A Critical Review of Remembrance: Romani Slavery in Romani Activism, Arts, and Research

Authors

  • Delia Grigore Associate Professor at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Rromani Language and Literature Program

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v9i1.235

Keywords:

Memory, Roma, Self-esteem, Slavery, Social amnesia

Abstract

This article examines how the memory of Romani slavery persists in the contemporary collective consciousness of both Roma and non-Roma in Romania. It explores the tension between social amnesia and efforts to rebuild remembrance through activism, arts, and research as a way to understand the past and facilitate truth-telling and reconciliation.

The article examines how – more than 170 years after the final act of abolition of Romani slavery in 1856 during an era of induced oblivion of the memory of Romani slavery – remembrance is beginning, step by step, to be rebuilt through Romani activism, arts, and research contemporary Romania after 1990, when Roma were recognised as a national minority.

It analyses the memory of Romani slavery in Romania through the lens of “social amnesia”, a concept coined by historian Russell Jacoby and defined as society's repression of remembrance – the Romanian state rejects its negative past not to be placed in a bad light, as oppressor.

Author Biography

  • Delia Grigore, Associate Professor at the University of Bucharest, Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, Rromani Language and Literature Program

    Delia Grigore is a writer and ethnologist with a PhD in visual arts from the Romanian Academy’s Institute of Ethnography and Folklore. She is an associate professor at the University of Bucharest, where she teaches Romani literature and culture and coordinates the Rromani Language and Literature Program of Studies. She is also the president of Amare Rromentza Rroma Center. Dr Grigore has authored numerous works, including Introduction to the Study of Traditional Culture Elements of the Contemporary Rromani Identity (2001), Rromanipen – Keystones of Rromani Culture (2011), and Contemporary Rromani Identity – Between Ethno-type and Stereotype (2017). She is also a co-author of Rroma in Search of Self-esteem. Exploratory Study (2008), National Minorities’ History (2008), Assessment of the Educational Public Policies addressed to Rroma (2009). To date, she has dedicated 31 years to serving as a Romani activist, actively participating in both the national and European Romani movements.

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Published

11/25/2025

Issue

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

Section

Articles

License

Copyright (c) 2025 Delia Grigore

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How to Cite

A Critical Review of Remembrance: Romani Slavery in Romani Activism, Arts, and Research . (2025). Critical Romani Studies, 9(1), 112-138. https://doi.org/10.29098/crs.v9i1.235