ known attempts by liberal-­leaning public figures “to displace the normativity of the white position by seeing it as a strategy of authority rather than an authentic or essential ‘identity.’ ”29 Remarkably, along with ignoring the racial grounds for sterilization and the forced removal of children, Kraus stresses several times that these practices remain a part of the past and that in the present, they only occur in developing regions not aligned with Western democracy. In this binary opposition, it is easy to recognize the fact that “there is no whiteness without the racialized Other with whom whiteness is integrally related,”30 for instance, in underdeveloped countries. Juxtaposing color-­blindness and the intention to alienate a dark past from a contemporary and properly democratic trajectory releases the speaker from the obligation to accept responsibility for the past or, even more, to recognize the obvious historical continuity of segregation. Like so many others, this example of “perpetuating white supremacist values while simultaneously decrying them”31 confirms the necessity to supplement the scientific negation of racism by redefining historical continuities, not least because the origin of racism is culturally and historically induced, and “various mechanisms tend to modify not only the understanding of the group by those working within the relevant discipline, but also conceptions and preconceptions among wider groups.”32

Whiteness in Europe: the over-­determination of racism Due to increased efforts to recognize the legacy of racial thinking, the transnational history of whiteness has become one of the key driving forces of anti-­racist projects in studies of racism in Europe. According to Gabriele Griffin and Rosi Braidotti, the “happy embrace” of whiteness in European social science had emerged during the 1990s, influenced by the interconnection between the history of slavery and racial segregation in the United States and the history of European colonial empires in obscuring the intermittently flaring race relations in European countries.33 Bringing into analytical focus the process of adopting and adapting whiteness in Europe as a triple conflation of White-­Christian-­European, Alastair Bonnet explores not only the historical particularities of the transition from hyper-­ whiteness as a bourgeois colonial identity connected with a healthy and vigorous

Whiteness 19 civilization to whiteness as a popular or mass identity, but also the globalized nature of whiteness in the history of Western society.34 He highlights the role of transforming welfare states in nineteenth-­century Europe as a main driving force behind the dissemination of whiteness as a framework for European identity. In his 1996 study, Zigeuner: Geschichte Eines politischen Ordnungsbegriffes in Deutschland 1700–1945 [Gypsies: The History of One Political Master Concept in Germany between 1700 and 1945], Leo Lucassen focuses on another aspect of whiteness as a part of state-­building in Europe – the interrelation between the negative selection of Roma and the institutionalization of German police as targeted at implementing efficient surveillance over Roma. A key concept in Lucassen’s study, Ordnungsbegriff or “master concept,” is directly adopted from a study by Everett C. Hughes, “Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status,” published in the American Journal of Sociology in 1945. In it, Hughes explores the prevalent idea in U.S. society concerning membership in the “Negro” race as a “master” status-­determining trait,35 which determines the location of those Others to whom privileged groups applied prejudices. In his study, which covers nearly three centuries, Lucassen traces the formation of a society ruled by the transfer from Etikettierung (labeling) to Kategorisierung (division into categories) of unreliable social groups. Lucassen’s study elaborates the prerequisites for the transformative negation of whiteness embedded in institutions such as welfare policy, police or education. Involving a wide range of historically grounded comparisons (e.g., between Dutch and German policies concerning Roma; between the case of enforced sterilization of “Rhineland bastards”36 and Roma), Lucassen traces the formation of the non-­white label for Roma, which emerged from accepting them as “pagans” through consistent criminalizing of their behavior and consistent opposition of Germans and Roma. The destiny of Roma had been discussed in terms of the degree to which they “infected” German people, compared in debates between racial anthropologists and eugenicists as being either like Jews or like “Rhineland bastards.”37 The current debates between eliminativists and constructionists examine “the nuanced and locally specific ways in which whiteness as a form of power is defined, deployed, performed, policed and reinvented.”38 Elaborating the European case of whiteness provides a more systematic understanding of the ideological export of whiteness in different regions and how “the relative invisibility of whiteness by whites maintains white supremacy.”39 In Central Europe, along with concepts such as internal colonialism or racism, whiteness remains the most poorly articulated factor in the relationship between official ideologies and modes of perception in the region.40 But does Central Europe need critical whiteness?

Central European resistance to critical whiteness: between overt reactionism and implicit eliminativism In 2003, Czech journalist Petr Bakalář published a book entitled Tabu v sociálních vědách (Taboo in Social Science). The text relied heavily upon Western pseudoscientific racism, such as publications by Charles Murray and Richard Herrnstein.

20  Whiteness Mostly, however, Bakalář adapted the approach of Philippe Rushton, who had achieved notoriety through his application of r/K selection theory to humans.41 Aligned with U.S. and Canadian racially minded ideologues, Bakalář attacked contemporary anti-­racial genetics, which has rejected the scientific argument in favor of racial division by stressing “the huge role of small differences”: “[E]ven if human races are different by 0.0012% it could have a great impact – people and chimpanzees share more than 98.5%.”42 Bakalář blamed liberal-­leaning scholars for attempts to convince people to feel guilty about race, or experience “the Auschwitz complex, which directly connects any idea of race with the Nazi policy of extermination of the racially inferior.”43 In short, following Western reactionary theorists, Bakalář treated whiteness as “an ahistorical and biologically superior race whose survival is threatened by multiculturalism and affirmative action programs.”44 While the first book captured the attention of the public and enjoyed much commercial success, a year later, Bakalář published another book, Psychologie Romů (The Psychology of the Roma),45 which focused on applying Rushton’s approach to Roma. In line with Rushton’s idea of the priority of an r-­strategy among inferior races, Bakalář emphasized the enormous difference between non-­Roma and Roma in their patterns of reproductive behavior. Elaborating the history of Roma as full of sexual violence and promiscuity, he aimed at degrading Roma as an ethnic group unable to take power for its destiny.46 Together with prescribing to Roma, the r-­, or animal-­like, selection strategy, he relegated them to the margins of humanity. By supplementing the arguments of Rushton with approaches elaborated by Czech anthropologists, who stressed the inevitable “lateness” of Romani children by studies that claimed increased mental and physical development among their non-­Romani counterparts,47 Bakalář directly opposed Roma to the white European population by stressing Romani “backwardness” in physical and mental development. The text reproduced an entire range of invidious analogies known from previous cohorts in racial studies concerning Roma but in a more consistently racist mode. For instance, Bakalář compared the racial destiny of the Jews and Roma, opposing the ostensibly positive eugenics of the bottleneck effect48 among the Jews, who “lost the weakest and the most unhealthy part of their ethnos within pogroms and various politics of extermination and the most intelligent survived,” to the absence of such a result among Roma.49 Public response to Bakalář’s study mainly attacked his overt aggression toward Roma, portraying Bakalář as an individual with aberrant views totally different from most experts. In his review published by the website Bristské listy (British Lists), David Halatka opposed Bakalář to the rest of academic world: Probably, we do not know other scholars who elaborate the issue [of racial intolerance] that is core for Bakalář, because any responsible scholar recognizes the futility of such studies for society. Why would somebody want to highlight differences that provide the grounds for marking racial, ethnic or other boundaries? Why not be focused on something which unites?50

Whiteness 21 In his short note, “S Bakalářem se nemluví” (With Bakalář, there is no discussion),51 Petr Třešňák called for ignoring Bakalář as an incompetent, insecure racist. Remarkably, according to Třešńák, the main issue was the lack of anti–Racial Hygiene sentiment, especially among those who continued to disseminate the books by Bakalář. In this response, it is easy to recognize an ignorance of “the submerged but ever so real bottom of the iceberg, the social practices, patterns, processes, and institutions that make up structural racism.”52 Claims to ignore racism in favor of promoting inclusion also ignore the long history of race as framed by “folk whiteness,”53 an antecedent system for categorizing members of human races.54 While educators and their approaches continue to be seen a main obstacle for desegregating schools and providing inclusion for Roma,55 it is not enough to label the views disseminated by Bakalář as a dirty holdover. Successfully mixed with neoliberal thinking, such views seem to form a sufficient argument against integration. If Marx was not successful in proving equality, why do you expect it from the side of schools? You cannot oblige a rich man to go to a typical beerhouse and coerce the poor to eat with knife and fork. What are the reasons to compel the people to the idea of inclusion? one of the Czech school principals asked the activists who organized the debates in favor of promoting desegregated schooling within the project Česko mluví o vzdělávání (Czechia Discusses Education).56 By consistently opposing public opinion to progressive academic views, these journalists easily cast aside racist approaches but neglect to take on the task of sharing historical responsibility for the past. As long as the popularity of texts such as Bakalář’s fosters the ongoing victimization of particular ethnic groups on the basis of past scientific claims and practices, “this past is not past us.”57

Conclusion The theoretical grounds for legitimizing segregation have mostly evaded critical deconstruction; they remain a core threat undermining the current anti-­racist agenda concerning Roma in Central Europe. The call to bring whiteness into analytical focus as a historically determined framework for legitimizing segregation against Roma in Central Europe acknowledges the invisibility of whiteness and, thus, its status as an unapproachable driving force impeding contemporary attempts at restoring justice for Roma. The most palpable among them is the internally conflicted position of Central Europe toward Western civilization as a source of emancipation and surveillance simultaneously. The most disseminated ways for resisting racism remain aligned with an ambiguous attitude toward whiteness and mostly reproduce eliminativism, without consistent reflection on the choice in favor of neglecting the call for historicizing racism in Central Europe. A rigorous argument in favor of critical whiteness should recruit a wide range of approaches toward historicizing racism as the grounds for recognizing the role of

22  Whiteness local, national, intercountry and global agendas of scientific racism in the destiny of Roma in Central Europe.

Notes 1 The Czech abbreviation for the title of bachelors degree. 2 The Czech abbreviation for the title of masters degree. 3 Plamena Stoyanova (2017) Tsiganite v godinite na sotsializma. Politikata na b'lgarskata d’rzhava k’m tsiganskogo malitsinstva (1944–1989) [The Gypsies During Socialism: State Policy Concerning the Gypsy Minority in Bulgaria (1944–1989)], Sofia, Paradigma. 4 Victoria Shmidt (2018) Public Health as an Agent of Internal Colonialism in Interwar Czechoslovakia: Shaping the Discourse About the Nation’s Children, Patterns of Prejudice, 52, 4, pp. 355–387. 5 István Kemény (2004) History of Roma in Hungary, available online at https://kisebbsegkutato.tk.mta.hu/uploads/files/archive/310.pdf. 6 Bartulin, Nevenko (2014) The Racial Idea in the Independent State of Croatia: Origins and Theory, Leiden, Brill. 7 Elisabeth Young-­Bruehl (1996) The Anatomy of Prejudices, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press, p. 364. 8 Miranda Fricker (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford, Oxford University Press, pp. 53–54. 9 Ibid. 10 Ibid, p. 98. 11 Susan Young and Joanna Zubrzycki (2011) Educating Australian Social Workers in the Post-­Apology Era: The Potential Offered by a “Whiteness” Lens, Journal of Social Work, 11, 2, pp. 159–173. 12 Teresa J. Guess (2006) The Social Construction of Whiteness: Racism by Intent, Racism by Consequence, Critical Sociology, 32, 4, pp. 649–673. 13 Slavery studies comprises transhistorical and transnational dimensions by stressing the fact that slavery and race had become interchangeable by the end of the European Middle Ages; see Colin Palmer (1996) Rethinking American Slavery, in Alusine Jalloh and Stephen E. Maizlish (eds.) African Diaspora, College Station, Texas A&M University Press, pp. 73–99, 75. 14 Peggy McIntosh (1989) White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, available online at https://nationalseedproject.org/Key-­SEED-­Texts/white-­privilege-­unpacking­the-­invisible-­knapsack. 15 Cynthia Levine-­Rasky (2002) Working through Whiteness: International Perspectives, Albany, State University of New York Press, p. 18. 16 Melissa Steyn and Daniel Conway (2010) Introduction: Intersecting Whiteness, Interdisciplinary Debates, Ethnicities, 10, 3, pp. 283–291. 17 Terrance MacMullan (2005) Beyond the Pale: A Pragmatist Approach to Whiteness Studies, Philosophy and Social Criticism, 31, 3, pp. 267–292. 18 W. E. Burghardt Du Bois (1898) The Study of the Negro Problems, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 11, January, pp. 1–23. 19 MacMullan, pp. 271, 273. 20 Lucius T. Outlaw (2014) If Not Race, Then What? Bio-­Cultural Groups, Social Ontology, Political Philosophy, Graduate Faculty Philosophy Journal, available online at www. academia.edu/12405745/If_Not_Races_then_What_Toward_a_Revised_Understanding_ of_Bio-­Social_Groupings. 21 MacMullan, p. 281. 22 Ibid, p. 273. 23 Ibid, p. 279.

Whiteness 23 24 Montag Warren (1997) The Universalization of Whiteness: Racism and Enlightenment, in Mike Hill (ed.) Whiteness: A Critical Reader, New York, New York University Press, pp. 281–293. 25 Fricker, p. 4. 26 Being forcibly sterilized in 1990, Gorolová is one of the most visible Romani activists who struggles to achieve redress for Romani women who were sterilized. 27 Elena Gorolová – Show Jana Krause 1 May 2019, available online at www.youtube. com/watch?v=MhgKACEOx9E. 28 The current populist prime minister and one of the wealthiest business owners in the Czech Republic. 29 Homi K. Bhabha (1998) Anxiety in the Midst of Difference, Political and Legal Anthropology Review, 21, 1, pp. 123–137, 124. 30 Levine-­Rasky, p. 18. 31 MacMullan, p. 278. 32 Hallvard Fossheim (2019) Past Responsibility: History and the Ethics of Research on Ethnic Groups, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 73, pp. 35–43, 36. 33 Gabriele Griffin with Rosi Braidotti (2002) Whiteness and European Situatedness, in Gabriele Griffin and Rosi Braidotti (eds.) Thinking Differently: A Reader in European Women’s Studies, London and New York, Zed Books, pp. 221–246, 225. 34 Alastair Bonnet (1998) How the British Working Class Became White: The Symbolic (Re)formation of Racialized Capitalism, Journal of Historical Sociology, 11, 3, pp. 316–340. 35 Everett Cherrington Hughes (1945), Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status, American Journal of Sociology, 50, 5, pp. 353–359, 357. 36 This pejorative concept was used by the Nazis for labeling the offspring of Afro-­ German relations, who were subjected to a policy of enforced sterilization. During the occupation of the Rhineland by Entente, mainly French troops comprised of privates from the French colonies of Algeria and Morocco, were blamed for the massive rape of German women. National and international campaigns shaped the image of Africans as sexual predators and after the Nazi seizure of power, the echo of a moral panic was reflected in the decision to sterilize those labeled as the offspring of sexual violence. See Julia Roos (2009) Women's Rights, Nationalist Anxiety, and the “Moral” Agenda in the Early Weimar Republic: Revisiting the “Black Horror” Campaign against France's African Occupation Troops, Central European History, 42, September, pp. 473–508. 37 Leo Lucassen (1996) Zigeuner: Geschichte Eines politischen Ordnungsbegriffes in Deutschland 1700–1945 [Gypsies: The History of One Political Master Concept in Germany between 1700 and 1945], Köln, Weimar and Wien, Böhlau Verlag, pp. 202–203. 38 France Winddance Twine and Charles Gallagher (2008) The Future of Whiteness: The Map of the “Third” Wave, Ethnic and Racial Studies 31, 1, pp. 4–24, 5. 39 Ibid, p. 9. 40 Anikó Imre (2005) Whiteness in Post-­Socialist Eastern Europe: The Time of the Gypsies, The End of the Race, in Alfred López (ed.) Postcolonial Whiteness: A Critical Reader on Race and Empire, Albany, NY, State University of New York Press, pp. 79–102, 84. 41 Philip Rushton (1988) Do r/K Reproductive Strategies Apply to Human Differences? Social Biology, 35, 3–4, pp. 337–340. r/K theory prescribes to each animal species one of two strategies of reproduction: either in a stable environment where less but better offspring are created or in an unstable one where more and worse offspring are born. Animals on the r-­ path survive on unexploited ecological niches. Animals on the  K-­ path are strong competitors for resources in crowded niches. Human beings were primarily seen by r/K theory as belonging to the latter.

24  Whiteness 42 Petr Bakalář (2003) Tabu v sociálních vědách [Taboo in Social Science], Praha, Votobia, p. 22. 43 Ibid, p. 14. 44 MacMullan, p. 270. 45 Along with this book, Bakalář published several articles concerning the limited ability of Roma to become civilized, including Petr Bakalar (2004) The IQ of Gypsies in Central Europe, Mankind Quarterly, 44, 3 & 4, pp. 291–300, 292. 46 Petr Bakalář (2004) Psychologie Romů [The Psychology of the Roma], Praha, Votobia, p. 21. 47 Victoria Shmidt (2019) The Politics of Disability in Interwar and Socialist Czechoslovakia: Segregating in the Name of the Nation, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press. 48 Genetic drift can cause major losses in genetic variation for small populations. 49 Bakalář (2004), p. 20. 50 David Halatka (2004) Nová rasistická kniha: Psychologie Romů? [New Racist Book: Psychology of the Roma?], available online at www.blisty.cz/2004/6/16/art18538. html. 51 Petr Třešňák (2004) S Bakalářem se nemluví [With Bakalář, There Is No Discussion], available online at www.respekt.cz/tydenik/2004/23/s-­bakalarem-­se-­nemluvi. 52 George Lipsitz (2006) The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics, Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press, p. 130. The metaphor of the iceberg was proposed by Gilbert Gee and Chandra Ford as a way of understanding structural racism, which they define as the interaction of the larger systems, forces, ideologies, institutions and processes that generate and reinforce unequal conditions among different racial groups. 53 According to constructivists, whiteness operates primarily as a routine order for moral and practical reasoning, perpetuating unnoticed habits in unjust situations; more in MacMullan, p. 284. 54 MacMullan, p. 283. 55 EDUin (2017) Deník Referendum: 10 let po rozsudku D. H. – Předsudky pedagogů a 83 segregovaných škol [Deník Referendum: 10 Years after the Judgment of DH – Prejudices of Educators and 83 Segregated Schools], available online at www.eduin. cz/clanky/denik-­r eferendum-­1 0-­l et-­p o-­r ozsudku-­d -­h -­p redsudky-­p edagogu-­a -­8 3-­ segregovanych-­skol/. 56 EDUin (2013) Podívejte se: Na kulatém stole se většina debatujících vyslovila pro inkluzi [See For Yourself: At the Roundtable, Most of the Debates Were in Favor of Inclusion], available online www.eduin.cz/audio-­a-­video-­archiv/podivejte-­se-­na-­kulatem­stole-­se-­vetsina-­debatujicich-­vyslovila-­pro-­inkluzi/. 57 Fossheim, p. 35.

2 Obscure racism From national indifference to whitening Roma

National indifference in Central Europe: obscuring race and class Ignoring whiteness as a way to cope with racism is not a feature specific to public discourses. In mainstream historical reflections on the destiny of minorities in Central Europe, such as Jews, Roma or Rusyns, race and whiteness have not reached the status of explanatory schemes. For instance, in her study of Jewish identity in interwar Bohemia, Kateřina Čapková rejected a racial argument because “in Bohemia, there was no need to employ arguments about a different, inferior race.”1 The approach offered by Celia Donert in her 2017 monograph The Rights of the Roma: The Struggle for Citizenship in Postwar Czechoslovakia separates the exceptional view of Czechoslovak dissidents on Romani activism from the routine practices of state arbitrariness and, in terms of Fricker’s epistemic injustice, blocks the testimonial sensitivity of the historian as a virtue hearer to racist policy making in socialist Czechoslovakia and even the attempts of Roma to respond to enlightened racism.2 If whiteness and, more generally, racist thinking are excluded from historical reflections concerning the interrelation between the identities of minorities and segregation, what other explanatory schemes are employed by experts in order to investigate the destiny of ethnic minorities? What are the perils of ignoring whiteness as a driving force for epistemic justice in postcolonial Central Europe? Deeply rooted in academic discourse concerning Central Europe, labeling race and ethnicity as strictly limited against “any plurality or change”3 reverberates with an idea extremely attractive to postcolonial Central Europe – national indifference, seen as more a promising alternative than “such terms as assimilation, acculturation, or hybridity that assume preexisting national loyalties and coherent group identities.”4 Aimed at deconstructing “the imposition of fixed identities by the classificatory projects of states and scholars,”5 national indifference covers a wide range of practices mainly prescribed to ordinary people aimed at avoiding any particular national identity. In its most concretely formulated mode, national indifference is seen as the core of “the process [by which] perhaps we can finally rescue the citizens of Habsburg central Europe from the ‘prison of nations’ once and for all.”6

26  Whiteness Even though national indifference is a relatively new concept in contemporary historiography, over the longue durée of debates concerning national identity in postcolonial Central Europe, national indifference has a strong historical echo, especially among reflections on the relations between former masters and servants.7 In interwar Czechoslovakia, a movement toward a definition of nationality as an internal conviction was determined by the efforts to prove the predominance of Czechoslovaks over Germans in order to eliminate the risk of incorporating those territories in which the number of Germans was substantial into a Greater Germany.8 Operating in favor of a particular national group, indifference started to become a part of the Czechoslovak strategy to shift “the concept of nationality closer to an ethnic or racial understanding of the term rather than a linguistic or cultural one.”9 One of the most consistent apologists for national indifference was Emanuel Rádl, biologist and propagandist of vitalism, whose texts concerning ethnicity and nations continue to influence academic debates targeted at elaborating the interrelation between democracy and Czechoslovakism. In one of his most famous essays, published in 1929, “Národnost jako vědecký problém” [“Nationality as a Scientific Issue”], Rádl proposed national indifference as a strategy for resolving the tensions between Germans and Czechs. Rádl focused on censuses as a central source informing the politics of nationality and argued for the necessity to provide free will for citizens to choose their nationality: Nationality is not a signifier for the human, but his duty (which lost its meaning where there is no free choice: nobody is obliged to be blond); it is not inherited but created by the human; it is not an output of human blood, but a challenge to his conscience; it is not the output of a centuries-­long past, but an agenda for the future. Socially situated, nationality is not created by Nature, but belongs to another world, which does not exist but should be. Nationality is a window to eternity from the material world.10 In order to reinforce his argument in favor of free choice of nationality, Rádl identified the situation of the Czechs, who, in contrast to Jews or Roma, were not granted the right to choose their nationality during the census, as one of deprivation and discrimination.11 Remarkably, the devotion to nationality as a moral and civic obligation coexisted in Rádl’s rhetoric with accepting race as scientific fact, “determined by anatomic, physiological and genealogic traits.” Yet he rejected the option to register people within the census according to race, “because the members of the races could not know their racial belonging because of lack of education.”12 This double-­standard view on nationality and race, which reflected distrust of the lower, uneducated classes seems to be an ongoing but still hidden issue underlying attempts to conceptualize the identity of postcolonial Central Europe in terms of national indifference. Along with the necessity to articulate the idea of a social agent who promotes an “imagined non-­community,”13 national indifference requires contextualization

Obscure racism 27 concerning its racial roots. Who were those nationally indifferent in terms of their status within various racial hierarchies? How did they improve their position against racial hierarchies by practicing fluid national identities? And what price did they pay? Introducing racial hierarchies into the debates concerning national indifference and especially its potential for transnational history immediately invites us to revise the frontiers of indifference in terms of whiteness. Was the national indifference of those who chose between Germanness or Czechness compatible with the indifference of Jews or Roma, those who were obliged to prove their potential to become white? In this turn, rejecting the role of ethnicity and race in favor of national indifference can be interpreted as a specific case of the implicit elimination of whiteness – ignoring whiteness not only because of its wrongs but mainly due to neglecting the historical echo of whiteness in Central Europe. In the United States, the black/white dichotomy functioned strategically and was employed by native-­born whites to obscure complexity and infuse a sense of order and confidence into the national culture.14 In a comparable fashion, the opposition of Europeans to non-­Europeans shaped the politics concerning minorities and accreted by new contexts, including the systematic analogy between Jews and Roma, two target groups of long-­term assimilative politics in Central Europe, who continue to be compared in terms of their whiteness.15

Fixing Jewish identity: in the footsteps of whiteness Though Čapková rejects ethnicity and, even more, race, in her construction of Jewish identity, the motive of sociocultural or socioeconomic ethnic/racial membership is nevertheless visible. Photographs from the private archives of Czechoslovak Jews, mainly Shoah survivors, accompany Čapková’s text, presenting Jewish children in the uniforms of the patriotic Czech sport movement Sokol or celebrating Saint Nicholas Day in the costumes of angels, devils and Saint Nicholas. Grounded in “knowledge, regular consumption and deployment of an ethnic culture that is unconnected to an individual’s ethnic ancestry,”16 sociocultural affiliation with a European, white, profile of social life often devalues other, non-­Eurocentric realities,17 which inevitably leads to a wide range of intra-­and interethnic contestation. But this aspect remains latent; Čapková has not discussed the sociocultural ethnic affiliation of Jews in relation to questions such as “Did Jews meet legitimately the claims of membership?” or “How does their past experience of ethnic affiliation (with Germans) influence their embeddedness in relations of power and racial domination of the new, Czechoslovak, political order?” Ignoring these questions, fundamental for understanding historical continuities in reproducing public racial contestation,18 gives rise to the tension between a particularistic “I” and a universal “we”19 in constructing the identity of Jews in Bohemia, who are presented as a quite small, privileged group alienated from the rest of the Jewish population through their capacity to become Europeanized. Depoliticizing constituent features of their identities as beyond any racial contestation sentences Čapková to exaggerate the role of the Czechoslovak state, seen as the guarantor of universal freedom and equality.20

28  Whiteness Overhyping the figure of Tomáš Garrigue Masaryk, the first Czechoslovak president, as a promoter of Jewish integration and ignoring the general racist tone of public discourse concerning the negative influence of Jews on the Slavic population in the Eastern periphery reduce the text by Čapková to two interrelated binary oppositions. On the one hand, she consistently opposes enlightened authorities, with Masaryk at the head, to virulently anti-­Semitic Bohemian folk. On the other hand, the Jews of Bohemia displayed all the features of “western Jewry”21 versus the acculturated Jews from Carpathian Ruthenia and Eastern Slovakia, whose traditionalism was seen as a challenge to already Europeanized Jews.22 The pressure of these binaries and the systematic neglect of anti-­Semitic public racial contestation among the citizens of interwar Czechoslovakia inevitably lead Čapková to benevolent paternalism that ascribes the main role to political and cultural elites who practiced Czechoslovakism. For instance, according to Čapková, the acceptance of Jewish nationalism stems from the “close relationship between Zionists and Czech and German writers.”23 This argument reverberates with the assumption concerning the predominance of middle-­class Jews in interwar Bohemia as a main prerequisite for their integration. The double emphasis on the role of elites, Jewish and non-­Jewish, blocks any options for introducing whiteness, which operates not as an irrevocable binary of those who either conform positively or negatively to prescriptions to be white but instead brings together ethnicity and class in multiple racial hierarchies.24 Rejecting the role of religion and language in framing the identity of Jews in interwar Bohemia in favor of class and location at the core of the country, Čapková concludes her monograph by saying, “What was decisive, however, was one’s social contacts with both the Jews and the Gentiles of the country.”25 Such a view on the boundaries of ethnic groups has been deconstructed as naïve and simplistic by Frederik Barth, who, along with exploring the persistence of such boundaries, stressed that “ethnic distinctions do not depend on an absence of social interaction and acceptance, but are quite to the contrary often the very foundations on which embracing social systems are built.”26 In the end, Čapková has ignored the exclusion and forced incorporation of Jews as a driving force behind their experience with a variety of identities in favor of lionizing the role of Czechoslovakism in minimizing anti-­Semitism in interwar Bohemia. According to Wendy Brown, such discursive normalization results in depoliticization of injuries to body and psyche27 and implicitly blames those who experienced marginalization and subordination, in this case, Jews in the Eastern periphery, for their own poor conditions.28 Čapková directly opposes Jews of the core and the periphery to each other according to the degree of their Europeanization: “Thousands of Jewish migrants from Carpathian Ruthenia and eastern Slovakia to the Bohemian border regions . . . constitute a big challenge not only for historians but also for many local Jews in or from the Bohemian Lands, for whom the Jewish religion (especially Hasidic) is not compatible with the image of allegedly modern, forward-­looking Bohemian Jews.”29 This view reverberates with the most influential intraracial hierarchies in Czechoslovak racial science in the twentieth century and specifically the academic anti-­Semitism that stemmed from

Obscure racism 29 differentiating Jews as suitable or not for assimilation. In excluding the racial dimension from her narration, Čapková is thus limited in two respects – in exploring the historical price paid by Czech Jews, who either were or were not “white,” as well as in recognizing the racial motives in her own approach. It is reasonable to assume that Czechoslovak public policy, along with a community of experts under the enormous influence of U.S. patterns for institutionalizing state power, easily adapted the rhetoric of white or European homogeneity, which included, among other ideological drivers, the belief in the potential whiteness of those Jews who would be able to adopt white standards and the threat from the side of those who remained alienated from such standards.30 The strategy chosen by Masaryk concerning Jews, either supporting their assimilation or promoting their own state, reverberates with the stance of Theodore Roosevelt, who argued that Jews were good material for the white American “melting pot.” It is reasonable to compare the outputs of this strategy in interwar Czechoslovakia with the United States, where the “attempts by Roosevelt were not totally successful in defusing the anxiety surrounding the Jewish racial image [but] talk of assimilation and racial intermixture helped some Americans overcome their concerns about uncertainty of Jewish racial status.”31 In interwar Czechoslovakia, negative motives compatible with U.S. anti-­ Semitic campaigns were employed by the propagandists of people’s health. For instance, Jews were presented as those responsible for disseminating addiction to alcohol among peripheral populations, very much like the U.S. public blamed “inebriating” African Americans. Using the image of Jews as sexual predators in the campaigns against venereal diseases also resonated with labeling them as responsible for prostitution. For instance, in the 1928 film, Stín ve světle/Slepý Juro/Tvrdohlavý Juro [The Shadow in the Light/Blind Juro/Stubborn Juro], targeted at the Slovak population, the main character, a young gifted Slovak named Juro, who was disinclined to follow hygienic prescriptions, was infected not only by trachoma but also by venereal disease – after spending the night in a Jewish hostelry whose owner had offered him an already infected Jewish prostitute. The well-­articulated anti-­Semitic stances of Czech experts concerning the Eastern periphery reinforced an intraracial hierarchy regarding the Jewish population, leading to pressure to become assimilated. The struggle of Jews to win acceptance by Czechoslovak authorities coexisted with the common attitude toward them as “a racial group with an uncertain relationship to whiteness.”32 While race was “the single most important category of social-­scientific views of Jews and Jewishness in the first half of the twentieth century,”33 racially minded Jewish scholars promoted a particular interpretation of assimilation. The typical interwar anthropological understanding of Jews as “not conventionally inferior, but as racially unnatural . . . simultaneously different and apparently the ‘same’ ”34 allowed Ignaz Zollschan and Maximilian Beck, two Jewish physicians and scholars from Czechoslovakia, to avoid such radical strategies as subordinating anti-­Semitism to racism35 implemented by the anthropologist Franz Boas. Boas maintained a balance between claiming Jews were a “race” linked by ties of flesh and blood36 and accepting a view on Jews as the

30  Whiteness product of racial intermixture with white Europeans, an argument well-­known among ideologues of Zionism since the publication of “The Jew: A Study of Race and Environment” by Maurice Fischberg in 1911. In contrast to the United States, interwar Czechoslovakia experienced the ongoing process of confirming its own ability to be in line with Europeanness, which only aggravated the pressure of whiteness on Jews. If Jews’ posture of self-­ confidence in the United States “actually masked a deep sense of insecurity” and embraced the “optimistic language of progress and revival aimed to downplay the contradictions between Jewishness and whiteness,”37 in interwar Czechoslovakia, Jews who had a fundamentally statist meaning for proving their loyalty to Czechoslovak state38 not only faced conflictual imperatives but paid a much higher price for winning their whiteness than their U.S. counterparts. Seen as incapable of becoming white but at the same time strictly prescribed to become whiter, Roma are similarly sentenced to whitening their past.

Normalizing Roma: whitening the past The most consistently visualized example of whitening the past of Roma in public space is the Museum romské kultury (Museum of Romani Culture) in the Czech city of Brno. The exposition aims at deepening the knowledge about the history of Roma, comprising several halls dedicated to various periods of the past. Situated between the ethnographic hall and the hall dedicated to the history of Roma in interwar and socialist Czechoslovakia, the hall concerning the Porajmos (the Romani Holocaust) can be seen as a core part of the museum. The exhibition about the extermination of Roma by the Nazis reproduces the atmosphere of a gas chamber in a concentration camp, featuring a replica of the shower units used for gassing people. Black walls and a soft, black floor covering create the feeling of instability and sinking. The hall is dimly lit; the few light fixtures focus on photographs of Roma taken by German anthropologists, mainly Eva Justin, and on the models of Romani skulls, well-­known symbols of Racial Hygiene. The predominance of the color black, with white and red elements, completes the impression of suffering. This part of the exhibition elicits a personal emotional response, which is often seen as a sufficient act of ethical witness or reparation and repair not requiring further thought and action39 – for instance, concerning the continuity between the interwar politics and further extermination of Roma during the Protectorate or the role of the Czech anthropologists in exterminating Roma. Further, the hall aimed at providing an overview of the socialist period, along with the part of the exhibition that captures the interwar period, focused on either the outstanding outcomes of Roma as war veterans or prominent scholars, or on their compatibility with non-­Roma in the intention to provide for the needs of their families and children. The history of surveillance is limited to a mention of forced sterilization and the laws that prohibited nomadism. In contrast to the modest narration concerning structural violence against Roma, the history of the four-­year operation of the Svaz Cikánů-­Romů (The Union of Gypsies-­Roma) and

Obscure racism 31 other activities that promoted Romani culture take center stage in this part of the exposition. Purifying or, even more, “Jewifying” the experience of Roma as victims of extreme transgression and lionizing their recent past not only ignores the role of whiteness in ongoing structural violence but fixes whiteness as the only channel for recognizing the past of Roma as compatible with global contexts. This double ignorance of whiteness becomes more visible in the very last part of exhibition, which touches upon the post-­socialist period and presents a small room plastered with newspapers headlining racist messages and a transparent roll in the center of the room that obviously aims to symbolize the vicious circle of prejudice concerning Roma. Indeed, until whiteness becomes transparent, this circle perpetuates. Donert’s claim to look upon Roma not as victims, “the objects of humanitarian empathy,” but as fighters for their rights or “political subjects,”40 is another example of normalizing or “whitening” the past of Roma. By embedding “the social history of Roma in socialist Europe to larger histories of human rights,”41 Donert, like Čapková, produces a particular set of binary oppositions that remain unresolved as long as the racial contexts of the Central European history of Roma are neglected. Core to Donert’s narration is the idea of opposing the position of an agentic actor to the experience of being a victim, which tends to reproduce the intra-­ethnic (racial) hierarchy through a focus on the educated and politically involved Roma who fought for rights. The experiences of those Roma under tough surveillance, labeled as citizens of “Gypsy” origin, and the struggles for their rights42 are not included in Donert’s narration. The next binary, state vs. person, posits the role of personality against institutional arbitrariness: indeed, Donert lionizes the role of several intellectuals who worked to advance the agenda of Romani citizenship against the pressure of the authorities. While this strategy of narration allows Donert to maintain the idea of Romani activists as part of the dissident movement, the explanation of the vicissitudes of the state’s policy concerning Roma remains unexplored. By emphasizing the egalitarian character of the welfare regime in socialist Czechoslovakia,43 Donert has missed the consistent growth of eugenic motives in the demographic policy enacted in the middle of the 1960s, which accompanied an increase in maternal benefits and other measures aimed at supporting birth rates. While introducing therapeutic abortion and sterilization as a result of long-­ term lobbying by Czech geneticists did not stem from racial grounds and mainly addressed the threat of inbreeding (one of the archetypical fears of eugenically minded Czech scholars), further development of these practices provided the possibilities for arbitrary application of sterilization to Roma, supported by Czech anthropologists.44 The several mentions of Czech racial anthropology made by Donert miss contextualization in terms of the interconnection between the Czech race and nation-­ building. The book by František Štampach, Cikání v Československé republice [Gypsies in the Czechoslovak Republic], published in 1929, is seen by Donert as an early example of racializing Roma as an echo of moral campaigns against them.45 But the role of the “Gypsy” argument, including the studies by Štampach

32  Whiteness that locate the surveillance by the Czech core over the Eastern periphery as a source of legitimizing internal colonization, is neglected. While Donert tries to embed the interwar period of racial anthropology in the global context of illiberal internationalism, her sketch about postwar race science misses the mark. Stressing the role of the personal connection between Jiří Malý and his daughter Helena Malá46 in the postwar reproduction of eugenic discourse coalesces with emphasizing the role of Soviet eugenically minded pedagogy,47 and only encourages Donert’s message concerning the pernicious role of Soviet anti-­liberal pressure on Czechoslovak public life. This frame makes Donert incapable of recognizing two major influences on the Czech approach to Roma: (1) the postwar international movement in racial anthropology; and (2) the cooperation between Czech and Nazi racially minded scholars during the Protectorate, for instance, the leadership of Jiří Malý, a successor of Bruno Kurt Schultz,48 in the Institut für Rassenbiologie (The Institute for Race Biology) in Prague. Much like the insensitivity of Čapková to the opposition of Jews in the core and the periphery as racially grounded, Donert ignores the echo of racial arguments in the stance of Hübschmanová, who, in an interview given to Donert in 2005, shared how she and social workers had contested the enforced placement of Romani children into residential care settings by explaining the differences in physical development between Roma and their non-­Romani peers through genetic factors rather than poor nutrition or parental neglect.49 Indeed, Czech anthropologists had highlighted the “backwardness” of Romani children as determined by their vulnerable environment, mainly the unhealthy habits of Romani mothers. But the argument provided by Hübschmanová reproduces one of the three strategies for attacking overt racism within the internationalization of the dominant discourse of racial otherness,50 more precisely, disarticulation, namely, accepting the terms set by the dominant discourse, but changing the valuations attached to them.51 In her provocative article, “Kdyby se Einstein narodil jako cikán” [“If Einstein Had Been Born a Gypsy”], published in the weekend supplement to the newspaper Mladá fronta on December, 6, 1969, Hübschmanová marshaled a whole range of scientific idioms typical of that period, including the comparability between Jews and Roma, which started to operate in favor of accepting Roma as victims of overt racism. Stemming from the intention to present Roma as an ethnic group that could produce gifted individuals, whose abilities remained oppressed because of an inappropriate approach to education, the strong opposition of biological and social factors reproduced the intra-­rational hierarchy of Roma: If among these Gypsy children [the group of pre-­school children whom Hübschmanová taught during her anthropological field research] Einstein would have been born, he would have to forget that he is a Gypsy. He would have to spend the major part of his energy to learn the language that non-­Gypsies gain without any effort, and the rest of his energy would be devoted to solving the task of being accepted by those who generally do not take into account the specifics of Gypsy children’s existence. . . . In short, if Einstein had been born a Gypsy, the world would never have known Einstein.

Obscure racism 33

Conclusion While the most pernicious effect of scientific racism was the profound internationalization of the norms of the dominant discourse,52 the responsibility for the racist past of science calls for understanding historical continuities – a multidimensional phenomenon that “applies to both sides of the relation, the side of ethnic groups as well as the side of research.”53 The task to reveal a longer, broader and more complex story relies on the identity of the researcher who is “a representative of something larger than herself,”54 including the echoes of race science. Moving from identity to continuity challenges the liberal idea of justice as a norm and injustice as an unfortunate aberration55 and calls for a more nuanced approach to negating racism than the abolitionism of whiteness either historically rooted or adapted. The comment by bell hooks concerning inevitable failure of liberal whites “to understand how they can and/or do embody white supremacist values and beliefs even though they may not embrace racism as prejudice or domination” and the inability “to recognize the ways their actions support and affirm the very structure of racist domination and oppression that they profess to wish to see eradicated”56 seems to be an apt assertion regarding the writings of Čapková and Donert. The task for accepting historical responsibility for whiteness requires its further historicizing in order to reconstruct the historical-­cultural settings of segregation.

Notes 1 Kateřina Čapková (2012) Czechs, Germans, Jews: National Identity and the Jews of Bohemia, New York and Oxford, Berghahn Books, p. 118. 2 Will Guy (2019) Book Review of: Celia Donert (2017) The Rights of the Roma: The Struggle for Citizenship in Postwar Czechoslovakia, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, Intersections: East European Journal of Society and Politics, 4, 3, pp. 195–198. 3 Čapková (2012), p. 4. 4 Tara Zahra (2010) Imagined Noncommunities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis, Slavic Review, 9, 1, pp. 94–119, 116. 5 Alex Toshkov (2010) The Phantom Subject of “National Indifference”: A Response to Tara Zahra, Imagined Noncommunities: National Indifference as a Category of Analysis, Slavic Review, 69, 1, p. 94, available online at www.slavicreview.illinois. edu/discussion/Toshkovessay-­onZahra-­final.htm#_ftnref5. 6 Zahra, p. 119. 7 Michal Kopeček (2019) Czechoslovak Interwar Democracy and its Critical Introspections, Journal of Modern European History, 17, 1, pp. 7–15. 8 Rebekah Klein-­Pejšová (2015) Mapping Jewish Loyalties in Interwar Slovakia, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, pp. 48–49. 9 Ibid, p. 47. 10 Emanuel Rádl (1929) Národnost jako vědecký problém [Nationality as a Scientific Issue], Praha, O. Girgal, p. 83. 11 Ibid, pp. 71–72. 12 Ibid, p. 60. 13 Toshkov. 14 Eric L. Goldstein (2006) The Price of Whiteness: Jews, Race, and American Identity, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, p. 42.

34  Whiteness 15 One of the recent trends is to use the strategies that proved their efficiency in legitimizing Jews as the victims of genocide to the case of Central European Roma: “There is a big difference in the outputs of the efforts make Holocaust visible for the public; for instance, survivors are invited to schools. It is still missing concerning the Roma community” (Upírané dějiny Romů. Rozhovor s Kateřinou Čapkovou, Helenou Sadílkovou a Pavlem Balounem [Blocking the History of the Roma: A Talk with Kateřina Čapková, Helena Sadílkova and  Pavel Baloun], available online: www.novinky.cz/ kultura/salon/468655-­upirane-­dejiny-­romu-­rozhovor-­s-­katerinou-­capkovou-­helenou-­ sadilkovou-­a-­pavlem-­balounem.html). While the reflection of the price of whiteness paid by Jews remains underrated, such analogies aggravate the hidden agenda of whiteness concerning Roma. 16 Tomás R. Jiménez (2010) Affiliative Ethnic Identities: A More Elastic Link between Ethnic Ancestry and Culture, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 33, 10, pp. 1756–1775. 17 Marie L. Miville and Angela D. Ferguson (2014) Handbook of Race-­Ethnicity and Gender in Psychology, New York, Springer, p. 51. 18 Ann Morning (2018) Kaleidoscope: Contested Identities and New Forms of Race Membership, Ethnic and Racial Studies, 41, 6, pp. 1055–1073. 19 Wendy Brown (2005) Political Idealization and Its Discontents, in Wendy Brown (ed.) Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics, Princeton, Princeton University Press, pp. 17–36. 20 Wendy Brown (1993) Wounded Attachments, Political Theory, 21, 3, pp. 390–410, 391. 21 Čapková (2012), p. 245. 22 Kateřina Čapková (2016) Beyond the Assimilationist Narrative: Historiography on the Jews of the Bohemian Lands and Poland after the Second World War, Studia Judaica, 19, 1, 37, pp. 129–155. 23 Čapková (2012), p. 191. 24 Steve Garner (2007) Whiteness: An Introduction, London, Routledge. 25 Čapková (2012), p. 253. 26 Frederik Barth (ed.) (1969) Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Cultural Difference, Boston, Little, Brown and Company, p. 10. 27 Brown, p. 395. 28 Ibid, p. 403. 29 Čapková (2016), p. 140. 30 Goldstein, p. 42. 31 Ibid, p. 49. 32 Ibid, p. 86. 33 Amos Morris-­Reich (2006) Project, Method, and the Racial Characteristics of Jews: A Comparison of Franz Boas and Hans F. K. Günther, Jewish Social Studies: History, Culture, Society, 13, 1, pp. 136–169. 34 Christopher M. Hutton (2005) Race and the Third Reich: Linguistics, Racial Anthropology and Genetics in the Dialectic of Volk, Cambridge, UK, Polity, p. 16. 35 Amos Morris Reich (2010) Circumventions and Confrontations: Georg Simmel, Franz Boas and Arthur Ruppin and Their Responses to Antisemitism, Patterns of Prejudice, 44, 2, pp. 195–216, 209; Doron Avraham (2013) The “Racialization” of Jewish Self-­ Identity: The Response to Exclusion in Nazi Germany, 1933–1938, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, 19, 3, pp. 354–374. 36 Veronika Lipphardt (2008) Biologie der Juden: jüdische Wissenschaftler über “Rasse” und Vererbung 1900–1935 [The Biology of Jews: Jewish Scholars about “Race” and Inheritance 1900–1935], Göttingen, Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht. 37 Ibid. 38 Klein-­Pejšová, p. 144. 39 Roger I. Simon (2013) The Public Rendition of Images Médusées: Exhibiting Souvenir Photographs Taken at Lynchings, in Ranjan Ghosh and Ethan Kleinberg (eds.)

Obscure racism 35 America in Presence: Philosophy, History, and Cultural Theory for the Twenty-­First Century, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, pp. 79–102, 83. 40 Celia Donert (2017) The Rights of the Roma: The Struggle for Citizenship in Postwar Czechoslovakia, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, p. 5. 41 Ibid, p. 4, emphasis ours. 42 For instance, the attempts by some sedentarized Roma, targeted for assimilation, to be released from obligatory monitoring, or the numerous legal cases of Slovak Roma who wished to return to Slovakia after spending several months in Bohemian dispersion programs, do not figure as examples of fighting for rights. 43 Donert, p. 216. 44 Victoria Shmidt (2019) The Politics of Disability in Interwar and Socialist Czechoslovakia: Segregating in the Name of the Nation, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press. 45 Donert, p. 29. 46 The historical inaccuracy of Donert in prescribing to Malá a central role in launching anthropological research on Roma in the early 1960s, who was too young (26 years old) for such a position, and instead mentioning the leader, Jaroslav Suchý, a former doctoral student of Malý and supervisor of Malá, reflects the lack of systematic attention to the role of race science in legitimizing the segregation of Roma in postwar Czechoslovakia. 47 Donert, pp. 169–170. 48 Both Schultz and Malý elaborated the issue of Roma, with the first articles by Malý about the “Gypsy issue” appearing during the Protectorate period. 49 Donert, p. 229. 50 Targeted at recognizing how the necessity to meet science in their argument against scientific racism limited anti-­racist African American scholars, Stepan and Gilman elaborate three pathways for internalizing dominant, racial, discourse: cannibalization, disarticulation and reassemblage. See Nancy Leys Stepan and Sander L. Gilman (1993) Appropriating the Idioms of Science: The Rejection of Scientific Racism, in Sarah Harding (ed.) The “Racial” Economy of Science toward a Democratic Future, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, pp. 170–193, 179. 51 Ibid. 52 Ibid. 53 Hallvard Fossheim (2019) Past Responsibility: History and the Ethics of Research on Ethnic Groups, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, pp. 73, 38. 54 Ibid. 55 Miranda Fricker (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 1. 56 bell hooks (1989) Talking Back: Thinking Feminist, Thinking Black, Boston, South End Press, p. 113.

