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Author O'Keeffe, Brigid, 1979- author.

Title New Soviet gypsies : nationality, performance, and selfhood in the early Soviet Union / Brigid O'Keeffe
Published Toronto [Ontario] : University of Toronto Press, [2013]
©2013

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Description 1 online resource (xvi, 328 pages) : illustrations
Contents Backward gypsies, Soviet citizens: the all-Russian gypsy union -- A political education: Soviet values and practical realities in gypsy schools -- Parasites, pariahs, and proletarians: class struggle and the forging of a gypsy proletariat -- Nomads into farmers: Romani activism and the territorialization of (in)difference -- Pornography or authenticity? Performing gypsiness on the Soviet stage
Summary "As perceived icons of indifferent marginality, disorder, indolence, and parasitism, "Gypsies" threatened the Bolsheviks' ideal of New Soviet Men and Women. The early Soviet state feared that its Romani population suffered from an extraordinary and potentially insurmountable cultural "backwardness," and sought to sovietize Roma through a range of nation-building projects. Yet as Brigid O'Keeffe shows in this book, Roma actively engaged with Bolshevik nationality policies, thereby assimilating Soviet culture, social customs, and economic relations. Roma proved the primary agents in the refashioning of so-called "backwards Gypsies" into conscious Soviet citizens. New Soviet Gypsies provides a unique history of Roma, an overwhelmingly understudied and misunderstood diasporic people, by focusing on their social and political lives in the early Soviet Union. O'Keeffe illustrates how Roma mobilized and performed "Gypsiness" as a means of advancing themselves socially, culturally, and economically as Soviet citizens. Exploring the intersection between nationality, performance, and self-fashioning, O'Keeffe shows that Roma not only defy easy typecasting, but also deserve study as agents of history."--Publisher's website
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Notes Print version record
Subject Romanies -- Soviet Union -- Social conditions -- 20th century
Romanies -- Soviet Union -- Politics and government -- 20th century
Romanies -- Soviet Union -- Social life and customs -- 20th century
HISTORY -- Europe -- Eastern.
HISTORY -- Europe -- Former Soviet Republics.
HISTORY -- Europe -- Russia & the Former Soviet Union.
HISTORY -- Social History.
Ethnic relations
Romanies -- Politics and government
Romanies -- Social conditions
Romanies -- Social life and customs
SUBJECT Soviet Union -- Ethnic relations
Subject Soviet Union
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781442665866
1442665866