The Romani People: From Enslaved People to Citizens

Authors

  • Nicolae Gheorghe Sociologist

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v9i1.216

Keywords:

Abolition, Citizenship, Reforms, Revolution, Slavery

Abstract

This is an edited excerpt of an earlier published text: Nicolae Gheorghe. 2006. Roma People: From Enslaved People to Citizens. Bucharest: Amare Rromentza. Translated from Romanian to English by Noémi Fazakas.

An essay on the beginnings of civic discourse regarding Romani people in Romanian Principalities and on the significance of abolishing Romani enslavement in the international context of the “European integration” of Romanian Principalities in the mid-nineteenth century.

Author Biography

  • Nicolae Gheorghe, Sociologist

    Nicolae Gheorghe was a foundational figure of modern Romani activism and a leading intellectual in the field of Roma rights. A sociologist by training, he founded Romani CRISS and shaped key national and European Romani mobilisations and policies. He advanced critical frameworks on ethnicity, citizenship, and minority rights, and played a central role in building pan-European Romani networks and engaging institutions such as the United Nations, Council of Europe or Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe – where he served as Senior Advisor.

Downloads

Published

11/25/2025

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 1 (2026): Racialized Slavery in Moldavia and Wallachia: Legacies and Silences

Section

Arts and culture

License

Copyright (c) 2025 The legal heirs of Nicolea Gheorghe granted Central European University the non-exclusive licence to publish this work.

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication. The work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. 

How to Cite

The Romani People: From Enslaved People to Citizens. (2025). Critical Romani Studies, 9(1), 162-202. https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v9i1.216