3 The post-­socialist shift in pathologizing From disabled Roma to disabled socialism

Pathologizing vs. normalizing: the two extremes of “whitening” Roma Indians and Roma have one common trait – they are old, we could say, primitive people, whose culture was broken by us, whites. Except for consumption and drunkenness, we were unable to offer more alternatives. Nowadays, these children with the beautiful eyes of prehistoric civilizations live in cities and do not know how to manage themselves – they dope, prostitute, and fight with each other. Though blaming the decayed people due to the behavior of a part of them, accepting their current social status as their authentic nature and believing that they were, are and will be the same, is not fair and remains a kind of short-­sightedness.1

In 1995, this mesmerizing speech of Petr Václav, a fresh graduate of FAMU,2 aimed to explain to potential audiences the mission of his debut as a film director – the fictional two-­hour biopic Marian, based on a true story and filmed in a documentary manner. The film featured the story of a Romani boy who “was born in cruel circumstances, had an unlucky life, and took his own life in his 22nd year.”3 Aligned with other Czech films of the first post-­socialist decade,4 Marian sheds light on residential care as the aftermath of communist totality: Marian spent his life in the institutions which earlier were called polepšovna.5 Since the 1970s, they mainly became repositories for excluded, non-­ integrated, problematic and mainly Roma, children. This system aimed to provide adequate clothing and, nutrition, and to prevent children from being beaten and the undesirable mode of life of their parents. In fact, pasťák6 was a place without any positive attributes, where the Roma language was forbidden and these second-­class citizens were destined to be assimilated and “civilized.” “Our” values were not engrafted and, in this way, there was no chance for it. Pasťák simply cemented the unrooting and criminalization of these children.7 The plot of Marian was based upon one of the cases of Czech psychologist Jan Šikla, a friend of Václav, who had started his professional career in one of the socialist pasťáks. While Šikla defined the film as a unique option to experience the point

The post-­socialist shift in pathologizing 37 of view of a Romani boy,8 Václav emphasized the fact that “the destiny of Marian was shared by many children”9 as a main driving force to produce the film and ask for financial support from various institutions in the Czech lands and abroad. Framed as a series of flashbacks from the very last moments of his life to his early childhood, Marian reproduces the argument concerning the indispensable role of emotional bonds between mother and child as the source of healthy socialization. Because Marian lacks such socialization, he is destined to acting out this early trauma. This two-­sided duplet, demonizing residential care vs. sacralizing maternal attachment, monopolizes the space for interpreting the fate of Marian. For performing Marian as a toddler, adolescent and young man, Václav employed three Roma who had experienced residential care. This fact was stressed by critics as a rationale for accepting the film as reflecting reality. One year later, Ljuba Václavová, the mother of Petr Václav and documentary film director, produced a 20-­minute film about the ten-­year-­old Stefan Ferko who had performed Marian as an adolescent, as the true story of “one of the Marians behind the fiction.” After winning the Silver Leopard award at the Locarno International Film Festival in the category Young Film, Marian garnered a reputation for being the most truthful film about the socialist legacy of Roma. The critics directly opposed Marian to the famous Můj přítel Fabian (My Friend the Gypsy, by Jiří Weiss, 1953) as “overcoming naïve optimism concerning the options for reeducating our comrades, the Gypsies.”10 Public campaigns accompanied the film in each of the production stages: preproduction, production and post–film promotion. Věra Chytilová initiated the campaign for obtaining the funds for finishing the film.11 The international success of the film led to its showing on the leading TV channel in prime time. The first TV performance of Marian was accompanied by a massive campaign in the Czech mass media, under the slogan “a sick socialist society produced sick institutions, which made the Roma, and not only them, sick”: Since his infancy, Marian had been placed into a children’s home, which understandably – shaped him. The transformation of a nice gypsy child12 into a non-­recoverable human being is rapid and dramatic.13 The film is extremely important due to its primary focus – it narrates the story of a Roma boy who was determined from his early childhood by the impersonalized environment of children’s homes and residential care institutions.14 The main character is Marian Kováč, who was placed into a children’s home when he was only a toddler. A dilapidated castle, where the residential setting is situated, not only offers testimony about losing the beauty and dignity of the building, but also elaborates clearly the methods applied for civilizing those who are placed into the setting. Public bathing-­places, dunning rooms, poor clothing, and callous educators whose image is a mockery concerning the authentic meaning of the word “home.” Emotionally neglected, Marian is little or no different from a pet [přítulný tvor], who responds to hurt or lack of care through anger and biting. Without hesitation, he hurts his favorite caregiver with a knife because of her ignorance.15

38  Whiteness Juxtaposing the pathos of disclosing the crimes of communist totality and the intention to revise humanistic values through the lenses of those deemed non-­ white have shaped the long-­term pathway of making analogies between residential care and imprisonment, the socialist regime and the Porajmos, experiencing detachment and spiritual death.16 Within this pathway, pathologizing Roma as victims of political, mainly Nazi and socialist, regimes closely relates to normalizing or “whitening” Roma. On the one hand, those who normalize Roma directly contest the practice of victimization. On the other hand, both approaches focus on the ability of Roma to achieve a European or global identity – either in terms of human rights or national consciousness. Both approaches view Roma as originally lacking rights, divided into subgroups: those who did not want and could not accept the identity of the core population17 or those alienated from the happy desire to be white. The only difference between normalizing and pathologizing is the attitude toward the possibility of Roma to become or not to become compatible with whites.

Victimizing Roma: a (post-­)socialist pathway of objectification In contrast to the neoliberal optimism of normalizing, pathologizing Roma characterizes them as having entirely lost their capacity to elaborate efficient patterns of identity. During the socialist period, pathologizing Roma stemmed from presenting them as handicapped human beings who spoke a handicapped language, whose living conditions were compatible with social disability. In the first post-­ socialist decades, the mission to disclose the atrocities of communism replaced the direct pathologizing of Roma by labeling socialist politics as unnatural and unhealthy: Between the 1950s and 1960s, in combination with other non-­ organic interventions from the side of the state, artificially launched, massive and extremely hastened, urbanization determined the deepening crisis of Roma communities. Their long-­term connections to the original environment in which the natural order existed and communication with the majority operated within clear local regulations, were broken. In the new environment, the majority of the Roma could not get their bearings, and the splitting of multigenerational families crushed intra-­ethnic relations and habits, which led to the disappearance of unwritten regulations and the connection to traditional culture. The pressure of assimilation reached only a small part of the Roma population, who adopted some features of the majority’s mode of life (clothing, furnishing flats, consuming mass culture) in an extremely superficial manner.18 In the twelfth volume of Sešity, a series of publications initiated by the Úřad dokumentace a vyšetřování zločinů komunismu (The Office of the Documentation and Investigation of the Crimes of Communism), Nina Pavelčíková19 traced

The post-­socialist shift in pathologizing 39 the history of Roma in the Czech lands between 1945 and 1989. She concluded her study by saying: Many current issues [of the Roma formally bearing their rights] cannot be explained by differences in mentality, lack of recognition or intolerance of a different culture, [but rather by] the ongoing reproduction of stereotypes, as well as the legacy of the regime, which broke the traditional culture of the Roma community, its authentic and irreplaceable values.20 Interpreting socialist policy in terms of its crucial role in the destruction of the Romani community and its traditions reproduces previous patterns of direct pathologizing of Roma because of ongoing asocial behavior among them: The disruption of the traditional Roma community introduced an entire range of negative and crisis-­ridden patterns: for instance, the forms of parasitism previously unusual (prostitution, voluntary placement of children into children’s homes – also it was the outcome of the pressure of state institutions), disrespectful attitudes toward national and, later, private ownership, etc., to previously deeply grounded unregulated consumption of alcohol and nicotine, the addictions typical of the current time such as gambling or drug addiction.21 According to Levine-­Rasky, the most insidious yet powerful form of exclusion is the rejection of personhood.22 Prescribing to Roma the absence of identity calls for an understanding in which identity is seen as lost. As long as Pavelčíková and those experts who uncritically reproduce the pattern of pathologizing23 reject Roma as full participants in social relations, they continue to reestablish their own expert power to define Others in the terms of fundamental difference: “[I]t is totally clear that the issue of national identity among the Roma should be explored in a totally different way from other European ethnic communities.”24 For Pavelčíková, who described Roma as a majority of Southern ethnic groups, who are distinguished by an explosive temper, who noisily communicate what can be hardly accepted by other people; whose wild gesticulation always accompanies their communication and easily transforms into verbal or even physical attacks,25 it is impossible to differentiate social location and normative values as well as to prioritize the meaning of daily experience. Looking at identity through the lenses of European nationalism led Pavelčíková to conclude that Roma were incapable of constructing their national identity in the same way as the majority of modern nations. Pavelčíková emphasizes the role of Western society, which leads to accepting the rights of ethnic minorities and cultivating their identities as a main factor in the later appearance of the internal consciousness (vnitřní povědomí) of Roma as an entire ethnic group which, in reality, belongs “only to a limited

40  Whiteness part of the Roma, mainly elites” who “buy into some of the features of national movements.”26

Historicizing as a possible response to pathologizing: toward epistemic justice Presenting Romani identity as totally different but simultaneously totally dependent on European or white patterns reproduces the double standard of whiteness that orchestrated the politics of enforced assimilation of Roma in Central Europe for more than three centuries: whiteness continues to be prescribed as a demandable pattern but also is viewed as unapproachable for the majority of Roma. According to Yuval Davis, “[R]ather than continuing to erect unsurpassable boundaries of segregation, assimilationism renders them invisible and passable.”27 One of the social workers responsible for solving the “Gypsy issue” during late socialism shared her memories about giving Romani adolescents the task to finish sentences starting with: “If I was white . . .” and “I am not white until . . .” She mentioned that some of children were laughing while others remained sad, but nobody ignored this task. In terms of Levine-­Rasky, this act of violence28 results in hermeneutical marginalization, which is always a form of powerlessness.29 How do Roma cope with such experiences? Petr, 37 years old and a special education teacher, shared his story, full of ambivalence and complicity in his struggle to accept himself as non-­white and Romani: I was three years old when I was caught in a children’s home. My mom was fifteen years old when she bore me, and for the next three years, they [child protection services] were thinking that it would be better for me to be together with my mom, but when my mom did not send me to kindergarten, they took me away. For the first three years, I was happy: it was a nice kindergarten full of toys and careful people, and they sent me to a very good school. But after two months, I came down with arthritis, spent more than half a year in the hospital and did not pass the school tests. Then, I was sent to a school for mentally retarded children. But the psychologist did some testing and recommended that I be sent to the school for normal children but with physical disabilities. There, I was the healthiest and I helped my peers who were not so capable. And you know, until now, I think that it was the main reason I decided to become a social worker – I started to like helping people. I was dreaming of being adopted but when one man would have liked to become a father to me (we met each other during our visits to the factory whose staff patronized our children’s home – I was smart, and we liked each other) my biological mother did not give her permission. Yes, he took me to his family during weekends and holidays, but it was not a proper family. I met my mom once when I became an adult, and I only would like to know who my father was. Was he Afro-­American? There were many students from African countries, but my mom did not tell me. Probably, she did not know. I would like to save money and take a DNA test. I am sure I am black because my father

The post-­socialist shift in pathologizing 41 was Afro-­American. Look at me – even my wife is sure that I have it. . . . In our class, there were more Roma – until now, we communicate, we have our own group on FB [Facebook], and we all are not in a bad way. We tried to get money (from the local authorities) to support our football team for Romani children, but were unsuccessful. You know Roma are very gifted in sport, but who believes us? Is it possible to situate Petr among those poor human creatures, “one of the Marians,” who, in line with pathologizing, lost their chance at a full-­fledged identity? Or what did his life story miss in line with a normalizing approach? Neither trying to present himself as white nor pretending to be a consistent activist, Petr recognizes that he was not simply oppressed but produced through these practices of whiteness, and he deserves to obtain access to the historically complex and contingent circumstances of his life “that do not honor analytically distinct identity categories.”30

Conclusion Historicizing predisposes collusion and contestation to make the range of identities as wide as possible through contextualizing the performativity of narrative dialogical practice.31 Both pathologizing and whitening ignore this call for thoughtfulness – “the work of interrogation and critique requires a certain withdrawal from the immediate scene of political life.”32 Wendy Brown stresses the fact that “part of the action of political justice inherently occurs in a distinctly nonpolitical realm, . . . but in what we would call intellectual (not necessarily academic) life, impossibly fully public but also not private in the modern sense.”33 Targeted at deconstructing Roma from being a racialized and unwanted minority,34 historicizing aims at bridging the personal experience of whiteness and the cultural-­social setting of producing prejudices. Along with sharing this mission, recent and current attempts to historicize the interconnection between the local/ personal experience of Roma and the vicissitudes of grand politics in Central Europe reinforce the dimension of racialization as an alternative against simplistic explanations concerning socioeconomic deprivation and ethnic stigmatization, along with the daily practices of surviving.35

Notes 1 Jan Foll (1995) Dotočí Petr Václav svůj celovečerní debut Marian? Outsideři na vedlejších kolejích [Will Petr Václav Make His Feature Debut Marian? Outsiders on the Sidelines], Lidové noviny, 11.10.1995, s. VIII, č. 238. 2 Filmová a televizní fakulta Akademie múzických umění v  Praze (Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague). 3 Jan Šikl and Petr Václav (1993) Marian Námět, synopse, literární scénář [Marian: Theme, Synopsis, Literary Script], Národní Filmový Archiv, Knihovna. 4 Requiem pro panenku [Requiem for a Maiden] by Filip Renč (1991) and Kolja by Jan Svěrak (1996) are the clearest examples of this trend in early post-­socialist Czech film.

42  Whiteness 5 Correctional institutions. 6 Diagnostický ústav, or in the Czech slang definition, pasťák, refers to residential care institutions aimed at providing the most appropriate placement for children in conflict with the law. The word pasťák originates from the Czech past, meaning trap but also pastýř, meaning shepherd or pastor. 7 Šikl and Václav 1993. 8 5 otázek pro Jana Šikla [5 questions for Jan Šikl], Film 1996 14.1–15.11. s.35. 9 Foll, s. VIII. 10 Jan Jaroš (1996) Slibný debut Petra Václava [The Promising Debut of Petr Václav], Reflex, 49, p. 26. 11 Eva Kucová (1995) Chytilová žádala radnici o peníze na film pro kolegu [Chytilová Asked the Town Hall for Money for a Film by Her Colleague], MF Dnes, 4.10.1995, 1.VI No 232. 12 In the original, the word used is cikáně, which is consonant with the word for puppy – štěně. 13 Večerník, Jeden z Marianů [One of the Marians], Praha, 20.02.1997, s. 13. 14 Alena Prokopová (1997) Marian -­příběh o tíze osudu [Marian  – The Story of the Weight of Fate], Lidové noviny, 15.01.1997, s. 30. 15 Jaroš, p. 26. 16 Even in 2011, the report of the European Roma Rights Centre concerning residential care for Romani children was titled “Life Sentence,” although the content and conclusions were not so dramatic. It mainly attacked the discontinuity among different stages of social intervention with Romani families. 17 Pavelčíková (2004) Romové v českých zemích v letech 1945–1989 [Roma in the Czech Lands, 1945–1989], Praha, Úřad, p. 9. 18 Ibid, pp. 134, 135. 19 Nina Pavelčíková is a historian from the University of Ostrava, who has gained a reputation as one of the key experts concerning the history of Roma. 20 Ibid, p. 136. 21 Ibid, p. 104. 22 Cynthia Levine-­Rasky (2002) Working through Whiteness: International Perspectives, Albany, State University of New York Press, p. 16. 23 Probably, the most persistent echo of pathologizing Roma is the series of recent psychological surveys among Romani and non-­Romani parents aimed at elaborating the fundamental differences between their approaches to parenthood in order to explain the complications of the educational system through such differences. For instance, in the 2003 publication, Romové v  české společnosti: jak se nám spolu žije jaké má naše soužití vyhlídky [The Roma in Czech Society: How Do We Live Together, What Are the Perspectives for Our Co-­Existence, Pavel Navrátil [ed.] Praha, Portal], a collection of essays written by Czech psychologists, some experts compare Romani mothers with gardeners, while Czech mothers are like pot makers – because of either their passive or active role in raising children (pp. 106–107). Generally, all these experts emphasize the need to elaborate collective rather than individual specifics of Roma as different; because of their shared experience, their experiences were often labeled as spiritual dying or spiritual death, and the inability to maintain individuality due to such traumatic events as the Porajmos or socialist surveillance (p. 58). 24 Pavelčíková, p. 14. 25 Ibid, p. 13. 26 Ibid, p. 14. 27 Nira Yuval Davis (1997) Gender and Nation, London, Sage. 28 Levine-­Rasky, p. 16. 29 Miranda Fricker (2007) Epistemic Injustice: Power & the Ethics of Knowing, Oxford, UK, Oxford University Press, p. 154.

The post-­socialist shift in pathologizing 43 30 Wendy Brown (1997) The Impossibility of Women’s Studies, A Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies, 9, 3, pp. 79–101, 87. 31 Nira Yuval Davis (2010) Theorizing Identity: Beyond the ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ Dichotomy, Patterns of Prejudice, 44, 3, pp. 261–280. 32 Wendy Brown (2005) Edgework: Critical Essays on Knowledge and Politics, Princeton, NJ and Oxford, Princeton University Press, p. 32. 33 Ibid. 34 Julia Sardelić (2018) In and Out from the European Margins: Reshuffling Mobilities and Legal Statuses of Romani Minorities between the Post-­Yugoslav Space and the European Union, Social Identities, 24, 4, pp. 489–504, 491. 35 Ibid, p. 492.

4 The limits and options of historical narratives concerning Roma in Central Europe

The normalizing and pathologizing of Roma as traditional narratives In terms of Rüsen’s typology of historical narratives,1 both normalizing and pathologizing Roma can be defined as traditional narratives, stemming from pre-­given cultural patterns of self-­understanding – which operate as “a normative gaze, namely, an ideal from which to order and compare observations.”2 During the first post-­socialist decade, the main idea concerning the “Roma issue” was often formulated in terms of reestablishing healthier relationships between Roma and the non-­Romani majority.3 Traditional narratives do not resolve the task of historicizing but rather transhistoricize Roma by embedding them in a particular system of values affiliated with the modern discourse of truth, humanity and knowledge.4 For example, Donert directly poses the task of tracing what the history of Roma has provided to the international history of human rights – considering that this impact might make the past of Roma as non-­white comparable to African Americans’ struggle for their rights and emancipate them from the stigma of an objectified victim.5 According to Rüsen, one of the most consistent performances of traditional narratives is a monument mainly aimed at generalizing a very particular history in favor of “historically making sense of the experience of time.”6 Indeed, while narratives of pathologizing reverberate with the culture of grieving and objectifying the victims, normalizing produces very palpable lionizing of Roma and those who tried protecting them. Along with musealizing Roma, these pathways constitute whiteness as one of the present forms of life and ignore the consequences of whiteness concerning the empirical content of the history of segregation. Exemplary narratives focus on such content in order to interlink various levels of interpreting the past within a particular period, seen as a specific political project significant for the politics of belonging for minorities.7 In the historiography of Central Europe, the interwar period is seen as one of the most important for Jewish history, along with the turn to events such as the Holocaust and the postwar persecution of Jews in socialist countries. The socialist period has achieved a comparable position concerning the history of Roma in the region as framed by the dilemmas of loyalty and identity. Historicizing Roma remains a major part

Limits and options of historical narratives 45 of revising the legacy of the socialist period in Central Europe. For the last three decades, the historiography of Central Europe has significantly advanced from the simple equation of the socialist regime and segregation, including the various labels of socialist policy,8 to more nuanced approaches interlinking the specifics of the socialist regime and the politics concerning Roma.

Exemplary narratives in historicizing Roma: ruptures vs. continuities One of the earliest attempts to move from traditional to exemplary narratives about Roma in socialist Czechoslovakia included publications by Věra Sokolová, who aimed at conceptualizing the socialist politics concerning Roma as an example of a culture of racism.9 Prescribing to the socialist period an outstanding role in the segregation of Roma, Sokolová mostly aimed at revealing the violence and hostility of totalitarian politics. Equating socialism with an authoritarian regime determined the predominance of historical ruptures in narrating the history of Roma, and moreover, direct opposition of the interwar period to socialism inclined the author to frame her narration as a cascade of binary oppositions: good scholars who promoted the interests of Roma vs. the majority of scholars, who remained on the side of the authoritarian regime; the ignorance of Roma in public discourse during the socialist period vs. increased attention to Roma after 1989; the ignorance about Romani men in the case of sterilization vs. focusing on Romani women. Along with simplifying the story of Roma during the socialist period, these binaries fixed particular historical inaccuracies. Czech geneticists were among those who did not accept the plan for enforced sterilization of Roma. Further, their approach for institutionalizing genetic counseling directly produced the threat of arbitrariness among physicians in making decisions concerning sterilization. Along with geneticists, socialist filmmakers did not neglect the issue of Roma. Roma were represented in public discourse even until the end of the socialist period. For instance, one of the most famous comedy film directors, Dušan Klein, who directed the extremely popular comedy serial Basníci [The Poets, 1982–2016], made two films about Roma: Radikální řez [Radical Cut, 1983] and Kdo se bojí utíká [Who is Afraid Flees, 1986].10 What’s more, the long-­standing tradition of imagining Roma in Slovak films11 is totally ignored by Sokolová; the role of the Czech-­Slovak relationship in the segregation of Roma, one of the core driving forces, is neglected.12 Notwithstanding the plans of the state and of experts to involve both Romani men and women in the strategy aimed at limiting their natality, the attempts to persuade Romani men failed, but these vicissitudes of rooting the practice of enforced sterilization are not discussed. These omissions and inaccuracies in the text by Sokolová prevent anything other than a univocal understanding of the socialist regime’s wrongs in terms of direct oppression of Roma. Rüsen stresses the role of exemplary narratives in reproducing models of virtue and vice as aimed at forming identity “by generalizing experiences of time to rules of conduct.” In these and other historical inaccuracies, it is easy to recognize the lack of historical continuity in favor of prescribing to the socialist period an outstanding

46  Whiteness role in rooting the segregation of Roma. Sokolová has defined the socialist approach as a tool of incarceration and opposed it to “the policy of relative tolerance and ethnic coexistence proclaimed and practiced during the Czechoslovak interwar First Republic.”13 This contrast stems from accepting the outstanding role of the first Czechoslovak President, Tomáš Masaryk, as the one who guaranteed equality for minorities.14 In this turn, the explanatory scheme offered by Sokolová reduces the power within discursive structures “to mere means for achieving the intentions, aims, needs, interests, and objectives of subjects in non-­discursive structures.”15 Aligned with this approach, Sokolová explains institutional violence through the magnitude of stereotypes, stressing the role of the most powerful individuals in Czech culture and nation, who, notwithstanding their very different political affiliations, shared stereotypes and disseminated them to various audiences.16 Cornel West recognizes the echo of traditional, revisionist and vulgar Marxist approaches to the past in such historiography, which primarily “focuses on powers of kings, presidents, elites, classes.”17 In one of the very recent attempts to reflect upon the impact of anti-­Semitism on building the Czechoslovak nation during the interwar period, Michal Frankl and Miloslav Szabó come to similar conclusions as Sokolová, missing the interrelation between discursive practices and institutional approaches. They explain the decreasing intensity of anti-­Semitism in interwar Czechoslovakia and the marginal position of anti-­Semitic groups by stressing the following composition of driving forces: improving the national economy, turning to the democratic origins of the Czechoslovak state, the status of the Czechs as the winners in the war, and last but not least, the influence of Masaryk.18 Though both studies are very attentive to discursive practices, a rigorous analysis of mass media does not achieve continuity in their core explanations, which instead reproduce a reductionist approach to interpreting the role of a particular period in political history. Reflecting upon the options and limits of the concept of identity, Nira Yuval Davis provides possible explanations for privileging just one social category, in the case of historians who locate a particular explanation and claim that it is the only relevant factor. In studies of both interwar Jews and socialist Roma, the political regime, as a kind of entity, is seen as a certain social category within which Jews and Roma had the same positioning, as totally dependent on elite attitudes.19 Such an explanation constructs an individual’s social location, for example, “being a Jew during the interwar period” or “being a Roma during the socialist period,” as a univocal social destiny. Such objectification not only orchestrates epistemic injustice by ignoring the actual lived experience of minorities, but also neglects the call for discussing the weight of historically significant events “that initiate or constitute ruptures, mutations or more generally transformations in social forms.”20

Critical narratives of Central European history: losing Roma in transition By prioritizing non-­ discursive explanations, exemplary narratives assert that agents – political elites or regimes – create either the restrictions of segregation (in the case of interwar Jews) or the grounds for segregation (in the case of

Limits and options of historical narratives 47 socialist Roma). According to Roy Bhaskar, the historian should rather say: “[T]hey reproduce or transform it. That is, if society is always already made, then any concrete human praxis, or, if you like, act of objectivizing can only modify it; and the totality of such acts sustain or change it.”21 The mission of deepening knowledge about such transformative events inevitably calls for revising the previous pathos of revealing the crimes of totalitarian régimes. Critical narratives simultaneously shed light on previously neglected driving forces and negate the simplistic picture of socialism as a homogenized period of authoritative power. Such a path departure brings into the focus the strategies for legitimizing the socialist régime and involving various social groups in the relevant processes of negotiating with authorities. Aimed at explaining the power of the socialist regime not through direct oppression but through specific corrupting practices of legitimacy, critical narratives inevitably fix the composition of legitimizing discourses and their authors. This framework can result in a scenario in which historians remain attached to a particular event, defining its frontiers as a relatively short period before and after the event. Muriel Blaive22 explores the composition of driving forces that quelled resistance to Communist expansion in the 1950s, especially the role of the Soviet invasion of Hungary in 1956. Martin Schulze Wessel23 focuses on the Prague Spring and the differences in the degree of political involvement among different social groups as particular determinants of the subsequent Normalization period. Pavel Kolář and Michal Pullmann24 explain the end of the socialist regime as a logical output of Normalization. Despite their success in problematizing previous approaches to the socialist period, these surveys “schematize continuity only indirectly, namely by dissolving or destroying culturally effective ideas of continuity. . . . They form identity by denying given patterns of self-­understanding: it is the identity of obstinacy.”25 Remarkably, Kolář and Pullmann define the mission of their investigation of Normalization as meeting the challenge of the dichotomy of identifying with vs. alienating from the socialist period.26 The options and limits of this approach concerning Roma can be recognized in the monographs by Matěj Spurný, Nejsou jako my česká společnost a menšiny v pohraničí (1945–1960) [They Are Not Like We Are: Czech Society and Minorities in the Border Zone (1945–1960)], published in 2011, and Most do budoucností: laboratoř socialistické modernity na severu Čech [Making the Most of Tomorrow: A Laboratory of Socialist Modernity in Czechoslovakia], published in 2016. Spurný is only one among the cohort of those who produce critical narratives that focus on Roma; his interest in Roma stems from a choice in favor of events directly related to migration. The “Gypsy issue” is not core in Spurný’s narration, and vice versa, the politics concerning Roma is built into the vicissitudes of socialist legitimacy concerning two events: the relocation of populations on the borders of postwar Czechoslovakia after the expulsion of Germans and the industrialization of Most, a city in the northern part of the country. Spurný does not accept the interpretation of the role of Communist Party pressure as the leading factor in the segregation of Roma because “of deepening the atmosphere of control, reinforcing the [authoritative] regime, which more and more relied on

48  Whiteness dogmatic ideology irrelevant to discussing the issue [of ethnicity] and even more, a liberal solution.”27 Attacking the view on socialism as an entity of authoritative practices28 inclines Spurný to focus on the internal struggle among different camps of elites as well as on the tensions between central and local authorities as the main explanatory scheme for the decisions that aggravated the segregation of Roma. In line with the pathos of critical narratives, Spurný unmasks the simplicity of the view on socialism as a rogue regime, offering a more nuanced explanation aimed at reflecting upon the patterns of modernity and their mutation within the socialist approach to a planned economy. In his latest book about Most,29 a city in the lignite-­mining region, in which the historical older part was demolished because of coal mining in the 1960s and 1970s, Spurný has traced the inefficient approach to planning the city’s transformation. He examines the roots of the city’s organizational troubles, as well as the consequences of extending the period of decision-­making and its further implementation as a main factor in the arrival of Roma, who initially lived in the older part of the city until it was finally demolished. They were then transferred to a special location built for Roma only. Placing Roma into such a ghetto was a part of the Most experiment, and Spurný provides a rigorous historical argument against the persistent blame placed on Roma as those who destroyed the old part of the city. Even though he recognizes the vicissitudes of modernity in the history of socialist Most, Spurný does not extrapolate this conclusion to the politics concerning Roma. This omission is the result of using scientific knowledge that reflects “European solutions to European problems. Such solutions neglect the relationship between interventions in nature that benefit Europeans and their environmental, economic and political cost for non-­European groups.”30 Excluding racism from revising socialism as reflecting modernity is one of the core obstacles in Spurný’s narration. While Spurný recognizes the racist or, as a minimum, the nationalistic nature of diskurs očisty (discourse of cleaning) in the politics concerning minorities,31 he relegates the issue of racial thinking to the margins of his historical consciousness. The racist views of the public are explained as adopted by the Czechs during the Protectorate,32 and although Spurný does not idealize the interwar period, in contrast to Sokolová, he also neglects the continuity in reproducing racially minded views on Roma among Czechs (with the exception of the case of legislation aimed at eliminating the nomadic mode of life issued in 1927 and 1958). Excluding racist thinking from the explanatory scheme inclines Spurný to view the politics of assimilation and surveillance as two extremes, or, even more, parts of binary oppositions rather than interrelated strategies recruited by the majority during various periods in favor of the same aim – oppressing Roma. One of the most consistent examples of the inadequacy of this dichotomy in Spurný’s work is the Škola Míru (School of Peace) in Květušín – one of the first educational projects based upon the idea of emancipating Romani children from their families in favor of their “civilizing.” Despite defining this approach as cruel,33 Spurný stresses the ambivalent experiences of children, including both trauma due to being displaced from their families as well as excitement in discovering new options for

Limits and options of historical narratives 49 development.34 While this ambivalent view on such educational experiments can be seen as acceptable on the level of theoretical debates, in practice, this ambivalence operates as one of the efficient instruments for manipulating Roma. Miroslav Dědíč, the leader of experiment recalls: I remember how I was telling them [Romani students]: “Look; mom and dad, they are only one. You have only one mom and only one dad, but because you are at a higher level, you have to elaborate an approach toward them, not they toward you. It is not that those who are less educated should influence you – you will influence them. But communicate with your parents in a way that does not give them the reason to feel that you are separate from them and alienated from them.”35 Briefly, Dědíč easily accepts responsibility for opposing the identity of children to the identity of their parents, but avoids sharing responsibility for the inevitable internal conflict of young Roma – he is simply persuaded by the choice of assimilation as only option. The film Zatajené dopisy [Suppressed Letters, Tomáš Kudrna 2015] involves the former students of Dědíč in the process of recognizing the practice of hiding the letters of their parents and working through this experience; they faced the hostile attitudes of notable experts, who aimed to protect not the method but the reputation and role of Miroslav Dědíč.36 Jaroslav Balvín stresses the best interest of the student as “a predisposing public good, a kind of ethical grounds for contemporary educators.”37 Balvín accepts some marginal excesses in the practices of Dědíč but explains them within a particular historical approach to the migration of Roma as their voluntarily choice for which they should take responsibility, including the inevitable ruptures between the generations of Roma. What type of historical narrative is suited for recognizing the wrongs in arguments such as Balvín’s sureness over the moral concern of Dědíč’s approach? According to Rüsen, only genetic narratives “give direction to the temporal change of humans and the world, to which the listeners must accordingly adjust their lives in order to cope with the challenging alterations of time.”38 Recent attempts at practicing genetic narratives have faced numerous obstacles.

Quasi-­genetic narratives of Roma: missing historical evidence Two studies conducted by Kateřina Sidiropulu Janků and Barbora Šebová aim to involve Roma in working through their marginalized memories and reconceiving their past as an indispensable part of their identity. Sidiropulu Janků focuses in on the memories of Slovak Roma who transferred to Bohemia and Moravia after 1945, and Šebová traces the destiny of the former students of Dědíč. Both apply personalized narration – providing the names and details concerning the personalities of narrators to achieve dignity and because “nameless storytellers could easily be turned into caricatures.”39

50  Whiteness Both researchers recruit the next generations of Roma to act in the role of animators: grandchildren interviewed their grandparents in order to provide the grounds for redefining the past. Sidiropulu Janků and Šebová combine academic and public trajectories for disseminating the outputs of their studies. Sidiropulu Janků organized an exhibition named Khatar san? [Where are you from?], targeted with mapping the options for Roma to indicate their origin: “The place of origin is still important for them [Roma] regardless how often they visit or if not at all. They did not consider their new living places as their homes for long. That fact was behind some of their attitudes towards the majority, together with feelings of rootlessness and also the other migration of some.”40 Šebová is one of the authors of the documentary Zatajené dopisy [Suppressed Letters], which asks not only about the feelings of those who were exposed to institutional violence but also the driving forces that led Dědíč to reinforce the oppression of Roma: “Why did a gifted educator, who tried protecting the children of Sudeten Germans, who closely knew the destiny of his Jewish peers, who experienced the cruelty of the first years of communist regime, accept the path of violence?”41 The historical surveys conducted by Sidiropulu Janků and Šebová can be defined as genetic narratives in terms of their aims, and also in terms of the scope their narration; they fix particular lacunas of absent historical knowledge. Sidiropulu Janků stresses that “the Roma post-­war history in the Czech Republic doesn’t have well established social frames such as topics which should be seen by the narrators themselves as demandable for referencing.”42 Despite tracing the interrelation between increasing public acceptance of the approach offered by Dědíč and violence against families and children as two-­sided process, Šebová mainly addresses the reflection of this interrelation at the personal level, emphasizing the role of fear in making a mistake as the grounds for Dědíč’s arbitrariness.43 This coexistence of the well-­articulated call for genetic narratives and recognizing the limits of their elaboration due to missing historical continuities leads to defining the type of narration presented in the writings of Sidiropulu Janků and Šebová as quasi-­genetic narratives. Both authors have faced palpable confrontation from the side of historians. Sidiropulu Janků mentions the devaluation of the Romani respondents’ narration from the side of the historians “who considered that the content of the Roma’s memory is difficult for interpreting, too abstract, non-­transparent or even more void.”44 Despite the final distinctive mark it received, the thesis by Šebová has engendered extremely critical responses from historians, her supervisor and her reviewer, because of its lack of mainstream historiographic approaches – for instance, by Pavelčíková. Despite understanding the incompatibility of their approaches with the existing range of the strategies for historicizing Roma,45 Sidiropulu Janků and Šebová face a lack of alternatives that would be able to provide historical contextualization for the personal narrations of Roma whose identity struggles with binary oppositions such as Czechs vs. Slovaks, socialism vs. democracy, dignity vs. well-­being and most of all, white vs. non-­white.

Limits and options of historical narratives 51

Conclusion The case of Roma remains a useful example for particular explanatory schemes targeted at either particularizing Central Europe or embedding it in global trends on reflecting the past. Many recent attempts to historicize Roma link their past with the issue of migration/citizenship and ongoing debates on the impact of socialist/totalitarian regimes on the post-­socialist neoliberal climate of Central Europe. Though this body of research introduces new, important, contexts for recognizing the destiny of Roma, such a utilitarian view (what the Romani case can bring to the history of Central Europe) impedes the options for restoring epistemic justice. Looking at the history of Central Europe through the lenses of whiteness studies allows us to redefine its timeline by emphasizing the role of whiteness as an indispensable part of emancipating postcolonial Europe. While not all nations in Central and Southern Europe faced the pressure of whiteness from the side of their “masters,” adopting whiteness as a way of establishing the balance of independence from a colonial past and reembedding in Europe is a scenario shared by a majority of these postcolonial nations. The period before the influence of Nazi Germany in the region started to escalate can be seen as the first wave of whiteness. While many countries faced the reproduction of the motives of colonial dependence on the Third Reich and the Soviet Union, the periods of deliberation or even increasing hopes of independence (for instance, the Prague Spring) can be explored in terms of several postcolonial waves of whiteness. Reconstructing the genetic narratives of whiteness in postcolonial Europe is indispensable for historicizing Roma, who remain the hostages of this pathway toward nation-­building.

Notes 1 Jörn Rüsen (1997) Historical Narration: Foundation, Types, Reason, History and Theory, 26, 4, pp. 87–97. 2 Cornel West (1982) A Genealogy of Modern Racism, in Cornel West (ed.) Prophecy Deliverance! Towards an Afro-­American Revolutionary Christianity, Philadelphia, PA, Westminster Press, pp. 47–68, 53–54. 3 For example, the conference “Romové a majorita: k výchově zdravých vztahů mezi lidmi” [“Roma and the Majority: Towards Cultivating Healthy Relationships Among People”], patronized by Jarosláv Balviín, one of the most influential historians of Czech education, held in Kladno in December 1996, was targeted at equipping teachers in special schools with new competencies for working with Romani students. 4 Rüsen, p. 89. 5 Celia Donert (2017) The Rights of the Roma: The Struggle for Citizenship in Postwar Czechoslovakia, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press. 6 Rüsen, p. 90. 7 Nira Yuval Davis (2010) Theorizing Identity: Beyond the ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ Dichotomy, Patterns of Prejudice, 44, 3, pp. 261–280, 266. 8 Györgz Csepeli and Dávid Simon (2004) Construction of Roma Identity in Eastern and Central Europe: Perception and Self-­Identification, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, 30, 1, pp. 129–150, 132.

52  Whiteness 9 Věra Sokolová (2008) Cultural Politics of Ethnicity: Discourses on the Roma in Communist Czechoslovakia, Stuttgart, Ibidem-­Verlag. 10 The casting of both films reflected the intention of the film director to make the films attractive to the audience. In Kdo se bojí utíká, the most popular actors of that period were recruited. Radikální řez employed non-­professional Romani actors together with popular Czech actors. 11 Zuzana Mojžišová (2014) Premýšĺanie o filmových Rómoch [Thinking About the Roma in Films], Bratislava, Vysoká škola múzických umení Braislava, Filmová a televízna fakulta. 12 It is reasonable to mention Czech films that included Roma in the narration, such as Dobré svetlo [A Good Light, Karel Kachyňa, 1986] and Skalpel, prosím [Scalpel, Please, Jiří Svoboda, 1985], which both introduced Roma as supporting characters in a positive manner. 13 Sokolová, p. 49. 14 Ibid, p. 66. 15 West, p. 49. 16 Sokolová, p. 103. 17 Ibid. 18 Michal Frankl and Miloslav Szabó (2015) Budování státu bez antisemitismu? Násilí, diskurz loajality a vznik Československa [Building the State Without Anti-­Semitism? Violence, Discourse of Loyalty and the Appearance of Czechoslovakia], Praha, Nakladatelství Lidové noviny, p. 306. 19 Davis, p. 268. 20 Roy Bhaskar (2005) The Possibility of Naturalism: A  Philosophical Critique of the Contemporary Human Sciences, London, Routledge, p. 41. 21 Ibid, p. 36, emphasis ours. 22 Muriel Blaive (2001) Promarněná příležitost. Československo a rok 1956 [A Missed Opportunity: Czechoslovakia and the Year 1956], Praha, Prostor. 23 Martin Schulze Wessel (2018) Pražské jaro: Průlom do nového světu [Prague Spring: Breakthrough into a New World], Prague, ARGO. 24 Pavel Kolář and Michal Pullmann (2016) Co byla normalizace? Studie o pozdním socialismu [What was Normalization? Studies of Late Socialism], Praha, Nakladatelství Lidové noviny; Michal Pullmann (2011) Konec experimentu. Přestavba a pád komunismu v Československu. [The End of the Experiment: The Transformation and Crush of Communism in Czechoslovakia], Praha, Scriptorium. 25 Rüsen, p. 92. 26 Kolář and Pullmann, pp. 16–17. 27 Donert, p. 16. 28 Matěj Spurný (2011) Nejsou jako my: Česká společnost a menšiny v pohraničí (1945– 1960) [They Are Not Like We Are: Czech Society and Minorities in the Border Zone (1945–1960)], Praha, Antikomplex, p. 281. 29 The book was published in English: Matěj Spurný (2019) Making the Most of Tomorrow: A Laboratory of Socialist Modernity in Czechoslovakia, Prague, Carolinum. 30 Sandra Harding (1997) Is Modern Science an Ethnoscience? Rethinking Epistemological Assumptions, in Emmanuel Chukwudi Eze (ed.) Postcolonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader, Cambridge, MA: Blackwell Publishing Ltd., pp. 45–70, 54. 31 Spurný (2011), p. 248. 32 Ibid, pp. 240, 246. 33 In 2009, Barbora Šebová defended her masters thesis, “Škola Míru” v Květušíně 1950– 1954 (a její pokračování na Dobré Vodě u Prachatic) – kritická reflexe v historickém kontextu 50 [“The School of Peace” in Květušín 1950–1954 (and its Continuation at Dobrá Voda u Prachatic) – a Critical Reflection on the Historical Context of the 1950s], which revealed the consistent practice of educators to hide the letters sent by parents

Limits and options of historical narratives 53 34 35 36 37 38 39 40

41 42

43 44 45

from their children. Diplomová práce, Filozofická fakulta Univerzity Karlovy v Praze, Ústav jižní a centrální Asie Seminář romistiky. Spurný (2011), p. 263. Tomáš Kudrna (2015) Zatajené dopisy [Suppressed Letters] production of Studio OmeU D. Jaroslav Balvín (2016) Etika učitele jako zápas [The Ethics of the Teacher as a Fight], Speciální pedagogika, 26, 1, pp. 60–74. Ibid, p. 66. Rüsen, p. 92. Kateřina Nedbálková and Kateřina Sidiropulu Janků (eds.) (2015) Doing Research, Making Science: The Memory of Roma Workers, Brno, Masaryk University, p. 27. Kateřina Sidiropulu Janků (2015) Khatar san? Jak slovenští Romové přišli do českých zemí za prací a co se dělo potom (katalog k výstavě) [Khatar San? How Slovak Roma Came to the Czech Lands for Work and What Happened Next (Exhibition Catalog)], Brno: Masarykova univerzita, p. 12. Lenka Jandáková (2015) Zatajené dopisy: Dokument o experimentu s romskými dětmi [Suppressed Letters: Documentary about the Experiment with Romani Children], available online at www.romea.cz/cz/kultura/film/zatajene-­dopisy-­material-­pro-­dilnu-­lidskosti. Kateřina Sidiropulu Janků (2013) Marginalizovaní pamětníci, marginalizované vzpominky. Romští dělníci vzpominají na přichod do českých zemí za prací po druhé světové válce [Marginalizing Narrators, Marginalized Memories: Roma Workers Remember Their Arrival to the Czech Lands for Jobs after World War II], in Petr Bednařík, Blanka Soukopová and Helena Nosková (eds.) Paměť – Národ – Menšiny – Marginalizace – Identity I, Praha, Kosmas, pp. 143–153, 148. Šebová, pp. 101–102. Sidiropulu Janků, p. 147. For example, Sidiropulu Janků stresses her intention to avoid any affiliation with labeling the history of Roma as a “cultural holocaust.”

Part II

The (in)educability of Roma Central Europe between overt and enlightened racism

5 The inception of whiteness The Grellmannian intersections of European Roma

The Grellmannian dichotomies: introducing colonial discourse to the “Gypsy issue” Though Nancy Leys Stepan believes that the origin of many of the “root metaphors” of human differences are obscure,1 in the case of the analogy between non-­ whiteness, Roma and children, it is not only possible but demandable to explore the inception of whiteness as the core of the long-­term framing of the attitudes toward Roma as limited in their educability. Among other analogies, the metaphor of childlike thinking (kindische Denkart) among Roma, comparable with African slaves, was developed by Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann (1756–1804), who had written Die Zigeuner, ein historischer Versuch über die Lebensart, Verfassung und Schicksale dieses Volkes in Europa, nebst ihrem Ursprunge [Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing Their Manner of Life, Occupations and Trades, Marriages and Education, Sickness, Death and Burials, Religion, Sciences, Art], one of the most authoritative texts about Roma in Central Europe that maintained an influence over the course of the next two centuries.2 Publication of this essay, his academic debut, opened to Grellmann, a protégé of Christian Wilhelm Büttner, an influential scholar of the Indian language,3 a brilliant academic pathway toward becoming a respected expert in cultural history and statistics. The fact that Grellmann’s essay was translated into French, English and Dutch pointed to the presence of increasing demand for systematically theorized arguments concerning Roma in Western Europe and reverberated with moral panics about Roma, who began to be blamed for practicing cannibalism. Grellmann, who belonged to the Gottingen school of pragmatic history, focused on intuitive understanding and analogies as key devices in formulating significant historical explanations. He applied the method of analogy to deconstructing the past and present of Roma, and elaborated an ambitious and powerful framework that represented a key challenge to Enlightenment thought, regarding how differences between people should be explained.4 Nicholas Saul has explained the outstanding success of Grellmann’s text as “more informative and sophisticated than many of its predecessors” through the consistent practicing of the German Orientalist tradition, which led to resolving the question of differences among people by accepting the total dependence of

58  The (in)educability of Roma Gypsies on “the white races for that’s humanity full realization.”5 Remarkably, one of the main popularizers of the Grellmannian approach was Theodor Tetzner, a schoolteacher, who published in 1835 “Geschichte der Zigeuner, ihre Herkunft, Natur und Art” [“History of Gypsies, Their Origin, Nature and Type”]. Based upon the text by Grellmann, it addressed educators who worked with Roma.6 Also in line with the Enlightenment focus upon education, Grellmann asked questions regarding the role of childhood in the destiny of “Gipseys”: [Considering] the character of people being formed by the instruction they receive in their early years, can it then be thought surprising that Gipseys should be idlers, thieves, murderers, and incendiaries? Is it probable, that a man should become diligent, who has been educated in laziness? Can it be expected that those should leave every person in possession of his own property, whose father and mother have taught them to steal, from their earliest infancy?7 While his obvious focus on the assimilation of Roma perfectly dovetailed with the sacralization of childhood as being invested with sentimental value, a mainstream of modern thinking,8 it questioned the long tradition of demonizing Roma by the public as well as by the authorities.9 In order to solve the potential conflict between his Enlightenment affiliation and the expectations of influential interest groups, Grellmann shaped his text as a sophisticated intellectual game involving a contest between two main approaches toward understanding the origin of non-­white Otherness: the early modern perspective prescribing a decisive role to environmental factors such as climate or mode of life (e.g., nutrition) and the more typically late modern, racialized view of non-­whiteness as an inherent characteristic. Generating multiple analogies among “Gipseys,” children, whiteness and the history of races reverberated with the main challenge Grellmann faced: the necessity to balance between the desire for Roma to become “civilized” in line with Enlightenment intentions and the limits of the civilizing mission due to increased concern for public security. The main tool for solving this task was the systematic deconstruction of the dichotomy nature vs. nurture. In this way, Grellmann moved from an ambiguous view on the interrelation between the physical and mental qualities of Roma – “bodily qualities of the Gipseys, we find them, or at least some of them, very evidently arising from their education and manner of life”10 – to a perspective outlining the systematic grounds for further intraracial hierarchies of Roma practiced by scholars in Central Europe. Within early modern thinking, the role of the environment was often adduced in a causal explanation for human physical and temperamental differences,11 and Grellmann took into account the solid scholarship within this approach, delineating the options for “civilizing” or, even more, humanizing Roma, whom he considered to be “the rude unpolished creatures that nature formed them, or, at most, have only advanced one degree towards humanity.”12 The main argument for such a vision was the nature of social life among Roma, not the color of their skin: “the dark colour of the Gipseys, which is continued from generation to generation, is

The inception of whiteness 59 more the effect of education, and manner of life, than descent.”13 By referencing Linnaeus’s classification from Systema Naturea, Grellmann compared the “artificial” blackness of “Gipseys” with those from nations also seen as black because of their mode of life: The Laplanders, Samoieds, as well as the Siberians, likewise, have brown, yellow-­coloured skin, as a consequence of living, from their childhood, in smoke and dirt, in the same manner as the Gipseys. . . . Only observe a Gipsey from his birth, till he reaches man’s estate; and you must he convinced that their colour is not so much owing to their descent, as to the nastiness of their bodies.14 Thus, according to this approach, changing the “Gipsey” mode of life should change the color of the skin: “[They] must necessarily, when they first adopted a different mode of life, have borne the marks of the dirt contracted during this period.”15 Along with recognizing the blackness of Roma as the inevitable outcome of an improper mode of life, Grellmann welcomed their extraordinary physical capacities: These people are blessed with an astonishingly good state of health. Neither wet nor dry weather, neither heat nor cold, let the extremes follow each other ever so quickly, seems to have any effect on them. Gipseys are fond of a great degree of heat; their supreme luxury is, to lie day and night so near the fire, as to be in danger of burning: at the same time, they can bear to travel in the severest cold bareheaded, with no other covering than a torn shirt, or some old rags carelessly thrown over them, without fear of catching cold, cough, or any other disorder.16 Although Grellmann did not provide any explanation for such physical health, its potential operated as a key argument in favor of assimilation: “It appears certain that the Gipseys are not deficient in capacity. . . . Their skill and ingenuity might render them very profitable subjects to the state.”17 An ambiguous attitude toward the physical Otherness of Roma not only reflects the mixed attitudes typical of Grellmann and other modern thinkers toward the acceptance of human diversity, but also exaggerates the intolerance of the social peculiarities of Romani life: “their [the Roma’s] disposition makes them the most useless pernicious beings.”18 Mainly, Romani women were blamed for their “wicked depraved turn of mind,”19 which the “Gipseys” “have throughout”: “How much less, then, should we be able to distinguish a Gipsey if taken when a child from its sluttish mother, and brought up under some cleanly person!”20 The readiness to accept some but not all Roma reverberated with the systematic opposition of Roma to the modern ideal of Europeanness – the white, male Christian. Grellmann employed the research of his colleague and close friend, historian Christoph Meiners, whose publication Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit

60  The (in)educability of Roma [The Outline of the History of Mankind, 1785] focused on the opposition of “ugly” black and “beautiful” white people. Grellmann not only shared the polygenism of Meiners but also applied the cascade of binary oppositions introduced by Meiners, pitting Europeans against African Americans, to describe Roma. The content and framework of Grellmann’s essay point to three interrelated dichotomies through which he deepened the differentiation of Roma according to their capacity to become civilized: (1) non-­human vs. human, prescribing separate origins to Roma and Europeans; (2) children (servants) vs. adults (masters), shaping the main pathway toward assimilation; and (3) women vs. men, constructing the extremes for equating non-­whiteness with the incapacity to become human. Juxtaposed, these dichotomies affected the concept of educability in terms of the options and limits of the civilizing mission.

