Chronicle
History
The long road from India; the names people use for themselves — Roma, Sinti, Manouche; the Holland–Hungary connection; and how the music is passed down.
Open the timeline · Explore Roma cultural history
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Roma cultural history
Indian origin. Self-names. The Porajmos. Learning in the family. Weddings, taverns, restaurants. Six ways into the chapters already written.
- Chapter I
Origins and the long road
An Indian origin, a westward road, and many musics — each one made in a country that tried to keep them at the edge of the map.
- Chapter II
Roma, Sinti and Manouche
Two self-names, not two spellings of the same people. The café book travelled farther than any surname.
- Chapter III
The Holland–Hungary connection
In the 1930s Hungarian Roma, Romanian Roma and Sinti violinists took the restaurant book into Dutch rooms.
- Chapter IV
How the music is passed down
Most of this music never saw a microphone. The family is the archive. The records are what reached a public.
Watch
Two films on the Hungarian book
The Music Historian, 2017. The Fiddle Channel, 2020. The word Gypsy is in their titles. This archive files the restaurant book as cigányzene. The second film is a source on the Hungary chapter.