ABSTRACT
Since the Middle Ages, many different and sizeable groups of people have lived in Central, Southeastern, and Eastern Europe, whose names in local languages used to be translated into English as “Gypsies.” This translation is not entirely adequate, because in English the term “Gypsies” designates communities of different ethnic origins who lead a specific (peripatetic, service-rendering) nomadic way of life, including the “Sea Gypsies” of Southeast Asia. However, a significant number of the ethnically Roma communities living in the region have been sedentary for centuries. Over time, when the old empires collapsed and new ethnic nation-states emerged in the region, some of these local names were turned into “official terms” employed in administrative use in the countries where these groups lived, for instance, ΑθιγγανοιAthinganoi (Byzantine Empire, Greece), Kıbtı and Çingene (Ottoman Empire, Turkey), Цигани Cigani/Tsigani (Serbia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia), Ţigani (Romania), Zigeuner (Austria-Hungary, Austria), Cigányok (Hungary), Cikáni and Cigáni (Czechoslovakia), Cyganie (Poland), Цыгане Tsygane (Russian Empire, Soviet Union), Čigonai (Lithuania), Čigāni (Latvia), or Mustalased (Estonia) (Marushiakova and Popov 2016a: 11). In recent decades, these variegated exonyms have been rapidly replaced with the unifying denomination “Roma,” which often becomes a preferred endonym. This replacement can be explained by the perceived “legitimacy of political correctness” (Petrova 2003: 111) and is part of the process of democratization and European integration.