Non-­human “Gypsies” vs. human Europeans: struggling for progress The Eurocentric contempt that stemmed from judging the “other” according to one’s own Christian-­European values21 framed the Grellmannian approach toward Roma. The core of this contempt, namely, considering a Christian as superior to any non-­Christian, whether Jewish, Turk, or “pagan,” in the same way as any human is superior to an animal,22 exaggerated the dichotomy of “Gipseys” vs. Europeans, with the former as inferior to Christian Europeans just as animals are inferior to any human. According to Grellmann, every “Gipsey” can be described through “materialized agility, great suppleness and the free use of his limbs.”23 This clearly animalistic description reverberated with the call to take responsibility for the reeducation of these beings “with an iron construction”: “Perhaps it is reserved for our age, in which so much has been attempted for the benefit of mankind, to humanise a people who, for centuries, have wandered in error and neglect.”24 In the potential progress or humanization of Roma, Grellmann recognized the wisdom of God through the observation of the workings of nature, a view typical within the natural theology of early modernity. This point served the main message espoused by Grellmann, who shared the missionary universalism of Christianity, which holds that all people throughout the world are at least potentially improvable, to the extent that they are prepared to become “like us”:25 “It may be hoped, that while we are endeavouring to ameliorate the condition of our African brethren, the civilisation of the Gipseys, who form so large a portion of humanity, will not be overlooked.”26 What inclined Grellmann to think about Roma as potentially more human than “Africans” was the option to cope with Roma as free citizens rather than slaves: “Banishment was not the proper method to be adopted; it would have been not adviseable to make them penitentiaries or galley-­slaves: but care should have been taken to enlighten their understandings, and to mend their hearts.”27 This very Enlightenment-­style attitude also reflected the main achievement of the Habsburgs, according to the opinion of intellectuals. The Serfdom  Patent

The inception of whiteness 61 (Leibeigenschaft), aimed at abolishing serfdom, stressed not the better degree of progress among “Gypsies” or their potential in contrast to African slaves but the more progressive nature of power in Europe than in the American colonies. Increasing benevolent paternalism toward Roma may be seen as a part of the general campaign in favor of opposing an enlightened Europe to the dark medieval period typical of the German-­speaking space.28 While eliminating the cruel medieval approach toward Roma was seen as a sign of the deliberation and progress of Europe, Roma themselves were not seen as a subject of this process. One of the adopters of the Grellmannian approach, Prussian general Karl von Heister, described his impression from meeting “Gypsies” as ambiguous in terms of the trust in the story told by them: Christian Anton, who had reached his 60s, was born in Königsberg, which inclines me to think that he was from the tribe that arrived from Greece in 1784. Primarily a chimney sweeper, he had purchased two horses through the price of malnutrition and dressing in rags. According to his statement, he had been living for 23 years in Ladagiene, which is impossible to prove. He made a living as a tinker, and he, as well as the members of his family, were known as fair and reliable habitants.29 Operating in favor of fixing the opposition between non-­Europeans and Europeans, the analogy between Roma and “Africans” reproduced the great chain of being: “[T]he doctrine postulated that species were immutable entities arrayed along a fixed and vertical hierarchy stretching from God above down to the lowliest sentient being.”30 African Americans were seen as the missing link between the ape and the human, and comparing Roma with African Americans transferred this position onto Roma. Stemming from typical “modern” thinking that prescribed separate origins to different human groups, mainly white and non-­white,31 the opposition between Roma and Europeans emphasized “the rude nature of their [Romani] ancestors.” In order to juxtapose the principal causes of such differences, namely, unpleasant environmental factors and degenerate morals, Grellmann focused on the everyday routines of Romani life, including nutrition, marital life and parenting. Because the question of diet lies at the boundary between physiology and custom: once eaten, the digestion of food is a bodily process . . ., but the selection of which foods are to be eaten, how they are prepared, and so on, is a matter of culture,32 describing “inhuman habits” such as eating animal carcasses, cooking decayed products or even possible cannibalism, depicted Roma as originating from “the uncultivated branches of a wild stock.”33 The consistent exploitation of the analogy between Roma and children dovetailed with the mission to demonstrate the “shared ancestry” of Roma34 and to prescribe the primary responsibility for the lack of humanity to previous generations, including parents.

62  The (in)educability of Roma

Eternal children vs. masterful adults: unapproachable assimilation According to Sara Ahmed, “it is no accident that race has been understood through familial metaphors.”35 Extending the family form “works powerfully to produce a particular version of race and a particular version of family, predicated on ‘likeness.’ ”36 The way in which Grellmann intertwined the history of Roma and Europeans, and childhood and parenting, represents an example of such racial extension of the family form. By considering the “Gipseys” as a part of the “Oriental” world, he opposed West and East in terms of the guidance of the nations by gods. The countries of the Western world were defined as “ripe for further instruction: then came the great Sower – Christ scattered the seed, and it prospered.”37 “Oriental” people, including Roma, were seen as entirely infantile and also led by a god, who recognized their vulnerability and abused it: Mahomet, on the contrary, before he became strong enough to enforce conviction with the sword, brought about his purpose by art: knowing that the weak side of his countrymen was their veneration for every thing handed down from their forefathers. He gave his new religion the colouring of antiquity also of his madness.38 These two interrelated motives, the immaturity of the “Gipseys” and improper guidance by their god, played a central role in elaborating a pro-­racial view on the limits of Roma to become civilized: because of their “Oriental” origins, “Gipseys” remain eternal children until they assume their “uncivilized” patterns of parenting and raising children. Grellmann easily jumped from a sociogenic analogy, between inferior people, servants and children on the one side, and gods, masters and parents on the other, to the parental practices of Roma – which he defined as typical of “uncivilized” people and distinguished by unbounded love for their children: this is a source of the most unpardonable neglect. Gipsey children never feel the rod; they fly into the most violent passion, and at the same time, hear nothing from their parents but flattery and coaxing.39 In Grellmann’s text, there were many examples in favor of labeling “Gipsey” parenting as genetically unfit with moral obligations. For instance, he discussed the instruction of “Gipsey” girls to dance provocative dances by their fathers: Their dancing is the most disgusting that can be conceived, always ending with fulsome grimaces, or the most lascivious attitudes and gestures. . . . They are trained up to this impudence from their earliest years, never suffering a passenger to pass their parents’ hut, without endeavouring to obtain something by frisking about naked before him.40

The inception of whiteness 63 The interplay between innocence, childhood and degradation operated in favor of interlinking souls and bodies in the most possible direct way: “The best body is the one had by a moral soul, which is to say the one left to develop as nature intends.”41 According to Grellmann, wild love resonated with hard living conditions – which also endowed the “Gipseys” with physical capacities beyond the abilities of normal people: “The pitiless mother takes her three-­month-­old child upon her back, and wanders about in fair or foul weather, in heat or cold, without troubling her head what may happen to it.”42 While “Gipsey” parenting broke souls and bodies, a proper European education would instruct the “Gipseys” through active, willful intervention: “[Considering] the character of people being formed by the instruction they receive in their early years, can it then be thought surprising that Gipseys should be idlers, thieves, murderers, and incendiaries?”43 Though Grellmann pathetically dubbed his approach the “Alexander’s sword . . . [that] cut the knot which no milder means could undo,”44 he definitely intertwined two approaches to the blackness of Roma – environmental and racial – into an internally contradictory concept of the ineducability of Roma. They were seen as eternal children, unable to become responsible adults, but also obeying the mandate to become assimilated in line with white expectations. Later, this stance was easily used by those German scholars equipped to “prove” the totally degenerative profile of Romani development. The child psychiatrist Robert Ritter legitimized his competence to study Roma by saying: “Gypsies never grew out of childhood, so it wasn’t all that illogical for a child psychiatrist to occupy himself intensively with them.”45 Eva Justin, a colleague of Ritter, updated the Grellmannian analogy between Roma and children by using recapitulation theory in order to demonstrate the intractable degeneracy of even those Romani children who were emancipated from their families. Along with it, equating Roma with eternal childhood opened unlimited options for reinforcing racial prejudices against Romani women and establishing the longue durée of analogy between race and gender concerning Roma.

The bestiality of “Gypsy” women vs. the whiteness of European men: toward the radical divergence of racial difference In the eighteenth century, the traditional Christian opposition of women to men as “lacking perfection of mind and body – resides nearer to the beast than does man”46 transformed into the idea of sexual complementarity, which defined males and females as opposites, each perfect though radically different.47 While the increased importance of maternal duties and childcare for European states were the main factors in this turn, it directly aggravated the approach to Romani women, who, like African women, did not fit the European gender ideal of empowered mothers within the home.48 Often, Grellmann defined Romani mothers as providing trifling care seen as only aggravating blackness: “Gipsey women . . . frequently smear their children all over with a particular kind of ointment, and then lay them in the

64  The (in)educability of Roma sun, or before the fire, in order that the skin may be more completely parched, and their black beauty thereby increased.”49 By indicating “Gipsey” mothering as a core source of degradation, Grellmann easily approached the racial concept of blackness as a symptom of “Gipsey” backwardness. Sharing with European women “the incommodious condition of being female in a male world,”50 Romani women were seen as innately different and unequal in their intellectual, emotional and moral capacities51 in contrast to some Romani men. Grellmann exceptionally relied on the “Gipsey” boys as “the most promising trained type,” while the parents and the majority of girls were defined as “the old stock, on whom no efforts will have effect.”52 In order to provide arguments in favor of his intolerant attitude toward young Romani women, he recounted the following anecdote: At Fahlendorfin Schiitt, and in the district of Pressburg, all the children of the Gipseys were carried away in wagons during the night of the 21st of December, 1773; in order that, at a distance from their parents or relations, they might be more usefully educated, and become accustomed to work. Among the children taken away on this occasion was a girl of fourteen years, who was forced to submit to be carried off in her bridal state. She tore her hair in grief and rage, and was quite beside herself with agitation: but she recovered a composed state of mind; and, in 1776, in Fasching, obtained permission to accomplish her marriage.53 Comparable to the colonial obsession with the sexuality of African Americans, Roma were seen as overly sexual. The obsession of sex appeal or, even more, the bodily perfection of Roma – “[T]hey are neither overgrown giants, nor diminutive dwarfs: their limbs are formed in the justest proportion. Large bellies are, among them, as uncommon as hump-­backs, blindness, or other corporeal defects”54 – reverberated with presenting them as promiscuous and immoral. Among many prescriptions to Romani parents, Grellmann mentioned such caveats as: “Prevent, as much as possible, their children from running about naked, in the house, the roads, and streets, thereby giving offense and disgust to other people” and “In their dwellings, do not permit their children to run and to sleep promiscuously by each other, without distinction of sex.”55 As regards moral concern, these requirements were supplemented by the call for a more systematic practice of Christianity: “[T]hey [Roma] must not only be taught the principles of religion themselves, but send their children early to school[,] . . . diligently attend church, particularly on Sundays and holidays, to give proof of their Christian disposition.”56 It is possible to conclude by saying that Grellmann introduced the analogy between gender and race in line with the colonial view on “lower races as represented the ‘female’ type of the human species, and females as the ‘lower race’ of gender.”57 Grellmann defined successful assimilation as an exception, rather than a sustainable option for Roma: “The Gipseys have been long enough among civilized people, to prove that they will not be allured, by the mere example of others,

The inception of whiteness 65 to free themselves from the fetters of old customs and vices.”58 Tellingly, positive examples of assimilation included only social careers for males: If we expect, who are kept in order by the discipline of the corporal, with some of the Transylvanian gold washers, who apply to music – and, living separate from their own caste, in constant habits of intercourse with people of a better sort, have thereby acquired more civilised manners, and learned the distinction, if not between right and wrong, at least between social honour and disgrace – the remainder are, in the most unlimited sense, arrant thieves.59 Romani women were sentenced to be uneducable, asocial creatures: “This kind of artifice is particularly the province of the women, who have always been reckoned more dexterous than the men in the art of stealing.”60

Conclusion In line with the Eurocentric attitude toward non-­Christians as “barbarians,” Grellmann propagated a view on Roma as belonging among those “who are supposedly (still) racially immature”; accordingly, they should be subject to the education and governance of those who take themselves to be racially elevated.”61 This racial historicism reverberated with racial naturalism, a belief in the intrinsic or unchangeable inferiority of Roma. The multiplicity in the forms of liquid racism62 concerning Roma introduced by Grellmann directly shaped the following generations of thinkers employed by the authorities to provide theorized arguments in favor of racial assimilationism or the politics of extermination. Along with working through the Grellmannian intersections of Roma, the next generations continued to recruit “white” ways of thinking and seeing relevant to their times. The Grellmannian approach reinforced an Orientalist framework for interpreting Roma as non-­white “aliens” in the surveys concerning “Gypsies” in Turkey, one of the main pathways for racializing Roma in the first two thirds of the nineteenth century. For instance, Karl Humann and Karl Ritter von Scherzer described Roma as the most poor and dirty among the Turkish population, distinguished by an “unstable life, [with the] habit of living by begging and stealing as in any other countries where Gypsies have arrived.”63 Recognizing Roma as belonging to the Malay race, Karl von Heister added more nuances to their Otherness, for example, as those who would achieve puberty earlier than Europeans, which, in practice, resulted in more children than in Prussian families.64 Along with this outstanding natality, Heister emphasized the ability of Roma to survive in the most extreme, non-­European, conditions, whether under the African sun or in the Siberian cold.65 Ascribing “Oriental” origins to Roma reverberated with ideas concerning the outstanding resistance of the “Gypsy” body to infectious diseases. Along with reproducing stigma against Roma, these surveys opposed Europe, a white universe, to the “Orient,” a bastion of non-­whiteness. In the introduction to his survey of Roma in the Ottoman empire, Alexandros Geōrgious Paspatēs

66  The (in)educability of Roma directly opposed the restrictions against nomadic Gypsies in Europe described by Grellmann to Turkish connivance regarding the improper behavior of the “Gypsy” population.66 In 1922, Viktor Lebzelter directly ascribed the tremendous backlash of “Gypsies” on Balkans to the Ottoman yoke: “the cultural rise of Gypsies was destroyed by the Turkish invasion.”67 Hand in hand with demonizing the “Orient,” mainly the Ottoman empire, the racialization of Roma ascribed their non-­ whiteness to something other than European origin. This explanatory scheme was reinforced in the last third of the nineteenth century within the intensive racialization of peripheral Europe – Southern and Eastern European nations.

Notes 1 Nancy Ley Stepan (1986) Race and Gender: The Role of Analogy in Science, Isis, 77, 2, pp. 261–277. 2 Wim Willems (1997) In Search of the True Gypsies: From Enlightenment to Final Solution, London, Routledge, pp. 36–37. 3 Katrin Ufen (1996) Aus Zigeuner Menschen machen. Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann und das Zigeunerbild der Aufklärung [Constructing Gipsies: Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann and the Image of Gipsies during the Enlightenment], in Wulf D. Hund (ed.) Zigeuner: Geschichte und Struktur einer rassistischen Konstruktion [Gipsies: The History and Structure of One Racist Framework], Duisburg, DISS, pp. 67–90. 4 Willems, p. 40. 5 Nicholas Saul (2007) Gypsies and Orientalism in German Literature and Anthropology of the Long Nineteenth Century, London, Legenda, p. 6. 6 Marion Bonnilo (2000) Zigeunerpolitik im Deutschen Kaiserreich 1871–1918 [Gypsy Politics in the German Empire 1871–1918], Frankfurt um Mein: Peter Lang, p. 19. 7 Heinrich Moritz Gottlieb Grellmann (1807) Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing Their Manner of Life, Occupations and Trades, Marriages and Education, Sickness, Death and Burials, Religion, Sciences, Art, London, William Ballintine, p. 66. 8 Viviana A. Zelizer (1985). Pricing the Priceless Child, New York: Basic Books, Inc.; Nancy Folbre (2008) Valuing Children: Rethinking the Economics of the Family, Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press. 9 Shulamith Shahar (2017) Religious, Vagabonds, and Gypsies in Early Modern Europe, available online at https://brewminate.com/religious-­vagabonds-­and-­gypsies-­in-­early­modern-­europe/. 10 Grellmann 12, emphasis in original. 11 Philippe Descola (2005) Beyond Nature and Culture, Radcliffe-­Brown Lecture in Social Anthropology, available online at http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/downlo ad?doi=10.1.1.470.4920&rep=rep1&type=pdf. 12 Grellmann, p. 31. 13 Ibid, pp. 13–14. 14 Ibid. 15 Ibid. 16 Ibid, p. 12. 17 Ibid, p. 9. 18 Ibid. 19 Ibid. 20 Ibid, p. 14. 21 Nathan Ron (2018) Erasmus’ Ethnological Hierarchy of Peoples and Races, History of European Ideas, 44, 8, pp. 1063–1075, 1064. 22 Ibid, p. 1065. 23 Grellmann, p. 95.

The inception of whiteness 67 24 Ibid. 25 Justin Smith (1997) Nature, Human Nature and Human Difference Race in Early Modern Philosophy, Princeton, NJ, Princeton University Press, p. 53. 26 Grellmann, p. 99. 27 Ibid, p. 100. 28 Panikos Panayi (2000) Ethnic Minorities in 19th and 20th Century Germany: Jews, Gypsies, Poles, Turks and Others, New York, Routledge. 29 Karl von Heister (1842) Ethnographische und geschichtliche Notizen über die Zigeuner [Ethnographic and Historical Comments about the Gypsies], Königsberg, Verlagsort, pp. 146–147. 30 Londa Schiebinger (1993) Nature's Body: Gender in the Making of Modern Science, New Brunswick, NJ, Rutgers University Press. 31 Smith, p. 116. 32 Ibid, p. 124. 33 Grellmann, p. 11. 34 Steve Fenton (2003) Ethnicity, Malden, MA, Polity Press, p. 2. 35 Sara Ahmed (2007) Phenomenology of Whiteness, Feminist Studies, 8, 2, pp. 149–168, 154. 36 Ibid. 37 Grellmann, p. 34. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid, p. 65. 40 Ibid, p. 46. 41 Ibid. 42 Ibid, p. 66. 43 Ibid, emphasis in original. 44 Ibid, p. 12. 45 Willems, p. 209. 46 Grellmann, p. 16. 47 Ibid. 48 Ibid, p. 25. 49 Ibid. 50 Ibid, p. 26. 51 Jennie Jacobs Kronenfeld (2006) Gender and Health Status, in Janet Saltzman Chafetz (ed.) Handbook of the Sociology of Gender, Houston, TX, Springer University of Houston, pp. 459–481, 461. 52 Grellmann, p. 104. 53 Ibid. 54 Ibid. 55 Ibid, p. 106. 56 Ibid. 57 Stepan, p. 264. 58 Grellmann, p. 101. 59 Ibid, p. 58. 60 Ibid. 61 David Theo Goldberg (2004) The End(s) of Race, Postcolonial Studies, 7, 2, pp. 211–230, 213. 62 In line with Bauman’s concept of liquid modernity, the idea of liquid racism sheds light on combining overt racism with cultural signifiers that are not necessarily racist into powerful structures of racist thinking, which are difficult to negate. 63 Karl Ritter von Scherzer (1873) Smyrna: mit besonderer Rücksicht auf die geographischen, wirthschaftlichen und intellectuellen verhältnisse von Vorder-­Kleinasien [Smyrna: With Special Attention to the Geographical, Economic and Intellectual Conditions of Middle East Asia], Wien, Holder, p. 68.

68  The (in)educability of Roma 64 Heister, p. 18. 65 Ibid, p. 19. 66 Alexandros Geōrgious Paspatēs (1870) Études sur les Tchinghianés ou Bohémiens de l’Empire Ottoman [Studies on the Gypsies or Bohemians of the Ottoman Empire], Constantinople, Antoine Koroméla, p. X. 67 Viktor Lebzelter (1922) Anthropologische Untersuchungen an serbischen Zigeunern [Anthropological studies on Serbian gypsies], in Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien [News of the Anthropological Society in Vienna], Band 52, Wien, Im Selbstverlage der Gesellschaft, pp. 23–42, 26.

6 Global racial order comes to Central Europe The puzzle of “White Gypsies” at the dawn of the twentieth century

In 1969, Slovenian pediatrician and geneticist Marij Avčin1 claimed that the survey conducted among Roma living in Slovenian Prekmurje2 indicated “hidden but steady and slowly progressing decay of the Gypsy population.”3 Among other anomalies, the survey mentioned the presence of “White Gypsies,” with blonde hair, blue eyes and pale skin (see Figure 6.1), whose origin remained one of the most disputable puzzles for racially minded scholars over the twentieth century and one of the most visible signifiers of the predominant role of whiteness in positing Central Europe as part of the global racial order. The survey was framed as a consistent comparison of the genetic profiles of local Roma, Slavs and Roma in France.4 In contrast to the latter two groups, Roma from Prekmurje, including “White Gypsies,” were defined as self-­isolated group at high risk for inbreeding. This interpretation reflected the long-­term pathway of conceptualizing the population of Central Europe as racially mixed, whether in a positive or a negative connotation. The inception of the mixed-­race concept is ascribed to Western European thought as an output of the “ethnographic interpretation of social order in terms of origin, race and sexuality before 1848 in the contexts of industrialization and modernization.”5 Diametrically opposed attitudes toward racial intermixture, either as the source of degradation or as the only possible trajectory for humanity, orchestrated the dissemination of mixed race as a universal theoretical model for explaining the diverse social issues facing Central European nations in their struggle for legitimation. Positing Central Europe as racially mixed, in either a negative or a positive meaning, directly determined the development of race science in peripheral Europe as a response to the pressure of whiteness. Within this dramatic history, the racialization of Roma acquired a multidimensional structure directly determined by the variety of approaches toward positioning Central Europe within the global racial order.

Racial intermixture in the Western world: the inception of racial intersectionality As a product of debating the mutability of races over the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth century, racial intermixture brought into the analytical lenses of racially minded scholars the interrogation between superior and

70  The (in)educability of Roma

Figure 6.1  White “Gypsy” children in Prekmurje Source: Unsorted collection of Anton Pogačnik, Archive of the Group of Anthropology (AGA), Department of Biology, Biotechnical Faculty, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia.

Global racial order in Central Europe 71 inferior races, mainly in one direction – downwards.6 The predominance of a univocally negative view on mixed races did not stem exclusively from the perspective of colonial slavery, even though “the most virulent racists who did indeed wax apoplectic at the possibilities of racial intermixture”7 were those who aimed at legitimizing genocide in colonial lands.8 Indeed, the negative view on racial intermixture achieved its extreme maximum in the research conducted by German anthropologists in African colonies who “bastardized” (Bastardisierung) the concept of racial intermixture.9 Further, it is reasonable to specify the argument against racial intermixture, developed by racially minded scholars for Europe, as rationalization through race, which, according to David Theo Goldberg, “obviously assumed the form of legitimation, of claiming to render this expansion acceptable, even desirable or necessary, to the perpetrators.”10 Historians of racial thinking in Europe have emphasized several interrelated driving forces that shaped the consistently negative attitude toward racial intermixture: state-­building and struggle with political opponents on the national level; geopolitical contests, especially between France and Germany;11 and serving the various tasks within internal colonialization, including tough surveillance over peripheral populations legitimizing their segregation. As Wells puts it, “Racial models in Europe was never a simple matter of chiaroscuro,”12 and the multidimensional application of racial intermixture generated diverse analogies between race, class and gender, along with speculative historical comparisons that created the channels for disseminating and rooting these analogies. One of the ideologues of German nationalism, Barthold Georg Niebuhr, directly put forward the history of ancient Rome and its fall as a strong warning for the Prussian political agenda. Among other decisive factors in the crush of the Roman empire, Niebuhr explored the devastating impact of racial intermixture that came as a result of replacing the monarchy with a republic.13 Though Niebuhr viewed racial intermixture as unavoidable for Europe, he emphasized its catastrophic role and relied upon models of racial purity.14 Brigitte Fuchs has recognized the compatible rupture between the obvious threat of racial mixture and nostalgia for previous, pure, times in the writings of Austrian anthropologist Augustin Weisbach, who tried to explain the degeneracy resulting from racial mixing and highlighted the opposition of the “pure” rural population to the mixed urban one.15 By focusing on a racialized portrait of the enemy, wartime nationalism directly advanced racial hierarchies to a top position among other possible tools for legitimizing Otherness. The Prussian invasion of France was one of the driving forces launching a division between white/superior, and not white enough/inferior, in other words, between pure and mixed European races.16 In order to delegitimize the victory of the Prussians and present them as enemies to civilized Europe, Armand de Quatrefages described them as people with an Asian character, coming from the mixing of the German, Finnish and Mongolian races.17 Historicizing the conflicts between the nations began to be actively recruited in the process of theorizing nationalistic myths.18 Racial intermixture was easily recruited by French anthropologists, who started to explain the degeneration of Europe through the mixing of pure Europeans with the successors of the Germanic

72  The (in)educability of Roma tribes. Georges Vacher de Lapouge defined Germans as belonging to the Alpine race, which he believed was a mix of inferior and pure Europeans, exhibiting the low moral qualities of Germans, such as stinginess or narrowness.19 Tellingly, in the 1920s, German ideologies employed a comparable range of arguments against France in order to delegitimize the occupation of Rhineland by French troops.20 World War I has been characterized by many historians as a critical juncture in the predominance of racial hierarchies as a primary tool for legitimizing the most serious forms of segregation over the next three decades.21 Along with racialization of the external Other, anthropologists invested racial hierarchies for developing the concept of the internal Other – an underclass population living mainly on the periphery or arriving to cities from there. John Beddoe easily opposed the core European, British population to those not civilized enough, comparing the Welsh and the Irish to the African “race.”22 Later, Beddoe attacked the British miners whose somatic qualities were seen as the evidence of the degradation of the nation due to mixing with migrants from Wales and Ireland.23 Comparable surveys among working class populations were conducted in Belgium by Emile Houzé, who ascribed German roots to the Flam population, as one of the arguments in the contest between them and the Walloon population. The approaches offered by Beddoe and Houzé were actively employed by Rudolf Virchow, who deepened his argument in favor of racial intermixture within the debates with these scholars. The analogy between race and social class was introduced in order to impute mixed racial origin to lower social groups as a result of urbanization and colonization, one of the most persuasive arguments against leftists in many countries, even today.24 In general, the powerfulness of the analogy between non-­civilized Others and mixed races was so impressive that European politicians from different ideological camps easily employed racist rhetoric in mutual accusations and the attempts to delegitimize the position of their counterparts as “Asian” or “barbarian.” Along with infiltrating political debates with racial motives, racial intermixture made physical anthropology one of the most demandable sciences and elevated its scholars to the position of influential experts. Interlinking public discourse, scientific argument and political matters clearly did not operate in favor of the critical revision of scientific racism. Even those who claimed an ameliorative impact of racial intermixture on European nations only aggravated the obvious lack of alternative views on racial concern and made racist arguments more intractable. One of the most influential camps of the proponents of racial intermixture and liberal thinking among German anthropologists, under the guidance of Rudolf Virchow, arose from the universalism of the unity of the human species, including the universal intention for progress: “If we look on ourselves nowadays, we would find mixed populations everywhere. But also if we open the burrows from various older periods, we would find huge differences in the anatomy of older and later populations.”25 This liberal approach was mainly applied to the European (mostly German) populations seen as the product of racial mixing due to the intensive and ongoing processes of migration and assimilation. Undoubtedly, this focus

Global racial order in Central Europe 73 led Virchow to define the main pathway of human progress in terms of “paling previously bright Race colors” (erblasse grelle Rassenfarben) and the consistent domestication of those previously wild: animals and ancient populations.26 Demanding “privileged status for the educated at a time when access to higher education was limited by constraints of class and gender”27 revealed Virchow’s outlook as meritocratic rather than democratic – despite the rhetoric of freedom. According to Andrew Zimmerman, Virchow made German whiteness a socially “real” phenomenon, especially through a massive survey among school youth28 intended to demonstrate the compatible racial profiles of different groups, mostly Germans and Jews.29 While Virchow accepted the univocal trajectory for the transformation of the human skull, he focused primarily on three interrelated criteria: color of hair, eyes and skin. By focusing on the whiteness of the skin, quite literally a hidden property, anthropologists reproduced the esoteric and permanent notion of “race.”30 An extremely large sample, made up of seven million school children encompassing the entire scope of Germany, transformed the survey into a tool for promoting whiteness as an indisputable norm: Whiteness was constituted by a gaze that reveals the concealed, and eyes, including their color, were the organs of this revelation. To ask the question “are Germans white?” was both to open one’s eyes and to open them to public scrutiny.31 Clearly, the whiteness of Europeans, and especially Germans, reverberated with the grounds of liberal raciology, differentiating races, nations and Völker. Virchow and his successors, mainly Rudolf Martin and Felix von Luschan, reproduced the division into Naturvölker (natural peoples) and Kulturvölker (cultural peoples) as the basis for framing the process of assimilation imbued with liberal ideals of progress.32 This approach offered clearer contours of racial hierarchy, for example, in the Austrian replica of Virchow’s survey conducted by Augustin Weisbach, who aimed to demonstrate the efficiency of assimilation in terms of comparing different ethnic groups with the most superior group, namely, Germans.33 Along with applying Virchow’s method, Weisbach easily adapted a specific racial characterization of “German Jewish” as a mixed population (legitimized by Virchow), converting it into the division of Jews into European, more civilized, and Oriental, more inferior, races.34 Later, the results of Virchow’s survey were recruited by the ideologists of the “final solution,” who emphasized “the decisive racial separation of the Jews from the Germans among whom they live.”35 The echo of the division of Jews into assimilated and isolated can be recognized in ongoing reproduction of the focus on those Europeanized Jews and their complex identity against ignoring the life of Jews in the European periphery.36 This paradox, the fact that the study that Virchow designed and oversaw as a theoretical argument against anti-­Semitism “may have unintentionally provided an important practical basis for German racial anti-­Semitism,”37 is explained by Zimmermann through revisiting anti-­Semitism and racism in general as “a skillful practice learned apart from ideology.” This view puts Zimmerman in opposition

74  The (in)educability of Roma to the long-­term tradition of narrating the history of race science as multiply ruptured by events such as the World Wars and consequent geopolitical crises. Focusing on ruptures in the narration of racial intermixture has led to the pointed opposition between overt racism, with its appreciation of racial purity, and racial assimilationism, welcoming racial intermixture. In his rigorous study of how the wartime context affected the institutional circumstances and ideological orientation of physical anthropology in Germany, Andrew S. Evans has outlined the historical break between the prewar predominance of the liberal approach and the further monopoly of overt racism as “the overall result of the POW studies,” which transformed anthropology into a politically motivated science “that investigated national enemies as ‘racially others’ and blurred the boundaries between nation, Volk, and race.”38 In line with this major conclusion, Evans has emphasized the completion of the generational shift among German anthropologists39 and the limited options for continuing the tradition of the liberal approach. Albeit Evans is far from the tradition of lionizing Virchow as the scholar who opposed public anti-­Semitism,40 he also misses the impact of the interrogation between overt racism and racial assimilationism. This lack represents a distinct challenge to those who explore the role of race science and whiteness at the international level, in which “race was pressed into work in new ways on the basis of local ecologies encompassing thick histories of excluding those considered alien, ethnoculturally different, and so racially tainted. In these instances race clearly came to be invested with new, if connected, significance.”41 Focusing on the divisions, ruptures and oppositions within European race science has inclined scholars to interpret its development in terms of the end of scientific internationalism after 191842 and to define its agenda and agency in Central Europe as “weak and partially interconnected.”43 Paul Weindling has recognized the role of a liberal combination of scientific and patriotic interests in the widespread public enthusiasm for anthropology in the 1870s, which later served the synthesis of racial anti-­Semitism, imperialism and science.44 Bringing the multifaceted production of whiteness in Central Europe between the 1870s and 1920s as a part of establishing new, global, racial order into analytical focus revises the composition of actors who adapted already established racial intersectionality in Europe and imbues it with new content, including racialization of the Romani population.

Postcolonial Europe in the focus of outsiders and insiders: deepening (non)whiteness Understanding Europe as a dually organized spatial society, with a Western core and an Eastern periphery, was prompted by Western scholars who viewed Eastern Europe as the territory of Others. Particular geopolitical changes created a continuum of the “degree of relationship” between the core and the periphery from the nuances in reconstructing the clear borders of Eastern and Southern Europe, articulating a view on the European periphery concerning whether or not it was part of “white,” civilized humanity. Though this perspective could be defined as

Global racial order in Central Europe 75 a view of the detached outsider,45 the degree of detachment among those who belonged to the core varied. Answering the core questions “How many races are in Europe?” and “Which races among those who live in Europe are Europeans?” directly addressed the attitude toward racially intermixed peripheral Europe and whether it represented deteriorating human progress or alignment with Western civilization. Two camps of “outsiders” practiced various racial hierarchies in order to “prove” one or another view on the European core and periphery. Unquestionably, framing Europe as divided between core and periphery contributed to the position of insiders, those scholars of the Eastern periphery who also belonged to the studied group, advocated for the studied group and perceived the studied group to be in a disadvantaged or victimized position.46 It is possible to say that anthropology in peripheral Europe materialized in the response to both outsider views – those inhospitable towards Central Europe and those “benevolent” scholars who tried to embed peripheral Europe in the “white” part of the global racial order. The peripheral insiders can be seen as occupying the specific existential position described by Slobodan Naumovic as the “double insider syndrome”: they not only belonged to the periphery but also studied and substantiated this identity.47 Moreover, these insiders endowed their own nations with the capacity for acculturation or even Europeanization and whitening. The racial image of peripheral Europe should be seen as an output of the efforts made by “outsiders” and “insiders” who applied different views on racial intermixture for depicting peripheral Europe. Framing the European periphery as such acts out the tensions of a conflictual culture that has defined itself through racial ideologies48 and has produced a profoundly dialectical mode of triumph for race science as a main pathway constructing Europeanness and whiteness.

The threat of racial mixing in Central Europe: belligerent outsiders We often hear of negroes who have learnt music, who are clerks in banking-­houses, and who know how to read, write, count, dance, and speak, like white men. People are astonished at this, and conclude that the negro is capable of everything! And then, in the same breath, they will express surprise at the contrast between the Slav civilization and our own. The Russians, Poles, and Serbians (they will say), even though they are far nearer to us than the negroes, are only civilized on the surface[.] . . . The solution is simple. There is a great difference between imitation and conviction. Imitation does not necessarily imply a serious breach with hereditary instincts; but no one has a real part in any civilization until he is able to make progress by himself, without direction from others.49

Penned by Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882) between 1852–1854, this remarkable series of contrasts between Slavs and the Western world helped to establish the long-­term tradition not only to place Slavs among the lower races but also to label them as intractably uncivilized. The core question of Gobineau’s magnus opus, “Do the lower strata of our populations think and act in accordance with what we call European civilization?”50

76  The (in)educability of Roma possesses much more rhetorical content than the status of the research question concerning those seen as conquered by “stronger” races. In this historically determined interrogation between higher and lower races, Gobineau recognized the main drama of European civilization, which inevitably mixes with lower races and loses its own potential: “But as the white peoples drifted more and more towards the south, the male influences gradually lost their force and were absorbed by an excess of female elements, which finally triumphed.”51 Being a staunch royalist, Gobineau attacked the approach of the adherents of the French Revolution,52 who relied on the bourgeoisie and racial mixing as a part of the emancipation of former slaves in the colonies and of the mass population in France.53 Such an uncompromising critique of Eastern Europe, and especially its Slavic population, as “low” and “backward” from the side of Gobineau may be seen as a nostalgic “reverence” for the previous, prerevolutionary, Europe, in which its borders ended before Hungary,54 rather than a consistent attempt to substantiate particular politics concerning Slavs. Just one century later, labeling the Slavic population as an inferior race started to operate as a main racial concern, in the rhetoric of German ideologies about “pure” races who established a society aimed at disseminating Gobineau’s ideas for propagating Aryan races in 1894.55 While Gobineau’s theories started to be regarded as static and unscientific but valuable as ideological grounds, they were fused with “French degenerationist theories, British social Darwinism and distinctive German biological and social concerns.”56 Along with reinforcing the imperialistic agenda of Germany during the last third of the nineteenth century, “the otherness of non-­German people living in the Habsburg Lands had transgressed the threshold of awareness of German intellectuals.”57 World War I saw the inception of massive measurement of the Slavic population within the military, leading to a more differentiated approach toward racially mixed groups. Augustin Weisbach58 introduced more sub-­hierarchies concerning different groups that were seen as non-­white: Romanians, Jews and “Gypsies.” Along with specifying non-­white groups of European populations, the anthropological measurement of military personnel reinforces the analogy between Central Europe and world colonies: “A focus on the people of Central and Eastern Europe setting of the camps served to collapse the distinction between African and Asian colonial troops and European soldiers.”59 The decay of the Austro-­Hungarian empire provoked a new wave of derogatory views on Slavs, with former colonies finding arguments in favor of the inferiority of Europe’s postcolonial populations. The discourse of mourning and accusation infiltrated both public and academic discourse.60 For instance, the Serbs started to be described as those responsible for the war, those who arrayed against Germany because of their physical and psychological Otherness.61 Flourishing in the 1920s, an anti-­Slavic intellectual tradition in Austria and Germany was institutionalized into Südostforschung (“Southeastern research”), which served “a clear political goal – the re-­conquest of ‘lost German territory.’ ”62 The consistent labeling of postcolonial Europe as a source of inferior populations by Western European anthropologists was elevated by U.S. scholars, who put racially mixed populations at the center of various eugenic surveys as a signifier

Global racial order in Central Europe 77 for “undesirable aliens.”63 The common view on Europe reproduced the typical master-­servant division into “white supremacist people of European descent presumed to be capable of dispassionate objectivity, rationality, and higher mental achievement,”64 and “primitives” who are “claimed to be ruled by their passions and bodily needs, they tend toward subjectivity and irrationality and are incapable of higher mental achievements.”65 Such a view also divided Europe “into two contrasted regions, one desirable, the other undesirable—the north and west on the one hand, the south and east on the other.”66 Compatible with negative attitudes toward racial intermixture between “whites” and “blacks,” the main reason for the inferiority of Eastern and Southern Europe was seen in racial intermixture: It is true that biologically the mixing of the North and South European is hardly analogous to the mixing, say of the white and the black races or the whites and the mongoloids. Biologically, as previously noted, the European stocks are actually sub-­races.67 Among others, this statement by Kimball Young68 elaborated a racial argument against the migration from Eastern Europe to the United States, which garnered massive support from the side of U.S. politicians and the public even before World War I and in a more consistent way during the 1920s. While the population of postcolonial Europe was seen as mixing “valuable elements in the Nordic race with inferior strains,”69 it also started to be compared to other groups labeled as inferior due to racial intermixture: If the mentality of the South Europeans who are flooding this country [the United States] is typified by the mentality of the three groups, Portugal, South Italy, Spain or Mexico studied by the writer and others, the problem of future standard of living, high grade citizenship and cultural progress is serious.70 The resemblance of Eastern Europeans, Latin Americans and African Americans as inferior reinforced the division into white and non-­white as a global racial order aimed at rescuing the citadel of civilization: “The resurgence of inferior races and classes throughout not merely Europe but the world, is evident in every despatch from Egypt, Ireland, Poland, Rumania, India and Mexico.”71 Those outsiders who rejected the options for enlightening and civilizing postcolonial Europe often put forward the argument of intractable legacy of the Osmanian yoke,72 which made “desperate [the] attempts of the Balkan States to struggle out of Turkish chaos into modern European nations on a basis of community of language.”73 Being one of the U.S. thinkers who shaped public discourse concerning peripheral, “non-­civilized,” Europe, relevant to the geopolitical interests of the United States before and during World War I, Will S. Monroe74 deepened the argument concerning the important role of the Ottoman and Habsburg empires in the obvious “retardation” of the population in peripheral Europe. Monroe recognized the moral inferiority of peripheral Europe as a direct consequence of their servant

78  The (in)educability of Roma past, ascribing to Slavonians a loss of courage, to Czechs a disconnection with Christianity, to Bulgarians the inability to provide sophisticated policy concerning European values and to Serbians the inability to accept such values. Monroe appraised the population of peripheral Europe by using the language of racial hierarchy. He ascribed the top position to the Czechs: The Bohemian race was the first to attain, a commanding position among the culture-­peoples of central Europe. How early they settled upon the lands which they occupy to-­day can not be stated with any degree of certainty probably before the Christian era. While accepting the Christian religion much later than most of the nations of Europe, their civilization attained a higher form of development at an early period than that of the German and other neighbouring races.75 Monroe introduced a differentiated attitude toward racial intermixture. He welcomed the mixing of Czechs with Teutons even as he stressed the negative pressure of the Habsburg empire: The proportion of blonds among the Bohemians is greater than among the other Slavic races, but not so great as among the Germans. . . . They are not a distinctly handsome people, . . . and they lack the beauty of features and the elegance of figure possessed by many of the Aryans in southern and western Europe.76 Along with accepting a high degree of racial mixing among Slavs, Monroe described Albanians as those who “have little creative power and they have borrowed their civilization, their customs, and their religion from their masters and neighbours.”77 The racial hierarchies constructed by Monroe aimed at legitimizing public policy concerning Europe. For instance, Monroe opposed Bulgarians to other races living in the Balkans as “more devoted to education,”78 in order to stress the barbarism of the Serbs as allies of Russia or the duplicity of Albanians as totally dependent on Turks. Along with interracial hierarchies for describing the population of peripheral Europe, Monroe also envisioned intraracial categorizations, targeted at classifying higher and lower groups within the same race – especially among non-­ Christians: “The Jewish rabbis, in Constantinople, concerning whom personal information was obtained, seemed unmistakably inferior to their colleagues in Europe and America.”79 Stressing the degradation of the “Orient” reverberated with hierarchizing people within the same ethnic group in terms of their moral qualities – from the point of the Western gaze: “Europeans living in Turkey, and coming only in contact with rich and grasping mercantile Armenians, with Curzon, place them at the very foot of the ethical ladder.”80 The partial acceptance of peripheral Europe as bearing the potential to become “civilized” led Monroe toward selecting from among the cultural and intellectual heritage of Eastern Europe suitable targets for embedding into the frames

Global racial order in Central Europe 79 of Western civilization. He paid special attention to the ideas of Comenius, who, according to Monroe, on the one hand, represented the long-­term European tradition of education, and, on the other hand, directly influenced the further development of European humanism.81 Along with the consistent Westernization of Comenius’s ideas, Monroe implicitly shaped the image of “barbarians” living in Bohemia who were unable to recognize the value of personalities such as Comenius. Standing on the assumption “that only European races could produce a political order embodied by rules and laws,”82 U.S. experts labeled not only people from postcolonial Europe but also those from newly established states as a threat to civilization: The world would be no richer in civilization with an independent Bohemia or an enlarged Rumania; but, on the contrary, an independent Hungarian nation strong enough to stand alone, a Finland self-­governing or reunited to Sweden, or an enlarged Greece would add greatly to the forces that make for good government and progress.83 This double-­level of apprehension against postcolonial Europe easily transformed into biological pessimism, which had crucial ramifications for spreading eugenics as one of the main instruments of surveillance over “unreliable” populations. Was a benevolent view on Central Europe as capable of obtaining the status of a civilized, white, part of the world, a robust alternative to this pessimism?

Other Europeans? The view of benevolent outsiders “Ordinarily, the more peoples are civilised the more they are intermixed within certain territorial limits.”84 This introductory statement by Josef Deniker85 brought into focus the relation between progress and racial intermixture on the one hand and isolation and primitivism on the other. This division was only reinforced by Deniker’s main task, exploring the European population in terms of a double racial division – into races equal in their degree of true civilization and “savages,” labeled by Deniker as “semi-­civilised and uncivilised properly so-­called.”86 Deniker ascribed to European races the role of a valuable group seen as decisive for the formation of humanity: [W]hether we admit variety, unity or plurality of species in the genus Homo we shall always be obliged to recognise the positive fact of the existence in mankind of several somatological units having each a character of its own, the combinations and the intermingling of which constitute the different ethnic groups.87 One of his main arguments in favor of European superiority was the array of outstanding options for intermixture and the rapid progress to the stage of “civilized” people “distinct from the peoples of other races.”88

80  The (in)educability of Roma Those who accepted the European population as racially mixed were inclined to include Central Europeans, especially Slavs, among the core, “civilized,” European races. One of the earliest reasons for this inclusion was the mixing of Slavs with Germans and Austrians noted by Virchow, who explained the presence of dark-­haired individuals among Northern Germans and Austrians through their biological intercourse with Poles and Czechs respectively.89 Deniker, born and raised in Russia, spent the major portion of his academic life traveling across Russia and Central Europe, aiming at expanding the limits of the definition of “Europeans” to include more ethnic groups stemming from the core European races. The Slavic population was seen by Deniker as an essential core European race, one of the somatological units whose existence in humanity should be recognized as a positive outcome of various combinations and intermingling.90 Remarkably, the Bulgarian population, defined by Deniker as being of Turco-­ Finnish origin, was ascribed among European races due to being Slavicized for at least ten centuries.91 Undoubtedly, Deniker mapped the limits and options for mixing European and non-­European races by such criteria as collective progress. In contrast to Gobineau, who focused on a small number of exceptionally gifted noble people responsible for human progress, Deniker stressed “the social aggregate what may be called the power of conservation” which “side by side with individual power of initiating change,” would make “progress possible.”92 In this regard, Deniker turned to positive eugenics with its focus on mass practices of supporting the reproduction of healthy citizens. Further, along with admitting, “Humanity appears to move in a confused medley of the most diverse and composite forms, without any one of them being able to persist,” Deniker consistently denigrated the call for negative eugenics, “for the means of persistence, artificial selection or sexual selection, are wanting.”93 He directly posited advanced civilizations as learning the voluntary limitation of progeny from those “natural” races: “Savages could teach us much on this point. The Australians with this object practice ovariotomy on women, the operation “mika” (artificial hypospadias) on men, or simply kill off the superfluous infants.”94 A focus on collective progress as the major driving force behind “civilizing” was nuanced in the studies of the Bosnian population conducted during the Austrian colonization of this region after 1878. Leopold Glück (1854–1907), a Polish physician of Jewish origin, who was one of the central figures in professionalizing public health in Bosnia,95 conducted the most rigorous anthropological surveys among different ethnic groups living in the region. In the systematic efforts to apply anthropological method, it is easy to recognize the well-­disseminated belief in ethnography and anthropology as a driving force for the evolutionary approach and human progress96 claimed as the main mission of Bosnian occupation.97 In the second half of the 1890s, Glück published several articles aimed at presenting the ethnic minorities in Bosnia and their pathways in terms of assimilation. This general racial assimilative approach partially reflected the multipolar identity of Glück himself, who was born in Nowy Sącz, a small town in Galicia,

Global racial order in Central Europe 81 to a Jewish family, and who, like many other Polish and Czech physicians, had a unique chance to make an outstanding career as a participant in the “civilizing” mission. Exploring the “backwardness” of the Bosnian population, Glück emphasized the fact of a shared common past and a common sociocultural ancestry, which blurred the boundaries between Christians and Muslims, whites and blacks, Europeans and non-­Europeans. For demonstrating this trajectory of “backwardness,” Glück looked to the history of folk medicine and especially rituals and talismans used by locals for remedies. He described the mixed Slavic and Muslim prejudices against professional health care as a factor aggravating the spread of modern public health: [T]he Bosnians expect immediate remedy after applying the medicament, [and] if it has not brought results, they immediately start applying something else; the systematic treatment remains unknown for them; apart from copping glasses and bloodletting, the Bosnians, especially those Muslims, remain reluctant about any surgical method, in which the scalpel plays an important role.98 Clearly, Glück shared the Orientalist fantasies that accompanied the Austrian occupiers of Bosnia and fostered a feeling of familiarity mixed with fear.99 His consistent argument concerning the fragility of Western civilization supported a core master narrative about the inhabitants of the region, namely, a story of dangerous soldiers and subjugated colonials.100 In order to stress the powerful influence of non-­Western culture on the Christian population in Bosnia, Glück chose one of the most visible forms of evidence, the tattoo, in particular, the ongoing practice of tattooing among Bosnian Catholic women.101 The fragility of whiteness, one of the main topics of Glück’s writing concerning the Bosnian population, reverberated with his reliance on assimilation as a process of cultural and physical whitening. Tellingly, he ascribed acquired whiteness to the Jewish population, which he defined as those mixed and with fewer Semitic elements than non-­Semites or Europeans.102 Harding asserts: European sciences advanced because they focused on describing and explaining those aspects of nature’s regularities that permitted the upper classes of Europeans to multiply and thrive, especially through the prospering of their military, imperial, and economic expansionist projects.103 The benevolent paternalism of racial assimilationism determined a main pathway for European expansion through the scientific methods and approaches developed by insiders – the anthropologists and other scholars of postcolonial Europe who were at the vanguard of movements aimed at legitimizing their nations and states. Whiteness remained the main biological marker that addressed the issue of legitimizing both colonial and (post)colonial Europe.

