Music, City and the Roma under Communism

Description

This book highlights the role of Romani musical presence in Central and Eastern Europe, especially from Krakow in the Communist period, and argues that music can and should be treated as one of the main points of relation between Roma and non-Roma. It discusses Romani performers and the complexity of their situation as conditioned by the political situations starkly affected by the Communist regime, and then by its fall. Against this backdrop, the book engages with musician Stefan Dymiter (known as Corroro) as the leader of his own street band: unwelcome in the public space by the authorities, merely tolerated by others, but admired by many passers-by and respected by his peer Romain musicians and international music stars. It emphasizes the role of Romani musicians in Krakow in shaping the soundscape of the city while also demonstrating their collective and individual strategies to adapt to the new circumstances in terms of the preferred performative techniques, repertoire, and overall lifestyle.

Anna G. Piotrowska is Professor of Musicology at Jagiellonian University, Poland. She is author of several books including Gypsy Music in European Culture (2013) and From Gypsy to Bohemian (forthcoming 2021). As of 2019, she is one of four Principal Investigators on the BESTROM project (Beyond Stereotypes: Cultural Exchanges and the Romani Contribution to European Spaces).

Piotrowska devotes entire chapters to prized musicians and folk heroes that arose during this time. She uses their music and writing to guide their stories. Her photos of these musicians are captivating. * Lossi 36 * This is a highly significant contribution to the field of Romani music research. Its microhistorical focus on one European urban location at one particular time - Krakow during Communist rule - allows the author to reveal not just how complex (indeed, how polyphonic) but also how culturally strategic the daily activity of Romani musicians was in this context. Putting her personal familiarity with the city to good advantage, the author's extensive research overcomes the hitherto scarce source material on Romani music-making in this period to provide herself, and us, with a richly detailed body of original material for discussion and analysis, in which the case-study of the virtuoso Romani busker Corroro in particular stands out. -- David Horn, joint editor of the Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World Already a noted authority on the presence of Romani practices in European art music since the eighteenth century, Anna G. Piotrowska now offers a richly textured, nuanced, and largely unfamiliar portrait of the Romani music making in her native Krakow under the Communist regime, contrasting the activities of the state-sponsored folkloric ensemble with those of the proliferating unofficial street bands, each devising its individual strategy of survival and each carving some independent space for itself under politically coercive circumstances. -- Karol Berger, Osgood Hooker Professor in Fine Arts, Emeritus, at the Department of Music, Stanford University, and author of Beyond Reason: Wagner contra Nietzsche (2017) A fascinating read. Well-informed and enriched by participant observation, Music, City, and the Roma Under Communism is a milestone in an interdisciplinary field, where ethnomusicology, popular music studies, oral history, and urban anthropology converge. Piotrowska's book leads us in an investigation into the ideas of "pure" and "impure" music in Europe, where the latter is reappraised in light of the long struggle for visibility, recognition, and respect by the Romani. -- Paolo Prato, Lecturer in Italian Studies, John Cabot University, Rome, Italy, co-editor of Genres: Europe, Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Popular Music of the World (Bloomsbury, 2017) Anna G. Piotrowska succeeds, with a brilliantly written study, to unfold the history of the Romani musicians of Krakow in a larger historical context by interrelating the Central and Eastern European developments of Roma music of cities like Vienna, Budapest and Bucharest. The main focus is on Lovara and Carpathian Romani musicians in Krakow, the cultural capital of Poland. The insight analysis of various voices is underscored by theoretical reflections on minorities in the urban environment of the communist regime from the post-war period until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. -- Max Peter Baumann, Emeritus Professor of Ethnomusicology at University of Wurzburg, Germany, author of Musik im interkulturellen Kontext (2005)