The activities and results of the project Educated Roma Women – Empowered Romani Communities!, in which the Vigdís Finnbogadóttir Institute for Foreign Languages and its Roma in the Center initiative appears as a partner of the Croatian Romani Union ”KALI SARA”, are a great experience for members of Icelandic society as well. The public presentation of the project took place at the University of Iceland on September 3, 2024, before an audience of representatives from civil society organizations and women’s networks with a long history of advocating for women’s rights and gender equality. Through this project, Icelandic society had the opportunity to hear about Romani women and men, which is also significant in the context of the arrival and settlement of this ethnic community in Iceland, since 2016, says Sofiya Zahova, head of the program Roma in the Center, and continues: Roma who came to Iceland are mostly from Romania. They are called Ursari and during the time of Romanian President Ceaușescu, they lived in the forest, in the poorest part of Romania. After the 1990s, they bought some houses in a small village near the forest, where they had a lot of help from the village major, who was open-minded, very sympathetic towards Roma, and wanted to help improve their living conditions. After 2007 and Romania’s entry into the European Union, the migration of Roma started. This community speaks the Balkan dialect of the Romani language, Romani chib, and they mainly belong to the Pentecostal church.
Zahova explains that Icelanders, on one hand, knew of the Roma through European and Scandinavian media, which often depicted them in the context of marginalization—portraying Roma as beggars, dependent on social welfare, unemployed, and dropping out of the education system early. On the other hand, there was also a general cultural and historical exoticization, associating the Roma with freedom, magic, dance, and similar ideas. While they had an image and an idea of the Roma, they lacked practical experience with them. As a result, they recognized their own prejudices and stereotypes but were aware that these views were problematic and that they needed expert guidance. When the first Roma migrants moved in, I received a call from the city office asking me for professional help, says Zahova. They desired to get to know Roma history, customs, traditions, and way of life. They asked to be educated so that they could be professional in their approach and behavior. I organized lectures on the history of Roma from Eastern Europe. In general, Icelanders asked a lot of questions and readily asked for help, so that their actions and decisions would be relevant. Such an approach differed in many ways from the approach I was used to in the countries of Eastern Europe, where stereotypes are easily taken as truth and become deeply rooted, which is why the change is so difficult. In her lectures about the Roma community, as well as in her work with them, Zahova reacts to every, even the smallest attempt at generalization and stereotyping, with facts and sound logic. For example, she mentions that when a Roma boy had issues at school, there was a tendency to attribute his poor attendance and struggles with the material to being ‘normal’ for Roma. However, she immediately responded by pointing out that his Roma friends and relatives didn’t face such problems. It turned out that the real cause was family issues with his father, which were not ‘Romani’ issues.
During her years of work on the Roma in the Center program, Zahova invited numerous Roma experts as lecturers, who shared their firsthand knowledge and scientific research on topics such as Roma history, culture, migrations, literature, and more. Also, every year the Institute organizes the celebration of the World Day of Romani Language on November 5, declared an intangible world heritage by UNESCO in 2015. Currently, Zahova leads the project “Romi Is” about the history of the Roma in Iceland. The project team consists of 12 experts, including individuals from city offices and a woman from the Romanian Roma community who is involved in community work as part of her postdoctoral studies. Additionally, two students—one in history and the other in ethnology—serve as assistants. My colleague, an anthropologist, also participates in the project, focusing on the ethnology of Romani institutions. He has conducted research on the Çerge Roma who migrated to Italy during the former Yugoslav wars and have since been living in camps there. Prominent Romani men and women make up the project’s committee, such as Lilyana Kovacheva from Bulgaria, Fred Taikon from Sweden, and Colin Clark from Scotland. Furthermore, there are also members of the advisory board and representatives of Roma communities. I would also highlight one of the highly respected Icelandic historians, Guðmundur Hálfdanarson, a professor at the University of Iceland, who leads the historical part of the project. He already knew something about the Roma before joining the project, but my research further interested him and encouraged him to participate, explains Zahova. Namely, following the information she got through a conversation and acquaintance with a young woman from Denmark whose grandmother was Roma, she found out that the grandmother and her family were in Iceland in the summer of 1911.
My research led me to magazines where I found articles about the Kalderash Roma who lived in Denmark, and Iceland belonged to the Danish crown at that time. In the National Museum of Iceland, I found a photo of the same family from that period who came to Iceland by boat and held a show with music and dance, as if they were acting out a wedding. They traveled to the north of Iceland, and the newspapers wrote about it. The Icelanders were delighted because at that time dancing was forbidden in Iceland, but institutions such as the police and the notaries were against them. They said that these terrible people should not be allowed to live in Iceland and that they should not be given money. The media as historical sources tell us that even then two basic approaches existed – exoticization and marginalization. People loved them, while the institutions wanted to expel them. Before they went back to Denmark, they bought horses in Iceland, which they then sold in Denmark. Information on this exists. The new generations of that family, whose last name is Bersik or Bešik, depending on how it is spelled, live in Sweden today and we are in contact. Historians familiar with the Icelandic archives continued to investigate further and found even more information about the Roma who were in Iceland. That community was so marginalized that no one even bothered to write down their history, but this is nothing unusual because the Roma were generally not part of the official history of any country, says Zahova. Among the other interesting things they found were writings about a woman who moved to the outskirts of Reykjavik with her bear in the 1930s. She belonged to a group of Romani Travelers who were engaged in the circus in Scandinavia, back in the 16th century.
The goal of the ‘Romi Is‘ project is to enhance both expert and public knowledge about the Roma in Iceland. The project’s activities include historical and ethnological research, the publication of results through scientific papers—whether presented at conferences or published in academic journals—and the release of a book with documentary material titled ”Sudden Meeting of Icelanders and Roma”. We are professionals with great respect for the Roma community that lives here, and for now, we are successfully dealing with stereotypes and prejudices, says Zahova. She continues: Due to their experiences, even Roma who came to Iceland hesitate to introduce themselves as Roma, but say that they are Romanians, given that they have Romanian citizenship. As part of the project, the team visited a Roma settlement in Romania in May. We are currently preparing a comprehensive report and working to establish cooperation with the relevant Romanian municipality and the city of Reykjavik. The entire village has migrated, with only the older members of the community remaining. During the summer, families return to their homes, decorate, celebrate, and organize weddings and other events, before returning to Iceland at the end of the season.As previous research conducted as part of the project has shown, Roma are satisfied with life in Iceland. The community has about 500 members, among which the most numerous are the Ursari, one family from Bulgaria belongs to the Kalderash group, and one from Transylvania belongs to the group calling themselves Gabor. Their children attend school and receive all the support needed to master the Icelandic language, complete their homework, and fulfill other school requirements. Every child is entitled to additional hours for individual or group work. After elementary school, most young people opt for technical and other vocational schools. When choosing a school and navigating the enrollment process, every Roma child has access to assistance, which significantly increases the likelihood of continuing their education. As Zahova explains: Without this help, they most likely would not have enrolled, not because they would not want to continue their education, but because they did not know the procedure and were insufficiently informed.Adults, especially people in the age group of 20 to 45 years old, have no problems with employment and work mainly in service industries.
Out of the three years planned for the implementation of this project, the first year and a half have already passed, during which numerous activities have been completed. Based on the results and the interest so far, and with the hope that this trend will continue, project manager Zahova concludes, that knowledge will ultimately triumph over prejudice.