82  The (in)educability of Roma

The response of insiders: adapting whiteness Austria and Prussia are the natural heirs of Ottoman Islam, and the Southern Slavs have made a heroic stand against this latter-­day Prussian Islam. Civilization owes them a debt of honour, and it is only their due that Europe should give them justice.104 In this impressive comparison made by Srđan Tucić (1873–1940), Croatian writer and influential politician, it is easy to recognize the echo of the French campaigns against the German nation, which labeled Germans as non-­European, non-­Christian and non-­white, and legitimated France’s own belonging to human civilization. Indeed, the core construction of Europeanness and whiteness, a dually organized space containing a progressive core and a “backward” periphery, was uncritically accepted by “insiders.” The racially minded thinkers of peripheral Europe adapted a wide range of analogies elaborated by outsiders for exploring the (non)whiteness of Central Europe. The in-­betweenness of Central European thinkers, who were either educated by imperial institutions or served them, and even actively participated alongside outsiders in surveys of indigenous populations, produced multiple motives for adapting to whiteness. Linda Hutcheon, who has defined adaptation as “repetition without replication,” has also emphasized the “different possible intentions behind the act of adaptation: the urge to consume and erase the memory of the adapted text or to call it into question.”105 In the 1930s, the view of Germans as “barbaric” retained a special role in Czech, Slovenian and, partially, Bulgarian public discourse, highlighted in the campaigns to achieve and preserve racial purity, which opposed racial intermixture and hybridization.106 Further, the pathos of the struggle against German “barbarism” in favor of racial progress immediately faced ambivalent or even skeptical views on the national mentality as shaped by postcolonial sentiments and postimperial intentions. Two remarkable books, Bai Ganyo: Incredible Tales of a Modern Bulgarian by Aleko Konstantinov (1895–1897) and The Good Soldier Svejk by Jaroslav Hašek (1921–1923), could be read as bildungsromans targeted at emancipating postcolonial Europe through thoughtful reflections on the multiple conflicts between identities and the progressive civilized world. Both novels catapulted their main characters, middle-­aged men full of traditional, pre-­postcolonial prejudices, into changed worlds. Moreover, both texts questioned national identity, which was understood as being in the process of attaining new, European standards, including whiteness, seen by both writers as a problematic or, even more, a false ideal that inevitably led to the need for a false identity: “People who do not know or like ‘who they are’ crave degraded depictions of ‘who they are not,’ depictions that are often simply projections of what they despise or fear most in themselves.”107 Postcolonial Europe was obliged by the global racial order to sustain the status of a “civilized” population. In his letter to František Čáda, Monroe stressed the

Global racial order in Central Europe 83 interrelation between the hopes and expectations from the side of those Western experts who worked on perpetuating the “civilized” world: We all rejoice that Bohemia is no longer under the misrule of the Habsburgs and we anticipate a great Renaissance for Czechoslovakia in the immediate future. . . . I had the pleasure of lunching with your new President Professor Masaryk when he was in America, and we are much pleased that your people have chosen him as your chief executive; for in America he is held in the highest esteem.108 For the advocates of racial mixing among Western European scholars, assimilationism operated as a platform for practicing superiority in a way other than overt racism. For peripheral Europe, racial assimilationism remains until today the main pathway for legitimating belonging to the white part of the global racial order. Racially minded scholars from peripheral Europe, especially those who officially participated in international events sponsored by eugenic networks, faced the challenge of negative attitudes toward racial intermixture. Established in 1925, the International Federation of Eugenic Organizations paid consistent attention to the struggle against degeneration and interracial intermixture.109 Those scholars from peripheral Europe who were members of international eugenic networks needed to reinforce an alternative view on healthy pathways for nation-­building. In his pre-­speech as the new Rector of Charles University, Czech biologist Bohumil Němec110 directly said: “Humans who are incapable of bastardization [bastardace] would be incapable of progressive physical development.”111 Němec directly defined individuality as the result of racial intermixture and the main cause for reproducing outstanding people – a main driving force for progress. Adapting the rhetoric of whiteness and progress aimed to make peripheral European thinkers recognizable by the global audience – their most important reference groups. The intellectual elites of Central Europe accepted the role of intermediary between outsiders who presented Western racial thinking and insiders, namely, their own nations. This in-­betweenness reverberated with the inevitable hierarchy of ideas in the adaptation process.112 In his letter to Lubor Niederle,113 a member of the Czech delegation of the Paris Peace Conference, Aleš Hrdlička directly called for consistent efforts to cultivate the image of the Czechs as “the most mature and well-­organized among Slavs and generally among the deliberated people.” Hrdlička defined the status of the Czechs as “the favorites of Americans and Allies” because of “the strong position of the Czechs in Siberia” and claimed “the necessity to nurture this acceptance by the well-­organized propaganda but first of all being the pattern of order, unity and power in our Republic.”114 Hrdlička emphasized the role of Czech scholars in advancing the interests of Slavs: “In particular, Yugoslavians require such support because of Italian propaganda, strong, unscrupulous and deceitful. They lay about ethnic claims on Dalmatia and Istria, about the Avar origin of Croats, and about the inherited feeble-­mindedness of Southern Slavs.”115

84  The (in)educability of Roma After 1918, Eastern European ideologues, who received massive support from the U.S. government and the Rockefeller Foundation, waged campaigns aimed at demotivating the people from emigrating to the United States.116 Tellingly, within two months after finishing the Paris conference, in his letter to Niederle, Hrdlička stressed the necessity to take into account the dominant mood, “America for Americans only,” in order to maintain a positive relationship with those “who rule the world.”117 While the ostensible goal was very patriotic, to build “small Americas” in their own countries, the main reasons underlying these activities were the intention to preserve the population and to be aligned with the expectations of the global (white) world. One of the Rockefeller Foundation fellows from the first Czech cohort, Karel Driml, wrote a children’s play entitled Strýček z Ameriky (Uncle from America), adopted by more than one hundred Czech and Slovak schools. The narrative was simple: two young boys dream of going to America, and the visit by their uncle returning from the United States is expected as a kind of preparation for emigration. Instead, the uncle starts reeducating his nephews and steering them towards more a patriotic attitude to Czechoslovakia. Driml directly explained his purpose: The main idea was to present three stages (phases) of elaborating the attitude toward America: the romantic admiration of America and its progress, the desire to be there and, eventually, the acceptance of the task to create America at home – in Czechoslovakia.118 Tellingly, the play was performed on October 28, the anniversary of the establishment of independent Czechoslovakia. In the preface to the play, Driml wrote: “For the ten years of our republic, I devote this play to all Czech schoolchildren, who will one day become Czechoslovak citizens and protectors of their country.”119 Embedding Western racial ideas in the culturally local beliefs and assumptions of Central Europe, such as the claim concerning the universality and objectivity of white standards, led to a politics of devaluing local concerns in favor of legitimating outside experts.120 Adopting a Western, white, view on their nations, insiders remained within the positivist tradition, which sought to maintain a distance from the object of research, hoping to show their superiority by taking on the position of outsider. Such a move called for delineating those against whom the position of outsider could be practiced. Exploring the (non)whiteness of the Roma population as well as other non-­European groups such as Jews operated as a main signifier for transferring the insiders in peripheral Europe to the “white” world. Undoubtedly, introducing a modern, white, scientific view on Roma was an example of experiencing “a rude and brutal cultural intrusion” through practicing such neutrality.121

Roma in the focus of insiders and outsiders: signifying peripheral Europe Until the last decade of the nineteenth century, with a few exceptions, the search for Roma in Europe was not a mainstream topic for racially minded thinkers. For a long period, Grellmann’s text remained one of the main sources on Roma and its

Global racial order in Central Europe 85 framing was primarily reproduced rather than elaborated.122 Despite the impressive number of Roma living in peripheral regions such as Transylvania or Galicia, they were relegated to the margins, together with other “small” Volkstämme such as Albanians, Greeks and Armenians, in one of the most massive statistical and ethnographic research projects on the Austro-­Hungarian population, conducted by Karl Czörnig.123 Though Czörnig emphasized the impossibility of achieving sustainable results in the politics of “domesticizing” Roma, he did prioritize it in policy making, in contrast to poverty or lack of literacy within peripheral Europe. Beginning in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, however, bringing Roma into the focus of various racial hierarchies should be seen as a part of racializing peripheral Europe. In his overview of the minorities among the Turkish population, Monroe highlighted the necessity to explore the “ubiquitous Gypsies,” noting that although they were not “numerically strong,” they warranted attention because: “The physical Gypsy type is not unlike that observed in eastern Europe, and particularly in Transylvania.”124 Those who shaped the racial profile of peripheral Europe looked at Roma from two interrelated points of view, namely, their proximity to autochthonous populations and their “true” racial origin. This double vision reverberated with the core question concerning the impact of racial intermixture in peripheral Europe, whether positive or negative. For the Western normative gaze, Roma were inseparable from Southern Europe and its postcolonial heritage. Whitening those originally considered non-­white remained the major criterion of progress and introducing new hierarchies in line with the degree of assimilation and whitening. Along with other non-­white groups living in peripheral Europe, such as Hungarians, Romanians and Jews,125 Augustin Weisbach differentiated Roma by providing an analogy between “Gypsies” and “Negros.” This approach not only dovetailed with the previous cohort of European surveys on Roma stemming from the Grellmannian tradition but also introduced new analogies that highlighted the non-­whiteness of Roma. Though the sample of the survey was relatively small – 63 soldiers of the Hungarian Army, Weisbach proposed “big” conclusions. Aligned with the Grellmannian analogy between “Gypsies” and “Negroes,” Weisbach focused on the degree of “Gypsy” blackness, differentiating half-­black and black “Gypsies” as well as dividing “Gypsies” according to their resemblance to other non-­white races.126 With a particular focus on the history of Romani slavery in some European lands, Weisbach reinforced such analogies by stressing the resemblance of “Gypsies” to Egyptians. Moreover, Weisbach advanced the hypothesis about the African origin of the “Gypsies,” based on the form of their skull. Weisbach’s work influenced anthropological surveys among Roma for a long period, especially regarding the focus on Romani men as a core object for studying the anthropological specifics of Roma. Even as late as the 1960s, Jan Beneš (1935– 1998), a Czech anthropologist, applied Weisbach’s approach for comparing Roma from Hungary and Slovakia. Beneš conducted his survey among the military, and he stressed the different degree of racial intermixture with either Romanians or Hungarians but not with Czechs or Slovaks. Undoubtedly, reproducing Weisbach’s approach made this survey easier to accept by international audiences.

86  The (in)educability of Roma The idea of “Gypsy” blackness was also put forward by Monroe. Although he believed Roma had originated in India, Monroe placed them in the category of “important minorities,” together with Ethiopians, due to their ostensible difference from other races living in Turkey.127 Monroe described Roma as “unquestionably the filthiest race in Turkey; . . . living in squalid hovels and in the most promiscuous fashion.”128 One of the most important criteria of humanity for Monroe, namely, religiosity, which he applied to the Slavic population of the Balkans and Bohemia in order to demonstrate their potential to become white, was considered absent among “Gypsies” – together with language and history. Monroe employed a joke to explain: [W]hen God distributed religions to the various races of the world, the recipients engraved their respective creeds on wood, stone, metal, or in books; but that the thriftless and improvident Gypsies wrote their creed on cabbage leaves which were soon found and eaten by a donkey.129 While outsiders who “proved” the racial inferiority of peripheral Europe put forward the natural blackness of “Gypsies” as a dimension of non-­whiteness in Central Europe, those outsiders who prioritized racial intermixture saw the mixing of Roma with local populations as a signifier of progress. The assimilation of Roma was also seen as an intractable challenge: The history of Gypsies in the Balkans should be firstly written. Also, it remains clear that we cannot judge the major part of Balkan Gypsies only from the sociobiological point of difference or mixing with other races and peoples, in contrast to other Balkan people. Gypsies are not distinguished by profound cultural and economic differences, but the mentality typical of all Balkan people, shapes the obstacle that could be difficult to overcome, even within racial mixing.130 In this stance, Viktor Lebzelter, an adherent of racial intermixture, approached the view of Monroe, from the opposite camp, who explained the lack of success in the “strenuous efforts made by the Bulgarian government to bring the gypsy children within the pale of the compulsory education law”131 through the lack of any religiosity. In order to delineate the options for civilizing, benevolent outsiders recruited the concept of “White Gypsy” (weißen Zigeuner) from the studies of Gypsies in the eighteenth century, in order to label some Roma as white as a result of mixing with local populations.132 Johann Heinrich Schwicker made one of the first attempts to introduce the idea of “White Gypsies” into debates concerning peripheral Europe and its future.133 Schwicker directly opposed the history of “Gypsies” in Western and Eastern Europe through tracing the conceptualization of their origin. While according to Schwicker, the Western approach considered “Gypsies” as “small Egyptians” who had infiltrated Europe, stressing their “Oriental,” non-­Christian origin, in peripheral Europe the view on “Gypsies” and their

Global racial order in Central Europe 87 origin was characterized by a wider range of options, including the “White Gypsies” of Eastern Europe. The view on peripheral Europe as existing between two worlds, white and non-­white, directly operated in favor of multiple differentiation of Roma as either standing in the non-­white part or moving together with others in peripheral Europe toward whiteness through racial intermixture. In his survey of “Gypsies,” Glück directly opposed several groups of “Black Gypsies” (čergaši, gurbeti, firauni), whom Glück defined as the “pure type” (reineren Typus), to those “White Gypsies” who were seen as the “output” of biological mixing with local populations, as a form of “multilayered” racial mixing (durchwegs Mischlinge).134 According to Glück, the difference between black and white “Gypsies” was maximally distinguished by their mode of life, either nomadic or sedentarized. Glück described “Black Gypsies” as seminomadic, wandering for a long period of time. He stressed their inability to live a “normal” sedentarized life even during the cold season: “[T]hey prefer to spend time in their tents staying near the houses.”135 Tellingly, in his text, Glück stressed the interchangeable definitions of white or sedentarized “Gypsies” (weisse or sesshafte Zigeuner) and nomadic or black “Gypsies” (Zeltzigeuner or Schwarzzigeuner). Profiling the sociocultural difference between black and white “Gypsies,” Glück also relied heavily on occupation, interpreted in a univocal way: “White Gypsies” were presented as those who practiced a wide range of professions typical of rural areas, while “Black Gypsies” were those who earned a living through semi-­legal or illegal practices such as tinkers, horse-­brokers (Pferdemakler) or thieves. Two decades later, this opposition between sedentarized and nomadic Roma was reinforced in a study conducted by Viktor Lebzelter, who focused his racial-­ anthropological measurement on differences in living conditions, and social and economic patterns. He “proved” that sedentarized Roma were more “white” because of the “prominent racial influence of Balkan populations.”136 Because Roma were seen as “originally nomadic tribes, whose economic base consists of a primitive collecting economy combined with economic parasitism on a higher agricultural population,”137 their sedentarization remained a process fraught with numerous difficulties. Aligned with the long-­term tradition of animalizing Roma, Lebzelter ascribed their isolation as a semi-­human behavior, comparable to “foxes, jackals or, even more, creeping reptiles (kriechende Gewürm) who trace from forest to forest, from hamlet to hamlet.”138 In the survey by Glück, the otherness of “Black Gypsies” was reinforced by stressing their “double difference”  – from the local Muslim population as well as from the white European population. Such a view was supported by the assertion that Muslim “Gypsies” were not accepted by native Muslims as Muslims because of “inconsistence in following Muslim rules, especially in the regular practicing of language and disciplining their women.” Seeing Roma as total pretenders, unable to become truly assimilated, a view popular since the publication of Grellmann’s thesis, was complemented by Glück’s observation that “White Gypsies” were “punctual in reproducing religious traditions and distinguished by the consistent intention to be indistinguishable from the native population.” Along

88  The (in)educability of Roma with biological intercourse, Glück emphasized the important role of accepting the native language of a country – Landessprache – in the assimilation process. Contrasting black and white “Gypsies” was accompanied by an attempt to describe their physical differences. Glück accentuated the variety of skull forms. While the skulls of “White Gypsies” were described as a mix between the Dolichocephalic, “Gypsy,” type and the refined, brachycephalic, Southern Slav type of skull, the skulls of “Black Gypsies” were defined as mesocephalic, highlighting their isolation from the local population.139 Due to an optimistic view on racial mixing as a desirable trajectory for the Bosnian population, Glück employed recapitulation theory to demonstrate the decisive role of isolation in the degradation of Roma. Tracing the changes between white and black “Gypsies” of different ages, Glück visualized an increased difference from children to adults (see Figure 6.2). Along with stressing retardation in physical development, Glück brought forward the height of Romani men and women as a main criterion for comparing black and white. The women were presented as more underdeveloped or non-­white than men – in both the black and white “Gypsy” population groups.140 Like Grellmann, Glück stressed the fact that women assimilated much less than men. The intersectionality between isolation and “backwardness” among Roma shaped the vision of insiders – the scholars from peripheral Europe. Like his Western European colleagues, Serbian historian and ethnologist Tihomir Đorđević (1868–1944) successfully started his academic pathway by defending his research on Serbian “Gypsies” as a doctoral thesis “Die Zigeuner in Serbien” (“Gypsies in Serbia”) in 1902. In the introduction, Đorđević explained the lack of data concerning the “Gypsies” through the lack of a systematic survey

Figure 6.2  “Black Gypsies” and their physical degradation Source: Leopold Glück (1897) Zur physischen Anthropologie der Zigeuner in Bosnien und der Hergegovina: Die mohammedanischen Zigeuner [About the Physical Anthropology of Gypsies in Bosnia and Hercegovina: Muslim Gypsies]. In Wissenschafliche Mitteilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina, Wien, S. Gerold Sohn, 403–433.

Global racial order in Central Europe 89 of the Serbian people, their past and the present, including the history of ethnic groups, mainly Jews, Romanians and “Gypsies.”141 While Đorđević did not explain the origin of this gap regarding Serbians, he emphasized the isolation of the “Gypsies,” saying that they remained “children of Nature far from human progress.”142 This characteristic accounted for the difficulty in studying them due to “probably the most difficult access than to others living in Europe.”143 Because isolation remained a main factor in defining “Gypsies,” Đorđević accentuated the superficial nature of adapting “non-­Gypsy” social and cultural patterns, such as religious or economic modes of public life. This common stereotype concerning Romani alterability in religious identity was explained by “rudiments of previous instincts”: mixing heathenism with Christianity and Islam.144 This rather animalized concept of instinct was brought forward for explaining other aspects of “Gypsy” nature, for instance, their talent in music and dance, explained by Đorđević as stemming from “instinct” and not human art. The mutual reinforcement between isolation and animalization inclined Đorđević toward opposing “Gypsies” to other Balkan people, portraying them as unable to sustain assimilation: “Other people had learnt their power and abilities for various loftiest aims while the Gypsies for many centuries, unlike the peoples in whose midst they lived, abandoned to themselves, often despised and vegetated back from any higher spiritual employment.”145 Đorđević directly built a kind of hierarchy when he recognized Serbs as those who had abandoned their previous wild customs, and “Gypsies” as those who still embraced these customs.146 According to Đorđević, the official status of “Gypsies,” namely, unzuverlässige Bevölkerung (“unreliable population”), listed in police reports since the 1840s as an informal folk approach to Roma, addressed their lack of humanity and the absence of civilized behavioral patterns: “Saying in conclusion, I stress that a Gypsy could not say more than five words without a swearword or a distortion of meaning inadmissible in decent society. Also, their language inclines them to do so even in presence of women and children, and even in discussing sensible matters.”147 For describing their spiritual qualities, Đorđević used proverbs and stable phrases well disseminated among Serbs, such as “he lies like a Gypsy.”148 Đorđević further highlighted the intersectionality of isolation and animalization by focusing the attention of the reader on the limited influence of external factors, which he consistently defined as “paralyzing” by the “Gypsy” nature: the influence of others was paralyzed,149 the risks to life due to infectious diseases were paralyzed by their unusual health and the “readiness of their bodies to everything unfavorable.”150 In this point, the natural self-­isolation of Gypsies had achieved the level of an outstanding ability that explained the much lower numbers of people with disabilities among Gypsies, in contrast to Serbs.151 The metaphor of paralyzing was also a useful explanation for the “shameless and inability to complete any job” because of a lack of connection to potential reference groups.152 Moreover, the absence of serious offenses was explained by paralyzing in the face of fears – “Gypsies” were seen as one of the least brave people in the Balkans.153 Finally, the widely disseminated stereotype regarding the absence of ideals and values among Roma led to a justification for their low social involvement.

90  The (in)educability of Roma Along with the consistent argument that the isolation of the “Gypsies” was their own choice, Đorđević stressed the role of the “non-­Gypsy” population and inappropriate politics in cementing their isolation: “For these mistakes and flaws, you do not need to blame only the Gypsies, because nothing has been ever done in their favor. Even the way they were tried to be supported was something which oppressed them. In all countries, they have only been depressed, persecuted and punished.”154 Đorđević explored the long-­term history of taxing those Roma who desired access to Serbia (Zigeunersteuer) as a consistent politics that intervened in their private life even though it provided equal rights for them as Serbian citizens.155 At the end of the 1920s, he became one of the first researchers who explored the phenomenon of “Slave Gypsies” in Romania and their further emancipation.156 According to Đorđević, inefficient state-­based politics resonated with mutual suspicion and fears between “non-­Gypsies” and “Gypsies.” As the most consistent example of moral panics concerning Roma, Đorđević described the multiple cases of expulsion of “Gypsies” that occurred after they had received permission to attend church and become the part of church communities. The local population resisted this regulation targeted with integrating sedentarized Roma, and the infestation of local vineyards by phylloxera was brought forward as testimony of God’s punishment, which opened the options for tough and cruel forms of violence against Roma.157 Đorđević traced the long tradition of negative attitudes toward “Gypsies” that opposed their welfare to the interests of Serbs, which manifested in traditional folk proverbs: “Let there be health and wealth for us and leave diseases and troubles to the Gypsies!” (nama zivot i zdravlje a u cigane bolestina i troletnica!). Though Đorđević adopted much from the outsider approaches to peripheral Europe and its Romani population, he introduced novel motives stemming from the perspective of an insider. In Đorđević’s view, “Gypsies” remained opposed to Serbs, whom he considered European, and “White Gypsies” were one of three main isolated groups that had arrived to Serbia from Bosnia (the other two had arrived from Turkey and Romania). Tellingly, in the early 1920s, Viktor Lebzelter recognized the double nature of “White Gypsies,” as mixed with other, “non-­ Gypsy” groups and they lost their main signifier of non-­whiteness, the color of their skin; nevertheless, they remained non-­white in terms of the European mode of life.158

Conclusion In terms of adaptation, the racialization of Roma in Central Europe in the early twentieth century moved from the single-­track language of reproducing the Grellmannian approach to a multitrack medium for producing new and more complex knowledge.159 The increase in the variety of approaches toward the racial definition of Roma was determined by the pathways taken to indicate the position of peripheral Europe in the global racial order. Paraphrasing Merton, we could say that a racialized view on Roma was shaped by the distinctive and interacting roles

Global racial order in Central Europe 91 of insiders and outsiders who studied the population of Central Europe, which involved interchange, trade-­offs and syntheses.160 Eva Blome argues that we should understand the racist theory articulated in Germany between the 1900s and 1930s not “as the result of ‘constructions of race,’ but rather as a driving force for social and cultural processes that involve proclaiming the existence of something called ‘race.’ ”161 Racializing the identity of postcolonial Europe bore a specific genealogy, positing postimperial nostalgia and transferring the label of “barbarism” or non-­whiteness to former masters, against the strong Western motive underpinning the “immoral” postcolonial nature of peripheral Europe. In its political demand for nation-­building, the whiteness of postcolonial Europe addressed the process of completing deliberation and establishing new pathways for political development aligned with the global racial order. Operating as multiple selection, whiteness introduced the non-­linear growth of segregation against those considered exceptionally non-­white, namely, Roma. Anna Laura Stoler has suggested, “The markers of European identity and the criteria for community membership were never fixed. Rather, they defined fluid, permeable, and historically disputed terrain. The colonial politics of exclusion was contingent on constructing categories.”162 This fluidity not only served diverse political interests but also generated a universal, multifaceted platform for legitimizing a particular view of the non-­white population. At the moment this fluidity turned toward peripheral Europe, it stopped being contingent, or the adaptation of Western racial theories by peripheral Europe, instead becoming a case of random cannibalization. Three interrelated dimensions shaped the matrix of the inevitable racialization of Roma: (1) the inside/outside vision of postcolonial Europe; (2) the optimistic or pessimistic view on racial mixing; and especially (3) understanding Roma as either isolated or mixed racial groups. Having obtained the position of a signifier of whiteness, the concept of “White Gypsies” reflected the multiplicity of racialized approaches toward Roma, as either non-­white due to their isolated purity or because of mixing with other non-­white populations, or due to the lack of efforts, both internal and external, aimed at assimilating or whitening Roma. This range of options for justifying the segregation of Roma started to operate as a platform for interrogating the two main streams of theorizing about the non-­whiteness of Roma: ascribing Romani degradation to racial intermixture, mainly developed by German anthropologists, and stressing their isolation as the main cause of their intractable non-­whiteness, born in the anthropological studies of peripheral Europe. The interrogation between these approaches has fixed the path dependence of racializing Roma until today.

Notes 1 Marij Avčin (1913–1995) was a prominent physician, who, while simultaneously participating in the survey of Roma, had a fellowship in Denmark for studying genetics and social pediatrics. 2 The massive multidisciplinary measurement of Roma between 1960 and 1961 was organized by an interdepartmental team of Slovenian scholars and financially supported

92  The (in)educability of Roma by the foundation of Boris Kidrič, which operated between 1953 and 1970, and aimed at elaborating the natural sciences in Slovenia. 3 Marij Avčin (1969) Gypsy Isolates in Slovenia, Journal of Biosocial Sciences, 1, pp. 221–233, 225. 4 The data concerning Roma in France were provided within the Human Adaptability Program (HAP), continued in the 1960s as the International Biological Program (IBP), the interdisciplinary network targeted with charting human biological variation around the world. 5 Brigitte Fuchs (2003) Rasse, Volk, Geschlecht Antropologische Diskurse in Österreich 1850–1960 [Race, People, Gender: Anthropological Discourses in Austria between 1850 and1960], Frankfurt and New York, Campus Verlag. 6 Andrew Wells (2010) Race Fixing: Improvement and Race in Eighteenth-­Century Britain, History of European Ideas, 36, 1, pp. 134–138, 135. 7 Ibid. 8 Eugene Fischer (1961[1913]) Die Rehobother Bastards und das Bastardierungsproblem beim Menschen [The Rehoboth Bastards and the Problem of Miscegenation among Humans], Graz, Adeva. 9 Fuchs (2003), p. 160. 10 David Theo Goldberg (2004) The End(s) of Race Postcolonial Studies, 7, 2, pp. 211–230, 212. 11 Adam Kuper (2019) Civilization, Culture, and Race: Anthropology in the Nineteenth Century, in Warren Breckman and Peter Gordon (eds.) The Cambridge History of Modern European Thought, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, pp. 398–421. 12 Wells, p. 136. 13 Fuchs (2003), p. 64. 14 Ibid, pp. 61–62. 15 Brigitte Fuchs (2011) Orientalizing Disease: Austro-­Hungarian Policies of “Race,” Gender and Hygiene in Bosnia and Herzegovina, 1874–1914, in Christian Promitzer, Sevasti Troumpeta and Marius Turda (eds.). Health, Hygiene, and Eugenics in Southeastern Europe to 1945, Budapest, CEU Press, pp. 57–85, 63. 16 Frank Spenser (ed.) (1997) History of Physical Anthropology, Vol. 2, New York and London, Garland Publishing, p. 110. 17 Fuchs (2003), pp. 121–122. 18 For a more in-­depth view on the interrogation between race science and folk racism, see Chris Manias (2013) Race, Science and the Nation: Reconstructing the Ancient Past in Britain, France and Germany, 1800–1914, London and New York, Taylor & Francis. 19 Jean-­Christophe Coffin (1992) Le théme de la degénerescence de la race autour de 1860 [The Theme of the Degeneracy of the Races in the1860s], History of European Ideas, 15, 4–6, pp. 727–732. 20 Eve Rosenhaft (2008) Black Germans, in Prem Poddar, Rajeev Patke and Lars Jensen (eds.) Historical Companion to Postcolonial Literatures: Continental Europe and its Colonies, Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, pp. 211–212. 21 Andrew D. Evans (2010) Science Behind the Lines: The Effects of World War I on Anthropology in Germany, in Reinhard Johler, Christian Marchetti and Monique Scheer (eds.) Doing Anthropology in Wartime and War Zones, Bielefeld, Transcript Histoire, pp. 99–122, 110. 22 John Beddoe (1885) The Races of Britain: A Contribution to the Anthropology of Western Europe, Bristol, Arrowsmith. 23 John Beddoe (1870) The Stature and Bulk of Man in the British Isles, London, Asher and Co. 24 Fuchs (2003). 25 Rudolf Virchow (1874) Die ursprüngliche Bevölkerung Deutschlands und Europas [The Native Population of Germany and Europe], in Die vierte allgemeine Versammlung

Global racial order in Central Europe 93 der deutschen Gesellschaft für Anthropologie, Ethnologie und Urgeschichte zu Wiesbaden am 15. Bis 17. September 1873 [The Fourth General Assembly of the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory in Wiesbaden, September 5–17, 1873], in Nach stenographischen Aufzeichnungen redigit von Dr. A. v. Frantzius in Heidelberg [Edited and recorded by Dr. A. v. Frantzius in Heidelberg], Braunschweig, Friedrich Vieweg und Sohn, pp. 45–54, 45. 26 Ibid, p. 46. 27 Paul Weindling (1989) Health, Race, and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, p. 39. 28 Rudolf Virchow (1885) Gesammtbericht über die Statistik der Farbe der Augen, der Haare und der Haut Schulkinder in Deutschland. [General Report on the Statistics of the Color of the Eyes, Hair and Skin of Schoolchildren in Germany], in Correspondenz-­ Blatt der deutschen Gesellschaft für Antropologie, Etnologie und Urgeschichte. 16. Jahrgang. 1885 [Correspondence Sheet from the German Society for Anthropology, Ethnology and Prehistory, 16th century,1885], Redigirt von Professor Dr. Johannes Ranke in München [Edited by Professor Dr. Johannes Ranke in Munich], München, Akademische Buchdruckerei von F.Straub, pp. 89–100. 29 Andrew Zimmerman (1999) Anti-­ Semitism as Skill: Rudolf Virchow's Schulstatistik and the Racial Composition of Germany, Central European History, 32, 4, pp. 409–429, 419. 30 Ibid. 31 Ibid, p. 420. 32 Evans, p. 104. 33 Fuchs (2003), p. 159. 34 Ibid, p. 149. 35 Christopher M. Hutton (2005) Race and the Third Reich: Linguistics, Racial Anthropology and Genetics in the Dialectic of Volk, Cambridge, UK, Polity Press, p. 50. 36 Marsha L. Rozenblit (2005) Sustaining Austrian “National” Identity in Crisis: The Dilemma of the Jews in Habsburg Austria, 1914–1919, in Pieter M. Judson and Marsha L. Rozenblit (eds.) Constructing Nationalities in East Central Europe, New York and Oxford, Berghahn Books, pp. 178–191. 37 Zimmerman, p. 410. 38 Evans, p. 116. 39 Ibid, p. 119. 40 For one of the consistent examples, see Werner Kümmel (1968) Rudolf Virchow und der Antisemitismus [Rudolf Virchow and Antisemitism], Medizinhistorisches Journal, 3, 3, pp. 165–179. 41 Goldberg, p. 213. 42 Andre Gingrich (2010) After the Great War: National Reconfigurations of Anthropology in Late Colonial Times, in Reinhard Johler, Christian Marchetti and Monique Scheer (eds.) Doing Anthropology in Wartime and War Zones, Bielefeld, Transcript Histoire, pp. 355–379, 365. 43 Ibid, p. 366. 44 Weindling, p. 59. 45 Robert K. Merton (1972) Insiders and Outsiders: A Chapter in the Sociology of Knowledge, American Journal of Sociology, 78, 1, pp. 9–47. 46 Slobodan Naumovic (1999) Identity Creator in Identity Crisis: Reflections on the Politics of the Serbian Ethnology, Anthropological Journal on European Cultures, 8, 2, pp. 39–128, 115. 47 Ibid, pp. 102, 112. 48 Robert Young (2005) Colonial Desire: Hybridity in Theory, Culture and Race, London, Routledge. 49 Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1915) Essay of the Inequality of Human Races 1851–1853, Translated by Adrian Collins, London, William Heinemann.

94  The (in)educability of Roma 50 Ibid, p. 93. 51 Ibid, p. 87. 52 Steven Kale (2010) Gobineau, Racism, and Legitimism: A Royalist Heretic in Nineteenth-­Century France, Modern Intellectual History, 7, 1, pp. 33–61, 59. 53 Fuchs (2003), p. 65. 54 Seymour Drescher (2001) From Slavery to Freedom: Comparative Studies in the Rise and Fall of Atlantic Slavery, New York, Palgrave, pp. 292–293. 55 Michael Lausberg (2009) Die Resonanz des gobinistischen Rassen­begriffs bei Wagner und Nietzsche [The Resonance of the Gobinist Concept of Race in Wagner and Nietzsche], Tabvlarasa, 38, available online at www.tabvlarasa.de/38/Lausberg.php. 56 Weindling, p. 97. 57 Christian Promitzer (2004) The South Slavs in the Austrian Imaginations: Serbs and Slovenes in the Changing View from German Nationalism to National Socialism, in Nancy Wingfield (ed.) Creating the Other: Ethnic Conflict and Nationalism in Habsburg Central Europe, New York and Oxford, Berghahn Books, pp. 183–216, 185. 58 Augustin Weisbach (1837–1914) born in Komotau (Chomutov), was a medical officer who introduced a new method of physical anthropology by measuring the military personnel of different nationalities and was one of the most prominent members of the Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien (as vice-­president between 1888 and 1894). Weisbach directly influenced the formation of physical anthropology in the region. 59 Evans, p. 115. 60 Promitzer, p. 208. 61 Evans. 62 Promitzer, p. 197. 63 “Undesirable aliens” was a concept disseminated among the U.S. public and racially minded scholars, concerning migrants from Latin America and Central Europe. In 1929, this concept was the basis for the Undesirable Aliens Act or Blease’s Law. 64 Sandra Harding (2006) Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues, Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, pp. 29–30. 65 Ibid. 66 Herbert Spencer Jennings (1923) Undesirable Aliens, The Survey 51, pp. 309–312, 364. 67 Kimball Young (1922) Intelligence Tests of Certain Immigrant Groups, The Scientific Monthly, 15, 5, pp. 417–434, 432. 68 Kimball Young (1893–1972) was an influential American sociologist and psychologist, who led the American Sociological Association. 69 Madison Grant (1916) The Passing of the Great Race: Or, The Racial Basis of European History, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons, p. 16. 70 Young, p. 430. 71 Grant, p. lii. 72 Defining the Ottoman empire in terms of the Osmanian yoke became widely disseminated after the deliberation of Serbia and Bulgaria; e.g., the novel by Ivan Vazov, “Under the Yoke” (“Под игото”), published in 1893, was translated into several Slavic languages and remained popular until the middle of the 1950s. 73 Grant, p. 56. 74 Will Seymour Monroe (1863–1939), a famous U.S. educator, spent the last decade of the nineteenth century in Europe teaching at the universities of Germany and Netherlands and traveling around Europe to collect materials for his overview of various, mainly peripheral, European countries. 75 Will Monroe (1910) Bohemia and the Čechs: The History, People, Institutions and the Geography of the Kingdom, Together with Accounts of Moravia and Silesia, Boston, L.C. Page and Company, p. 157. 76 Ibid, p. 158.

Global racial order in Central Europe 95 77 Will Monroe (1907) Turkey and the Turks: The Lands, the People and the Institutions of the Ottoman Empire, Boston, L.C. Page and Company, p. 108. 78 Will Monroe (1914) Bulgaria and Her People: With an Account of the Balkan Wars, Macedonia, and the Macedonian Bulgars, Boston, The Page Company, p. 188. 79 Ibid, p. 97. 80 Monroe (1907), p. 90. 81 Will Monroe (1900) Comenius and the Beginnings of Educational Reform, New York, Charles Scribner’s Sons. 82 Alexander Barder (2019) Scientific Racism, Race War and the Global Racial Imaginary, Third World Quarterly, 40, 2, pp. 207–223, 210. 83 Grant, p. 59. 84 Joseph Deniker (1913) The Races of Man: The Contemporary Science Series. An Outline of Anthropology and Ethnography, London, Walter Scott Publishing. 85 Josef Deniker (1852–1918) was born into a French family in Russian Astrakhan, and in 1876, he escaped from Russia due to persecution for political activity and made a career as one of the most influential theorists of racial assimilationism. 86 Deniker, p. 126. 87 Ibid, p. 8. 88 Ibid, p. 325. 89 Virchow (1885), pp. 90, 95. 90 Deniker, p. 8. 91 Ibid, p. 345. 92 Ibid, p. 125. 93 Ibid, p. 111. 94 Ibid, p. 139. 95 Glück not only led the Department of Dermatovenerology in the central hospital in Sarajevo but also established a leprosarium that achieved international acceptance; more can be found in Tomasz Jacek Lis (2014) Polskie osadnictwo i Duchowieństwo w Bośni i Hercegowinie od 1984 do 1920 Roku [Polish settlement and the Clergy in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1984 and 1920], Torun, Maria, pp. 77–81. 96 Fuchs (2003), p. 129. 97 In 1888, Crown Prince Rudolf, during his visit to Sarajevo, stressed: “Our mission is to bring western culture to the Orient”; more in Diana Reynolds (2010) Cordileone Swords into Souvenirs: Bosnian Arts and Crafts under Habsburg Administration, in Reinhard Johler, Christian Marchetti and Monique Scheer (eds.) Doing Anthropology in Wartime and War Zones, Bielefeld, Transcript Histoire, pp. 169–189, 172. 98 Leopold Glück (1894) Skizzen ans der Volksmedicin und dem medicinisehen Aberglauben in Bosnien und der Hercegovina [Description of Folk Medicine and Medical Superstition in Bosnia and Hercegovina], in Wissenschaftliche Mitheilungen aus Bosnien and Hercegovina [Scientific News from Bosnia and Hercegovina], Vol. 2, Wien, S. Gerold Sohn, pp. 392–454, 398. 99 Reynolds, p. 171. 100 Ibid. 101 Leopold Glück (1894) Die Tätowirung der Haut bei den Katholiken Bosniens und der Herzegovina [Skin Tattooing among the Catholics of Bosnia and Herzegovina], in Wissenschaftliche Mitheilungen aus Bosnien and Hercegovina [Scientific News from Bosnia and Hercegovina], Vol. 2, Wien, S. Gerold Sohn, pp. 455–462. 102 Leopold Glück (1896) Beiträge zur physischen Anthropologie der Spaniolen [Contributions to the Physical Anthropology of Spaniolen], in Wissenschaftliche Mitheilungen aus Bosnien and Hercegovina [Scientific News from Bosnia and Hercegovina], Vol. 4, Wien, S. Gerold Sohn, pp. 587–592, 592. 103 Harding, pp. 41–42.

96  The (in)educability of Roma 104 Srđan Tucić (1915) The Slav Nation, The Daily Telegraph War Books, 19, English translation by Fanny S. Copeland, London, Hodder and Stoughton, p. 13, as cited in Connie Robinson (2011) Yugoslavism in the Early Twentieth Century: The Politics of the Yugoslav Committee, in Dejan Djokić and James Ker-­Lindsay (eds.) New Perspectives on Yugoslavia: Key Issues and Controversies, London and New York, Routledge, pp. 10–26, 18. 105 Linda Hutcheon (2006) A Theory of Adaptation, London and New York, Routledge, p. 7. 106 Victoria Shmidt (2020) Race science in Czechoslovakia: Serving Segregation in the Name of the Nation, Studies of History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 79. 107 George Lipsitz (2006) The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics, Philadelphia, PA, Temple University Press, p. 146. 108 Letter of Will S Monroe to F. Čáda 16.02.1918 AAV Osobní fond Františka Čády, box 1, SIG II b 1. 109 Stefan Kühl (1997) Die Internationale der Rassisten Aufstieg und Niedergang der internationalen Bewegung für Eugenik und Rassenhygiene im 20. Jahrhundert [Internationalism of the Rise and Fall of Intercountry Movement on Eugenics and Racial Hygiene], Frankfurt and New York, Campus Verlag, p. 71. 110 Bohumil Němec (1873–1966), a deputy in the Czechoslovak Senate between 1922 and 1929 and an active member of the Czechoslovak National Democratic Party (Československá národní demokracie) was one of the leaders of the eugenics movement in Czechoslovakia. 111 Bohumil Němec (1921) O individualitě v  přírodě [About individuality in nature], Vzdělávací příloha Národních listů, 20.11.1921, No. 319. 112 Hutcheon, p. 34. 113 Lubor Niederle (1865–1944) was a Czech historian and anthropologist who advanced the idea of Pan-­Slavism and was world famous for his surveys concerning the origin of the Balkan people. 114 The letter of Aleš Hrdlička to Lubor Niederle Feb. 6 1919. AAV Fond Lubora Niederle karton 1. 115 Ibid. 116 Josef Jařab (1995) Images of America in Eastern Europe, History of European Ideas, 20, 1–3, pp. 583–584. 117 The letter of Aleš Hrdlička to Lubor Niederle March, 18 1919 AAV Fond Lubora Niederle karton 1. 118 Karel Driml (1928) Strýček z Ameriky [Uncle from America], Choceň, Loutkář, p. 15. 119 Ibid. 120 Harding, p. 60. 121 Ibid, p. 47. 122 Saul (2007) directly characterizes the nineteenth century in German scholarship as “virtually a desert” in the cultural anthropology of “Gypsies,” p. 7. 123 Karl Freiherrn Czörnig (1857) Ethnographie der Oesterreichischen monarchie [Ethnography of the Austrian Monarchy], Wien, K.-­K. Hof-­und staatsdruckerei, p. 24. 124 Monroe (1907), p. 113. 125 Fuchs (2003), p. 143. 126 Augustin Weisbach (1889) Die Zigeuner, Wien, Anthropologische Gesellschaft, p. 532. 127 Monroe (1907), p. 113. 128 Ibid. 129 Ibid, p. 114. 130 Viktor Lebzelter (1922) Anthropologische Untersuchungen an serbischen Zigeunern [Anthropological Studies on Serbian Gypsies], in Mitteilungen der Anthropologischen Gesellschaft in Wien [News of the Anthropological Society in Vienna], Band 52, Wien, Im Selbstverlage der Gesellschaft, pp. 23–42, 27.

Global racial order in Central Europe 97 131 Monroe (1914), p. 190. 132 Introducing the concept of “White Gypsies” should be seen in connection with the dissemination of the concept of “white Jews” brought forward to public debates in the early nineteenth century by such anti-­Semites as Hartwig von Hundt-­Radowsky, who labeled the many “enemies” of Germany as “white” or “hidden” Jews. Labeling those who were not seen as belonging to the white world, e.g., Jews or “Gypsies,” sheds light on the increasing role of whiteness in racializing Europe during the last decades of nineteenth century. 133 Johann Heinrich Schwicker (1883) Die Zigeuner in Ungarn und Siebenbürgen [The Gypsies in Hungary and Transylvania], Wien, Prochazka. 134 Leopold Glück (1897) Zur physischen Anthropologie der Zigeuner in Bosnien und der Hergegovina: Die mohammedanischen Zigeuner [About the Physical Anthropology of Gypsies in Bosnia and Hercegovina: Muslim Gypsies], in Wissenschafliche Mitteilungen aus Bosnien und der Hercegovina [Scientific News from Bosnia and Hercegovina], Vol. 3, Wien, S. Gerold Sohn, pp. 403–433. 135 Ibid. 136 Lebzelter, p. 28. 137 Ibid, p. 24. 138 Ibid, p. 23. 139 Glück used the traditional division of human skull into three subgroups, Dolichocephalic – long-­headed, Mesaticephalic – medium-­headed or Brachycephalic – short-­headed. 140 Glück (1897), p. 409. 141 Tihomir Đorđević (1903) Die Zigeuner in Serbien: ethnologische Forschungen [Gypsies in Serbia: Ethnologic Studies], Wien, Thalia, p. 3. 142 Ibid, p. 30. 143 Ibid. 144 Ibid, p. 25. 145 Ibid. 146 Ibid, p. 80. 147 Ibid, p. 21. 148 Ibid, pp. 28–31. 149 Ibid, p. 31. 150 Ibid, p. 27. 151 Ibid, p. 28. 152 Ibid, p. 30. 153 Ibid, p. 29. 154 Ibid, p. 31. 155 Ibid, p. 8. 156 Tihomir Đorđević (1929) Rumanian Gypsies in Serbia, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, VIII, pp. 7–24. 157 Đorđević (1903), p. 50. 158 Lebzelter, p. 5. 159 Hutcheon, p. 275. 160 Merton, p. 36. 161 Eva Blome (2017) Fantasies of Mixture, Politics of Purity: Narratives of Miscegenation in Colonial Literature, Literary Primitivism and Theories of Race (1900–1933), in Lara Day and Oliver Haag (eds.) The Persistence of Race: Continuity and Change in Germany from the Wilhelmine Empire to National Socialism, New York, Begrhahn, pp. 44–64, 44. 162 Anna Laura Stoler (1997) Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Gender, Race, and Morality in Colonial Asia, in Roger N. Lancaster and Micaela Di Leonardo (eds.) The Gender/Sexuality Reader: Culture, History, Political Economy, London and New York, Routledge, pp. 13–36, 14.

7 The institutionalization of a racialized approach to Roma in the 1920s–1940s Rooting the stigma of an insecure population The Gypsy population in Europe, being highly fertile, became very numerous by the 20th century. Thus, the Gypsies in Czechoslovakia, in part itinerant and in part settled, by 1968, numbered 226,468 individuals. The Hungarian Gypsies number approximately 200,000 and the Spanish Gypsies also constitute a very sizeable population. Relatively few studies of the Gypsies have combined an examination of genetic and demographic attributes.1

In this quotation, Eric Sunderland, a Welsh anthropologist, who supervised an intercountry comparison of Roma living in Europe within the International Biological Program (IBP),2 juxtaposed the two most urgent worries of population studies between the 1960s and the 1980s: (1) self-­isolation as a main source of degradation and (2) high fertility among the most vulnerable populations. Roma started to be seen as one such group, and exploring the “considerable heterogeneity among the present-­day Gypsy populations in Europe and . . . often pronounced genetic differences between the Gypsies, on the one hand, and the surrounding ‘host’ communities, on the other”3 became a global concern. Addressing the output of the research conducted among European Roma, Sunderland offered three possible explanations for such heterogeneity: First, there is substantial evidence in favor of the genetic affinity of Gypsy populations and those of India. The high B gene frequencies and the low Hp1 gene frequencies in a number of Gypsy groups support this view, and there is no other European population showing comparable gene frequencies at either of these loci. . . . Second, admixture with local populations, genetic drift, and the founder effect are all possible explanations for the genetic variation among Gypsy populations. . . . This might well suggest that present-­day Gypsy populations are increasingly diverging in genetic structure both from each other and from the original ancestral pattern and would explain differences between loci in this respect. . . . Third, an alternative explanation is that the Gypsies are descended from more than one ancestral group and that the present variation reflects the genetic differences of these earlier populations.4

A racialized approach to Roma 99 This multiplicity reflected the long-­term interrogation of two main approaches for racializing Roma as an ineducable ethnic group at high risk for social security: either mixing with “lower” racial groups or, conversely, the lack of biological drift. Presented primarily by German racial anthropology (but not exclusively)5, the first approach deepened the argument concerning the non-­purity of Roma, who lost their superiority as a “pure” race after arriving in Europe and becoming less isolated. The second approach, mainly elaborated in the surveys conducted by Czechoslovak and Yugoslav anthropologists, aimed to demonstrate the intractable cultural, social and biological isolation of Roma. This chapter explores the interrogation between these approaches, which appeared to orchestrate the institutionalization of a racialized approach to Roma between the 1920s and 1940s. Even though views on the main pathway toward degradation diverged, both approaches developed as a result of embedding “Gypsies” into already established interracial hierarchies targeted with uniting nations. They achieved maximum influence by constructing the intraracial hierarchies that justified various forms of segregation of Roma, or even more, their extermination.

