The Song Folklore of the Roma in the Slovak and Czech Republics

Romani musical folklore—specifically its verbal component, which is the focus of this English-language e-book—has not yet been the subject of systematic research in our country. The author, an ethnologist at the University of Pardubice, presents the ethnocultural specifics of Romani song poetry in a concise manner. He draws primarily on authentic Romani texts, the corpus of which is the result of his fieldwork over the past thirty-plus years. He analyzes the texts and situates them within a broader ethnohistorical framework. He demonstrates the role that spontaneous musical expression has played in the Romani community and notes that the ethnic song remains a significant constitutive element of Romani culture.

The electronic monograph includes the documentary film “Roma Songs and Two Rites of Passage” and a four-CD set titled “Roma Folk Songs from the Collection of Zbyněk Andrš.”