Being Taken Care of by Majority Society: Czech Narratives of Romani Children in Adoptive Families and Child Care Institutions

• In Event: Literature, Ethnic Prejudices, and the Recent History of Central Europe (20th Century)

Abstract

In Czech language literature and film, narratives about Romani children that were either institutionalized or taken care of by Czech adoptive families have become a topic from the mid-1980s on. The range of narratives is wide, they reach from a psychiatrist’s fictionalized account of his work in a juvenile detention center during late socialism over the autobiographic account of a Czech adoptive mother to fictional novels and films on differing fates of Romani characters. The paper aims to show how these narratives written and produced within the majority society conceive of the relationship between these children and the majority society, how they deal with issues of racism, and and how their focus changes over time. While the late socialist narrative celebrates the successful overcoming of perceptions of discrimination and stylizes the fight against racism as a resource for non-Romani characters, later narratives focus onto descriptions of institutionalized racisms and emotional deprivation, or, lately, onto explorations of Romani history and identity. One of the main issues to discuss within the array of questions is how these narratives position themselves towards their Romani characters.

Author

• Gesine Drews-Sylla, U of Würzburg (Germany)