A racialized approach to Roma in police surveillance: between the challenges of a global security agenda and  nation-­building Ascribing an exceptional role to interwar German race science (especially Racial Hygiene) in “the most drastic change in discourse concerning Roma,”6 along with stressing the “practices of negative eugenics in the territories of the Third Reich during World War II,”7 remains a simplified but widespread explanatory scheme for the intensive institutionalization of a racialized approach to Roma, which began in the late 1910s and has continued until today. Narrating the history of institutionalized racism calls for analyzing it as a holistic phenomenon,8 which represents one of the main challenges in tracing the historical vicissitudes of the politics concerning Roma in Central Europe. Including the two driving forces of (1) a global security agenda and (2) intensive nation-­building into historical explanations for institutionalizing a racialized approach toward Roma reframes the taken-­for-­granted perspective concerning the role of German race science into a more nuanced picture that accounts for intercountry communication about solving the “Gypsy issue.” The legal regulations against “Gypsies” and “Travelers,” introduced in France in 1912,9 in Hungary in 1916, in Bavaria in 1926 and in Czechoslovakia in 1927, created a common institutional framework for criminalizing European Roma as “vagabonds.” Legislation in each of the countries established a classification for dividing those who were the subject of persecution as nomadic populations into categories based on complex anthropological criteria such as physical characteristics, including fingerprints, mode of life and occupation. Aimed at identifying nomadic populations, these criteria were fixed in various special types of documents, ID cards and centralized systems of registration, which remained the

100  The (in)educability of Roma primary tools for practicing surveillance over Roma, seen as one of the most dangerous groups of people on the move.10 Persistent reinforcement of these legal regulations in the late 1920s and early 1930s aimed at adapting and modifying the measures introduced in other countries in order to bolster police surveillance over Romani populations. The “Bavarian Law to combat Gypsies, vagrants and the Work-­Shy” (“Gesetz zur Bekämpfung von Zigeunern, Landfahrern und Arbeitsscheuen”) relied heavily on French law.11 Slovak local authorities referred to Hungarian legislation concerning “Gypsies” in their response to the official call from the Ministry of Internal Affairs, which asked the authorities of Eastern Slovakia to inform the ministry about their approaches to cope with the “Gypsy plague”: “We want to inform [you] that previous authorities issued, in 1916, rigorous instructions concerning this ‘hot’ topic. You can find it in Belügyl Közlöny, which published the instructions in issue 24 with the number 15000/1916 B.M.”12 The internationalization of the process of criminalizing Roma achieved its historical zenith in 1931 – when, during its eighth meeting, the International Criminal Police Commission (ICPC) initiated a special committee aimed “to work out an ICPC policy which, among other things, focused on national registration, international exchange of individual files, and controlling border crossings”13 as a part of the fight against the so-­called “Gypsy plague.” While Austria and Germany initiated the Committee, France, Czechoslovakia and Hungary also became members.14 Until the end of the 1940s, the annual meetings of the ISPC included debates over the “Gypsy issue,” with a particular focus on questions such as “Who are Gypsies?” and “Can they be equalized with vagabonds, or do they present a [separate] race?” The differentiation between racial and social criteria for criminalizing Gypsies went hand-­in-­hand with looking at the consequences of a close connection between them and other asocial, or even criminal, “non-­Gypsy” vagabonds. For instance, one Czech expert stressed the obvious difference between “Gypsies” and criminals: Very often those vagabonds and, due to their nomadism, criminals, engage gypsy gangs. That’s why the law about gypsies [Law 1927] links nomadic gypsies and vagabonds. The offenders who travel together with gypsy caravans adopt many gypsy traits and habits. Mainly, they use the Gypsy language, which helps the offenders to keep their plans a secret.15 In a similar vein, German experts pointed to the long-­standing inclination of “Gypsies” to make contacts with “non-­Gypsy” populations, but only with criminals and vagabonds: “Our Gypsies present one dissolved vagabond people (verschmolzenes Vagabundenvolk).”16 The task to explain the nature of the interconnection between Gypsies and vagabonds, a dominant theme in international debates, dovetailed with two types of attitudes toward racial intermixture – negative or positive. While both types were decisive for nation-­building, especially in Germany and Czechoslovakia, the experts from these countries often diverged, viewing Roma as either racially

A racialized approach to Roma 101 mixed and having lost their purity or, in contrast, as self-­isolated and not mixed enough. A criminal inspector from Prague, Josef Mareš, described by the influential journal Kriminalistika as “dealing with the Gipsie life, their vagabond instinct, their tenacity, with some of their personal qualities and family life” and whose “practical knowledge of Gipsies and of the Gipsy problem” were seen as “very important especially nowadays when they are moving (in Europe, many groups of Gipsies) across state frontiers very easily and thus represent an anti-­social international element,”17 directly addressed the issue of isolation: In relation to the value of the purity of race, their [Gypsies’] sexual life is extremely strict. Without enforcement on the part of others, a Gypsy woman never marries a non-­Gypsy man. The Gypsy Law forbids such unions. Until now, independent nomadic Gypsies are accustomed to exclude the member who has violated this moral order from the tribe. They have never suffered because of sexual escapades. It explains why nomadic Roma remain a pure race that would be found only with great difficulty around the world. Due to sedentarization, the purity of the race disappears. . . . In the outstanding readiness to accept foreign children,18 we should note the racial motive. The survival of Gypsies as a race calls for such things. They instinctively feel that the marriages only within their tribe lead sooner or later to degradation, which they would like to avoid. It is not enough to refresh Gypsy blood through marriages with Gypsies from other countries, with whom they do not like to be mixed. They need really foreign blood. Though they do not understand it, they fight against weakening of the race.19 In another article, also for Kriminalistika,20 Mareš featured images of mixed-­race Romani families taken in the 1930s, aimed at demonstrating the obvious lack of assimilation and the predominance of “Gypsy” features, even among the racially mixed (see Figure 7.1). The intensification of police surveillance over Roma during the interwar period should be seen in the context of nation-­building. The establishment of measures against Roma in Germany reverberated with the process of centralizing criminal law as one of the pathways toward uniting Germany, and such practices, mainly established and disseminated in Bavaria, were adopted by other lands after 1933. Issued on March 18, 1933, the “Cooperative Interstate Agreement to Combat the Gypsy Plague” (“Ländervereinbarung zur Bekampfung der Zigeunerplage”) grounded the further centralization of tough surveillance over German Roma for the next decades.21 Austrian interwar politics concerning Gypsies developed under the pressure of two interrelated tasks: (1) the struggle of right-­wing political movements against left-­wing parties and (2) administrating the newly acquired former Hungarian territories such as Burgenland, where the share of the Romani population was high.22 This pathway not only achieved its maximum after the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany in 1938 but maintained its legitimacy after 1945. In his pamphlet,

102  The (in)educability of Roma

Figure 7.1  The mixed “Gypsy” family: racial signifiers remain predominant among children Source: Josef Mareš (1947) Cikáni musí pracovat [Gypsies Must Work], Kriminalistika, 2, 1, 33–37.

“The Gypsy issue” (“Zigeunerfrage”), Tobias Portschy, a well-­known lawyer and politician, and an overt supporter of the NSDP, said with great pathos: “If you, the German, want to be a gravedigger for Nordic blood in Burgenland, you will only overlook the danger that the Gypsies are to it.”23 He directly blamed Social

A racialized approach to Roma 103 Democrats and Christian Democrats for disseminating the threat of “Gypsies,” due to the absence of tough measures against Untermenschen, those who were seen as main supporters of leftist political movements.24 In Czechoslovakia, one of the main driving forces in institutionalizing surveillance over Roma was the task of establishing sustainable control over the Eastern periphery – the newly annexed Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia. The Romani population was seen as originally belonging to the periphery, with its political loyalty to the core (Bohemia) always in question. One of the earliest attempts to establish surveillance over the periphery was undertaken in 1921, when the Ministry of Administration for Slovakia (Ministerstvo pro správu Slovenska) issued a special order for police stations concerning surveillance over “Gypsies.” In his letter to a police official in Košice,25 a police official in Bratislava wrote: According to the reports from some regions, the local Gypsies have become a “great plague” for rural people: they beg, steal, and generally make people’s lives and property insecure – in short, a horror for society. I ask that you act against these elements in a tough manner and report to me about your actions.26 Tellingly, local authorities were asked to report on their plans and results within two weeks after the issuance of the special order. In response, Slovak authorities, including police officers, refused to admit that the “Gypsy issue” existed in their districts. Referencing the approach of their previous, Hungarian, “masters” added a rebellious aspect to such refusals: I inform you that in the district under my responsibility there are only already sedentarized Gypsies, and there are vagabonds. The behavior of our Gypsies is totally unproblematic. We continue to apply the previously established order against those problematic foreigners, who arrive from time to time.27 We inform you with respect that we cannot say something specific about local gypsies as insecure elements or insecure in the degree that it would strike the eye and call for special measures against them. Their legendary audacity seems to be weakened; probably, they do not do what they did during the period that Hungarians were in power. They do not beg or rob; yes, they steal, but the courts could provide more information [about that]. According to my opinion, in our district, we do not need any special measures against gypsies.28 In response to this resistance, Czechoslovak authorities extended the range of measures and focused on “Gypsies” as the carriers of infectious diseases.29 This turn of the politics concerning the periphery involved pedagogues and physicians in the mission of establishing and disseminating proper practices aimed at controlling “insecure” groups of the population in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia, including Roma. For instance, teachers were involved in collecting data about “Gypsy” families and the dissemination of infectious diseases among children and adults. One of the most remarkable examples was the report by Stefan

104  The (in)educability of Roma Sibolovský, the principal of a Slovak boarding school for hearing and verbally impaired children, also presented at the fourth Congress on the Studies of the Child. Sibolovský described his Romani students as completely different from the core, Slavic, population: Our professional pedagogical experience proves the physical and mental differences among gypsy children in contrast to other children  – partially coming because of the heredity of this race, partially because of their habits and life experience. In particular, we find more palpable anomalies, weather mental or physical, among children from illiterate families who live in wild conditions that could be called a mentally primeval forest. There, morality and fortitude are exceptions, in contrast to flourishing deceit, stealing and nomadism. This mode of life directly reflects in the soul of the gypsy child as in a mirror. Thus, it passes down from generation to generation. These deeply rooted defects cannot be eliminated and cured easily in comparison with those stemming from unhealthy spaces.30 Undoubtedly, the intersectionality of race and disability put forward by German experts echoed in Sibolovský’s explanation for the higher share of the disabled among “Gypsies”: As in any social strata, among gypsies, we can find those deaf and dumb, blind, mentally inferior and morally degraded. Generally, among gypsies, there are more of these people than in other social strata. The main reasons for deafness are the following: 30–40 percent due to heredity, and 60–70 percent acquired deafness. Among hereditary issues, inbreeding, highly disseminated among gypsies, remains the core reason, then the immoral mode of life and various infectious diseases, e.g. scrofula and syphilis. Mainly, venereal diseases lead to deafness among gypsies, and medical science does not intervene, because gypsies have hidden such diseases. And the main sources of acquired deafness are the lack of cleanliness, especially of the oral cavity.31 Evidently, interdisciplinary surveillance was not a Czechoslovak novelty; the international agenda for solving the “Gypsy issue” included enforced education and instilling the skills of “civilized” people. Since the 1900s, the mission of enlightenment started to be theorized in terms of recapitulation theory, one of the most dominant scientific platforms for legitimizing surveillance over those “backward” individuals who were compared with “primitives” or “savages.” Hermann Aichele, a German civil officer, gained his reputation as an expert on the “Gypsy issue” by elaborating the analogy between “Gypsies” and apes, well-­known from the rhetoric of colonial racism and refined through the motive of recapitulation theory. The parental love of “Gypsies” was compared by Aichele to the apes’ attachment to their offspring, and generally “Gypsies” were seen as those who remained in the stage of the childhood of humanity (Kindheitstufe der Menschheit).32 The multiple analogies among “Gypsies,” apes, “savages” and

A racialized approach to Roma 105 children reverberated with the intensive rooting of interracial hierarchies that served the interests of nations. Embedding “Gypsies” into these hierarchies stemmed from the most desirable scenario of racial development for the nation, and equalizing “Gypsies” with the most unhealthy and degraded groups reflected the general stance concerning racial intermixture. German experts recognized in the inferior state of “Gypsies” the same set of driving forces ascribed to the offspring of interracial intercourse – “bastards” born in the (il)legal unions between Europeans and non-­Europeans – and asked for the sterilization of Gypsies.33 Czechoslovak experts recognized in the “backwardness” of “Gypsies” their resemblance to those Rusyns who lived in mountain hamlets and were seen as the most isolated group of the Slavic population, which had also lost the main features of Slavs.34 Austrian experts conducting surveys in Burgenland recognized the connection between local “Gypsies” and Romanians, who were seen as a direct threat to security.35 With police surveillance over Roma stemming from the idea of reproducing a healthy nation, participation in establishing and practicing surveillance over Roma provided unique opportunities for those practitioners who dreamed about obtaining the position of influential experts in shaping the politics concerning Roma. The professional pathways of Czech educator František Štampach and German physician Robert Ritter, whose ambitions moved them from the status of provincial professionals to top-­level experts on the “Gypsy issue,” well illustrated the dual role of expert knowledge as both agency and structure within the institutionalization of a racialized approach to Roma.

The doctrinal racism of František Štampach and Robert Ritter: the resonance of political will and personal choice Between the 1890s and the 1920s, in the first stage of institutionalizing a racialized approach to Roma, police experts intensively adopted recapitulation theory and different views on racial intermixture, the two most dominant theoretical frameworks for racializing inferior groups of the population in that period. In the late 1920s, the experts involved in justifying surveillance over “Gypsies” reversed the racialization process – introducing already gathered applied knowledge to academia, mainly in the fields of physical anthropology and eugenics. This specific pathway of institutionalizing a racialized approach toward Roma involved intraracial hierarchies of “Gypsies” that classified them according to subcategories delineating the key criterion of racial health, whether affiliated with racial intermixture or racial isolation. František Štampach and Robert Ritter were pioneers in introducing an intraracial view on Gypsies – while both scholars shared the idea of “primitives” as the grounds for working out their approach, their opposite attitude to the question of racial intermixture deepened two different pathways for building an intraracial hierarchy based upon accepting “Gypsies” as intractable “primitives.” Those familiar with the biographies of František Štampach36 and Robert Ritter37 will easily recognize the consistent comparability of their professional pathways.

106  The (in)educability of Roma Both experts belonged to the generation whose boyhood and youth reflected the effects of World War I and the postwar reorganization of the world. Štampach was born in 1895 and his father was a veteran of the Austro-­Hungarian Army. Ritter, born in 1901 to the family of a marine officer, took part in the Baltic campaign at the very end of the war. Both were born into provincial, lower-­middle-­class families that invested in the education of their sons. They both started their career working with children, Štampach as a teacher in Plzen and Ritter as a child psychiatrist in Zürich and then in Tübingen. Their very first research aimed at improving the process of coming of age  – in line with the priorities of nation-­building. In 1926, Štampach successfully defended a thesis entitled “The Growth of School Children According to the Survey in Kralups under Vltava” (“Vzrůst školní mládeže na základě šetření v Kralupech nad Vltavou”). In 1928, Ritter defended his thesis, “Attempting Sex Education on a Psychological Basis” (“Versuch einer Sexualpädagogik auf psychologischer Grundlage”). The analogy between children and Roma operated as one of the main signifiers in their public statements concerning Roma. A book by Štampach aimed at discussing the issue of Roma (The Child in the Chasm: The Vagabond, Stray and Gypsy Child – The Protection, Education and Correction of This Child/ Dítě  nad propastí:  dítě toulavé, tulácké a cikánské, jeho záchrana, výchova a výučba) directly referenced Ritter’s experience with children and youth as a main argument in favor of working with “Gypsies,” whom he saw as eternal children. The professional ambitions of Štampach and Ritter, who were unsatisfied with their early career paths,38 appeared to be a main driving force for starting their surveys among Roma. Undoubtedly, the increasing political weight of social security as a national interest and alarmism concerning the “Gypsy plague” determined the engagement of both researchers in field research on “Gypsies.” Štampach cooperated with local police, and Ritter worked with The Racial Hygienic Centre for Premarital Counselling (Rassenhygienische Ehebereitungsstelle). Both initiated their own research on “Gypsies” in order to further their academic careers. In a letter to his supervisor, Professor Matiegka, Štampach directly asked for academic support of his plans to conduct an anthropological survey of “Gypsies”: Due to gathering ciganologic [ciganologický – literally, “Gypsy-­related”] material during my stay at the police offices in Plzen and Košice, and in the Gypsy settlements in Slovakia, I have come to the opinion that it would be a well-­deserved thing not only because of the scientific benefit but also due to the advantage in political and national economic matters, to supplement the material collected by police, gendarmerie [četnictví39], regional army boards [odvodní komise], local authorities, school administrations, and by anthropological research conducted for the Anthropological Institute.40 The request remained without answer for more than two years, and only in 1929, Matiegka agreed to substitute Štampach for Jiří Malý, who had received a Rockefeller Foundation fellowship for conducting research in the United States. Undoubtedly, the positive decision regarding the anthropological measurement

A racialized approach to Roma 107 of “Gypsies” had come into line with growing concerns about the superior and inferior races of the Czechoslovak nation. Beginning in 1927, the most conservative and nationalistically minded experts among Czechoslovak politicians began recruiting arguments from the side of negative eugenics, including debates over the surveillance of “Gypsies.” Accepting negative eugenics as a possible framework for Czechoslovakia reverberated with increasing interest in the topic in Germany. At the end of 1927, in the Senate, representatives of German parties raised the issue of ensuring better access and better provision in schools for Germans due to the higher birth rate among Czechoslovak Germans compared to Czechs. In order to justify this claim, Bohumil Němec published an article entitled, “Biologická politika”41 (“Biological Politics”), in which he brought forward the famous survey, “The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-­Mindedness,” by Henry Herbert Goddard, as an illustration of the dilemma between quantity and quality. Němec was a proponent of the view typical of early American eugenics that saw social policy aimed at encouraging people with serious disabilities as “false charity” – falešná filantropie. Instead, Němec supported a form of biological politics stemming from Davenport’s idea to limit the reproduction of the inferior. Němec defined “biological politics” as an outcome of the systematic cultural politics aimed at providing access to the necessary life resources for all those capable of achieving the best possible social status and ensuring the growth of the most capable. He ascribed to biological politics a special role “in transforming the typical inherited features of nations in either in favor of or against human progress.” Němec not only emphasized the necessity to prioritize the struggle against inferior members of society but also highlighted the task to encourage the reproduction of the potentially superior. This task was presented as the main mission of biological politics. The argument in favor of prioritizing superior groups reverberated with the implicit intention to see Czechs as potentially superior, as those whose number should be increased. The then-­current situation was described by Němec as the decline of the Czechoslovak population accompanied by a decrease in the number of superior individuals. The article ended with a call “to offer sympathy toward inferior people but not to their offspring, who are sentenced to a poor existence, both in terms of morality and sociality.” Such sentiments enjoyed great public resonance, and the “Gypsy issue” reached the status of an urgent political call to nation-­building, which advanced the expertise offered by Štampach. During his stay at Charles University, Štampach disseminated the outputs of his survey concerning “Gypsies.” Despite the widespread acceptance of the premises of his study, he did not obtain a permanent position at the university, but he eventually found other options, along with conducting a survey about “primitives,” including “Gypsies.” In 1938, Štampach obtained a position at the Ministry of Education – within the department responsible for children with disabilities. He successfully lived through the Protectorate period, retaining his position at the Ministry and being involved in the dissemination of the German approach to disability as an editor of the journal Úchylná mládež [Deviating Youth]. After 1945, he was able to return to his academic career as an expert on the “Gypsy issue,” but

108  The (in)educability of Roma was excoriated for his insufficiently socialist view in the early 1960s. He established a close friendship with Jiří Malý, who had started to elaborate the “Gypsy issue” in the late 1940s. Malý’s public weight as an expert ensured the decisive role of Štampach’s view for the next generations of experts on the “Gypsy issue.” In his attempts to use research on “Gypsies” for enhancing his academic career, Ritter achieved outstanding results. His ambitious monograph, A Breed of People: A Eugenic and Genetic-­Historical Study of Ten Generations of “Vagabonds, Prowling Thieves, and Robbers” (Ein Menschenschlag. Erbärztliche und erbgeschichtliche Untersuchungen über die durch 10 Geschlechterfolgen erforschten Nachkommen von “Vagabunden, Jaunern und Räubern”) not only received exceptional acceptance among colleagues and influential experts,42 but also made it possible for Ritter to establish the Racial Hygiene and Demographic Biology Research Unit (Rassenhygienische und Bevölkerungsbiologische Forschungsstelle) as a division of the Criminal Police. Though Ritter and his colleagues participated in working out the arguments concerning final solution to the “Gypsy issue,”43 they avoided any accusations until the end of the 1940s and continued in their academic careers. Even though all charges against him were dropped,44 Ritter was unable to recover after the two-­year court proceedings regarding his Nazi past, and in 1951, he died in a mental hospital due to ongoing issues with high blood pressure.45 The compatibility of the personal pathways of Štampach and Ritter reflected in their similar epistemological approaches to the “Gypsy issue.” Both were so in line with the general approach toward the “Gypsy issue” as a part of the national security agenda and the various analogies aimed at demonstrating the inferiority of “Gypsies” that it is plausible to accuse Ritter of plagiarism: unreferenced use of the core texts written by the experts in the first stage of institutionalizing surveillance over Roma.46 The socialist experts who reproduced much of Štampach’s approach were also able to accuse him of reproducing “bourgeois rhetoric,” just because he had verbalized the “Gypsy issue” in terms of the dilemma of race vs. nation.47 At the core of Štampach’s and Ritter’s surveys is the alleged “primitivism” of “Gypsies,” its origin and possible options for leading “Gypsies” toward more advanced stages of human development: They [Gypsies] leave us puzzled by the question of whether we must consider the Gypsies as carefree, nomadic, food-­seeking naturals, primeval collectors and primitive craftsmen who are still in the childhood stage of humanity, or whether they, as a whole, are to a certain extent only a mutated underdeveloped variant of the human race.48 Considering the multiple prescriptions of primitivism to Slavs as a part of presenting them as an inferior race, Štampach rejected the application of recapitulation theory and its division of nations into three categories based on the stages of human progress: “savages, barbarians and civilized people”: Attempts to transfer the laws of nature from human biology to cultural development are not totally feasible. We cannot apply the basic biological law,

A racialized approach to Roma 109 which equalizes phylogenesis and ontogenesis, and say that the cultural development of humans is reproduced in the mental development of the child. The primitive mentality of adults is parallel to children’s mentality; it is a primary mental state. Primitivism among adults includes an egocentric focus on one’s own material interests – simplicity versus complexity in the social life of civilized people.49 But along with negating recapitulation theory, Štampach stressed the very partial impact of civilization, which “mainly emancipates men and adults from primitive forms of thinking, while until nowadays, we could say about women and especially children that their thinking remains primitive.”50 While the analogy between children and “Gypsies” was indisputably accepted, Štampach directly extended this approach: whose racial and social isolation has made them a group living on an extremely primitive level of economy, gathering, parasitizing, like their analogues in the Himalayas or in eastern Africa. Gypsies are disgusting for rural people as spongers. The ability to work is the most significant criterion for evaluating people as having the same blood. That’s why the Gypsy is not human, because he lives by begging and stealing, or the unsustainable work of blacksmith, horse dealer or musician, which is not work from the point of rural people at all.51 Presenting “Gypsies” as “primitives” engendered the question: “Is it possible for Gypsies to move from the stage of primitive people to civilized humans?” While formally, Štampach and Ritter provided opposing answers, “yes” and “no,” respectively, a more deepened view on their arguments reveals similar intent to pursue the disappearance of “Gypsies,” especially in terms of biological drift. Despite their different approaches to racial intermixture, Štampach and Ritter attempted to solve the same task: instead of looking upon “Gypsies” as a nation in the meaning of a post-­1918 view on statehood, ethnicity and nationality, Štampach and Ritter tried to present Roma as a specific type of “race.” Štampach stressed that “Gypsies” could be defined as a nation “only together with neglecting such a criterion as culture but considering the intention to live together.”52 Ritter’s rhetoric was compatible: “Nothing binds them [Gypsies] more than the mutual veneration of their elders and the dead who are related to them.”53 Both achieved an extreme level of racializing Roma. Štampach not only highlighted the isolation of Roma but stressed the impossibility to include them among the European races, as proposed by Deniker, one of the promoters of racial intermixture: [T]heir breeding [plemenné] features point to gypsies as a group significantly united, in terms of breeding, little mixed, and this breeding constitution makes gypsies different from any other racial groups constructed by various

110  The (in)educability of Roma authors (including Deniker’s classification of races). In this turn, gypsies approach those national groups whose cultural core remains below biological and breeding characteristics. This racial, old-­fashioned [starobylá], unity of gypsies inclines one to see them as non-­acclimatized, non-­mixed nomads, though the nomadism of gypsies has a different origin than the nomadism of Sámi.54 Similarly, Ritter stressed a slightly different way in which “Gypsies” represented a race: Above all, we keep asking ourselves whether those we call gypsies are members of a racially uniform tribe or whether [they are] . . . a mixture of anti-­ social elements incapable of civilization, the most primitive strata of various origins and races.55 Tellingly, the closest colleague of Ritter, Eva Justin, used the terms “German” and “European” interchangeably in her text in order to stress the alterity of Roma – she defined them as a “non-­European race” (außereuropäische Fremdrasse).56 Another colleague of Ritter, Gerhard Stein, elaborated one of the most consistent portrayals of “Gypsies” as non-­Europeans in his extremely hostile text, “About the Physiology and Psychology of Gypsies in Germany” (“Zur Physiologie und Anthropologie der Zigeuner in Deutschland”), in which the authenticity of “Gypsies” was defined as “animal-­like, instinctual and full of affect.”57 Stein framed his text as a consistent opposition between European values and customs and those of “Gypsies” in areas such as religion, the limits of freedom, music or money (see Figure 7.2).

Figure 7.2  The comparison of Europeans and “Gypsies” Source: Gerhard Stein (1940) Zur Physiologie und Anthropologie der Zigeuner [The Physiology and Anthropology of the Gypsies], in Deutschland Zeitschrift für Ethnologie [German Journal for Ethnology], 72, (1/3), 74–114, p. 86.

A racialized approach to Roma 111 Štampach directly equated the civilizing process with the extinction of “Gypsies” (zanikání cikánského národu): There are two ways of extinction for Gypsy people: for one, the transfer of wealthy and sedentarized Gypsies to the space of non-­Gypsy people. These Gypsies continue to have their previous surnames (Rúžička, Lakatoš, Léva) but they are not Gypsies in terms of their language, culture and mentality. Alongside, schooling becomes the bridge upon which Gypsies transform to people at a higher level. If the extinction of Gypsies is inevitable, it is achieved together with schooling.58 Though the rhetoric of Nazi experts regarding schooling for “Gypsies” was more than skeptical, Ritter believed that the rare cases of social advancement (sozialer Aufstieg) among “Gypsies” was the result of mixing with higher or more superior races: One of the [Gypsy] locksmiths, a grandson of the old book-­maker “Romsch,” married the daughter of a local counsellor. As a result, the children of this couple obtained a higher position in the local community. A daughter of one of them married a customs inspector, and her children and grandchildren now hold academic degrees.59 Like Štampach, Ritter introduced the idea of losing the genetic “weight” of vagabonds under the influence of the masses of other genetic groups (andersartige Erbmassen). Also, in line with his intolerant attitude toward racial intermixture, Ritter mainly focused on the pernicious impact of such a process. Moreover, the rare examples of social advancement were seen by Ritter as evidence of the insufficient knowledge about the origin of “Gypsies” and their genetic pathways. Ritter delineated “Gypsies” as those whose pathway was determined by feeblemindedness and asociality,60 which made them ineducable. At the heart of Ritter’s survey was a history of degradation due to the mixing of pure “Gypsies” with the most inferior social groups in Germany. In line with the particularly intolerant attitude within Racial Hygiene toward alcohol,61 Ritter paid special attention to the mixing of “Gypsies” with members of winegrowing families as a source of decay: “We observe a single branch of a well-­ known vintner family slowly degrading over the course of several generations, after an impoverished ancestor had connected to a street-­sweeping daughter (Straßenfegerstochte).”62 Reconstructing the multigenerational nature of degradation, Ritter actively applied the metaphor of layering: The son of this couple became a day laborer and married the daughter of a wall-­painter. The children of this couple would be able to become only wood splitters, i.e. working casually without any possessions and already relying on support of others. Spiritually limited, they moved away from the values

112  The (in)educability of Roma of their ancestors, but found a lot in schnapps. Due to their drinking, they have run into problems with the law. One of their sisters became a prostitute, which led her to the workhouse.63 Ritter illustrated his survey with the family trees of “Gypsies” and introduced an intraracial hierarchy of “Gypsies” according to the degree of racial intermixture: (1) Z or true Gypsy Stammechter Zigeuner; (2) ZM+ or Gypsy mixed, with the predominance of Gypsy blood Zigeunermischling mit vorwiegend zigeunerischem Blutanteil;(3) ZM-­ or Gypsy mixed with the predominance of a German component (Zigeunermischling mit vorwiegend deutschem Anteil); and (4) NZ or non-­Gypsy (Nichtzigeuner). During a meeting of Nazi authorities in January of 1943, this hierarchy was used for selecting those groups who should be sterilized because they represented a direct threat to the German nation.64 Undoubtedly, the survey among Gypsy children placed into residential care institutions, conducted by Eva Justin, a main assistant of Ritter, operationalized the interrelation between the degree of racial mixture and the ineducability of “Gypsies.” In her doctoral study, “The Destiny of Gypsy Children Brought Up Out of Families and Observation under Them” (“Lebensschicksale artfremd erzogener Zigeunerkinder und ihrer Nachkommen”), defended in 1943,65 Justin worked with a classification consisting of the three last groups of Ritter’s formulation,66 which were enough for her purposes – to demonstrate the total ineducability of those Gypsies who belonged to racially mixed groups: By generalizing the key peculiarities of Gypsies’ academic achievements, we should conclude that contemporary uncivilized Gypsies have neither a need to be educated nor the will to learn – they remain illiterate. . . . Nowadays, under the state’s pressure, they attend schools but still miss learning the German language.67 In the end, although Czech and German views on the educability of Gypsies seemed mutually opposed, in their application they reached the same conclusions concerning the ineducability of Roma.

Schooling the (in)educable? The intraracial hierarchy of “Gypsy primitives” in action In interwar Czechoslovakia, schooling was one of the three priorities for “civilizing” the Eastern periphery, as well as “the most sustainable and humanistic way for accelerating the extinction of gypsies.”68 Stemming from the linkage between economic and occupational differences among peripheral groups living in Slovakia and Subcarpathian Ruthenia and their cultural differences,69 internal colonization relied on the politics concerning “Gypsies” as one of the most visible signifiers of this difference. Tellingly, after finishing his Slovak survey, Štampach planned to conduct anthropological measurement of “Gypsies” in the periphery. In a letter to Matiegka, he shared his plans: “Aligned with your decision, I would

A racialized approach to Roma 113 be happy to conduct a survey either in Poland (Podlesi) or Serbia (the Dalmatian periphery) or in Subcarpathian Ruthenia for comparing Gypsies and other populations.”70 Schooling Roma remained a part of the “Czechoslovakization” of the periphery, and the establishment of the first state school for “Gypsies” in Uzhgorod in 192671 was accepted as the most remarkable sign of progress: Visitors from many different lands request permission to be present during lessons and, to judge by the entries in the Visitors’ Book and in the school archives, it seems to rank among the most important sights that Carpathian Russia has to show.72 Marie Nováková, who conducted anthropological survey among Roma living in Uzhgorod under supervision of Jiří Malý, the anthropologist close to Štampach, stressed the outstanding role of school as a factor in civilizing an entire “Gypsy” settlement and complemented her survey with a set of photographs aimed at presenting life in the settlement before and after establishing a school.73 In her thesis, Nováková presented schooling as a first step toward integrating “Gypsies”: “After ten years of establishing the school, the Gypsy settlement became a clean district with a relatively decent and orderly population.” Benevolent paternalism that regarded “Gypsies” as potentially good citizens reverberated with viewing them as racially pure and isolated despite long-­term cohabitation with Rusyns. The total Otherness of Gypsies was expressively described through the pervasive unreadiness of children for schooling: While our child starts his schooling with already acquired behavior, competencies and interiorized readiness for order, the Gypsy child is totally neglected in this way. Even more, the child is unstable, inclined to escape and wild due to ongoing life in nature, a little bit melancholic but malicious too.74 The curriculum adopted much from the approach and content of schools for children with developmental disabilities.75 Moreover, school rules emphasized the Otherness of Gypsies: “The children cannot be allowed to take either books or exercise-­books home; more frequently than in other schools, the lessons are interrupted and the children are taken out into the school yard and taught gymnastic drills.”76 Despite public acceptance of this project as successful, Josef Šimek, the teacher, stressed “the influence of the parental home [which] is still too strong to enable the school to play the role which the state desires it to play in Gypsy life.”77 This remark aligned with the critical view of Štampach who recognized in the practice of establishing special schools, “a fundamental mistake which ignores the call for humanizing the Gypsy child in an already humanized space.”78 Well-­ known from Grellmann’s text (see Chapter 5), opposing ineducable “Gypsy” adults to their potentially educable offspring was supplemented with new testimony, a comparison of the physical development among “Gypsy” children and their “non-­Gypsy” peers. By demonstrating a huge gap between these

114  The (in)educability of Roma groups, Štampach established a long-­term strategy for legitimizing residential care as a unique option for overcoming the double isolation of the “Gypsy” child: “both social and racial differences determine the different physical development of the Gypsy child . . . the isolated Gypsy family separates its child from the non-­Gypsy children’s space, and the non-­Gypsy community of children excludes Gypsy children.”79 Enforced removal of “Gypsy” children from their community and placing them into residential care institutions was fixed in the 1927 law on “The Fight against Gypsies, Vagabonds and Those Unwilling to Work” (“O potulných cikánech a jiných podobných tulácích”). Police officers and courts who employed the law reported huge difficulties in placing children into institutions. The number of “Gypsy” children removed from their families increased, but residential care institutions avoided accepting Romani children, especially boys and those who were older than eight years. Publications about the successful experiences of assimilating Roma reproduced the main clichés regarding their “savage” behavior. Olga Holub, an educator in a residential care unit, started her article about the first case of re-­educating the “Gypsies” by describing their uncivilized behavior: Antonia looked extremely feeble minded, Ružena was mentally healthier, and the Shmids [sister and brother] did not speak and used only Gypsy jargon, which only Ružena was able to understand and translate for us. Due to the efforts of all possible sources, their retardation disappeared – though Antonia and Shmids wet their beds.80 The educator emphasized the contrast between a tough beginning and ultimate pedagogical success, which inclined her to focus on the most difficult case, Antonia, who “has been taught to obey the rules of hygiene, and started to perform long songs and verses.” In this performative approach, it is easy to recognize the very first signs of dividing “Gypsies” into categories, including the degree of schooling that children could be introduced to during the socialist period, which operated in favor of legitimizing different forms of surveillance over Roma (including sterilization) between 1970s and 1980s.81 In her survey, Justin came to the same conclusion. She brought forward ineducability as a criterion for measuring the damage caused by the “Gypsies” through their genetic role in the decay of the German people.82 In the conclusion to her impressive introduction, Justin stressed the necessity to refute the long-­term politics of assimilation, seen going against the interests of the nation: “The whole society does not want to continue more than one-­hundred years of dangerous state policy, and we all claim right now ‘No Gypsy trash!’ [‘Nicht-­Zigeuner-­Gesindel’].”83 Both Ritter and Justin preferred to substantiate their stances using public opinion in their texts; there were few references to other scholarly texts but many allusions to “the healthy and instinctive racial rejection of Gypsies”84 by Germans. Ritter relied on the testimonies of ordinary Germans, who described their troubles with “Gypsies” in terms of ruining their health and health of their families.85

A racialized approach to Roma 115 Justin quoted the opinion of teachers, which she presented as the most experienced experts: Gypsy children do not have any spiritual needs. They are not in the habit of taking books from the libraries. They do not think about deep issues. Maturing, they do not take school tasks seriously and stand by the opinion that it [school] is superfluous, and not necessarily important for their life. Abstract thinking remains extremely difficult for them.86 The mission of Justin’s thesis was to reinforce these sentiments and her field experience with scientific arguments. Tellingly, one of the (rare) references to scientific sources in the texts by Ritter and Justin was “The Kallikak Family: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-­Mindedness,” by Henry Herbert Goddard. Translated into German before World War I, this eugenic text, one of the most influential of the period,87 was published a second time in November 1933 in a special issue of Friedrich Mann’s Pädagogisches Magazin [Friedrich Mann’s Pedagogical Journal]. Relying on Goddard’s “white-­trash” construction, Justin conducted a psychological survey of 180 “Gypsy” children placed into residential care institutions. The majority (117) were registered by Justin as belonging to the first group delineated by Ritter’s categorization, namely, “mixed Gypsies with a predominance of Gypsy blood.” Rather than biomarkers, a “lot of specific traits of mental development”88 were the key criteria for classifying the children as “first-­grade mixed Gypsies.” Justin stressed that even if emancipated from the “backward” influence of their families, Romani children were doomed to remain “primitives,” potentially on a level comparable to poor German children, but far from the standards desirable for the nation’s development or for promoting European values.89 Justin supplemented psychological testing with the records collected since the nineteenth century of residential care units and police regarding the cases of the enforced removal of children and their further placement. This part of her survey indicated the uselessness of such efforts and provided a solid basis for arguing against the efficacy of forcible assimilation, a long-­term priority of German politics concerning “Gypsies.” Justin followed the idea that instead of optimal development aligned with recapitulation theory, which should be progressive, “Gypsy” children, even those placed into institutions at an early age, became more mentally disabled and did not demonstrate progress in academic achievement, but lost previously achieved outcomes: “The best student in the first academic year was a Gypsy girl, . . . but you cannot find Gypsies among the best students of the following years.”90 She explained the inevitability of the increasing gap through cognitive passivity and the absence of curiosity among “Gypsy” children – the qualities seen as the most important for precipitating a shift from a stage of barbarity to becoming “civilized” people. While the mission of her survey was to reject the idea that “Gypsies” could approach whiteness as an indispensable part of human progress, Justin turned the sacralization of children typical of European culture against “Gypsies” – she refused to accept Romani children as human children or even more, as humans at

116  The (in)educability of Roma all. Justin described them either as “little strange creatures” (“kleine fremdartige Geschöpfe”)91 or “tiresome vermin’’ (“lästigen Schmarotzer”). She paid special attention to the memories of teachers from imperial schools, who confirmed that they were able to instruct the Gypsies only as the animals in a circus, and not “by proper human methods.” She concluded that there was not any type of activity in which Roma could be instructed – for crafting, they did not have patience; for spiritual education, they did not have their own opinion and so on. The malignancy of all attempts to educate “Gypsy” children remained a key motive – because these attempts would make “Gypsies” more sophisticated pretenders at being civilized and “like whites.” Justin recognized a “normal” attitude toward little children, from whom “any person cannot want anything except thrilling joy through the heart and eyes”92 as only part of a hopeful attitude toward education for “Gypsies.” By emphasizing the deceptive charm of “Gypsies,” she also provided a more consistent warning against being caught up in these tricks.93 The depictions of young “Gypsy” children in a typically sentimental manner were accompanied by descriptions of their abnormal behavior, pretension, aggression and the difficulties of ascertaining this authentic face of “Gypsies” from the very beginning. Justin compared the depictions of two boys, one raised as a “wild little Gypsy” and Zweigerli, a boy placed in a boarding school from an early age. Despite the obvious difference in these images, Justin demonstrated that Zweigerli only pretended to be successfully “civilized” but inside he remained the same “wild” boy. By speaking with Zweigerli in his language and trying to gain his trust, Justin disclosed his pretension: “The mask of the trained pupil [dressierter Zögling] fell away, and the little Gypsy rapidly regained his naive confidence.”94 Among many things that Zweigerli had shared with Justin, she selected stories told “with some of the moral embellishments related to the gajios – with pride and pleasure, linguistically not always correct, but on the whole quite fluent, the adventures of his escape.”95 Justin refused to apply any norms and standards stemming from the assessment of “white” children to young “Gypsies”: “The soul of primitives remains for us forever unrecognizable, but forced to fight against their non-­adequate environment, we could at least indicate the grounds of particular differentiation and a comprehensive notion for appraisal within our world of values.”96 Instead of a comparison with other children, Justin emphasized the resemblance between “Gypsy” adults and children, by describing the typical profile of “Gypsy” behavior, characterized by “superficiality, hastiness, distractibility” (“Oberflächlichkeit, Leichtfertigkeit, Ablenkbarkeit”).97 She presented several examples of complicity between parents and children in favor of presenting them as eternal non-­adults: “[T]he person who remains at the child’s level of humanity never stops the nomadic way of life and free trade.”98 Justin referenced a letter from a “Gypsy” girl to her father which was discovered by the institution’s staff. Full of complaints, the letter included a description of the disciplinary cell in which the girl was placed because of her attempt to escape. Justin interpreted this letter as evidence that “years and years of efforts simply disappeared after a couple of weeks spent together with her hopeless family.”99

A racialized approach to Roma 117 As a kind of label, the ineducability of Romani children was easily transferred to Roma as a whole group, seen as too immature to be a nation and always needing to be led by people of a higher cultural status (hochstehendes Kulturvolk).100 Obviously, the question “In which respect must we include these primitives according to our own interests?”101 addressed those who brought forth the Final Solution, namely, the Nazi authorities, but it aligned with the data collected by experts. The collision between the anthropological approaches aimed at explaining “Gypsy” inferiority, whether coming from racial intermixture or because of self-­isolation, directly operated in favor of legitimizing both approaches at an international level and shaped politics concerning “Gypsies” in other European countries.

Desirable “Gypsies” vs. unwanted others: an effective false antinomy in racializing Roma During his presentation at the International Congress of Population in Paris, Ritter directly attacked the view on “Gypsies” as self-­isolated groups presented by his Czech colleagues, instead elaborating the reproduction of a particular racial profile among Central European “Gypsies” through two interrelated facts. First, he highlighted their mixing with those inclined toward criminal activities and nomadism, not the best part of Europeans even if Europeans in terms of racial purity. Secondly, he stressed the ongoing migration of “Gypsies” from Southeastern Europe, named by Ritter as “the reservoir for reproducing the mixed Gypsy population.”102 In this attack, Ritter juxtaposed the doubts concerning the “whiteness” of Central Europe as well as the purity of its “Gypsy” population. Hans Weltzel, the German photographer who cooperated with Ritter,103 assailed the aspirations to assimilate Gypsies in more refined terms, about protecting their authentic and “wild” nature: If the warning is now continually heard, “Do not let the primitive die out!” the Gypsy, along with the animal and vegetable world, may be included in the endangered and even perishing primeval world. Conceptions of hygiene and the rules regarding cleanliness and the order of a life regulated in its every detail, which have become a matter of course with us, render the existence of the outsider a complete impossibility. That is to say, there is no more room for anything that is not useful or cannot be made in some way to serve or to fit in with the scheme of civilization. Thus, it may be assumed that this study of the German Gypsies must be reckoned as a last attempt to preserve ethnologica, the disappearance of which is now only a question of time.104 While the text by Weltzel was published in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society (GLS), one of the key voices from the side of Roma, it is reasonable to say that this German approach to “Gypsies” received international acknowledgment – especially in the call to rescue authentic, Aryan, pure “Gypsies.” Tellingly, Weltzel stressed the mutual separateness of “Gypsies,” which would be easily transformed

118  The (in)educability of Roma into an argument in favor of selecting those who did not deserve preservation as a part of wild nature: [A]mong the Gypsies themselves, there are immense differences according to the tribes, families and clans to which each belongs. So strong indeed are these differences – and this applies also to Germany – that among themselves, the distinct tribes are more hostile to one another than all the rest of the world towards the whole Gypsy race.105 Along with accepting an approach that stressed the authenticity of “Gypsies,” international audiences favored the idea of the intensive assimilation of “Gypsies” through their sedentarization – mainly, in Eastern, peripheral, Europe. Alexander Petrović, Serbian anthropologist and younger colleague of Tihomir Đorđević, published in GLS between 1936 and 1939 an extended opus entitled, “Contributions to the Studies of Serbian Gypsies,” which concluded with an avowal of the “Gypsies’’ extinction – in terms of the approach elaborated by Czech anthropologists: The Serbian Gypsies are fast disappearing. The cause of this is not the diminishing number of births, for Serbian Gypsies still have numerous children. They are vanishing from the face of the Earth because they are gradually blending with the Gadze. This process begins on the day a Gypsy family settles permanently in one place. First of all, a trade is sought: that of blacksmith, musician or farmer. But the assimilation comes about more speedily when separate Gypsy families (rather than groups) settle in some Serbian village and begin to do the same work as the greater part of the inhabitants of that place, such as agriculture or work in factories. Most Gypsies are of the opinion that a man who does not speak Romani is not a Gypsy. But Gadze continue to consider them Gypsies. A final step to complete assimilation is the mixture of blood: this is brought about by marriages between Roma and Gadze.106 Along with proposing the mixing of “Gypsies” with “Gadze” as an inevitable scenario for assimilating “Gypsies,” Petrović tried to unveil the univocal view on “Gypsies” as isolated nomads, typical of Western European thinkers. In his extremely critical review on the 1939 publication “Les Migrations Humaines: Étude de l’esprit migratoire” (“Human Migration: Study of the Migration Mind”) by Ragnard Numelin, Petrović refused to explain the nomadism of “Gypsies” through instinct. Bringing into analytical focus the transformation of those “Gypsies” who were sedentarized, Petrović emphasized the expendability of nomadism: Actually, the present generation [of Gypsies] considers life in tents as a matter of shame, and never mention it before a stranger. And – a fact of great interest and importance – sedentary Gypsies look down upon those who travel with tents as a caste beneath them and refuse to intermarry with them.107 In 1946, Wouter Van Wijk, a doctoral student of famous German sociologist René König, generalized this view on the future of European “Gypsies” and offered

A racialized approach to Roma 119 a model of the growing influence of social environment, including assimilation and integration.108 Van Wijk brought forward an intraracial hierarchy of Gypsies according to their degree of assimilation and outlined the position of different parts of Europe in terms of their degree of progress: “While integration into national life is not complete in the Balkans, in Western Europe and in America, the much stronger influence of social environment and of modern civilization make complete assimilation and integration necessary.”109 In other words, while “[m]odern Western civilization has no place for Gypsies and primitive peoples,” “[l]ife in the Balkans allows the Gypsies much more scope to live according to their sentiments and wishes and to remain in community with each other.”110 The six phases of assimilation in Van Wijk’s scheme aimed at placing Western and Eastern Europe in opposition to each other (see Figure 7.3). In the first

Figure 7.3  The phases of assimilation of European “Gypsies” Source: Wouter Van Wijk (1948) A Classificatory Account of the Gypsies Mainly Based on Material Accumulated in the “Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society,” Leiden, Eduard Ijdo Ltd., p. 250.

120  The (in)educability of Roma phase, described as the absence of influence by European customs and concepts, nomadic “Gypsies,” according to Van Wijk, “can be considered non-­existent.”111 The next three stages reflected a gradual move toward accepting the advantages of modern society and the increasing liability of “Gypsies” with regard to Western civilization. To conclude: In Phase 5, the Balkan Gypsies are featured: they constitute an economic part of national life and they have fully assimilated themselves to it but, at the same time, they are still to be distinguished from it and they have not yet fully integrated into it. Phase 6 shows the complete assimilation and integration of the Gypsies into modern society. In this case, one cannot speak any more of Gypsies, at least from the sociological point of view.112 Tellingly, as in the first phase, in the last phase, Gypsies were also seen as non-­ existent. In combination with Van Wijk’s neglect of the recent extermination of “Gypsies” by the Nazis and some of their allies, such a metaphor illustrates the reverberation between racial assimilationism and overt racism. The motive of assimilation as further Europeanization of “Gypsies” remained noticeable in national approaches toward solving the “Gypsy issue.” In 1939, Karl Moravek divided the “Gypsies” of Austria’s Burgenland into four categories based on their resemblance to Europeans. The first group consisted of those who represented the opposition of European (Europid) vs, “Gypsy” (Ziganid) and it was defined as the full embodiment of “Gypsyism.” Moravek described the second group as “Gypsies” that had mixed with all other races alien to Europeans. The third group included “Gypsies” mixed with “races” typical of Southern and Eastern Europe. And the last group was an umbrella for all “Gypsies” whose physical characteristics were compatible with Germans.113 In Sweden, racializing the politics concerning “Gypsies” stemmed from counting Roma and Travelers as two separate subgroups.114 While the first group, tattare, were seen as a self-­isolated group, Travelers were viewed as members of a hybrid race of Romani and non-­Romani Swedes. Allan Etzler, a Swedish expert on the “Gypsy issue,” whose professional pathway was compatible with Ritter’s, focused on this group: Etzler presented the Travellers as a large group that constituted a threat to the Swedish nation due to their clans and high birth rate. They had Swedish names and spoke the Swedish language. Therefore, according to Etzler, the urgent task was to register them to be able to separate them from ordinary Swedes.115 In a comparable way, in the 1960s, local British public health and education authorities introduced three racial categories of Roma: “pure-­blooded,” “mixed” and “house dweller drop-­outs.” At the same time, experts emphasized the educational “disadvantages” of all three groups.116 Judith Okely recognized in these implications of the German approach to dividing “Gypsies,” the echo of the

A racialized approach to Roma 121 belief in a mythical minority of “real Romanies” and a genetic explanation for culture.117 According to Okely, the shift towards liberal “universalistic” and all-­ embracing categories competed with a racialized view on “Gypsies,” but “rather than repudiation of the theoretical foundation of racial categories, [it] coincided with renewed interest in integration or assimilation programmes for Gypsies.”118 Explored by Ester Varsza, the postwar expertise on the “Gypsy issue” in Hungary reproduced both approaches, which led to mixing the grounds for classifying Roma and aggravating their racialization. While Jenő Szép claimed the need to isolate local “Gypsies” from Hungarians in order to stop reproduction of the most inferior population groups,119 József Galambos highlighted that the “Gypsy” population consisted of three major groups, delineated along a scale of their “standard” of living between: those “on top,” who had “distanced themselves already” from the “half nomadic” lifestyle, those in the middle, and the “half nomads at the bottom.”120 Assuredly, interrogation between the two approaches to the “Gypsy issue” approached its peak after 1945, when negating intolerance toward racial intermixture served as legitimation for the politics concerning Gypsies as a self-­isolated group, including such extreme forms of surveillance as enforced sterilization and placement of children into residential care institutions. Helena Malá, a Czech anthropologist, who developed an argument in favor of surveillance over Roma, stressed: “Racism was not and could not be created by anthropologists – the racists just abused the outcomes of anthropological surveys . . . the main task of anthropology is to disclose the baselessness and meaninglessness of racism.”121

Conclusion Directly stemming from criminalization of the “Gypsy issue,” two main approaches to racializing Roma and negating them as a nation, whether due to their racial intermixture or because of self-­isolation, reproduced an antinomy of overt racism and universalism grounded in racial assimilationism. For Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, it is not “a question of which half of this antinomy will win out, it is a question of how to elaborate the concept emancipated from both universalism and extreme racism.”122 This call for radical negation faces multiple obstacles because the long-­term rooting of a racialized approach to Roma in various institutionalized practices has served to establish their non-­whiteness. Historicizing the institutionalization of racializing Roma resolves the fundamental question of doctrinal racism: “When an intolerable, seemingly ‘irrational’ violence enters upon the scene, where are we [scientists] to place that entry?”123 Between the 1920s and the 1940s, racializing Roma rooted several key structural patterns: reverberation between international and national agendas of public security; providing unique options for reinforcing the social and political capital of the experts involved in solving the “Gypsy issue”; and establishing false antinomies aimed at legitimizing a racialized approach through manipulation of the binary opposition between racial intermixture and self-­isolation. By bridging both approaches, Central Europe became a center for generating various practices

122  The (in)educability of Roma of surveillance over Roma and meta-­knowledge concerning the “Gypsy issue,” or the knowledge about producing knowledge. After 1945, this pattern opened up new options within an international agenda concerning human adaptability and national concern regarding demographic policy.

Notes 1 Eric Sunderland (1980) The Population Structure of the Romany Gypsies, in Michael H. Crawford and James H. Mielke (eds.) Current Developments in Anthropological Genetics: Ecology and Population Structure, New York and London, Plenum Press, pp. 125–138, 127. 2 The International Biological Program (IBP) was an interdisciplinary network targeted with charting human biological variation around the world. It started as the Human Adaptability Program (HAP) in the 1950s and continued into the 1960s. For a detailed analysis of this international project as a driving force in racializing Roma, see Chapter 8. 3 Sunderland, p. 128. 4 Ibid, pp. 132–133. 5 For example, this approach was also disseminated among Croatian anthropologists; see Nevenko Bartulin (2014) The Racial Idea in the Independent State of Croatia: Origins and Theory, Leiden, Brill. 6 Eszter Varsza (2017) “The (Final) Solution of the Gypsy-­Question:” Continuities in Discourses about Roma in Hungary, 1940s – 1950s, Nationalities Papers, 45, 1, pp. 114–130, 115. 7 Ibid, p. 116. 8 John Perkins (1999) Continuity in Modern German history? The Treatment of Gypsies, Immigrants & Minorities, 18, 1, pp. 62–82, 63. 9 Shannon L. Fogg (2009) The Politics of Everyday Life in Vichy France: Foreigners, Undesirables, and Strangers, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, pp. 87–89. 10 Pierre Piazza (2004) Histoire de la carte nationale d'identité [History of the National Identity Card], Paris: Odile Jacob. 11 Mohammad H. Gharaati (1996) Zigeunerverfolgung in Deutschland mit besonderer Berücksichtung der Zeit zwischen 1918–1945 [Gypsy Persecution in Germany, with Special Reference to the Period between 1918–1945], Marburg, Tectum Verlag. 12 Dopis policajného riaditele adm. Předmět: Úprava stihania cigánov 26.10.1921 [The Letter of the Police Office to Local Authorities, Subject: Surveillance of the Gypsies, Corrections], SaK Collections of Košicka župa 1923–1928 II.YV, Box 430, Folder 5766. 13 Jan Selling (2017) The Obscured Story of the International Criminal Police Commission, Harry Söderman, and the Forgotten Context of Antiziganism, Scandinavian Journal of History, 42, 3, pp. 329–353. 14 Mathieu Deflem (2002) Policing World Society: Historical Foundations of International Police Cooperation, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 15 František Štampach (1931) Kulturní primitivismus a civilisace: Studie a příklady o primitivních prvcích kulturních u Slovanů [Cultural Primitivism and Civilization: Studies and Examples of Primitive Grounds among Slavs], in Primitivní element kulturní v hospodářském okruhu [Primitive Grounds in the Realm of the Economy], Vol. 1, Brno, Josef Pacl v Strakonicích, p. 13. 16 Hermann Aichele (1911) Die Zigeunerfrage mit besonderer Berücksichtigung Württembergs [The Gypsy Issue considering Württemberg], Tübingen, Universität Tübingen, p. 22. 17 Josef Mareš (1947) Ze života cikánů [About the Life of Gypsies], Kriminalistika, 2, 9, pp. 181–185, 185.

A racialized approach to Roma 123 18 Mareš was referring here to the practice by unwed mothers to pass their offspring to Roma. 19 Josef Mareš (1948) Nekteré zvyky a mravy cikánů [Some Habits and Behavioral Patterns of Gypsies], Kriminalistika, 3, 6–7, pp. 129–133, 130. 20 Josef Mareš (1947) Cikáni musí pracovat [Gypsies Must Work], Kriminalistika, 2, 1, pp. 33–37. 21 Sybil Milton (1998) Antechamber to Birkenau: The Zigeunerlager after 1933, in Michael Berenbaum and Abracham J. Peck (eds.) The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined, Bloomington, Indiana University Press, pp. 387–400, 388. 22 Erika Thurner (1983) Nationalsozialismus und Zigeuner in Österreich [National Socialism and Gypsies in Austria], Wien, Geyer Edition. 23 Tobias Portschy (1938) Die Zieugenrfrage: Denkschrift des Landeshauptmannes für das Burgenland [The Gypsy Issue: Memorandum of the Governor for Burgenland], Eisenstadt, Burgenländische Landesbibliothek, 3827-­B. 24 Ibid. Until the end of the 1970s, his position concerning the “Gypsy issue” remained influential, even after accusations of wartime collaboration, for which he served a jail sentence. 25 The main city of Eastern Slovakia, with a high share of Romani populations. 26 Minister Českoslovenslej republiky s plnou mocou pre správu Slovenska [Minister of the Czechoslovak Republic with Power of Attorney for the Administration of Slovakia] 11.07.1921 Opatřenia proti cigánom Bratislava 11.07.1921, SaK, Collections of Košicka župa 1923–1928 II.YV, Box 430, Folder 5766. 27 Úprava stíhania cigáňov [Surveillance of the Gypsies: Corrections], 1921–09–22, ibidem, folder Policejní ředitelství v Bratislavě [Police Department of Bratislava] SaK Collections of Košicka župa 1923–1928 II.YV, Box 430, Folder 5766. 28 Opatrenie proti cigánom [Measures Against the Gypsies], 1921–07–15, ibidem, folder Služnovský úrad v Ždani [Office of the Local Authority in Ždan] SaK Collections of Košicka župa 1923–1928 II.YV, Box 430, Folder 5766. 29 Victoria Shmidt (2019) The Politics of Surveillance in the Interwar Czechoslovak Periphery: The Role of Campaigns Against Infectious Diseases, Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-­Forschung, 68, 1, pp. 29–56. 30 Stefan Sibolovský (1931) Hluchonemé deti cigánské [Deaf and Dumb Gypsy Children], in Čtvrtý sjezd pro výzkum dítěte V Bratislavě 25.-­27. řijna 1930, Prague, Výbor pro pořádání sjezdů pro výzkum dítěte, pp. 445–448, 446. 31 Ibid. 32 Aichele, pp. 16, 90. 33 Robert Gaupp (1925) Die Unfruchtbarmachung geistig und sittlich kranker und Minderwertiger [The Infertility of the Mentally and Morally Ill and Inferior], Berlin, Julius Springer Verlag. A rigorous exploration of the inception and further transfer of the stigma of the “bastard” is presented in Christine Kunst (2009) Kontinuitäten der Stigmatisierung von “Mischlingkindem” und “Farbigen” am Beispiel der “Rheinlandbastarde” [Continuities of the Stigmatization of “Mixed-­Race Children” and “Colored People” Through the Example of the “Rhineland Bastard”], in Stefanie Westermann et al. (eds.) Medizin im Dienst der “Erbgesundheit”: Beiträge zur Geschichte der Eugenik und “Rassenhygiene” [Medicine in the Service of “Hereditary Health”: Contributions to the History of Eugenics and “Racial Hygiene”], Berlin, Lit Verlag Dr. W. Hopf, pp. 109–126. 34 Shmidt (2019) The Politics of Surveillance. 35 Karl Moravek (1939) Zur Rassenkunde der burgenländischen Zigeuner [Toward Racial Knowledge of the Burgenland Gypsies], Dissertation, Wien Universität. 36 Some of Štampach’s important life milestones are explored in Victoria Shmidt (ed.) (2019) The Politics of Disability in Interwar and Socialist Czechoslovakia: Segregating in the Name of the Nation, Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, pp. 95–101.

124  The (in)educability of Roma 37 A rigorous biography of Robert Ritter is available from Tobias Joachim Schmidt-­ Degenhard’s (2012) Vermessen und Vernichten: der NS-­”Zigeunerforscher” Robert Ritter [Measuring and Annihilating: The Nazi “Gypsy Researcher” Robert Ritter], Stuttgart, Steiner. 38 In his letters to Matiegka, Štampach complained about the workload at school, which was described as an obstacle to his research interests. Additionally, Ritter had to leave his first job after one year due to conflicts with superior colleagues. 39 Štampach used two different words for defining police, četnictví, relevant to the Austro-­Hungarian period, and policie, introduced after 1918. 40 Letter by Štampach to Matiegka, Plzen 21.08.1926 ANM. Osobní fond J. Matiegka, Korespondence osobní přijatá karton č. 9 i.č. 330–473. 41 Bohumil Němec (1928) Biologická politika [Biological Politics], Vzdělávací příloha Národních listů, 01.01.1928, 1, p. 1. 42 Schmidt-­Degenhard, pp. 139–141. 43 Karola Fings (2013) A “Wannsee Conference” on the Extermination of the Gypsies? New Research Findings Regarding 15 January 1943 and the Auschwitz Decree, Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, 27, 3, pp. 174–194. 44 Tellingly, one of the main arguments in favor of Ritter’s acquittal was the mistrust of the testimonies provided by Roma, who continued to be seen as unreliable witnesses, in contrast to respectable physicians and researchers; see more in Schmidt-­Degenhard, p. 233. 45 Ibid, p. 234. 46 Ibid, p. 78. 47 Jaroslav Sus (1961) Cikánská otázka v ČSSR [The Gypsy Issue in Czechoslovakia], Praha, Státní nakladatelství politické literatury, p. 23. 48 Robert Ritter (1937) Mitteleuropäische Zigeuner ein Volkstamm oder eine Mischlingspopulation? [Central European Gypsies: Is It a National Group or a Mixed Population Group?], Congrès International de la Population, Paris 1937, VIII, pp. 51–60, 60. 49 Štampach (1931) Kulturní primitivismus a civilisace, p. 87. 50 Ibid, p. 88. 51 Ibid, p. 96. 52 František Štampach (1931) Základy národopisu cikánů v ČSR Praha [Essentials of the Ethnography of Gypsies in Czechoslovakia], Národopisná společnost československá, p. 3. 53 Ritter (1937) Mitteleuropäische Zigeuner, p. 60. 54 Štampach (1931) Základy národopisu cikánů, p. 2. 55 Ritter (1937) Mitteleuropäische Zigeuner, p. 51. 56 Eva Justin (1943) Lebensschicksale artfremd erzogener Zigeunerkinder und ihrer Nachkommen [The Destiny of Gypsy Children Brought Up Out of Families and Observation Under Them], in Inaugural-­Dissertation zur Erlangung des Doktorgrades, Berlin, der Friedrich-­Wilhelms-­Universität, p. 35. 57 Gerhard Stein (1940) Zur Physiologie und Anthropologie der Zigeuner [The Physiology and Anthropology of the Gypsies], Deutschland Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 72, 1/3, pp. 74–114, 86. 58 František Štampach (1929–1930) Základy národopisu cikánů v ČSR [Essentials of the Ethnography of Gypsies in Czechoslovakia], manuscript, AAV MÚA AV ČR Fond 306 Jiří Horák inv. č 2298, Karton 40, pp. 34–35. 59 Robert Ritter (1937) Ein Menschenschlag Erbärztliche und erbgeschichtliche Untersuchungen über die durch 10 Geschlechterfolgen erforschten Nachkommen von “Vagabunden, Jaunern und Räubern,” [A Breed of People: A Eugenic and Genetic-­Historical Study of Ten Generations of “Vagabonds, Prowling Thieves, and Robbers”], Leipzig, Georg Thieme, pp. 54–55. 60 Ibid, p. 24.

A racialized approach to Roma 125 61 Paul Weindling stressed: “The eradication of alcoholism was regarded as the means of raising productivity, enhancing emotional stability and curing a broad range of social ills”; see Paul Weindling (1989) Health, Race, and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, p. 71. 62 Ritter (1937) Ein Menschenschlag Erbärztliche, p. 21. 63 Ibid, p. 22. 64 Fings, pp. 189–190. 65 Justin, p. 194. 66 Ibid, p. 36. 67 Ibid, p. 51. 68 Ibid, p. 35. 69 Shmidt (2019) The Politics of Surveillance, p. 35. 70 Štampach, Letter to Matiegka 7.3.1933 ANM Osobní fond J. Matiegky, Korespondence osobní přijatá [Accepted Personal Correspondence], karton č. 9 i.č. 330–473, J. Matiegka. 71 In the 1930s, a second “Gypsy” school was established in Mukačevo, another region with a large share of the Romani population. 72 F. B. Steiner (1939) Gypsies in Trans-­Carpathian Russia, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 18, 2–3, pp. 57–60, 59. 73 Marie Nováková (1949) Cikáni v Užhorodě [Gypsies in Uzhgorod], Dissertation, Charles University, Prague. 74 Ibid. 75 Pavel Baloun (2018) Československá civilizační mise: asimilační praktiky vůči “cikánským” dětem v letech 1918–1942 [Czechoslovak Civilizing Mission: Assimilation Practices for “Gipsy” Children in the Years 1918–1942] Dějiny – teorie – kritika 15, 2, pp. 175–202, 188–189. 76 Steiner, p. 60. 77 Ibid. 78 František Štampach (1931) Tělesný a duševní vývoj cikánského dítěte [The Physical and Mental Development of a Gypsy Child], in Čtvrtý sjezd pro výzkum dítěte V Bratislavě 25.-­27. řijna 1930, Prague, Výbor pro pořádání sjezdů pro výzkum dítěte, pp. 174–177, 177. 79 Ibid, p. 175. 80 Olga Holub (1933) První cikánské děti v  dívčí výchovné české zemské komise pro péči o mládež v Jilemnici [The First Gypsy Children Under the Care of the Regional Board of Care for Youth in Jilemnici], Úchylná mládež, IX, pp. 45–47. 81 Shmidt (2019) The Politics of Disability. 82 Justin, p. 35. 83 Ibid, p. 32. 84 Ibid, p. 32. 85 Ritter (1937) Ein Menschenschlag Erbärztliche, p. 21. 86 Justin, p. 50. 87 Stefan Kühl recognized the direct impact of such family surveys on German eugenics: “National Socialists enthusiastically adopted the stories of the Jukes and Kallikaks in order to legitimize their own sterilization program”; see Stefan Kühl (2002) The Nazi Connection: Eugenics, American Racism, and German National Socialism, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 41. 88 Justin, p. 37. 89 Ibid, p. 50. 90 Ibid, p. 49. 91 Ibid, p. 47. 92 Ibid, p. 33.

126  The (in)educability of Roma 93 Ibid, p. 42. 94 Ibid, p. 54. 95 Ibid. 96 Ibid, p. 52. 97 Ibid, p. 49. 98 Ibid, p. 33. 99 Ibid. 100 Ibid. 101 Ibid, p. 52. 102 Ritter (1937) Mitteleuropaische Zigeuner, p. 52. 103 More about the role of Weltzel in Porajmos can be found in Eve Rosenhaft (2008) Exchanging Glances: Ambivalence in Twentieth‐Century Photographs of German Sinti, Third Text, 22, 3, pp. 311–324. 104 Hanns Weltzel (1938) The Gypsies of Central Germany, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 24, pp. 73–77, 73–74. 105 Ibid, p. 74. 106 Alexander Petrović (1940) Contributions to the Studies of the Serbian Gypsies, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, XIX, 1–2, p. 99. 107 Alexander Petrović (1940) Review on Les Migrations Humaines: etude de Vesprit migratoire [Human Migration: Study of the Migration Mind], Ragnard Numelin with preface de Edward Westermark, Paris, Payot, 1939, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, XIX, 1–2, pp. 53–57, 55. 108 Wouter Van Wijk (1948) A Classificatory Account of the Gypsies Mainly Based on Material Accumulated in the “Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society.” Leiden, Eduard Ijdo Ltd, p. 250. 109 Ibid. 110 Ibid, p. 129. 111 Ibid, p. 250. 112 Ibid, p. 252. 113 Moravek, pp. 12–13. 114 Andrej Kotljarchuk (2016) Roma and Travellers in Sweden during World War II: Registration, Experts and Racial Cleansing Policy-­Making in a Transnational Context, Working, Paper presented at the 2016 Nordic Conference on Romani Studies, Södertörn University, p. 6. 115 Andrej Kotljarchuk (2019) State, Experts, and Roma: Historian Allan Etzler and Pseudo-­Scientific Racism in Sweden, Scandinavian Journal of History, DOI: 10.1080/03468755.2019.1668476, p. 6. 116 Judith Okely (1983) The Traveler-­Gypsies, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, p. 20. 117 Ibid, p. 17. 118 Ibid, pp. 19–20. 119 Varsza, p. 119. 120 Ibid, p. 126. 121 Helena Malá and Josef Klement (1980) Antropologie druhu Homo sapiens a variabilita současného lidstva [Anthropology of Homo Sapiens and the Variety of Contemporary Humans], Praha, Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, pp. 99–100. 122 Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein (1997) Race, Nation, Class: Les identites ambigues, Paris, La Decouverte, p. 36. 123 Ibid.

8 In (re)search of inclusion Roma under the pressure of de-­historicizing between the 1950s and 1990s

Introduction Walter Benjamin . . . imagined an angel of history, with his face turned toward the past, helplessly observing the debris of historical events as it accumulates skyward; he hopes to wake the dead and reunite what human ideology has served. . . . For him it is as if a millenarian liberation from the weight of the past will enable a simultaneous coming to terms with the past. But the Gypsies offer an alternative image of liberation. For the Gypsies there is no angel of history, nor is there a past to be redeemed. They live with their gaze fixed on a permanent present that is always becoming. . . . Like the angel, they have no dream of “integration”; but the Gypsies are at least fortunate that the pile of debris that history throws up around them is constantly consigned to the homogeneous, obliterating “sometime ago” (varekana) in which they talk of their past. In the end, I believe, that is why the Rom can live so “lightly” and “easily” in a world so full of heaviness and trouble.1

By stressing the anti-­historical nature of Roma, Michael Stewart concluded his book based upon field research among Hungarian Roma, which aimed at interpreting the routine practices of “Gypsies” as a response to the oppression and threats of pollution from the side of Western civilization. Like many postwar experts, Stewart shared the view on Roma as a self-­isolated group with a minimal degree of inclusion. Further, in contrast to the evolutionist mainstream, Stewart recognized self-­isolation not as a source of degradation but reasonable and conscious self-­protection. The pathos of recognizing Roma placed Stewart among the most respectable experts on the “Gypsy issue” in Central Europe during the first post-­socialist decades.2 Practicing direct negation of the attitude toward Roma as a “backward” population group guided Stewart in neglecting the longue durée of producing knowledge concerning the “Gypsy issue.” In his view on historicizing Roma, Stewart multiplied the opposition of “Gypsies” and “whites” through negating the main pathways and methods for exploring society as either totally unsuitable for understanding the grounds of “Gypsy” sociality or replacing their history with “a history of those who classified people as Gypsy.”3 Stewart’s critique exceptionally focused on the evolutionist approach in its different variations and included neither alternative approaches nor already existing critiques of an evolutionist view on humanity. Such exceptionalism led

128  The (in)educability of Roma Stewart to reject any options for constructing epistemic justice for Roma. He rejected the possibility of Roma to provide testimonies and produce knowledge concerning their history: “For the majority of Gypsies in the rest of Europe, narrating themselves into public life is not possible.”4 Recruiting anthropological categories such as difference, Otherness and exclusion for legitimizing the self-­ isolation of Roma, Stewart remained on the side of those who replaced reestablishing justice with a meta-­theoretical level of racism that “combines intellectual, even sophisticated scientific or quasi-­scientific hermeneutic models with affective complexes of sympathy and antipathy.”5 Stewart’s writings are among those in the postwar period that racialized Roma and fixed their position in Central Europe as one of the “collectives which were denied the right to define themselves”6 or, in Stewart’s terms, those who “do not need commemorations to remember – the rest of the world does it for them on a daily basis.”7 This chapter traces the crystallization of the most powerful part of this “rest of the world,” the epistemic community of those who took a leadership position in producing knowledge concerning “Gypsies” and depicting them as a self-­isolated group of “primitives,” a key signifier for racializing Roma until now. Reconstructing postwar approaches to Roma reveals the multiplicity of ways to de-­historicize Roma, binding different camps of scholars who stressed their self-­isolation. Grounded in the interwar debates concerning the racial origin of “Gypsies,” evolutionism remained the mainstream pathway for thinking about the history of humanity, with its essential belief in “the psychic unity of mankind, the uniform stages of development, the doctrine of survival.”8 Along with an evolutionist view on Roma as somehow “retarded,” non-­Western peoples whose “present state has the status of a ‘survival’ of bygone European history,”9 functionalism ascribed to “primitive” societies (including Roma) the social functions of modern Europe but not in sustainable social forms able to challenge Western forms of civilization. In this way, functionalism replaced the linear evolutionist model of human history with a synchronic approach to timing the past. Despite the clear difference in their visions on the past of “primitives,” both evolutionism and functionalism ignored whiteness as a main source of producing and legitimizing segregation, for example, among Central European Roma.10 Even the mass extermination of European Roma by the Nazis did not turn attention to the issue of whiteness or its daily manifestation of the opposition between “civilized” people and “primitives” as the main tool for legitimizing the segregation of Roma.

Post-­Porajmos racism: whitening memories to exclude Roma For Gypsies, as for Jews, Auschwitz remained a camp of extermination with the only difference that the Nazis killed them not due to hatred [as Jews] but because of viewing them as asocial and totally non-­assimilable. Many Gypsies, including whole families from Slovakia and southern Poland, were directed to Birkenau, an entreport for Auschwitz. Equipped with gas chambers and crematories, Birkenau had capacity to exterminate a huge number of people.11

In (re)search of inclusion 129 Publishing his memories in the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, French diplomat and orientalist Frédéric Max, imprisoned by Nazis between 1943 and 1945, passed through different concentration camps and made one of the first attempts to elaborate the mass extermination of Roma by the Nazis.12 Max described the medical experiments on Roma and stressed the fact that he had never met Romani prisoners after August 1944, which he accepted as evidence of their total extermination. He concluded the article by noting that the genocide of “Gypsies” in concentration camps overshadowed the cruelty and scope of violence perpetrated upon European “Gypsies” in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.13 Along with evidencing the tragic destiny of Roma, Max continued to reproduce many of the negative stereotypes concerning Roma as “primitive” people. Max described one of the Romani prisoners, Paulo, who was nicknamed sar čačo bālo because of his obsession with meals: “While the conditions of camp life were miserable, Paulo’s suffering due to permanent hunger uncovered the primitive nature of the man whose jaw was shaking while he described what he would be able to do to still his hunger.”14 Describing the different patterns of survival among Romani prisoners as less and more assimilated or educated, Max effectively reproduced an intraracial hierarchy. For example, in an article entitled “What Kind of Gypsies were Placed into Concentration Camps,” he compared different prisoners based on their linguistic abilities – to express themselves and be recognizable by Europeans. Max’s text remained largely unnoticed immediately after publication and it is practically unknown today.15 However, his attempt to narrate the extermination of Roma could be seen as evidence of intolerance toward the genocide, while at the same time maintaining a racialized view on “Gypsies,” a combination common in the historical consciousness of postwar experts on Roma. This pattern remained predominant over the second part of the twentieth century and produced an imagined hierarchy of victims16 aimed at comparing the extermination of Jews and Roma. Even recent attempts to elicit public acknowledgment of the Porajmos through emphasizing its resemblance to the Holocaust of Jews have continued to reproduce a racial hierarchy, by framing collective memories concerning Romani extermination through the more familiar lenses of the Jewish case. Roma who provided early testimonies concerning the Porajmos could not overcome the pressure of European or Western superiority. Matéo Maximoff, a French writer of Romani origin, published his own testimonies concerning the genocide of Roma by the Nazis,17 contrasting German barbarism with respectful attitudes toward Roma in other more “civilized” countries: In the U.S.S.R., Gypsies are engineers, doctors and scholars; they have a theatre at Moscow where the best Russian plays are acted in their own language. . . . In America thousands of Gypsies are employed, . . . for everyone knows that they are past masters in the art of coppersmithery. But Germany alone never understood this, for it is not only in this war that they massacred Gypsies.18

130  The (in)educability of Roma Three interrelated driving forces led to placing the genocide of Roma during World War II on the margins of critical whiteness: (1) the consistent continuity in studies reproducing intraracial hierarchies of “Gypsies” and the practical implications in the countries that played a major role in the extermination of Roma: Germany, Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia; (2) the mutation of an international agenda aimed at eliminating racism into a means for launching meta-­racism based upon evolutionist theories; (3) the interpretation of the Romani genocide during World War II as an extraordinary act opposed to the values of Western civilization and the Enlightenment. In 1965, German expert Hermann Arnold published his monograph, Die Zigeuner: Herkunft und Leben im deutschen Sprachgebiet [The Gypsies: Origin and Life in the German-­Language Area]. The text started with an ironical passage concerning the attempts made by the French Chambre des Députés in 1907 to define Gypsies as “one cultural group”; this definition was punctuated by an exclamation mark. In this way, Arnold turned to previous generations of German experts on Roma, reproducing the core pillars of the attitude toward “Gypsies” as racially mixed to different degrees with “non-­Gypsy” populations. Arnold extended Ritter’s four-­stage, intraracial hierarchy of “Gypsies,” adding two more groups in order to differentiate the degree of “non-­Gypsy” blood, from “minimal” to “significant.”19 Extending this intraracial hierarchy situated Arnold’s classification alongside the six-­phase division of assimilation introduced by Van Wijk. Arnold accepted the ideal of assimilation even as he consistently stressed the multiple obstacles to Europeanizing “Gypsies.” Like G. Stein, Arnold framed his comparison of “Gypsies” and Europeans in order to stress the limited options for “Gypsies” to become Europeanized.20 In contrast to Stein, whose comparison stemmed largely from common sense, Arnold tried to theorize the opposition of “Gypsies” to Europeans. The comparison first called upon well-­known binary oppositions, for example, the racialized dualism between European host nations (Europäische Wirtsvölker) and parasites, or “authentic Gypsies” (Echte Zigeuner). Though Arnold did not directly use the concept of “parasite,” readers could easily recognize this extreme of the dichotomy, mainly applied to theorizing anti-­Semitism.21 Along with racial type (either European or Indian origin), language (either European or “Gypsy”) and culture (national or folk), Arnold stressed the total difference between Europeans and “Gypsies” as producing different types of economies: the economy of the planner (Vorsorgende Wirtschaft, or “Planner”) typical of Europeans and the wildlife economy of finders (Wildbeuterwirtschaft or “Finder”) ascribed to “Gypsies.” This essentialization of “Gypsies” as non-­Europeans remained aligned with the overtly racist view that stemmed from accepting “the existence of certain, always constant characteristics typical of Gypsies: Every gypsy personifies the gypsy type.”22 Along with such a view, the systematic opposition of “Gypsies” to Europeans was easily embedded in the predominance of evolutionist ideas in the postwar German public discourse. For instance, contrasting the mature European economy to the weak and wild economy of the Global East constituted one of the main topics of Kurt Pastenaci’s writing.23

In (re)search of inclusion 131 Heinrich Schade, the German anthropologist directly linked to the forced sterilization of “Rhineland Bastards” in the late 1930s, had a comparable postwar career pathway.24 Although he was familiar with the Balkans and in particular with the Macedonian population, he conducted anthropological measurement of the “Gypsy” population in cooperation with Croatian anthropologist Georgina Pilarić, a student of Franjo Ivaniček, famous for his consistent argumentation in favor of racial differentiation between Croats and Serbians.25 Ivaniček’s ascription of Croats as a pure Dinaric race operated as the primary criterion for evaluating the Europeanization of “Gypsies,” defined by Schade and Pilarić as “Dinarisation.” Even though they acknowledged the small size of their sample as a limitation, the authors stressed the process of more rapid “Brachycephalisation” (the changes in the form of the skull toward becoming more brachycephalic) among “Gypsy” children born near Zagreb, while among Bosnian children, this process was not observed.26 The ongoing reproduction of the opposition between Europeans and Roma as the grounds for intraracial hierarchies was a part of the response to blaming Germany and racially minded German scholars for their barbarism and viewing the crimes against humanity conducted by the Nazis as a deviation from European civilization. Originating in the efforts of Central European, mainly Czech, scholars to attack Racial Hygiene and Nazism as a manifestation of anti-­European values, this trend became the main framework for exploring the mass violence that occurred during World War II. At the international level, UNESCO brought into their analytical lenses an evolutionist approach in order to attack the racist legacy of World War II, putting forth an argument for racial equity that claimed “similarity in mental characters among all human groups.” Although stressing “similar degrees of cultural opportunity to realize their [human] potentialities,”27 the UNESCO statement ignored the differences in such opportunities, rooted in the focus on progress and measuring each ethnic group by its achievement.28 The color-­blind policy of UNESCO in addressing Nazism and anti-­Semitism relied heavily on excluding the concept of race and made no distinction between different forms of racism or, even more, the interrelation among them.29 Tellingly, Jan Bělehrádek, one of the most prominent Czech eugenicists, who abandoned Czechoslovakia after the communist upheaval, took part in elaborating the UNESCO statements concerning racism, including the translation of the argument concerning racial assimilation (central to Czech race science) as core for embedding “backward” groups in global human progress. Experts from Central European countries easily combined such an argument with new, Soviet, rhetoric, a combination that became not only obligatory but also a useful tool for legitimizing previous racialized approaches. The U.S.S.R. adopted the UNESCO statements against racism,30 and those Czech experts who offered arguments in favor of reproducing racial assimilationism easily employed the international agenda by juxtaposing it with official Marxist rhetoric. Answering the question “What is the Gypsy issue?” Jaroslav Sus emphasized the conflict between the mode of production relevant to the high cultural level of socialist society on the one side and the exceptionally low stage of

132  The (in)educability of Roma social life among populations of “Gypsy” origin, on the other side. The inability to involve “Gypsies” in common production, along with their “backward” state of material and spiritual culture, was seen as a call for a systematically planned politics of assimilation aimed at “making possible the transfer of gypsies to a higher cultural and social environment, the fusion [splynutí] with the major part of society.”31 In order to stress the extreme “backwardness” of the “Gypsy” population, Sus opposed its nature and the consequences of self-­isolation to another example from the UNESCO statements concerning racial intermixture and self-­isolation, namely, Eskimos, seen as independent and self-­sufficient: The force which makes gypsies isolated does not stem from internal independence; vice versa, [it stems] from total dependence on general society. They do not survive because of their own social activities; vice versa, the negative influence of their social environment reinforces the instinct of “self-­ defense” among gypsies and their intention to maintain racial togetherness.32 Tellingly, in his book, Sus did not directly reference one of the key publications within the UNESCO campaign against racism, “Race et Civilisation” by Michel Leiris (“Race and Civilization,” 1951). Its translation into Czech was made from the translation into Russian, published in the U.S.S.R. with an extended introduction written by Mark Plisecky, a famous Soviet anthropologist.33 The main evolutionist argument of the UNESCO approach started to operate as a primary legitimation for Czech anthropologists, who easily embedded it into racial assimilationism, a long-­term framework for Czech race science since the 1920s. Jaroslav Suchý, a key Czech expert in the physical anthropology of Roma, stressed: “Now we search for humanity in everybody and find the cause of inappropriate behavior in the backward environment in the past. It is undignified for people to look at others with bad prejudice because of their origin.”34 Under direct pressure by authorities, this color-­blind view on Roma infiltrated the practices and politics concerning the “Gypsy issue.” Eva Bačiková, an officer of the Ministry of Education and Culture, directly recommended to educators: By speaking with Gypsies, we must exclude step by step all definitions related to Gypsy and non-­Gypsy as well as to black and white, Gypsies and the rest of the population. We must teach ourselves and, then, the Gypsy population, especially children, to differentiate people into bad and good, cooperative and non-­cooperative, well-­educated and non-­educated.35 A decade later, the color-­blind approach to Roma was fixed in the “Long-­Term Conception of Pre-­ School and Primary School Education for Educationally Neglected and Mentally Backward Gypsy Children” (“Dlouhodobá koncepce MŠ ČSR O výchově a vzdělávání výchovně zanedbaných a prospěchově opožděných cikánských dětí”). Along with defining the Romani population as “a major drag on the development of society in the economic, cultural and political spheres,” the Conception emphasized the impossibility to accept this scenario: “Our socialist

In (re)search of inclusion 133 society cannot come to terms with such a situation at the threshold of the scientific and technological revolution.” Further, the Conception was forbidden to define special classes for “defective” Romani children as “Gypsy” classes: “The definition ‘gypsy’ does not have to be mentioned. Its pejorative accent evokes aversion in Gypsy parents.”36 The definition “Gypsy” started to be replaced by the term “people from a vulnerable environment,” even in the documents regulating forced sterilization in the 1970s in socialist Czechoslovakia. It is possible to reflect upon this pathway as neoracism, whose dominant theme is not biological heredity but the insurmountability of cultural difference, a racism, which, at first sight, does not postulate the superiority of certain groups or peoples in relation to others but “only” the harmfulness of abolishing the frontiers, the incompatibility of life-­styles and traditions.37 Remaining undisputable, the superiority of European civilization, embedded into evolutionism, not only reduced the options for reflecting upon historical continuities in mass violence but also embodied another, shadowy side – it masked the role of experts and expert knowledge in legitimizing genocide. Ritter and Justin, for example, avoided any responsibility for participating in the politics aimed at exterminating Roma, mainly because the authorities refused to accept the testimonies of “Gypsies,” seen as non-­Western “wild” people, as opposed to well-­educated, white German experts. It is remarkable that Arnold, who overtly encouraged the main conclusion reached by Justin, namely, the necessity to sterilize “Gypsies,” continued his career as an expert on the “Gypsy issue” as long as the voices of Romani eyewitness were oppressed.38 The history of collaboration between Czech and German scholars on research concerning Roma remains fragmented. While there are many indirect traces of the recruitment of Czech psychiatrists and anthropologists into activities targeted at establishing tough surveillance over “asocial” elements,39 written evidence is virtually nonexistent. Clearly, neither Czech nor German scholars were interested in documenting the traces of their activities concerning Roma in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Morava. The German anthropologists who survived denazification aimed at avoiding any risk of being implicated as a part of extermination programs. The postwar anti-­collaboration movement in Czechoslovakia achieved its extreme in the anti-­German politics that culminated in the expulsion of the German population from the country, and any intimation concerning collaboration with Nazis could cost one’s reputation or even life. The self-­defense motive in extruding memories of collaboration resonated with the trend to oppose Czech race science to Racial Hygiene in the Czech public discourse,40 and German anthropology aligned with assimilationism to Nazi science in the German historiography of the natural sciences. As long as Czech anthropologists engaged in long-­term cooperation with those German colleagues who espoused racial assimilationism, the issue of collaboration between Czech scholars and Nazi scientists continued to be seen as meaningless.41 According to the still under-­researched legacy of Bruno

134  The (in)educability of Roma Kurt Schultz, who led the Institute of Racial Biology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences (Institut für Rassenbiologie an der Naturwissenschaftlichen Fakultät) in Prague between 1942 and late 1944, among other topics concerning the issue of racially mixed population,42 Schultz elaborated the “Gypsy issue.” The staff of the Museum of Man at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Charles University recently uncovered the records of the anthropological measurement of Romani male twins who served in Wehrmacht, signed by Robert Ritter in 1938 and transferred by Schultz to Prague. The successor of Schultz, Czech anthropologist Jiří Malý started to become interested in the “Gypsy issue” in the late 1930s. He supervised the doctoral thesis by Marie Nováková, who conducted anthropological research among the Romani population of Uzhgorod. Although she conducted her research between 1938 and 1939, Nováková defended her thesis only after the war. Malý published a two-­part article with focus on “Gypsies” as asocial criminals in 1939. after the invasion of Bohemia and Morava by German troops. Tellingly, in his articles, Malý used the materials collected by police officers. His text presented a consistent mix of racialized clichés comprehensible to those who shared the German view on “Gypsies,” as well as references to the attempts to integrate Gypsies, which, according to Malý, should be continued by the new authorities. He reproduced the typical view on “Gypsies” as “primitives,” “distinguished by incredible resistance to infections despite their notorious dirtiness but remain the most dangerous careers of diseases,”43 which aligned with the classical cliché of Racial Hygiene that “the more advanced the culture, the less resistance there was to infections.”44 The circumstances making Malý the successor of Schultz in early 1945 are not clear. In his monograph, Arnold mentioned the still unpublished research on “Gypsies” conducted by Czech scholars during World War II.45 The answer to the question of whether Malý or his colleague Nováková had any relation to this unknown research remains unanswered. After 1945, Malý discontinued all research on the “Gypsy issue” but continued his career and achieved success as a leading Czech anthropologist and the key expert in forensic medicine until the communist upheaval in 1948. Tellingly, Štampach, who remained a close friend of Malý, provided in 1945 the confirmation of Malý’s value to the Czechoslovak nation during the Protectorate period, inviting him to become a member of the Council of the Pedological Institute.46 Malý died in the prime of his career, according to the official version, of a heart attack he suffered ten days after the execution of Milada Horáková and her “accomplices.” Later, Helena Malá, the daughter of Malý, became one of the most influential experts on the “Gypsy issue” from the middle of the 1960s until the end of socialist period. In her own texts, Malá referenced the texts by her father without any reflection concerning his obviously racialized approach. This form of intergenerational continuity resonated with the sustained German–Czech exchange of approaches to exploring the “Gypsy issue” in the 1960s. Jaroslav Suchý, former student of Malý and supervisor of his daughter, with whom Suchý conducted several national and international research projects concerning the “Gypsy issue,” not only consulted the postwar texts of Arnold but

In (re)search of inclusion 135 also asked Jan Beneš, the director of Anthropological Institute at Masaryk University in Brno, and other prominent experts, to share the text of G. Stein.47 Czech anthropologists used the data concerning anthropometric measurements collected by their German colleagues, and the overt racism of the German approach to Roma remained untouched. The lack of reflection on their own responsibility for the genocide of Roma received its most consistent manifestation among Czech experts in their portrayal of the Porajmos as a rupture in the “well-­organized process of assimilating Roma.”48 While the exterminated “Gypsy” population was described as a lost chance for the continuity of the politics of integration, those who remained alive and came to the Czech regions after 1945 through several waves of migration, namely, Roma from Romania and Slovakia, began to be opposed to the disappeared ideal of sedentarized Gypsies. The main motif concerning the irreversible degradation that had resulted from the experience of extermination only aggravated the objectification of Roma as incapable of coping with their past: “[F]or six years [of the Protectorate] the whole Gypsy population was demolished – in terms of their economy, health, but first of all their mental state.”49 The infiltration of memories concerning the genocide of Roma by intraracial hierarchies fixed the undeniable primacy of “white” experts in producing memories and sentenced Roma to be excluded from historicizing their own past for many years. The growth of this meta-­racism, which presented itself as having drawn lessons from the genocide of Roma, was aggravated by the intensive participation of Central European experts in the global agenda of population studies and the International Biological Program (IBP) between the 1960s and 1980s, to which Yugoslav and Czech scholars introduced the “Gypsy issue” as one of the most consistent examples of a self-­isolated group representing a grave risk to the health of humanity. Although I learned a lot about their bodies in a short time, I did not learn anything about their world. When I was at that time leaving the miserable people of small Idka,50 I had contradictory feelings and my head was full of questions. What is the source of their, as if inexhaustible, power to survive in a hostile world? By what means do they resist the pressing acculturation? Why are they so hostile to each other? Why is their gene pool so little affected by foreign genes? What is the source of their joy, when their songs, rhymes and fairy tales are a single river of salty tears?51 This remarkable quotation has been withdrawn from the draft of public lecture prepared by Jan Beneš, the director of the Institute of Anthropology at Masaryk University, Brno, for his first post-­socialist visit to Harvard in 1990.52 The comparative research on Roma that had arrived to Moravia from Hungary and Slovakia, conducted in the 1960s, brought Beneš international acceptance and framed a successful academic career, including participation in several international programs during the socialist period.53 His self-­confidence in presenting the “Gypsy issue” to an international audience reverberated with the postwar position of

136  The (in)educability of Roma Central European anthropologists and Czech scholars, especially among those most respected as experts in this field.54 Though Beneš made efforts to adopt new post-­socialist rhetoric aligned with the politics of recognition and, moreover, to provide distance between anthropological surveys and the surveillance over Roma typical of the recent socialist past,55 presenting Roma as a self-­isolated group approaching disappearance remained a key message for the Western audience: Every Gipsy is above all a member of his group, and only secondly, he feels like a member of a broader community which, in his opinion, is constituted first of all by citizens of non-­Gipsy origin and only then the other foreign Gipsy groups. The Gipsies feel like Gipsies only in their environment; outside it they mostly conceal their origin and their appurtenance. This effort of theirs draws our attention to an obvious trend of adapting themselves to the population of the environs. We can see it above all in the inclination toward the nationality of the non-­Gipsy population in which they live. It is a general phenomenon. It was noticed in Bulgaria, Yugoslavia, Hungary and this phenomenon can be responsible for the fact that in many Gipsy groupings it resulted in the loss of their mother tongue.56 Between the 1960s and 1980s, the epistemic community aimed at offering to national governments and international bodies possible solutions to the “Gypsy issue,” crystallized around the concept of a self-­isolated group, a signifier key for racializing Roma during the postwar period.57 Like other Central European anthropologists, Jan Beneš elaborated a view on Roma as those who did not have their own past and their own future, whose specifics should be seen as only a reflection of the temporal state determined by the transformation from a self-­ isolated group to rigorously integrated citizens.58 In the early 1960s, several Central European scholars conducted anthropological measurements among “Gypsy” populations under the common conceptual umbrella of recognizing “Gypsies” as a self-­isolated group, an approach which had framed interwar mainstream approaches to exploring the “Gypsy issue” in peripheral Europe.59 Initially supervised by Bože Škerlj and after his death by Marij Avčin, the interdisciplinary team of Slovenian scholars initiated the study of the Romani community living in Prekmurje, the region with the largest share of “Gypsies” and the oldest “Gypsy” populations, dating back to the early fifteenth century. In the public discourse, the survey was presented as targeting the rights of “Gypsies” as an ethnic minority: Up to the early nineteen-­sixties, there was no scientific investigation of our gypsies, though they claimed recognition as a national minority, along with the rights and protection guaranteed by law for other minorities. At this time, therefore, a special team of volunteers, composed of sociologists, anthropologists, biologists, ethnologists and medical staff was established to carry out a survey.60

In (re)search of inclusion 137 Nevertheless, among each other, the scholars discussed the scope of genetic anomalies among “Gypsies” and the comparability of their physical development with the Slovenian population.61 The research conducted by the Slovenian team remained one of the first postwar surveys to use blood tests and the distribution of blood groups as the main argument in favor of isolation.62 Later, the outputs of this primary survey were juxtaposed with the anthropological measurement of Calvinists, a closed religious community, in order to evaluate the impact of isolation on health and sociality beyond the factor of ethnicity.63 Two groups of Czech anthropologists, in Prague and Brno, started the systematic anthropological measurement of Roma populations in the early 1960s. In Brno, Beneš conducted his first study of Roma in the early 1960s, during his compulsory military service after obtaining a postgraduate degree. While he was obliged to teach illiterate Roma who served in the army to read and write, it was his own decision to conduct anthropological measurement. The measurements for the Prague Institute of Anthropology were conducted by Helena Malá, who started her academic career as an assistant at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Hradec Králové.64 These studies started to be published in the mid-­1960s.65 Even though they emerged from different political contexts concerning Roma and race science, the motives, aims and methodological approaches for exploring the “Gypsy issue” among Yugoslav and Czech scholars were comparable. The critical postwar status of anthropology in both countries inclined scholars to elaborate options that would improve their public and social capital. Along with the risk of being blamed for collaboration with the Nazis, the pressure of Soviet neo-­Lamarckism led not only to serious censorship in science but also palpable damage to the institutional resources for anthropological studies. For instance, the Institute of Anthropology in Prague ceased to exist in the early 1950s, and all efforts to establish such an institute in Ljubljana remained unsuccessful until the mid-­1950s. Tellingly, at the beginning of her study, Helena Malá directly asked Škerlj to share the data from Slovenian research in order to obtain more reliable grounds for comparison.66 Undoubtedly, the long-­term friendship between Malá’s family and Škerlj67 should be seen as an important part of the more general influence of Yugoslav anthropology, and particularly its Slovenian branch, on Czech science in the 1950s. While Czech race science struggled with the imposition of Lysenkoism,68 Slovenian anthropologists and geneticists remained distanced from the influence of Soviet discourse, despite the attempt of the Communist Party in Slovenia to introduce Soviet neo-­Lamarckism into the public discourse.69 The resistance to Lysenkoism moved far beyond the debates concerning the dichotomy of biological vs. social,70 and the rather rapid affiliation of Yugoslav and Czech scholars to Western genetics and anthropology pointed to the considerable potential of the international agenda for reinforcing race science in Central Europe starting in the late 1950s. Successively, the international agenda of race science ensured its continued influence by integrating anthropological measurement into population studies  – the field that had started to shape national priorities for demographic policy worldwide, including Central European countries.

138  The (in)educability of Roma Arnold Jirásek, one of the most influential members of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences in the 1960s, stressed two preconditions for providing institutional support of anthropology: “overcoming the split among three different camps71 in order to prevent any troubles for the reputation of the Academy and elaborating the agenda relevant to current issues of population policy.”72 Yugoslav anthropology remained divided due to the affiliation of scholars and their research agendas with particular nations, either Bosnia or Slovenia, or Serbia or Croatia.73 Beginning in the late 1950s, a comparative survey of the “inbreeding” and “degradation” among different population groups (especially Roma) in the different parts of Yugoslavia operated in favor of connecting different camps of scholars, obviously under official pressure.74 Between the 1960s and 1970s, anthropologists in Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia achieved acceptance by national authorities and international organizations – by becoming respected experts on the “Gypsy issue” and becoming embedded in the international agenda of demographic studies.

Roma in the global agenda of population studies: insecure populations vs. human progress While all Central European states faced the risk of population decline and started to employ politics aimed at stimulating the birth rate since the 1950s,75 the “Gypsy” population started to be seen as a serious challenge to the progress of demographic politics and the source of limits for providing pro-­natalist policies. This risk was articulated through the global call for better organized surveillance over unwilling populations in terms of their demographic patterns as such: “Birth rates continue to be almost exclusively governed by traditional values; the more and more widespread refusal of the human race to leave its destiny to the whim of chance and the presence of economic planners.”76 Hosting the second Scientific World Population Conference in 1965, Yugoslav authorities called for the extremely intensive involvement of experts from the socialist camp, including Central European scholars.77 Central Europe was accepted as lying on the border of “the dichotomized world in which demographic diversity is likely to increase further.”78 The coexistence of two patterns, either controlling fertility or avoiding it, started to be seen as a direct threat to human civilization: [I]n some countries the annual growth rate exceeds 3 per cent, a rate high enough to double their population in less than twenty-­five years and see at naught their hopes of a higher standard of living.79 Behind the alarmist rhetoric was the fear that the “white” world could not cope with the “non-­white” world: “New and serious problems are looming on the horizon of affluent societies, which may claim part of the resources that might have been devoted to the third world.”80 Central European countries began applying this idea to Romani populations, presenting them as a huge risk for the general welfare: “[T]he natality of contemporary Gypsy population approaches the rapid

In (re)search of inclusion 139 growth of populations in developing countries.”81 An expert at the Czechoslovak Ministry of Education, Svatopluk Cenek, who was responsible for drafting the long-­term conception of education for Romani populations, directly justified its necessity through the “population explosion” among “Gypsies” (populační explosie).82 Tellingly, in 1967, Arnold sounded the alarm in a published text that equated the fertility of “Gypsies” with the fertility of other self-­isolated groups and stressed the risk to human development.83 Along with adopting a demographic motive for opposing Romani and non-­ Romani populations, Central European experts shaped their image as a “community organizing capacity of intellectual rationalizations,”84 which remained one of the central points for the global community of experts: It is not merely a matter of improving . . . forecasting techniques of greater precision, but first of deepening and extending our knowledge of the ways in which the various aspects of demographic trends and the changing material and cultural conditions of the economic and social environment may interact.85 Focusing on Romani populations provided unique opportunities for Central European scholars to reinforce their spiritual power at the international level – within studies on human adaptability.

The “Gypsy issue” in the international agenda of human adaptability: the crystallization of the racist community Reframing the global population agenda in terms of human adaptability began in the early 1950s, originating from the increasing interest of scholars in adaptability as one of the key forms of evidence for evolution, entitling humans “to a place in the vanguard of evolutionary progress.”86 While human adaptability was claimed as one of the grounds of physical anthropology in the 1930s and 1940s,87 there were no systematic attempts until the 1950s to analyze environmental and climatic influences on worldwide variation in physiology and morphology.88 In 1949, Paul Weiss published the milestone text entitled “The Biological Basis of Adaptation,” which stressed the high degree of differentiation among people according to their adaptability. The text introduced readers to a collection of sources aimed at providing an overview of the methodological issues in the study of adaptation.89 Weiss’s division into “phylogenetic adaptedness” (the state that results from appropriate adjustments to conditions) and “ontogenetic adaptation,” which is environmentally or functionally determined (the process that brings about adjustments), created a long-­term pathway for adaptability studies as a part of the politics of racial assimilationism. Seen as the capacity to make adjustments to one’s conditions, adaptability reproduced differences among people by connecting “temporary adaptability” with individual modification and “lasting adaptability” with hereditary change. The dual meaning of adaptability – whether homogeneous, the common product

140  The (in)educability of Roma of all genotypes, or heterogeneous, determined by genetic variations within the species or even within a population90 – reverberated with the postwar mainstream that stressed the psychic unity of mankind and interpreted the past, the present and the future of humanity in terms of a common path toward more and more sophisticated capacities for adjustment: The capacity of organisms of particular species to respond in a certain appropriate manner to a change of conditions moves from the simplest sorts of psychological responses, through tropisms and simple reflexes, into complex instincts and patterns of conditioned reflexes, until it reaches a maximum in the conscious behavior of the most intelligent vertebrates.91 The view on adaptability as a key feature of human progress immediately started to operate at the level of international cooperation. The International Biological Program (IBP) and its subdivision, the Human Adaptability Program (HAP), aimed at answering the question crystallized by Hiram Bentley Glass, one of the top American geneticists and a supporter of the human adaptability framework: “It is not even known whether there is a genetically determined portion of the observable variability [in adaptation], or whether it is entirely attributable to environment conditions.”92 The mission of the IBP was to advance knowledge of humanity’s genetic, psychological and behavioral adaptations.93 The two main dichotomies of human adaptation – process vs. result and evolutionary long-­term change vs. the change within the lifetime of an individual – pointed in several directions. Primarily, selected populations living under environmental stresses should become the main target. This stream focused on isolated or semi-­isolated groups with varying degrees of contact with the modern world. In the United States, the South American Indian population was included in the research plan and in the U.S.S.R., the focus was on people of the North. One of the rationales for paying special attention to self-­isolated groups was the intention “to gather biological base-­line information before the opportunity is lost through cultural, economic, and environmental changes.”94 The IBP effectively alternated between the definition of self-­isolation and “primitives”; for instance, by naming the research of self-­isolated groups as the “Relationship between Primitive Man and his Environment: A Series of Relatively Simple Studies to Provide Insights into a Complex Situation,” scholars aimed at exploring the ecological balance between humans and their environment.95 Both definitions consistently ignored historical contexts; self-­isolation prioritized the environment and geography, making the view on these populations ahistorical. But applying the concept of “primitives” stressed the initial stage of human development – a kind of historical childhood: “The term ‘primitive’ implies being preliterate: having a simple technology; relying on hunting, gathering, and slash-­ and-­burn agriculture for sustenance; and possessing a socioeconomic system organized around kinship or kinship-­like institutions.”96 Along with studying self-­isolated “primitives,” the IBP examined the effects of nutritional stress, migration and urbanization on a broad range of populations,

In (re)search of inclusion 141 especially migrants. This approach ostensibly allowed for examination of common as well as unique responses, thereby providing a better understanding of the range of adaptational responses of the human species.97 Started in 1970, the research project “Biosocial Adaptation of Migrant and Urban Populations” involved more than more than 50 researchers in more than 20 countries.98 Out-­ migration was defined as one of the major factors contributing to the disorganization of city life, and systematic comparison of non-­white migrants with the white population of large cities operated as a source of physical standards because the white population was seen as already adapted to the new modern situation.99 Led by Everett S. Lee, of the Institute of Behavioral Research University of Georgia, this research focused on following questions: How do migrants differ from non-­migrants? What is the impact of migration on population structure at points of origin and destinations? What are the physical and psychological impacts on the migrants and their offspring? What changes in social and economic conditions have the greatest effect on the volume of migration and on the people who migrate? What are the most important factors in the assimilation of migrants at destination? What are the most important obstacles to the assimilation of migrants?100 Both research frameworks directly influenced the Central European scholars who had started their cooperation with the IBP after 1967 and who offered the “Gypsy issue” as a more than suitable case of a self-­isolated group with particular threatening patterns of migration. This initiative reflected the general efforts of the socialist block to advance the issue of adaptability as a strong connection between international and national agendas.101 The typical example of mixing two streams was the Czechoslovak research “Physical Characteristics of Gipsy Youth,”102 developed by Jaroslav Suchý and Helena Malá, affiliated at that moment with the Laboratory of Anthropology at the Pedagogical University in Prague. Along with the united front of socialist scholars interested in the issue of adaptability, Czech anthropologists, who had already established their reputation as world-­renowned experts on the “Gypsy issue,” played a role in making the inclusion of Romani populations a priority for the IBP. At the time that he engaged the IBP in 1968, Jaroslav Suchý participated in another international project, the multivolume Rassengeschichte der Menschheit [The Racial History of Mankind] initiated by Karl Saller. Suchý’s task was to revise the racial history of the “Gypsies” in terms of resemblance with other “savage” populations and to elaborate the driving forces that made them incorrigible and incapable of becoming “civilized.”103 Suchý formulated the goal of exploring the Romani population for IBP in his text for the Rassengeschichte der Menschheit: to analyze the “anthropological heterogony of types existing in the gypsy population to define the anthropological specificity of gypsies.”104

142  The (in)educability of Roma The longitudinal study of two different groups, children in their original social environment and children placed into special schools or children’s homes, aimed at “ascertaining the main physical features by current anthropological methods (in a smaller group with examination of blood groups too).”105 The sample was comprised of school children from 7 to 15 years old. Later, the sample was enlarged to include children of pre–school age and infants.106 This age-­based extension of the sample aligned with the general intention of the IBP to focus on fertility and the health of newborn babies as a source for assessing adaptability: low birth weight and neonatal mortality.107 While the IBP expected that national bodies would explore general health, epidemiology and physical performance; growth and development; genetic characteristics and demographic structure; nutrition; and social and individual behavior,108 the survey focused on changes in the influence of the cultural environment, as determined by institutional intervention with Romani children. Suchý and Malá conducted cross-­sectional pilot studies in in a special home and school for “Gypsies” in Bořislav (North Bohemian district), as well as in a few villages near Topolčiny (West Slovakia), considered original environments of Roma. Such a choice only reinforced the opposition of “civilized” Roma educated in institutions situated within the core of the country and those children who stayed with their “backward” families in the Eastern periphery. In each location for the pilot study aimed at collecting data, Czech and Slovak children were used as a control group. The study was to be “completed by the demographic and ecological characteristics” of both regions.109 The main results were presented to Yugoslav colleagues and published there in 1970. At the conclusion of their presentation, Malá and Suchý easily essentialized the Romani population as completely different from “normal” Czechoslovaks: Gypsies (Romi) form an ethnic group with its own anthropological character. In Czechoslovakia, we consider them a partially socio-­biological isolate. It is impossible to evaluate the corporal state of gypsy-­children according to the all-­state Czechoslovak norms and it is impossible to apply the development parameters for these children available for the normal Czechoslovak population. It is necessary to bear in mind, besides the anthropological character of Gypsies, even those effects caused by the influence of genesity. When forming this population, an important role playing an important part is, on the one hand, the remarkable endogamy among the gypsy population and partly, on the other hand, the historically conditional mixing of this population with other populations. Even the state of nutrition, which is different in some gypsy groups, according to the degree of the social conditions they live in, has an indisputable effect upon their bodily state.110 In 1968, Anton Pogačnik defended his doctoral thesis, “Antropološské in morfološske karakteristike ciganov v Prekmurju” [“The Anthropological and Morphological Characteristics of Gypsies from the Prekmurje Region”]. The data collected before engaging the IBP within Avčin’s project were supplemented by

In (re)search of inclusion 143 a new set of measurements among children and adolescents and interpreted in line with the main points of the human adaptability framework. Pogačnik defined “environment” mainly in terms of the social patterns ascribed to Roma; the number of children, their schooling and the parents’ occupation were the most important factors influencing anthropological differences among Roma.111 Along with differentiating Roma according to their weight, height and the form of the skull, he stressed that the share of Roma who approached “average” physical standards was extremely small. The main explanation for this fact was the resistance of “Gypsies” to the process of sedentarization: The fact the number of regularly employed Gypsies is very small is the reason of the very low standard of their food and clothing, and of their very poor dwelling conditions. Quite naturally, all this, in a certain way, influences the Gypsy population. Taking into consideration the fact that permanent settlement alone already represents, in a certain sense, stress for the Gypsies, we must all the more reckon that permanent employment, especially among the older habitants, stands in full opposition both to their psychology as well as to their tradition.112 Central European scholars easily adopted a utilitarian view on children, a core principle promoted by the IBP. In her writings, Malá directly defined children as the structural reserves of ethnic groups (strukturální fond etnické skupiny).113 The main argument in favor of viewing Romani populations as a threat to the future stemmed from the share of children among them. Pogacnik stressed that “children represent 41% of the total Gypsy population. Gypsy girls become sexually mature a little earlier than other inhabitants of this area. Pregnancies occur early, from the age of 13 onwards.”114 The focus on future generations and the risks stemming from Roma operated as the primary justifications for internationalizing the study of these populations. While the IBP emphasized the role of international networking for exchanging results as a main tool for facilitating similar studies among several of the populations in different countries,115 the already informally operating networks of Central European experts on the “Gypsy issue” pursued further development. Boosting communication among these scholars inevitably led to crystallizing a neoracist approach toward Romani populations. In the early 1970s, Anton Pogačnik initiated the exchange of research outputs between the Slovenian Institute of Anthropology and its counterpart in Brno. He sent Beneš his texts, accompanied by a request to share Czech publications. In his turn, Beneš sent to Pogačnik the texts by Štampach, in his opinion, one of the most influential Czech authors. The materials were accompanied by the following remark: In my opinion, the Gypsy populations living in various European countries are very different. Especially in their komplex116 of morphological (dermatoglyphics, colour-­type etc.) and physiological (ABO System Rh etc.) traits. I suppose that study of the wide morphological komplex of Gypsy features

144  The (in)educability of Roma is very important not only for documentation of their physical look at the present time but also for giving proof of their Indian origin.117 International cooperation reached a peak after involving Western experts in 1970. Beneš initiated the exchange of data with Swedish experts. He asked Lars Beckman, from the Institute for Medical Genetics in Uppsala, to share the outputs of their study concerning the Romani population.118 Immediately, the Swedish texts were forwarded to colleagues in Ljubljana. The conclusion of the Swedish experts that “the Swedish Gypsy population of the Stockholm area does not show any deviations from other European Gypsies. Thus, the main external racial characteristics are well preserved allowing a completely unambiguous discrimination of the Gypsies from the Swedes”119 was reproduced by Czech and Slovenian scholars: After all this, we may conclude that the Gypsy population from the Prekmurje region is morphologically rather uniform, in spite of the admixture of elements foreign to them, and that it has obtained its present characteristics under the influence of the surroundings in which it has been living now for a long time already.120 In 1970, Eric Sunderland121 started to cooperate with Czech and Yugoslav scholars involved in the IBP and participated in the regular meeting of Czech experts at the Faculty of Natural Sciences at Charles University held in late March. Sunderland led the workshop targeted with debating the obstacles to acculturation and assimilation of “Gypsies” in socialist countries.122 The scholars from the Institutes of Anthropology in Brno, Prague and Ljubljana participated in the two-­day meeting. Sunderland aimed to standardize comparative data concerning the Romani population, its genetics, demography, general health, dental characteristics, nutrition, growth and constitution, ophthalmology, working capacity, tolerance toward cold, social behavior and psychology – all that information expected from the side of IBP leaders.123 In his latest publication dedicated to the “Gypsy issue,” Sunderland stressed the particular patterns of preserving the isolation of “Gypsies” in Eastern Europe: It may well be that the large Gypsy populations of the Northern Balkans, many of which have been studied in at least some genetic and demographic detail, were, until the formation of various national boundaries in the 20th century, able to move around and to intermingle with a measure of ease. In those circumstances, it might well have been easy for Gypsies to meet Gypsy marriage partners and, therefore, the gene pool of the large East European Gypsy populations might well have remained “intact” and relatively undiluted as a result of contacts with non-­Gypsies.124 Sunderland’s supervision ensured a consistent focus on genetic tests and cross-­ country comparisons of Roma. In cooperation with the Center for Genetic Counseling in Brno and its leader, Zdeněk Brunecký, Beneš conducted research aimed

In (re)search of inclusion 145 at tracing genetic deviances among Roma as a part of the Northern and Southern Moravian populations, where the share of migration among Roma was one of the highest in Czechoslovakia.125 The outputs of this survey were embedded into a report entitled “Variability and Adaptability of the Industrial Population in South and North Moravia,” presented to the IBP and at the national level two years later.126 Internationalizing the networks of experts on the “Gypsy issue” involved in the IBP opened new options for disseminating the outputs of the surveys. While Czech and Yugoslav scholars started publishing the outcomes of their joint research, scholars from other countries, both Western and Eastern European, began to ask for access to the publications: Stanislaw Marcinkiewicz (Bialystok, Akademia Medyczna Zaklad Anatomii Prawidlovej), Vladilen Levanjuk (geneticist from Mukachevo, Ukraine), María Soledad Mesa (Universidad Complutense de Madrid), Giovanni Floris (Instituto di Scienze Antropologiche dell’ Università di Cagliari) and many others were in touch in order to exchange the results of the anthropological measurement of Roma in their regions. One of the local platforms for such international cooperation was the annual conference in Humpolec (near Prague), the birthplace of Aleš Hrdlička, where anthropologists from different countries presented their findings on racial assimilationism. Another way of disseminating the outputs of the IBP was through the academic stays of Central European experts at academic centers in countries that did not participate in the IBP. For instance, in 1973, during his stay at the Laboratory of the Morphology of Animals in Iassi, University of A.I. Cruz and the Department of the Anatomy of Man, Cluj, the Institute of Medicine, Beneš shared the IBP approaches to the acculturation of Roma and conducted comparative research with Romanian colleagues.

Implications for segregative practices: the outputs of the IBP in Czechoslovak policies concerning Roma The research on the “Gypsy issue” within the purview of the IBP should be seen as a combination of the crucial function of misrecognition and the “will to know.”127 A vehement desire among Central European scholars for immediate knowledge about Roma resonated with the call for effective surveillance over Roma from the side of authorities. One of the central conclusions of the IBP, namely, that “populations left behind are disadvantaged, whether they are isolated farmers or central-­city dwellers remaining after migration to the suburbs. Those who remain in isolated areas are generally less educated,”128 reverberated not only with the view of Central European experts on Roma as inevitably “backward,” as opposed to racially mixed populations: “Mixing led to the appearance of new better characteristics of groups and individuals. The migration of nomadic groups to new destinations led to inevitable isolation and new differentiation of anthropological types.”129 It also resonated with the official position of the Ministry of Education: “Adaptability is often negatively affected by reduced mental or social maturity, which affects a significant percentage of the Gypsy population.”130 The intensive

146  The (in)educability of Roma cooperation between Czech scholars and practitioners between the 1970s and 1980s became a driving force for further racializing Roma, as well as for tough forms of surveillance over them. In 1976, following their IBP study, Malá and Suchý mentioned residential care as only a temporary measure for assimilating Romani children: Gypsy children in children’s homes for a certain length time develop differently, not only from Czech children but also from Gypsy children living in a Gypsy family environment. They are inferior to the former but superior to the latter in height, weight and chest circumference. The differences between Gypsy children from children’s homes and the other Gypsy children are apparently the result of a changed environment, conditioned by the standard of hygiene and nutritional conditions at the children’s homes. This fact, however, cannot be used as an argument for giving preference to education at children’s homes rather than to family education, even in the case of Gypsy children. Improvement of the Gypsy family environment is the final goal, and children’s homes provide only a provisional solution.131 In 1984, when segregation against Roma started to achieve its historical peak, Malá defined Romani children as those who “require distinctive care at schools”132 because they were “children who are destined not to assert themselves equally with other population in terms of society’s needs and personal ambitions.”133 The shift in the attitude of Malá and other experts toward residential care as only suitable solution for solving the “Gypsy issue” reflected the increasing institutional violence against Roma between the 1970s and 1980s, accompanied by the effective involvement of experts and expert knowledge for legitimizing tough forms of surveillance such as forced placement of children into institutions and forced sterilization. Malá equated assimilation with the disappearance of Roma: “The gradual dissolution of Roma among the major Czechoslovak ethnic groups should be achieved by mutual social and gradually elaborated biological contact.”134 In the context of ongoing segregation, the call for “gradual dissolution” can be interpreted as possible only for a limited number of rigorously selected Romani children who would gain a chance to approach the standards of “white” children at the price of rejecting their own past. While the Ministry reproduced the main conclusion of the IBP concerning Central European Roma that “Gypsies are at the level of prerequisites for final integration with the majority society of non-­Gypsy origin,” the obvious differences in the physical development of Romani children was interpreted in terms of deviance from the majority or as a disability: “[I]n contrast to others, children of Gypsy descent are handicapped before they enter school.”135 This clear invalidation of Roma was not accidental. Intersecting race and disability reflected a long-­term tradition in Czechoslovakia since the interwar period and the politics concerning the Eastern periphery.136 In the early 1970s, this historically determined pathway received new input from the increased influence of attachment theory, leading to a view on Romani children as deprived in their sensory development (due to the

In (re)search of inclusion 147 number of children in the household and parental neglect), as well as the concept of “social defectivity” (sociální defektivita), mainly elaborated within the psychology of minors in conflict with the law. Both intersections of disability, with detachment and deviant behavior, were immediately applied to Romani children and families. The main aim was to prevent the “defectivity” of children through in-­time assessment of the families at high risk for their children to become “defective.”137 One of the main organizational tools for integrating racial science into everyday or pedestrian levels of segregation was the Interdisciplinary Team for Solving the Gypsy Issue, organized by the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences (Mezioborový tým pro cikánskou problematiku, Ústav pro filosofii a sociologii  – ČSAV). This community involved officials from the Ministries of Health, Education and Social Affairs and experts who operated between the level of policy making and practitioners – local advisers or metodists138 who organized professional retraining for educators and social workers, including those working with Roma. Based on their own experience in organizing education for Roma, Miroslav Dědič and Josef Štěpán were the main figures who provided such retraining, both as lecturers and managers.139 Both were in close cooperation with Suchý and Malá (also invited to train educators), and both were instructed to use the outputs of the IBP in their own training activities. For instance, in his lecture, Štěpán referenced the surveys by Pogačnik and Beneš for describing the physical “backwardness” of Romani children,140 and Dědič directly disseminated publications by Suchý, Malá and Beneš among practitioners, as the most valuable sources for recognizing the specifics of the “Roma mentality.”141 Tellingly, Dědič recruited his former Romani students to become educators, building the argument in favor of removing Romani children from their families and placing them in special classes and schools. Their own experience of being educated in boarding schools and discontinuing any relations with their “Gypsy” past, including relationships with parents, was seen as the strongest verification for universalizing residential care for Romani children as the primary response to their ineducability.142 Through his public activities, Dědič emphasized the necessity of the double separation of Romani children, from their non-­Romani peers, in order to prevent an inferiority complex, and from their “backward” families, in order to eliminate the risk of “retardation.” Until now, he remains a strong supporter of this approach, along with many Czech educators. Exploring the intractability of a positive attitude toward the multiple separation of Roma follows the echo of one of the main driving forces of shaping public discourse during the socialist period, fiction films.

De-­historicizing Roma in Czech socialist fiction: visualizing whiteness Here I am sitting and there sits my son. I am father, and my son and you, you want that son would be father and father be son. You have given him a red pioneer’s

148  The (in)educability of Roma scarf; I am a worker, I recognize it. But what about the father? Do you need me, son? I know the teacher cares about you; she covers you. Sleep, son, sleep, my little boy. There, the teacher is sitting and gazing, looking down on Gypsies. Go Fabian; go to the blackboard. I never go again. You have kind eyes, you see everything, you know everything, who are the cheaters and who are the liars, but you do not look at how the heart of the Gypsy pains, neither you nor Trojan. You say the Gypsy is lying, but I say “It was not me, but you are lying to the Gypsy.” But they, they never lie. They are non-­lying people, non-­lying people.

This monologue of Fabian, a “Gypsy” welder unjustly accused of sabotage and rightly accused of cheating on his school homework, is the culmination of the first socialist film aimed at depicting the “Gypsy issue” in Czechoslovakia, Můj přítel Fabian [My Friend the Gipsy, 1953].143 The film director, Jiří Weiss, had decided to film the short story Dva Gáboři [Two Gabors, 1952] by Ludvík Aškenazy, which had become popular after publishing and even more so after the film was released. The film opens with pictures by František Tichý,144 which introduce the audience to nomadic life in the recent past of Roma and their extermination by the Nazis. In terms of the narrative types introduced by Rick Altman, Můj přítel Fabian reproduces all the main features of a single-­focus narrative, which introduces secondary characters through the protagonist, clearly identifying them as structurally subservient.145 Further, the Czech welder Josef Trojan is the films’ only narrator, not Fabian. Trojan’s character perfectly aligns with the figure of the eccentric individual who can lay no claim to public sympathy but puts his values at the center of the narration.146 Indeed, other non-­Romani characters often stress the over-­ idealistic approach of Trojan toward various aspects of public life, including the “Gypsy issue.” Trojan meets Fabian and his son, who, together with other Roma, have arrived at the main station in Ostrava and are gazing at the grand socialist building, and he helps them to read an address they must locate. Later, Trojan invites Fabian to work on his team – not as a simple worker, but as a welder. In this moment, Fabian becomes a main enemy of Václav Řepka, the central (negative) character who reproduces all the features of a passive anti-­communist: born in Karlovy Vary and totally submerged in his memories about the time when he worked as a barber in the luxurious Hotel Pupp, serving the enemies of the socialist people, such as bishops or sheikhs. Řepka had desired to become a part of Trojan’s team; thus, he believes Fabian has stolen his opportunity for a better job. The acculturation of Fabian remains closely linked to practicing socialist values, personalized in the figure of Trojan and the teacher of Fabian’s son, Vlasta. By the end of film, Trojan and Vlasta recognize their new (socialist) responsibilities, including the necessity to lead those who do not yet share the new ideas. Meanwhile, Fabian faces a dilemma of identity and resolves it – in favor of combining his new, acculturated patterns, with pride in being a “Gypsy.” Unsurprisingly, his monologue is punctuated by Trojan’s remark: “Fabian feels only his insulted heart, and it is time to forget about it.” The final scene repeats the opening scene – but it is Fabian, not Trojan, who helps newly arrived Roma to read an address and swears that he will teach them to read.

In (re)search of inclusion 149 Synchronizing acculturation and the dissemination of socialist ideals, the main semantic structure of the film fixes visual patterns of whiteness. The film is filled with moments in which Romani characters remain in a subordinate position, whether observing whites in higher positions or being observed by whites (see Figures 8.1 and 8.2). Along with this spatial dimension of whiteness, the film introduces temporal measurement by showing the Romani mode of life before and after acculturation. Mixing tropisms in visualizing Romani life produced by ethnologists (see, for example, Figure 8.3) and stereotypes concerning the addiction of Roma to alcohol frames the “Gypsy issue” with multiple forms of “backwardness” among Roma. The motif of the inevitable separation of father and son, central to the story by Aškenazy, transforms in the film into an implicit opposition between the more dramatic acculturation trajectory of the father and the much easier path facing his son. While Fabian struggles with his own psychological issues and the systematic neglect and mistrust by Trojan and Vlasta, his son easily adopts the new mode of life and establishes close friendships with his peers. His progress in acculturation

Figure 8.1  White supremacy in Můj přítel Fabian (My Friend the Gipsy, 1953) Source: NFA

150  The (in)educability of Roma

Figure 8.2  White supremacy in Můj přítel Fabian (My Friend the Gipsy, 1953) Source: NFA

Figure 8.3  “Backwardness” of Roma in Můj přítel Fabian (My Friend the Gipsy, 1953) Source: NFA

In (re)search of inclusion 151 is one of the central sources of internal conflict for Fabian, who loses his parental authority. Along with the spatial and temporal division of white and non-­white, this contest between father and son creates a stereotype concerning Roma as sentenced forever to either catch up with the next generation or remain “uncivilized.” Tellingly, this cliché garnered the most positive acceptance among official critics. Antonín Malina, in his review for Obrana lidu [Defense of the People], the official newspaper of the Ministry of Defense, wrote: The main strength is that [the film] is not a story of trouble-­free transformation, which was recently made with a camera in one hand and a brochure for re-­education in the other. The spectator recognizes Fabian as a man whose transformation is not finished, and his portrait cannot hang on the wall of the most respected workers. Fabian can misstep many times. And his progress depends on the people around him.147 The character of Trojan, to whom various critics univocally ascribed a lack of charisma and an overly intellectual look, was viewed as a main weakness of the film, along with the lack of a vital socialist collective as a driving force behind Fabian’s acculturation.148 This call for a more consistent agent of acculturation addresses the clear problem with the film’s protagonist, who should, in line with a single-­focus narrative, usurp the dominant position and become the subject, to whom all other characters and things remain objects.149 Můj přítel Fabian solidified the main clichés in the de-­historicization of Roma, presenting them as a part of “whitening” Czech society in several ways: portraying the multiplicity of internal conflicts among Roma as a driving force for coming of age for non-­Roma; sentencing Roma to choose between their past (childhood) and their future (maturity) without any option for reconciling these identities; and prescribing to Roma a univocal way to become “whiter” through education. Fifty years after the premiere of Můj přítel Fabian, Dušan Klein, who played the role of Fabian’s son and eventually became a successful film director, decided to produce another success story about reeducation based upon true events – the organization of a “Gypsy” school in the early 1950s by Miroslav Dědič, in a small town situated on the border between Germany and Czechoslovakia. Klein made the film Kdo se bojí utíká [Who Is Afraid, Flees, 1986]150 after completing first two parts of his most famous comedy film series, Básníci [Poets, 1982, 1984, 1987, 1993, 2003, 2016]. Kdo se bojí utíká narrates the coming-­of-­age story of Štěpán Šafránek, who grows up and becomes a physician. Tellingly, Pavel Křiž, who performed this role, also played Miroslav Dudek – the young Czech teacher who achieves incredible maturity by organizing education for young “Gypsies.” The audible motifs of bildungsroman and the choice of charismatic Křiž151 were crucial to Klein’s main idea, which he expressed by answering the question posed by interviewer Pavel Jiras: “Were you interested in the issue of Gypsy children or adults?” Klein answered: First of all, I was interested in the character of the teacher Dudek and his approach towards children as well as adults. He has a great mission but

152  The (in)educability of Roma remains an anti-­heroic type. No cowboy from a Western could be seen as more suitable for this wild life. He arrives to the town with his own illusions and he must struggle against external enemies, as well as against his own doubts.152 In contrast to the character of Trojan, whose transformation to a more mature individual remains unnoticed, Dudek, a young man with family drama in his background (his parents were murdered by Nazis) passes through trials and disappointments (see Figures 8.4), but by the end of the film, he gains love and new hope through reeducating not only Romani children and their parents but also his compatriots. His adventure should be interpreted as a journey to divine regions in search of new meaning regarding human existence, a quest typical of single-­focus narrative and male bildungsroman, one of the most consistent performances of this type of narration.153 Along with a more consistent performance of single-­narrative, Kdo se bojí utíká reconstructs a dual-­focus narrative by presenting two worlds: the world of white Europeans and the world of Roma. The film stretches audience attention between two eternities, the wild life of nomadic Roma and the existence of the white locals. The dual-­focus narrative translates the idea of order as central to storytelling: “Before the text there was nothing but chaos; with the end of the text comes the end of the time.”154 The film opens with a scene of an overt fight between Roma and non-­Roma, or in Altman’s terms, a temporary imbalance between the two sides. The film ends with hugs between the teacher and the children, or in terms of the double-­focus narrative, a restoration of unity.155 Focusing on eliminating exceptions and transforming new values into sustainable frames, the core of the double-­focus narrative reverberates with emphasizing the informal law of “Gypsy” life, tradition, nature and other established systems. The order of the narration reflects the common framework of ethnological surveys among “primitives”: marriage, parenting and death. Each of these life events involves the presence of the protagonist, Dudek, who challenges the chaos. He plays Bach to the children (see Figure 8.5) after their performance of Romani dances and songs (see Figure 8.6). He is dancing and kissing his fiancée for the

 

 

Figure 8.4  Pavel Křiž as Miroslav Dudek in Kdo se bojí utíká (Who Is Afraid, Flees, 1986) Source: NFA

In (re)search of inclusion 153

Figure 8.5 Pavel Křiž as Miroslav Dudek is playing Bach to Romani children in Kdo se bojí utíká (Who Is Afraid, Flees, 1986) Source: NFA

Figure 8.6 Romani children are dancing to their teacher’s instruction in Kdo se bojí utíká (Who Is Afraid, Flees, 1986) Source: NFA

154  The (in)educability of Roma

Figure 8.7 “White love” in the background of a “Gypsy” wedding in Kdo se bojí utíká (Who Is Afraid, Flees, 1986) Source: NFA

first time during the wedding of a Romani couple (see Figure 8.7). They attend the funeral of an old Roma and demonstrate an alternative culture of loss and grief. These regular movements between the two sides, Romani and white, equip the audience with a wide range of metaphoric modulation for contrasting Roma to the “civilized” world. While the world of Roma is presented by characters who operate as representatives of a group rather than independent beings who develop or change,156 the film easily turns to the essentialization of Roma – presenting the white world as the source of demiurges that reeducate or, in Altman’s terms, serve to protect society and its laws, identifying them as the cosmos and opposing them to chaos.157 In his post-­film interviews, Klein reproduced the matrix of the dual-­focused narrative. Along with uncritical acceptance of Dědič’s approach,158 Klein easily reproduced an intraracial hierarchy concerning Roma in discussing the limits of casting: Though particular experience with the film A Radical Cut,159 I was thinking about the cooperation with gypsy citizens with fear. I bet on the members of two Prague music bands, Khamoro and Lače Roma. I  created the basic team from fifty members of these groups, and the children were selected from Prague schools; mainly, they were offspring of the members of these music

In (re)search of inclusion 155 bands. These were civilized and cultivated families, from whom I expected stylization in performing the habits of nomadic gypsies.160 Juxtaposing single-­focus narrative, mainly targeted at equipping whites with the ability to “civilize” Roma, to double-­focus narrative, as a trajectory for the essentialization of Roma, has operated as a mainstream model in historicizing Roma in Central Europe. The dual-­focus narrative of the film ascribes to Romani characters identities derived like children born into their parents’ religion, imprisoned in a system they cannot leave without also abandoning the text.161 In the final part of the film, Romani families take their children and go away; only five families stay – because of school. But white locals who have started to support Dudek say: “It is not football; the win is not in numbers.” Not Roma themselves but Dudek, with his normative gaze, remains the fighter for a better life for Roma, excluding the option to move beyond the dichotomy of Romani/white.

Conclusion The postwar elaboration of the Porajmos not only missed recognition in terms of overt racism but also fixed the patterns of epistemic injustice against Roma, objectified as victims without their own voice for providing testimonies and producing knowledge about their past. Negating Nazism as a performance of barbarism directly orchestrated the uncritical acceptance of an evolutionist view on humanity, and one of the consequences was a systematic de-­historicizing of Roma. The sustainable reproduction of racial assimilationism concerning Central European Roma after 1945 stemmed from the multilevel interrogation of national and global agendas concerning surveillance over unreliable populations. Anthropologists from Central European countries operated as the main agents connecting intracountry and international levels of policy making concerning Roma. Emancipated from the pressure of Soviet neo-­Lamarckism, Yugoslav scholars played a central role in reestablishing physical anthropology as an intercountry epistemic community in the 1950s; Czech scientists obtained a leading position among Central European colleagues only later, in the second half of the 1960s. International acknowledgment advancing the “Gypsy issue” as a part of the agenda concerning self-­isolated groups directly affected the legitimation of Czech physical anthropology at the national level in the 1970s, with two interrelated consequences. First, Czech studies on the “Gypsy issue” were accepted as the vanguard. Moreover, the Czech theoretical approach to the issue achieved the most consistent connection with practices of public health, social welfare and education, which, in the 1980s, reached other socialist countries.162 Along with being a transnational phenomenon, the postwar elaboration of the argument justifying the segregation of Roma in Central Europe proceeded apace within a vacuum of effective alternatives to de-­historicizing Roma. Between the 1950s and 1980s, “racist and Eurocentric assumptions made by whole societies, not just by individuals, and assumptions held over even larger historical eras and cultures, such as ‘modern life,’ [and] ‘the developed world’ ” influenced the social

156  The (in)educability of Roma and political context for Roma.163 Mixing a single-­focus narrative of whiteness and a double-­focus narrative of opposing Roma to the white world replaced the history of the everyday life of Roma. Instead, analogies between Roma and self-­ isolated “primitives,” whose past was used exceptionally to objectify Roma and exclude them from producing their own knowledge of the their past, prevailed, in spite of their recent extermination during World War II. If “to avoid racism means to avoid that ‘abstract’ anti-­racism which fails to grasp the psychological and sociological laws of human population movements”164 and “take on board a number of major historical facts, however troublesome these may be,”165 Roma clearly need to revise the dominant ways of historicizing them. If the type of narration determines the core of historicizing, then alternative forms of narration provide a possible answer to the question “How to go beyond the action-­oriented and character-­oriented questions of single-­focus and dual-­ focus narrative to ask the questions that reach beyond the familiar characters?”166 Altman considers multiple-­focus narrative, which rejects placing characters into a hierarchy and refuses to emphasize particular individuals in order to create a spatial and narrative center, a basic tenet of alternative historicizing.167 Such narration embraces various forms of negating racism in its historical contexts – including the already implemented attempts to overcome it.

Notes 1 Michael Stewart (1997) The Time of the Gypsies: Studies in the Ethnographic Imagination, Boulder, CO, Westview Press, p. 246. 2 Stewart’s writings were recommended by influential donors such as the Soros Foundation, who elaborated the issue of educating Romani children within special schools, and reviews of his texts mainly stressed the unique and new option for looking at the situation from the position of Roma. For instance, Tone-­Kristin Lone defined the study “as a well written ethnography of the way Gypsies think and feel about themselves and ‘others,’ and how they order their lives in relation to these beliefs” (Tone-­Fristin Lone [1999] Lone on Stewart, “The Time of the Gypsies,” available online at https://networks.h-­net.org/node/21311/reviews/21573/ lone-­stewart-­time-­gypsies). 3 Michael Stewart (2013) Roma and Gypsy “Ethnicity” as a Subject of Anthropological Inquiry, Annual Review of Anthropology, 42, pp. 415–432, 423. 4 Michael Stewart (2004) Remembering without Commemoration: The Mnemonics and Politics of Holocaust Memories among European Roma, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, 10, 3, pp. 561–582, 577. 5 Etienne Balibar (2005) Difference, Otherness, Exclusion, Parallax, 11, 1, pp. 19–34, 24. 6 Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein (1997) Race, Nation, Class: Les identites Ambigues, Paris, La Decouverte, p. 18. 7 Stewart (2004), p. 275. 8 Michael Mack (2003) Anthropology as Memory: Elias Canetti's and Franz Baermann Steiner's Responses to the Shoah, Oxford, Oxford University Press, p. 31. 9 Ibid, p. 88. 10 For instance, Malinowski, one of the main apologists of functionalism, consistently differentiated the position of anthropologist and colonizer. Such clear differentiation between the “practical man” of the colonial administration and the “disinterested” anthropologist who only wanted to work out a scientifically justified view of “savage

In (re)search of inclusion 157 life” without mingling in the colonial context, is often seen as the absence of interest in undermining attitudes that help to justify colonialism. See Mack, p. 93. 11 Frédéric Max (1946) Le sort des Tsiganes dans les prisons et les camps de concentration de l’allemagne Hitlerienne [The Fate of Gypsies in the Prisons and Concentration Camps of Hitler's Germany], Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, 25, 1–2, pp. 24–35, 31. 12 During World War II, the mass extermination of Roma in German-­occupied territories occurred not only at the hands of Nazis but also by local authorities. The systematic genocide of Roma in Yugoslavia and in the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was organized and implemented by locals; more in Michael Zimmermann (1996) Rassenutopie und Genozid: Die nationalsozialistische “Lösung der Zigeunerfrage [Racial Utopia and Genocide: The National Socialist “Solution to the Gypsy Question], Hamburg: Christians. 13 Ibid, p. 33. 14 Ibid, p. 27. 15 Henriette Asséo (2005) L'avènement politique des Roms (Tsiganes) et le genocide. La construction mémorielle en Allemagne et en France [The Appearance of the Politics Concerning the Genocide of Roma (Gypsies): The Construction of Memories in Germany and France], Le Temps des medias, 2, 5, pp. 78–91. 16 Karola Fings (2013) A “Wannsee Conference” on the Extermination of the Gypsies? New Research Findings Regarding 15 January 1943 and the Auschwitz Decree, Dapim: Studies on the Holocaust, 27, 3, pp. 174–194, 183. 17 Matéo Maximoff (1946) Germany and the Gypsies: From the Gypsies Point of View, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, pp. 104–108. 18 Ibid, p. 105. 19 Hermann Arnold (1965) Die Zigeuner: Herkunft und Leben im deutschen Sprachgebiet [The Gypsies: Origin and Life in the German-­Language Area], Olten und Freiburg im Breisgau, Walter-­Verlag, p. 277. 20 Ibid, p. 268. 21 Tellingly, in the 1960s, this dichotomy was heavily criticized in the reflections of the Holocaust and the impact of long-­term, anti-­Jewish propaganda in Germany, e.g., Alexander Bein (1965) Der Judische Parasit: Bemerkungen zur Semantik der Judenfrage [The Jewish Parasite: Comments on the Semantics of the Jewish Question], Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte, 13, 2, pp. 121–149. 22 Tobias Portschy (1938) Die Zieugenrfrage: Denkschrift des Landeshauptmannes für das Burgenland [The Gypsy Issue: Memorandum of the Governor for Burgenland], Eisenstadt, Burgenländische Landesbibliothek, 3827-­B. 23 Kurt Pastenaci (1951) Diagnose unserer Zeit [Diagnosis of Our Time], Berlin, Dunker Humblot, p. 38. Pastenaci was a German writer and journalist who had received acclaim during the Third Reich period as the author of The National History of Germans as well as historic novels with strong nationalistic motives. After 1945, he continued his successful career as a researcher of comparative culture with a particular focus on East and West. 24 Frank Sparing (1997) Von der Rassenhygiene zur Humangenetik – Heinrich Schade [From Racial Hygiene to Human Genetics – Heinrich Schade], in Michael G. Esch (ed.) Die Medizinische Akademie Düsseldorf im Nationalsozialismus [The Medical Academy Düsseldorf under National Socialism], Essen, Klartext, pp. 341–363. 25 Nevenko Bartulin (2014) The Racial Idea in the Independent State of Croatia: Origins and Theory, Leiden, Brill, p. 179. 26 Heinrich Schade and Georgina Pilarić (1961) Antropologischer Bericht über Zigeuner in Jugoslawien, zugleich ein Beitrag zur Frage der Brachycephalisation [Anthropological Report on Gypsies in Yugoslavia, Also a Contribution to the Question of Brachycephalization], Homo, 12, 4, pp. 185–193. 27 UNESCO (1950) The Race Question, in UNESCO and its Programme, available online at https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000128291, pp. 1–10, 7.

158  The (in)educability of Roma 28 Ibid. 29 Michelle Brattain (2007) Race, Racism, and Antiracism: UNESCO and the Politics of Presenting Science to the Postwar Public, The American Historical Review, 112, 5, pp. 1386–1413, 1395. 30 Accusations of racism remained among the main public discourses within Soviet propaganda against the United States. 31 Jaroslav Sus (1961) Cikánská otázka v ČSSR [The Gypsy Issue in Czechoslovakia], Praha, Státní nakladatelství politické literatury, p. 11. 32 Ibid, pp. 24–25. 33 M.S. Plisecky (ed.) (1957) Rasovaya problema i obschestvo [The Race Issue and Society], Moscow, Innostrannaya Literature. 34 Jaroslav Suchý (1957) quoted in Helena Malá and Josef Klement (1980) Antropologie druhu Homo sapiens a variabilita současného lidstva [Anthropology of Homo sapiens and the Variability of Contemporary Humanity], Praha, Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, p. 117. 35 Jan Štrup and Eva Bacíková (eds.) (1960) Zkušenosti z práce mezi cikánským obyvatelstvem 1. sborníček [The Experience of Working among Gypsies: First Part], Praha, Osvětový ústav v Praze [The Institute of Enlightenment], p. 3. 36 Ministerstvo školství [Ministry of Education] (1974) Předškolní a školní výchova cikánských dětí Dlohoudobá koncepce [Pre-­School and School Education of Gypsy Children Long-­Term Concept], Praha, Státní pedagogické nakladatelství. 37 Balibar and Wallerstein, p. 21. 38 Jane Schuch (2017) Negotiating the Limits of Upbringing, Education, and Racial Hygiene in Nazi Germany as Exemplified in the Study and Treatment of Sinti and Roma, Race, Ethnicity and Education, 20, 5, pp. 609–623. 39 One of the most visible traces is the formulation of a list of “asocial” families living in Prague by Josef Apetaur, child psychiatrist, in response to a request made by the principal physician of Prague, Viktor Kindermann; more in Victoria Shmidt (ed.) (2019) The Politics of Disability in Interwar and Socialist Czechoslovakia: In the Name of Segregation, Amsterdam, Amsterdam University Press, pp. 116–117. 40 More about lionization of the Czech race science can be found in Victoria Shmidt (2018) The Legacy of Eugenics in CEE Countries: The Limits and Options for Historical Consciousness, Working Papers of the Centre for Advanced Studies in Sofia, 10, pp. 1–53, 18–19. 41 Uwe Hossfeld and Michal Šimůnek (2008) Die Kooperation der Friedrich-­Schiller-­ Universität Jena und der Deutschen Karls-­Universität Prag im Bereich der “Rassenlehre,” 1933–1945 [The Cooperation between the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and the German Charles University in Prague in the Field of “Racial Studies,” 1933–1945], Erfurt, Landeszentrale für politische Bildung Thüringen. 42 While the Institute of Social Anthropology and People’s Biology at the Faculty of Philosophy (Institut für Sozialanthropologie und Volksbiologie an der Philosophischen Fakultät), under the supervision of Karl Valentin Müller, focused on the issue of the Germanization of the Czech population (more in Eduard Kubů [2004] “Die Bedeutung des deutschen Blutes im Tschechentum”). Der “wissenschaftspädagogische” Beitrag des Soziologen Karl Valentin Müller zur Lösung des Problems der Germanisierung Mitteleuropas [What German Blood Means for the Czech People: The “Scientific” Contribution of the Sociologist Karl Valentin Mülle Towards Solving the Problem of How to Germanize Central Europe], Bohemia 45, 1, pp. 93–114), Schultz conducted his own research targeted with tracing mixed Czech-­German families (several boxes with the results of anthropometric measurement of the offspring of mixed Czech–German couples were revealed by the staff of the Museum of Man). 43 Jiří Malý (1939) Něco o cikánech [Something about Gypsies], Naší přírodou, III, pp. 197–198, no VIII, pp. 314–315, 198.

In (re)search of inclusion 159 44 Paul Weindling (1989) Health, Race, and German Politics Between National Unification and Nazism, 1870–1945, Cambridge, UK, Cambridge University Press, p. 57. 45 Arnold (1967), p. 277. 46 František Štampach (1945) The Letter to the Faculty of Natural Sciences, Charles University, 18.07.1945 AUK Osobní fond Jíři Malého. 47 Jan Beneš (1974) The Letter to Jaroslav Suchý 12.02.1974, AUA, Personal archive of J. Beneš, Inv. č. 21, Masaryk University, Brno. 48 Marie Nováková (1969) Les Tyiganes D’Autrefois de la Tchécoslovaquie [Former Gypsies of Czechoslovakia], Anthropologie (1962–), 7, 2, pp. 41–43. 49 Miroslav Dědič (1975) Cikánské dětí a mládež ve výchovně vzdělávacím procesu [Gypsy Children in the Educational Process], Pedagogika, 2, pp. 177–187, 178. 50 Name of village where the survey was conducted. 51 Jan Beneš: Undated, untitled document. AUA, Personal archive of Jan Beneš, Inv č. 21. The original orthography has been maintained. 52 The document should be dated between 1989 and 1990 – according to the event mentioned by Beneš – the exhibition of Rudolf Dzurko, an artist of Romani origin, organized in 1989. Also, in his correspondence with Harvard University’s administration before his visit, Beneš offered this topic as a possible contribution. 53 In his curriculum vitae for submitting applications for international projects, Beneš described his major academic interests as follows: “Cultural, social and biological adaptability of ethnic minorities in Europe (Lusatian Serbs, Gypsies). Adaptability and variability of past and present populations. Some bioecological and cultural aspects of evolution of Man. Human ecology.” Archive of the Institute of Anthropology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Masaryk University, Personal archive of Jan Beneš Inv. č. 13, Box XXI. 54 The “Gypsy issue” as a topic for presentation was not approved, and, finally, Beneš made the presentation “The role of universities in Czechoslovakia’s Velvet Revolution.” 55 Beneš commented on the studies conducted by him and his colleagues in favor of demonstrating the ineducability of Roma in following way: The data quoted here were established in schools for Gipsy children. They are attended by children from badly situated Gipsies. It cannot be excluded that Gipsy children from accultured families attending schools for the majority population exhibit different parameters. So far they are unknown. (Jan Beneš: Undated, untitled document) 56 Ibid. 57 Viewing Roma as a self-­isolated group was not exceptionally a Central European approach. In their report on the study among Roma living in Stockholm, Lars Beckman and John Tackman stressed: The Swedish Gypsies appear to have been rather isolated from the Swedes as well as from other European Gypsy groups. Consanguineous marriages seemed to be rather frequent, for according to the census questionnaires 40 individuals (or about 10 per cent) were the offspring of cousin marriages. In 1913 more than 80 per cent of the Swedish Gypsies were illiterates. At present the number of Swedish Gypsies can be estimated to approximately 1000. Most families are settled, special schools for children and adults have been created and the Gypsy population is in the process of being assimilated into the Swedish society. See Lars Beckman and John Tackman (1965) On the Anthropology of Swedish Gypsy Population, Hereditas, 53, 1, pp. 272–280, 272. 58 Tellingly, in his post-­socialist writings, Beneš started to use the definition of ethnotransformation, “aiming at a gradual decline of ethnicity proper and, finally, at accepting the ethnographical features of the surrounding population” (Jan Beneš: Undated, untitled document).

160  The (in)educability of Roma 59 Another important factor in reproducing the view on Roma as a self-­isolated group was increasing interest in this explanatory scheme among Western scholars. In the 1950s, several surveys aimed at tracing the racial assimilation of African Americans to the white population established a negative attitude toward self-­isolation among racially minded Western scholars; see, for example, the article by Bentley Glass and Ching Chun Li (1953) The Dynamic of Racial Intermixture – An Analysis Based on the American Negro, American Journal of Human Genetics, 5, 1, 1–20. The article was disseminated among Yugoslav scholars immediately after publishing. 60 Marij Avčin (1969) Gypsy Isolates in Slovenia, Journal of Biosocial Sciences, 1, pp. 221–233, 222. 61 Letter of Zlata Dolinar to Božo Škerlj 17.VI.1961 AGA, Personal archive of Škerlj, Box 14. 62 Marijan Hovčar (1964) Die Verteilung der Blutgruppen bei einem Zigeunerisolat [The Distribution of Blood Groups in a Gypsy Isolate], Proceedings of Tenth Congress of International Society of Blood Transfusion, pp. 312–319. 63 Z. Dolinar, A. Pogačnik, B. Sever, and V. Siftir (1962) Izolati Ciganov in Kalvinistov v Prekmurju [Isolates of Gypsies and Calvinists in Prekmurje], Manuscript AGA, unsorted collection. 64 Helena Malá, Personal profile, AUK. 65 One of the first publications addressed a Western audience: Jaroslav Suchý and Helena Malá (1968) The Physical Features of Gypsy Youth, Rivist di Antropologia Roma, LVI, pp. 31–43. 66 Helena Malá (1956) The Letter to Škerlj 12.04.1956, AGA, Personal archive of Škerlj, Box 11. 67 Both Škerlj and Malý were doctoral students of Matiegka and they started their informal cooperation during the interwar period. Both were involved by Matiegkato in the campaign against Racial Hygiene and German race science in the mid-­1930s. After the war, until the death of Malý, they exchanged new methods of anthropological measurement through letters. After the death of Malý, his wife and daughter continued regular communication with Škerlj until his death. 68 More can be found in Victoria Shmidt (2020) Race Science in Czechoslovakia: Serving Segregation in the Name of the Nation, Studies in History and Philosophy of Science Part C: Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 79. 69 On October 24, 1948, Vprašanja naših dni [Issues of our Days], the newspaper of the Communist Party in Slovenia, published a translation of Lysenko’s speech “The Situation in Biological Science,” delivered during the session of the Lenin All-­Union Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Slovenian biologists and geneticists felt confident enough to provide a direct rebuff to communist pressure. Moreover, being a former prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp, Škerlj could not be accused of sympathizing with “racist science,” the label ascribed by Lysenkoism to genetics. He chose the popular newspaper Osveta [Enlightenment] in order to attack Lysenkoism, publishing several articles in favor of genetics. His response to Soviet pressure aligned with his intention to deepen cooperation with Western science. He obtained long-­term academic fellowships in several Western European centers of genetics and physical anthropology, including Harvard University in 1952, the Royal Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland in 1953 and the Anatomical Institute in Lund in 1956. 70 William Dejong-­Lambert and Nikolai Krementsov (2012) On Labels and Issues: The Lysenko Controversy and the Cold War, Journal of the History of Biology, 45, 3, pp. 373–388, 385. 71 Jirásek was referring to the anthropological communities in Prague, Brno and Bratislava, which had maintained strongly contested relations since the interwar period. 72 A. Jirásek (1960) Dopis Jiráska Suchemu 18.1.1960 [Letter of Jirásek to Suchý], AAV, Osobní fond Jirásek Arnold, Sig. II.b Inv.

In (re)search of inclusion 161 73 In the early 1970s, when the political tension between different Yugoslav nations reached a peak, scholars were asked to adopt international, anti-­racist rhetoric for devaluating the national aspirations of different Yugoslav nations as racially determined. See Zlata Dolinar and Anton Pogačnik (eds.) (1972) Rasna Diskriminacija i oblici borbe za njeno suzbijanje [Race Discrimination and the Forms of Combating It], in Referati za naučni skup Sveska II [Papers for the Scientific Conference Volume II], Sarajevo, Univerzitet u Sarajevu. 74 For instance, Slovenian anthropologist Zlata Dolinar, the successor to Božo Škerlj, published the survey, based upon data collected by Croatian anthropologists; see Zlata Dolinar (1963) Prispevek k dednosti spastične familiarne paralize na otoku Krku [A Contribution to the Problem of Inheritance of the Spastic Familiar Paralysis on the Island of Krk], Biološki vestnik XI Biološka sekcija prirodoslovnega društva Ljubljana [Biological Bulletin XI Biological Section of the Natural History Society of Ljubljana], Ljubljana, Tiskarna Toneta Tomsiča. 75 Miloš Macura provided a rigorous comparative context concerning Central European demographic policy in his 1974 article “Population Policies in Socialist Countries of Europe” Population Studies, 28, 3, pp. 369–379. For a comprehensive historical overview of demographic policy in Yugoslavia, see Dus̆ an Breznik (1982) The Dynamics of Population in Yugoslavia Eastern European Economics, 20, 3/4, pp. 215–249. 76 World Population Conference Belgrade 30 August–September 10 1965, Opening Statement Philippe de Seynes, Under Secretary for Economic and Social Affairs, p. 2. 77 In 1966, and for next six years, Miloš Macura, who led the Department of Population Studies at the Serbian Academy of Arts and Sciences and organized the UN Conference in Belgrade, became the Director of the Population Division. 78 Milos Macura (1986) What Role for the UN in Population? European Journal of Population/Revue Européenne de Démographie, 2, 1, pp. 1–4. 79 World Population Conference, Belgrade, 1965. 80 Ibid. 81 Helena Malá (1984) Výchova, vzdělávání a biologický vývoj cikánských dětí a mládeže v ČSR [Education, Upbringing and Biological Growth of Gypsy Children in Czechoslovakia], Praha, Univerzita Karlova, p. 41. 82 Svatopluk Cenek (1970) Návrh dlouchodobé koncepce školní výchovy cikánských dětí [Draft of the Long-­Term Conception for the Education of Gypsy Children], Výzkumný ústav pedagogický v Praze. Arhiv Muzea romské kultury, Osobní fond M.Dědiče, Box 26. 83 Hermann Arnold (1967) Zur Frage der Fruchtbarkeit von Zigeunern, Zigeuner Mischlinsgruppen und anderen sozialen Isolaten. [About the Issue of Fertility among Gypsies, Gypsy Mixes and Other Social Isolates], Homo, 18, pp. 85–90. 84 Balibar and Wallerstein, p. 19. 85 World Population Conference, Belgrade, 1965, p. 6. 86 H. Bentley Glass (1954) Genetic Aspects of Adaptability, Genetics and the Inheritance of Integrated Neurological and Psychiatric Patterns, XXXIII, pp. 367–377, 367. 87 Aleš Hrdlička was one of the first promoters of adaptability as a possible mainstream for the sustainable development of physical anthropology; more in Aleš Hrdlička (1918) Physical Anthropology: Its Scope and Aims; Its History and Present Status in America, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 1, pp. 3–23. 88 William Leonard (2018) Centennial Perspective on Human Adaptability, American Journal of Physical Anthropology, 165, 4, pp. 813–833. 89 Paul Weiss (1949) The Biological Basis of Adaptation, in John Romano (ed.) Adaptation, Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press, pp. 1–22. 90 Glass, p. 368. 91 Ibid.

162  The (in)educability of Roma 92 Ibid, p. 369. 93 U.S. Participation in the International Biological Program, Report No. 1974, p. 69. 94 Ibid, p. 73. 95 Ibid, p. 76. 96 Ibid. 97 Ibid, p. 70. 98 Ibid, p. 82. 99 Ibid, p. 74. 100 Ibid, p. 83. 101 Doubravka Olsakova (2018) The International Biological Program in Eastern Europe Science: Diplomacy, Comecon and the Beginnings of Ecology in Czechoslovakia, Environment and History, 24, 4, pp. 543–567. 102 Czechoslovak National Committee for the International Biological Program (1968) The Czechoslovak Contribution to the International Biological Program, Prague, Czechoslovak Academy of Science. 103 Shmidt (2020). 104 Helena Malá and Jaroslav Suchý (1970) The Anthropological Research on Gypsy Children and Youth in Czechoslovakia, Glasnik Antropološkog društva Jugoslavije, 7, pp. 39–61, 54. 105 Ibid. 106 Helena Malá (1973) Body Characteristics of New-­Born Gypsies from Bohemia, Glasnik antropološkog društva Jugoslavije, 11, 1/2, pp. 53–55. Ten Romani children were described as shorter and lighter than their non-­Romani peers. 107 U.S. Participation in the International Biological Program Report, No. 1974, p. 70. 108 Ibid, p. 73. 109 Under the auspices of the IBP, the Institute of Experimental Biology and Genetics at the Czechoslovak Academy of Science in Prague conducted independent research on the Eastern periphery aimed at estimating the genetic load in human populations and contributing to the knowledge of the latent genetic load. In the focus was the endogamy dating as far back as the eighteenth century in the mountainous part of East Slovakia. The following data were collected: personal data of couples, pedigree, duration of married life, place of residence as stated in the marriage register, outcomes of all pregnancies, whether abortion or a live birth, sex, age and parity of the children, whether living or dead, incidence of hereditary diseases and defects, and ABO blood group data. Two villages situated in East Slovakia were studied through collecting demographic data and blood analysis for inbreeding, ABO, MNS, Rh, Kell-­celano, the Duffy blood group system, Gm and Hp blood serum system. The sample of consanguineous families was ascertained through the marriage registers of the Catholic and Orthodox Episcopal Churches and control families were selected in each of the visited villages. 110 Helena Malá and Jaroslav Suchý (1970) The Anthropological Research on Gypsy Children and Youth in Czechoslovakia, Glasnik Antropološkog društva Jugoslavije sveska, 7, pp. 39–61, 59–61. 111 Anton Pogačnik (1968) Antropološské in morfološske karakteristike ciganov v prekmurju [The Anthropological and Morphological Characteristics of Gypsies from the Prekmurje Region], Dissertation, Slovenska Akademija znanostiin umetnosti, Oddelek za prirodoslovne vede, Ljubljana, p. 7. 112 Ibid, p. 9. 113 Malá (1984), p. 5. 114 Pogačnik, p. 10. 115 U.S. Participation in the International Biological Program, Report No. 1974, p. 100. 116 Grammar and syntax presented as in original. 117 Jan Beneš (1970) Letter to A. Pogačnikovi 13.01.1970, AUA, Personal archive of J. Beneš, Inv. č. 21, Masaryk University. Brno.

In (re)search of inclusion 163 118 Jan Beneš (1970) Letter to L. Beckman 29.01.1970, AUA, Personal archive of Beneš, Inv. č. 21, Masaryk University, Brno. 119 Beckman and Takman. 120 Pogačnik, p. 12. 121 Eric Sunderland (1930–2010), the Welsh anthropologist and geneticist, was the author of Genetic Variation in Britain (1973) and Genetic Markers in Welsh Gypsies (1977), published in the Journal of Medical Genetics, 14, 3, pp. 177–182. In his monograph Elements of Human and Social Geography: Some Anthropological Perspectives (Pergamon Press, 1973), Sunderland deepened the argument in favor of investigating “primitive” self-­isolated groups: [B]iological adaptability of humans is not as directly brought about as it is in other organisms since cultural factors obtrude in such a way as to stand between man and the full rigors of direct environmental pressures. . . . Perhaps the most direct interaction of man and the environmental factors most concerned [are] to be witnessed in simpler societies of the world. (pp. 59–60) 122 Helena Malá (1970) Letter to Jan Beneš 13.03.1970, AUA, Personal archive of Beneš, Inv. č. 21, Masaryk University Brno. 123 U.S. Participation in the International Biological Program, Report No. 1974, p. 100. 124 Eric Sunderland (1980) The Population Structure of the Romany Gypsies, in Michael H. Crawford and James H. Mielke (eds.) Current Developments in Anthropological Genetics: Ecology and Population Structure, New York and London, Plenum Press, pp. 125–138, 127. 125 Jan Beneš (1974) Letter to J. Suchý 09.09.1974, AUA, Personal archive of Beneš, Inv. č. 21, Masaryk University Brno. 126 Anna Lorencová and Jan Beneš (1976) Industrial Population in Moravia (CSSR): A Study in Variability and Adaptability, Folia F.S.N U.J.EP. Brunensis, XVII, 5, pp. 1–137. 127 Balibar and Wallerstein, p. 19. 128 U.S. Participation in the International Biological Program, Report No. 1974, p. 84. 129 Malá and Klement, p. 95. 130 Ministerstvo školství [Ministry of Education] (1974) Předškolní a školní výchova cikánských dětí Dlohoudobá koncepce Státní pedagogické nakladatelství [Pre-­School and School Education of Gypsy Children Long-­Term Concept], Praha, Státní pedagogické nakladatelství, p. 11. 131 Helena Malá and Jaroslav Suchý (1976) Bodily Development of Gypsy School-­ Children in Children’s Homes, Folia Morphologica, XXIV, 2, pp. 197–198. 132 Malá (1984), p. 5. 133 Ibid, p. 35. 134 Ibid, p. 73. 135 Ministerstvo školství, p. 10. 136 Shmidt (ed.) (2019). 137 František Vavruška (1971) Dokumenty k boji proti kriminalitě mládeže [The Training Materials of the Institute for Retraining Educators for the Fight against Youth Criminality], p.  3–12, Krajský seminář k  problémům delikvenci dětí a kriminality mládeže v Jihočeském kraji [Regional Workshop on the Issue of Delinquent Children and Criminal Youth in the South Czech Region] Sborník materiálu Krajská odborová rada Jihočeský krajský národní výbor KV ČOS pracovníků školství a vědy [Regional Board of Workers in Education and Science] Krajský pedagogický ústav v Českých Budějovicích 1972 SOA in Třeboň. Krajský pedagogický ústav Kabinet speciální pedagogiky [The Collection of the Regional Pedagogical Institute, Subdivision of Special Education], Box 6.

164  The (in)educability of Roma 138 The term “metodist” was adopted from the Soviet system of professional retraining for teachers; in the U.S.S.R., the centers in each region for retraining educators were named metodicheskie centry. 139 In the 1970s, Dědič established the Subdivision for Retraining the Educators Who Teach Roma Students (Cabinet pro výuku a výchovu cikánských dětí) within the Center for Educator Training in České Budějovice (Bohemia), and Štěpán – in Jičín (Moravia). Both operated as the key channels for connecting practitioners with experts until the end of socialist period. 140 Josef Štěpán (1976) Postavení cikánského mentálně retardovaného žáka v etnicky heterogenní skupině [The Status of the Mentally Retarded Gypsy Student in an Ethnically Heterogeneous Class] Zápis ze semináře, konaného ve dnech 12. a 13. listopadu 1976  v  Brně na téma “Problémy výchovy cikánských dětí v  dětských domovech a výchovných ústavech” [The Issues in Education of Gypsy Children in Children’s Homes and Residential Care Institutions] Bulletin č. 29. Národní sdružení dětských domovů FICE v ČSSR pp. 27–34, MRK, Personal archive of M. Dědiče, Box 26. 141 Subdivision of the education for Gypsy children (1972) Zpráva: Seminář pro ředitele dětských domovů a zvlaštních škol internatních Středočeského kraje [The Minutes: Workshop for the Principals of Children’s Homes and Boarding Schools of the Central Bohemian Region] Krajský Pedagogcký ústav v Praze, 4.10.1972, SOA in Třeboň, The Collection of The Regional Pedagogical Institute, Subdivision of Education for Gypsy Children, Box 7. 142 Miroslav Dědič (1973) Zpráva o jednání na mateřské škole ve Strunkovicích nad Blanicí, které bylo uskutečněno dne 3.dubna 1973 [Report about the Negotiation at the Kindergarten in Strunkovici nad Blanicí, 03.04.1973] SOA in Třeboň, The Collection of The Regional Pedagogical Institute, Subdivision of Education for Gypsy children, Box 7. 143 An English summary and synopsis is available online at www.filmovyprehled.cz/en/ film/396166/my-­friend-­the-­gipsy. 144 František Tichý (1896–1961) was a Czech artist who represented the Czech avant-­ garde; one of the main motifs was Roma and circuses. 145 Rick Altman (2008) A Theory of Narrative, New York, Columbia University Press, p. 104. 146 Ibid, p. 100. 147 Antonín Malina (1955) Můj přítel Fabian, Obrana lidu, 07.01.1955, p. 2. 148 Lidová demokracie (1955) Můj přítel Fabian, 07.01.1955. 149 Altman, p. 123. 150 A synopsis is available online at www.filmovyprehled.cz/en/film/397528/who-­is­afraid-­flees. 151 One of the delighted critics entitled his review “Jak učitelé nepřicházejí o iluze” (“How Do Teachers Not Lose Their Illusions”), which reproduced the title of the second part of Básníci: “Jak básníci přicházejí o iluze” (“How Poets Lose Their Illusions”). 152 Pavel Jiras (1985) Interview with Dušan Klein, Kino, 6, 1985. 153 Altman, p. 104. 154 Ibid. 155 Ibid, 90. 156 Ibid. 157 Ibid, p. 125. 158 The premiere of the film took place in Krumlov, the town where Dědič and a few of his former students lived; they were invited to attend the premiere and to share their feelings after watching the film. Klein directly reproduced their reaction as an argument in favor of the film: “One of the students, who had become a special educator and defended her dissertation, shared her story that if there would be no

In (re)search of inclusion 165 ‘Dad,’ we would be unable even to write.” See Josef Řezač (1987) Hledání tolerance a porozumění Rozhovor s režisérem Dušanem Kleinem [Looking for Tolerance and Recognition with Film Director Dušan Klein], Film a doba, 6, pp. 303–308, 306. 159 Radikální řez [A Radical Cut, 1983], a detective story about a murder, in which the investigation reveals prejudices against Roma, was the first film by Klein dedicated to the “Gypsy issue.” A synopsis is available online at www.filmovyprehled.cz/en/ film/397408/a-­radical-­cut. 160 Jiras. 161 Altman, p. 119. 162 For instance, in the late 1970s, Bulgarian authorities accepted the concept of enforced assimilationism developed by Czech experts for practicing surveillance over Roma. Some of the Czech texts were translated in order to equip practitioners with advanced methods. 163 Sandra Harding (2006) Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues, Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, p. 21. 164 Balibar and Wallerstein, p. 22. 165 Ibid, p. 23. 166 Altman, p. 263. 167 Ibid, p. 264.

Conclusion Epistemic justice for Central European Roma: toward the unlimited negation of whiteness

Determining power relations through biological markers of whiteness1 has shaped the pathway of physical anthropology and other fields of racial thinking concerning Central Europe among both regional and international experts. Reconstructing the history of whiteness in Central Europe reveals the consistent impact of the “Gypsy issue” on rationalizing racism by intellectuals.2 In many instances, Roma have been a central target group for de-­historicizing as non-­white, non-­European “primitives,” sentenced to become biologically and culturally dissolved among Europeans or to remain under tough surveillance until yielding to assimilation. The longue durée of assimilationist policy concerning Roma in Central Europe is displayed in the multiple blurring of boundaries between integration and segregation, as well as between whiteness and non-­whiteness. Even when the seemingly impenetrable boundaries of segregation become invisible and passable,3 the dynamic boundaries between whiteness and non-­whiteness produce new expectations that address and oppress non-­whites.4 The consistency of reproducing whiteness in relation to Roma reverberates with the fragmented and occasional attempts to critically revise the role of whiteness in contemporary approaches to solving the “Gypsy issue” in Central Europe. The call for historical distance from whiteness remains unheeded in Central Europe more generally, and in particular with regard to Roma. Whiteness continues to produce routine judgments concerning Roma as “primitives,” and already existing experiences aimed at deconstructing the white, normative, gaze upon Roma have been relegated to the margins of collective memories. Along with replacing historical options for emancipation from the bonds of whiteness, current attempts to historicize the experience of Roma in Central Europe rely on highly profiled politicization of national and international agendas targeted at introducing more progressive politics aligned with Europeanization and more consistent implementation of human rights for Roma. While in the largely particularistic origins of human rights, critics trace the development of a “secular religiosity” among European humanitarians (based on Christian beliefs in a universal humanity),5 the potential for gaining and asserting rights is still limited by the function to produce “a critical norm rather than a critical alternative.”6 Shifting the focus of contemporary politics concerning Roma from justice to rights restrains the options for elaborating the segregation exposed by Roma due

Conclusion 167 to the persistent and sweeping claim that human rights are universal and constant.7 While “a problem with political discourse about Roma is that theoretical arguments are sometimes not sufficiently grounded in the diverse realities of Roma experience,”8 applying human rights to the issue of Roma in Central Europe is easily reduced to being a “facade investment”; in other words, “political elites at the national level enact reforms that simultaneously maximize international legitimacy and minimize the need to change corrupt and unjust domestic practices and structures.”9 The unavailability of a more nuanced range of attitudes toward historically and culturally distant approaches to Roma maintains its extreme in the predominance of eliminativism, a strategy targeted at emancipation from whiteness as stemming from the “false” idea of race. Accepting the universal role of disclosing the pseudoscientific arguments underpinning racism, eliminativism fails to historicize Roma and blocks the options for epistemic justice. Instead of acknowledging the necessity to differentiate the status of whiteness during different periods of Central European history, eliminativism negates whiteness through its unconditional acceptance of racial skepticism and abolitionism. In terms of Bhaskar’s typology of negation,10 eliminativism operates as the most basic negation, the real, which aims at opposing the past to the present and constructing a desirable alternative as a result of significant rupture in the ways of thinking and acting. Along with operating as the primary form of negation or the “motor of dialectics,”11 eliminativism leaves unanswered the most decisive dilemma for practicing epistemic justice, namely, the collective vs. the individual. The lack of consideration for the role of agency and individual choice among well-­established approaches to Romani studies represents a key limitation for emancipating Roma in the development of their own identities. According to Annabel Tremlett, despite their mutual antagonism, ethnic and sociohistoric approaches to Roma still orient toward certain notions of “groupness.”12 In groupness, she recognizes the highly probable risk of essentialism, and notes the needs for exercising power over representation as “the heart of an anti-­ essentialist approach.” She opposes groupness to super-­diversity as a way of constructing identities among multiply composed contemporary populations. Tremlett mainly focuses on the resources for practicing super-­diversity, such as social media and communication technologies, rather than existing cultural and historical conditions that are “always ready given and inherited from the past.”13 Such an approach provides a foundation for probing the variety of Romani experiences, as opposed to stressing their universal nature.14 While identity, or even more, the super-­diverse identity of Roma should rely upon epistemic justice, the internally contradictory politics of assimilationism as a main source of injustice and segregation can be elaborated only through practicing collective identities “because while individuals might gain entry on that basis to the hegemonic collectivity, their collective identity would not.”15 Central to practices of forced assimilationism, “breaking up communities and families and separating children from their parents disempower the minorities and can reinforce their location in subjugated positionings.”16

168  Conclusion The call for collective identity among Roma reverberates with the call for collective action from the side of those who seek to resolve the issue of historical responsibility for legitimizing racism – producers of knowledge. This book demonstrates that over the history of Roma in Central Europe “the smartest and most well-­intentioned individuals can find themselves contributing to what other cultures and later eras identify as racist, white supremacist, and Eurocentric projects.”17 Mainly, those who have sought to contest racism learn to identify racist biases and prejudices in everyday life, and to try eliminate them from their own beliefs and behaviors and to help others to do so also. Such work is valuable, but it will have little effect on changing racist social structures . . . unless it is actively put in the service of an antiracist political movement.18 The lack of collective claims from the side of Roma reflects in “piecemeal approaches to justice, based only on the impact on the individual.”19 A collective approach may be seen as decisive for overcoming the obvious neglect of Romani women as a result of the habit of constructing Romani and feminist politics “upon the experience of dominant members in each group (Romani men and white women).”20 Bringing Romani women or children into the center of producing knowledge as contributors can be seen as one of the options for practicing transformative negation. Transformative negation aims to recognize unwanted and constraining structures without the goal of transforming them all.21 Within transformative negation, deconstructing the preexisting entities that produce knowledge concerning Roma represents partial emancipation through the possibility to develop a sufficient cognitive model for envisioning it; total emancipation remains not only utopian but also scientifically inexplicable.22 Ethnographic methods are one of the most suitable pathways for practicing transformative negation. One of the most striking examples of transformative negation is the field research on Roma in Subcarpathian Ruthenia conducted by Franz Baermann Steiner in 1933. Steiner aimed at deconstructing the evolutionist approach to civilization, and he was interested in exploring the translation of value in the economy and mode of collective life among those who did not belong to “Western civilization,” such as Roma and, to an extent, Ruthenians. Due to Steiner’s consistent efforts to redefine the concept of power concerning “civilization” and move toward a more consistent focus on the power over people rather than nature, he explored Roma through evaluating their role in Ruthenia as a plural society “integrated only by the reliance of its different components on the marketplace and market principles.”23 The negation of viewing Roma as “primitives” opposed to Western civilization remained embedded in the more general negation of practices targeted at the internal colonialism of the Eastern periphery. Transformative negation aims to deconstruct libertarian amelioration based upon the certainty concerning the “proper” evolutionary order of institutional development, predicated on a belief in progress. Regarding whiteness, a belief

Conclusion 169 in progress remains among “orientation devices, which keep things in place. The affect of such placement could be described as a form of comfort. . . . The word ‘comfort’ suggests well-­being and satisfaction, but it can also suggest an ease and easiness.”24 Rejecting the idea of progress changes “the point” from which we see the “Gypsy issue” and try to historicize it. Also, rejecting the idea of progress may one of the most difficult obstacles to deconstructing whiteness in Central Europe, due to the long-­term pressure of apprehensions concerning insufficient progress from the side of Western civilization. Answering the question, “What self-­perpetuates legitimacy in relationships of power between and across society?” Salter stresses the difference between colonial states with their focus on rationalization and performativity and the postcolonial mix of these trends with emancipation.25 The duality of whiteness as the grounds for exercising the emancipation of nations from their former masters, as well as a framework for oppressing non-­whites, should be seen as one of main contexts for neglecting the task of coping with whiteness in Central Europe.26 Such ignorance “culminates in the ‘achieved constellational identity’ of subject and object in consciousness”27 in order to grasp the world as totally rational. Indeed, in the history of theorizing surveillance over Roma, it is easy to recognize the total involvement of Central Europe in the Enlightenment as a process that negates the possibility of negation. This key challenge to critical whiteness could be met by radical negation, which involves the auto-­subversive overcoming of a previous vision and consciousness. Such negation, according to Bhaskar, performs the dialectic life of consciousness or practicing the identity of knowing and moving beyond “white ways of knowing and seeing [which] are positioned as universally applicable.”28 In terms of Altman’s typology of narrative, radical negation ensures multiple-­focus narrative, “regularly employed to stretch beyond the visible toward a sociological level of abstraction that reveals greater truth than the separate physical observations out of which it is built.”29 For the scholar participating in producing such truth in favor of epistemic justice for Roma, practicing historical continuity is a part of the researcher’s responsibility, to know oneself within the history of the discipline, the history of the object of research and the history of their interaction.30

Notes 1 Gabriele Griffin with Rosi Braidotti (2002) Whiteness and European Situatedness, in Gabriele Griffin and Rosi Braidotti (eds.) Thinking Differently: A Reader in European Women’s Studies, London and New York, Zed Books, pp. 221–246, 227. 2 Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein (1997) Race, Nation, Class: Les identites ambigues, Paris, La Decouverte, p. 19. 3 Nira Yuval Davis (1997) Gender and Nation, London, Sage, p. 53. 4 Colin Salter (2013) Whiteness and Social Change: Remnant Colonialisms and White Civility in Australia and Canada, Newcastle upon Tyne, UK, Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 5 Stephan Hopgood (2014) The End of Human Rights, Washington Post, available online at www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-­end-­of-­human-­rights/2014/01/03/7f8fa83c-­ 6742-­11e3-­ae56-­22de072140a2_story.html.

170  Conclusion 6 Malcolm Langford (2018) Critiques of Human Rights, Annual Review of Law and Social Science, 14, pp. 69–89, 77. 7 Ibid, p. 70. 8 Marek Jakoubek and Lenka J. Budilová (2018) Fifty Years Researching Roma: Interview with Will Guy, Studia Ethnologica Pragensia, 1, pp. 147–163. 9 Langford, p. 75. 10 Roy Bhaskar (1991) Philosophy and the Idea of Freedom, Oxford, Blackwell. 11 Ibid. 12 Annabel Templett (2014) Making a Difference without Creating a Difference: Super-­ Diversity as a New Direction for Research on Roma Minorities, Ethnicities, 14, 6, pp. 830–848. 13 Etienne Balibar (2002) Politics and the Other Scene, London, Verso, p. 8. 14 Will Guy (1975[1998]) Ways of Looking at Roma: The Case of Czechoslovakia, in D. Tong (ed.) Gypsies: A Book of Interdisciplinary Readings, New York, Garland Publishing, Inc., pp. 13–48 [reprinted from F. Rehfisch (ed.) (1975) Gypsies, Tinkers and Other Travellers, London, Academic Press]. 15 Davis, p. 54. 16 Ibid. 17 Sandra Harding (2006) Science and Social Inequality: Feminist and Postcolonial Issues, Urbana and Chicago, University of Illinois Press, p. 21. 18 Ibid. 19 Alexandra Oprea (2017) Towards the Recognition of Critical Race Theory in Human Rights Law: Roma Women’s Reproductive Rights, in Jacqueline Bhabha, Andrzej Mirga et al. (eds.) Realizing Roma Rights, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press, pp. 39–57, 52. 20 Ibid, p. 56. 21 Andrew Collier (1994) Critical Realism: An Introduction to Roy Bhaskar’s Philosophy, London, Verso, p. 196. 22 Bhaskar. 23 Franz Baermann Steiner (1999) Orientpolitik, Value and Civilization, New York and Oxford, Berghahn Books, p. 16. 24 Sara Ahmed (2007) Phenomenology of Whiteness, Feminist Studies, 8, 2, pp. 149–168, 158. 25 Salter, p. 61. 26 Ondřej Slačálek (2016) The Postcolonial Hypothesis: Notes on the Czech “Central European” Identity, ALPPI Annual of Language & Politics and Politics of Identity, 10, pp. 27–44. 27 Sean Creaven (2002) The Pulse of Freedom? Bhaskar's Dialectic and Marxism, Historical Materialism, 10, 2, pp. 77–141, 80. 28 Salter, p. 31. 29 Rick Altman (2008) A Theory of Narrative, New York, Columbia University Press, p. 285. 30 Hallvard Fossheim (2019) Past Responsibility: History and the Ethics of Research on Ethnic Groups, Studies in History and Philosophy of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, 73, pp. 35–43, 42.

Index

abolitionists (race) 16 – 17, 33, 167 adaptability: human 139 – 145; lasting 139 – 140; temporary 139 – 140 Africa 40, 65, 85, 109 African Americans 1 – 2, 15, 29, 44, 60, 64, 76 – 77 Africans 57, 60 – 61 African slaves 57, 61 Ahmed, S. 62 Aichele, H. 104 – 105 Albanians 78, 85 Altman, R. 148, 152, 154, 156, 169 animalization 12, 15, 20, 60, 87 – 89, 110 anti-Semitism 28 – 29, 46, 73 – 74, 130 – 131 “Antropološské in morfološske karakteristike ciganov v Prekmurju” (“The Anthropological and Morphological Characteristics of Gypsies from the Prekmurje Region”) 142 – 143 Appiah, A. 16 Armenians 85 Arnold, H. 130, 133 assimilation 15 – 17, 28 – 29, 48 – 49, 62 – 65, 72 – 73, 85, 114 – 121, 129 – 132, 141, 166; enforced 9, 15 assimilationism see racial assimilationism Aškenazy, L. 147 – 151 Auschwitz 128 – 129 Auschwitz complex 20 Australia 2 Austria 76, 82, 100 – 103, 120, 130 Austrians 80 Avčin, M. 1, 136, 142 – 143 Bačiková, E. 1, 132 Bai Ganyo: Incredible Tales of a Modern Bulgarian 82 Bakalář, P. 19 – 21 Balibar, E. 121

Balkans 77, 86, 89, 119, 131 Balvín, J. 49 barbarism 78, 82, 91, 129, 131, 155 Barth, F. 28 Básníci (The Poets) 45, 151 Bavaria 99, 101 Beck, M. 29 Beckman, L. 144 Beddoe, J. 72 Bĕlehrádek, J. 131 Beneš, J. 85, 135 – 137, 143 – 144, 145, 147 Benjamin, W. 127 Bereczkei, T. 2 Bhaskar, R. 47, 167, 169 “Biological Basis of Adaptation, The” 139 “Biologická politika” (“Biological Politics”) 107 biopolitics 6 Birkenau 128 – 129 “Black Gypsies” 1, 87 – 90 blackness 59, 63 – 64, 84 – 90 Blaive, M. 47 Bloma, E. 91 binary oppositions 18, 28, 31, 45, 48, 50, 121, 130, 140; of children vs. adults 60, 62 – 63; of non-human vs. human 60 – 61; of women vs. men 60, 63 – 65 Boas, F. 29 – 30 Bohemia 27 – 28, 49 – 50, 78 – 79, 83, 86 Bonnet, A. 18 – 19 Bosnia 80 – 81, 90, 138 Bosnians 81, 88, 131 Braidotti, R. 19 Brown, W. 28, 41 Brunecký, Z. 144 – 145 Bulgaria 80, 136 Burgenland 101 – 102, 105, 120 Butler, J. 7 Büttner, C. W. 57

172 Index Čáda, F. 82 – 83 cannibalism 57, 61 Čapková, K. 27 – 29, 31 – 33 Cenek, S. 139 Christianity 18 – 19, 60 – 61, 63 – 64, 78, 89, 166 Chytilová, V. 37 Cikání v Československé republice (Gypsies in the Czechoslovak Republic) 31 – 32 colonialism 19, 168; internal 19, 168 colonization 3 – 5, 18 – 19, 32, 51, 57 – 60, 64, 71 – 72, 76, 80, 112; internal 32, 71, 112 – 117 colorblindness 17 – 18 color-evasiveness 17 Comenius, J. A. 79 communism 36, 38, 47, 50, 131, 134 constructivists 16 – 17, 19 “Contributions to the Studies of Serbian Gypsies” 118 critical conservationists 16 – 17 Croatia 138 Croatian Ustasi regime 16 Czechoslovakia 1, 25 – 32, 45 – 49, 83 – 84, 130 – 133, 138, 145, 147 – 155; interwar 98 – 122 Czörnig, K. 85 Dědič, M. 49, 147, 151 – 155 de-historicizing 127 – 156, 166 – 169 demographic politics 138 – 139 Deniker, J. 79 – 80 Die Zigeuner, ein historischer Versuch über die Lebensart, Verfassung und Schicksale dieses Volkes in Europa, nebst ihrem Ursprunge (Dissertation on the Gipseys: Representing Their Manner of Life, Occupations and Trades, Marriages and Education, Sickness, Death and Burials, Religion, Sciences, Art) 57 – 66 Die Zigeuner: Herkunft und Leben im deutschen Sprachgebiet (The Gypsies: Origin and Life in the GermanLanguage Area) 130 “Die Zigeuner in Serbien” (“Gypsies in Serbia”) 88 – 90 “Dilemmas and Contradictions of Status” 19 disarticulation 32 diskurs očisty (discourse of cleaning) 48 Dítě nad propastí: dítě toulavé, tulácké a cikánské, jeho záchrana, výchova a

výučba (The Child in the Chasm: The Vagabond, Stray and Gypsy Child – The Protection, Education and Correction of This Child) 106 “Dlouhodobá koncepce MŠ ČSR O výchově a vzdělávání výchovně zanedbaných a prospěchově opožděných cikánských dětí” (“Long-Term Conception of Pre-School and Primary School Education for Educationally Neglected and Mentally Backward Gypsy Children”) 132 – 133 Donert, C. 35, 31 – 33, 44 Đorđević, T. 88 – 90, 118 double insider syndrome 75 Driml, K. 84, 109 – 110 Dva Gáboři (Two Gabors) 148 Dzurko, R. 159n52 Eastern periphery 28 – 29, 32, 74 – 75, 103, 112 – 117, 142, 146, 162n109, 168; see also peripheral Europe Ein Menschenschlag. Erbärztliche und erbgeschichtliche Untersuchungen über die durch 10 Geschlechterfolgen erforschten Nachkommen von “Vagabunden, Jaunern und Räubern” (A Breed of People: A Eugenic and Genetic-Historical Study of Ten Generations of “Vagabonds, Prowling Thieves, and Robbers”) 108 eliminativists 16 – 18, 19 – 21, 167 Enlightenment, the 17, 57 – 58, 60, 104, 130, 169 epistemic injustice 4 – 7, 16 – 18, 25, 46, 155 epistemic justice 4 – 7, 16, 25, 40 – 41, 51, 128, 166 – 169 Ethiopians 86 ethno-transformation 159n58 Etikettierung (labeling) 19 Etzler, A. 120 eugenics 6, 16, 19 – 20, 31 – 32, 79, 83, 105, 131; negative 80, 99, 107 Evans, A. S. 74 evolutionism 127 – 156 expropriation vs. exploitation 6 – 7 Ferko, S. 37 Fischberg, M. 30 Floris, G. 145 folk whiteness 21 France 69, 71 – 72, 76, 82, 99, 100 Frankl, M. 46

Index  173 Fraser, N. 5 – 7 Fricker, M. 4 – 5, 7, 25 Fuchs, B. 71 functionalism 128 Galambos, J. 121 Galicia 80 – 81, 85 Germans 19, 26 – 27, 47, 50, 72 – 73, 78, 80, 82, 107, 114, 120 Germany 26, 51, 71 – 76, 100 – 101, 107, 111, 118, 130, 151 “Geschichte der Zigeuner, ihre Herkunft, Natur und Art” (“History of Gypsies, Their Origin, Nature and Type”) 58 Glass, H. B. 140 global security agenda 98 – 105 Glück, L. 1, 80 – 81, 87 – 88 Gobineau, J. S. de 75 – 76, 80 Goddard, H. H. 107, 115 Goldberg, D. T. 71 Good Soldier Švejk, The 82 Gorolová, E. 18 Greeks 85 Grellmann, H. M. G. 1, 9, 57 – 66, 84 – 85, 87 – 88, 90, 113 – 114 Griffin, G. 18 Grundriß der Geschichte der Menschheit (The Outline of the History of Mankind) 59 – 60 Guhin, J. 5 “Gypsy Issue” 2, 40, 47, 57 – 60, 99 – 100, 102 – 105, 107 – 108, 120 – 122, 127 – 156, 166 – 169 “Gypsy Plague” 100 – 101, 106 Habermas, J. 5 Habsburg Empire 25, 76 – 78, 83 Halatka, D. 20 Hašek, J. 82 Hepple, B. 2 hermeneutical injustice 17 hermeneutical justice 4 hermeneutical marginalization 40 hermeneutical resources 4 – 5, 8, 16 Herrnstein, R. 19 – 20 historicizing 4 – 7, 16, 21 – 22, 33, 40 – 41, 44 – 46, 51, 155 – 156, 166 – 169 Holocaust, Romani see Porajmos Honneth, A. 5 – 6 hooks, b. 32 Horub, O. 114 Houzė, E. 72 Hrdlička, A. 83 – 84, 145 Hübschmannová, M. 2, 32

Hughes, C. E. 19 Human Adaptability Program (HAP) 122n2, 139 – 147 Humann, K. 65 human rights 166 – 169 Hungarians 85, 103, 121 Hungary 16, 47, 76, 85, 99, 100, 121, 135 – 136 Hutcheon, L. 82 India 77, 86, 98 (in)educability 3 – 4, 8, 57 – 60, 63, 112 – 117, 147; see also schooling International Biological Program (IBP) 97 – 98, 135, 139 – 147 interracial hierarchies 78, 83, 98 – 122; see also racial hierarchies intraracial hierarchies 28, 58, 99, 105 – 122, 129 – 131, 135, 154 – 155; see also racial hierarchies Ireland 72, 77 Islam 82, 89; see also Muslims Italy 77 Ivaniček, F. 131 Jews 15 – 16, 20, 25 – 30, 32, 44, 46, 73, 76, 84 – 85, 89, 97n32, 128 – 129 Jew, The: A Study of Race and Environment 30 Jirašek, A. 138 Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society 117, 118, 129 Justin, E. 1, 30, 63, 85, 110, 112, 114 – 117, 133 “Kallikak Family, The: A Study in the Heredity of Feeble-Mindedness” 107, 115 Kategorierung (division into categories) 19 Kdo se bojí utiká (Who is Afraid, Flees) 45, 151 – 155 “Kdyby se Einstein narodil jako cikán” (“If Einstein Had Been Born a Gypsy”) 32 Khatar san? (Where are you from?) 50 Klein, D. 45, 151, 154 Kolář, P. 47 König, R. 118 – 119 Konstantinov, A. 82 Kováč, M. 37 Kraus, J. 18 Kriminalistika 101 – 102 Křiž, P. 151 – 155 Kulturvölker (cultural people) 73

174 Index “Lebensschicksale artfremd erzogener Zigeunerkinder und ihrer Nachkommen” (“The Destiny of Gypsy Children Brought Up Out of Families and Observation under Them”) 112 Lebzelter, V. 66, 86, 87, 90 Lee, E. S. 141 Leiris, M. 132 “Les Migrations Humaines: Étude de l’esprit migratoire” (“Human Migration: Study of the Migration Mind”) 118 Levanjuk, V. 145 Levine-Rasky, C. 3, 9, 39, 40 Leys Stephan, N. 57 Lucassen, L. 19 Lysenkoism 137 Malá, H. 32, 121, 134, 137, 141 – 143, 146 – 147 Malina, A. 151 Malý, J. 32, 106 – 107, 108, 113, 134 Marcinkiewicz, S. 145 Mareš, J. 101 Marian 36 – 38 Martin, R. 73 Marxism 46, 131 Marx, K. 21 Masaryk, T. G. 28 – 29, 46, 83 Max, F. 129 Maximoff, M. 129 – 130 Meiners, C. 59 – 60 Merton, R. 90 – 91 Mesa, M. S. 145 Mexico 77 Monroe, W. S. 77 – 79, 82 – 83, 86 moral panic 23n36, 57, 90 Moravek, K. 120 Moravia 49 – 50, 135, 145 Most 47 – 48 Most do budoucností: laboratoř socialistické modernity na severu Čech (Making the Most of Tomorrow: A Laboratory of Socialist Modernity in Czechoslovakia) 47 Můj přítel Fabian (My Friend the Gypsy) 37, 147 – 155 Murray, C. 19 – 20 Museum romské kultury (Museum of Romani Culture) 30 – 31 Muslims 81, 87; see also Islam “Národnost jako vědecký problém” (“Nationality as a Scientific Issue”) 26 narrative 44 – 51; critical 46 – 49; dualfocus 152 – 156; exemplary 44 – 46;

genetic 8, 49 – 50; multiple-focus 156, 169; quasi-genetic 49 – 50; single-focus 148 – 151, 155 – 156; traditional 44 – 45 national indifference 25 – 27 nationalism 28, 39, 48, 71 – 72 nation building 51, 83, 91, 98 – 112 Naturvölker (natural peoples) 73 Naumovic, S. 75 Nazis 3, 20, 30, 38, 111, 117, 120, 128 – 131, 133, 137, 148, 152 Nazism 131, 155 negation 6, 8, 18 – 21, 127, 166 – 169; radical 121, 169; transformative 19, 168 – 169 Nejsou jako my česká společnost a menšiny v pohraničí (1945–1960) (They Are Not Like We Are: Czech Society and Minorities in the Border Zone [1945– 1960]) 47 Nĕmec, B. 83, 107 neo-Lamarckism 137, 155 neoliberalism 7, 21, 38, 51 neoracism 133, 143 Niebuhr, B. G. 71 Niederle, L. 83 – 84 nomadism 15, 30, 48, 87, 99 – 101, 104, 108, 110, 117 – 118, 120 – 121, 152, 155 normalization 47 normalizing 30 – 31, 36 – 38, 41, 44 Nováková, M. 113, 134 Numelin, R. 118 Obrana lidu (Defense of the People) 151 Okely, J. 120 – 121 Ordnungsbegriff (master concept) 19 Orientalism 57 – 58, 65 – 66, 81 Osmanian yoke 77 Paspatēs, A. G. 65 – 66 Pastenaci, K. 130 pathologizing 36 – 41, 44 Pavelčiková, N. 38 – 40, 50 peripheral Europe 69, 75, 77 – 78, 82 – 91, 136; see also Eastern periphery Petrović, A. 118 Pilarić, G. 131 Plisecky, M. 132 Pogačnik, A. 142 – 143, 147 Poland 77, 113, 128 police surveillance 98 – 105 Porajmos (Romani Holocaust) 30, 38, 42n23, 128 – 130, 135, 155 Portugal 77 postcolonialism 3 – 9, 25 – 26, 51, 74 – 79, 82 – 83, 85, 91

Index  175 pragmatists 16 – 17 Prague Spring 47, 51 Prekmurje 69 – 70, 136, 144 primitivism 79, 105 – 117, 127 – 156, 166 – 169 Protectorate 30, 32, 48, 107, 133 – 135 Psychologie Romů (The Psychology of the Roma) 20 – 21 Pullmann, M. 47 “Race et Civilisation” (“Race and Civilization”) 132 racial assimilationism 5, 65, 74, 81, 83, 120, 131 – 132, 139, 145, 155, 167 racial hierarchies 15 – 16, 27 – 28, 31, 71 – 78, 85, 129; see also interracial hierarchies; intraracial hierarchies racial historicism 65 Racial Hygiene 21, 30, 99, 111, 131, 133 – 134 racial intermixture 29 – 30, 69 – 91, 100 – 105, 109, 111 – 112, 117, 121, 132; insider views on 75, 82 – 84, 90 – 91; outsider views on 75 – 81, 90 – 91 racial intersectionality 69 – 74 racialization 15, 41, 58 – 60, 66, 69, 72, 74, 84 – 91, 98 – 122 racial naturalism 65 racial skeptics 16 – 17, 167 racism 6, 17 – 19, 21 – 22, 25 – 33, 45, 48, 71 – 74, 83, 91, 99, 105 – 112, 120 – 121, 128 – 139, 156, 166 – 168; liquid 65; overdetermination of 3, 18 – 19; overt 32, 74, 83, 120 – 121, 135, 155; reverse 3; scientific 33, 72 Radikálni řez (Radical Cut) 45 Rádl, E. 26 Rassengeschichte der Menschheit (The Racial History of Mankind) 141 – 142 reactionism 19 – 21 recapitulation theory 9, 63, 88, 104, 105, 108 – 109, 115 redistribution vs. recognition 6 – 7 Rhineland bastards 19, 131 Rights of the Roma, The: The Struggle for Citizenship in Postwar Czechoslovakia 25 Ritter, R. 63, 105 – 112, 114 – 115, 117 – 120, 130, 133 – 134 r/K selection theory 20, 88 Rockefeller Foundation 84 Romania 77, 90, 135 Romanians 16, 76, 85, 89, 105 Roosevelt, T. 29 Root, M. 16 Rüsen, J. 44 – 51

Rushton, P. 2, 20 Rusyns 15 – 16, 25, 105, 113 Ruthenia 28, 103, 112 – 113, 168 Said, E. 5 Saller, K. 141 Salter, C. 168 Saul, N. 57 – 58 Schade, H. 131 schooling 2, 21, 40, 73, 104, 111 – 117, 132, 142, 145 – 155; see also (in) educability Schulz, B. K. 32, 133 – 134 Schweitzer, A. 2 Schwicker. J. H. 86 – 87 Šebová, B. 49 – 50 segregation 2 – 5, 15 – 22, 25, 40 – 49, 91, 99, 128, 146, 155, 166 – 167 self-isolation 89, 98, 117, 121, 127 – 128, 132, 140 Serbia 90, 138 Serbians 16, 75, 78, 89 – 90, 131 Sešity 38 Sidiropulu Janků, K. 49 – 50 Šilka, J. 36 – 37 Šimek, J. 113 Škerlj, B. 136 – 137 Slačálek, O. 3 slavery, Romani 85 slavery studies 16 Slovakia 28, 85, 100, 103, 106, 112, 128, 135 Slovenia 69 – 70, 137 – 138, 143 – 144 Slovenians 139 socialism 6, 38, 44 – 51 Sokolová, V. 45 – 46, 48 Soviet Union (USSR) 3, 5, 32, 51, 129, 131 – 132, 137, 140, 155 Spain 77 Spivak, G. C. 3 Spurný, M. 47 – 49 Štampach, F. 31 – 32, 105 – 117, 134, 143 – 144 Stein, G. 110, 130, 134 Steiner, F. B. 168 Štĕpán, J. 2, 147 sterilization 1, 4, 15, 18, 19, 30 – 31, 45, 105, 114, 121, 133, 146 Stewart, M. 127 – 128 Stín ve světle/Slepý Juro/Tvrdohlavý Juro (The Shadow in the Light/Blind Juro/ Stubborn Juro) 29 Stoler, A. L. 91 Strýček z Ameriky (Uncle from America) 84

176 Index Suchý, J. 35n46, 132, 134 – 135, 141 – 142, 146 – 147 Sunderland, E. 98 – 99, 144 – 145 Sus, J. 131 – 132 Svaz Cikánů-Romů (The Union of Gypsies-Roma) 30 – 31 Sweden 79, 120 Szabó, M. 46 Szėp, J. 121 Tabu v sociálních vědách (Taboo in Social Science) 19 – 20 Taylor, P. 16 testimonial exchange 16 – 17 testimonial injustice 4, 6 testimonial justice 4 Tetzner, T. 58 Third Reich 51, 99 Tichý, F. 147 – 155 Transylvania 85 Tremlett, A. 167 Třesňak, P. 21 Tucić, S. 82 Turkey 65 – 66, 78, 86, 90 Turks 15, 60, 78 Úchylná mládež (Deviating Youth) 107 – 108 “undesirable aliens” 76 – 77 UNESCO 131 – 132 United States 18, 27, 29 – 30, 77, 84, 106, 140 Václav, P. 36 – 38 Václavová, L. 37 Vallachs 15 – 16 Van Wijk, W. 118 – 120, 130 Varsza, E. 121 “Versuch einer Sexualpädagogik auf psychologischer Grundlage” (“Attempting Sex Education on a Psychological Basis”) 106 violence: of apprehension 5; epistemic 5; of essentialization 5; of knowledge 5 – 6; structural/institutional 30 – 31, 46, 50, 146 Virchow, R. 72 – 74 von Heister, K. 61, 65 von Luschan, F. 73 von Scherzer, K. R. 65

“Vzrůst školní mládeže na základě šetření v Kralupech nad Vltavou” (“The Growth of School Children According to the Survey in Kralups under Vltava”) 106 Wales 72 Wallerstein, I. 121 Weindling, P. 74 Weisbach, A. 71, 73, 76, 85 Weiss, J. 147 – 155 Weiss, P. 139 Weltzel, H. 117 – 118 Wessel, M. S. 47 West, C. 46 Western civilization 16, 21, 75, 78 – 79, 81, 119 – 120, 127, 130, 168 – 169 “White Gypsies” 69 – 91 whiteness: adapting 82 – 84; critical 2 – 7, 16 – 22, 130; and educability 57; as a locus for doing race 15 – 24; negating 166 – 169; non- 91, 166; and obscure racism 25 – 33; studies 51; visualizing 147 – 155 whitening 8, 25 – 33, 36 – 38, 75, 81, 85, 128 – 138, 151 white pride 17 white privilege 16 white responsibility 17 Wyrtzen, J. 5 Yancy, G. 6 Young, K. 77 Yugoslavia 130, 136, 138 Yuval Davis, N. 40, 46 Zack, N. 16 Zatajené dopisy (Suppressed Letters) 49 – 50 Zigeuner: Geschichte Eines politischen Ordnungsbegriff es in Deutschland 1700 – 1945 (Gypsies: The History of One Political Master Concept in Germany between 1700 and 1945) 19 Zimmerman, A. 73 – 74 Zollschan, I. 29 “Zur Physiologie und Anthropologie der Zigeuner in Deutschland” (“About the Physiology and Psychology of Gypsies in Germany”) 110