No less enthusiastically did I and a bunch of other little girls prepare Gypsy costumes for a New Year's party at my kindergarten and, sporting our bright long skirts and shawls, shake our thin shoulders in what was supposed to be a Gypsy dance. Later, as a teen-ager yearning for true love, I shared the awe of women throughout the Soviet Union for the unforgettable film Tabor ukhodit v nebo (A Gypsy Camp Leaves for the Sky)-a romantic and, of course, tragic story of two beautiful and proud Romani lovers who refused to compromise their freedom and chose to die to remain together. Passionate songs sung in low, husky voices reached for the heart, stirring up anguish, remorse, and longing for the ideal.

Those two extremes-fear of the alien-looking people to whom, rumor had it, black magic and thievery were not unknown, and admiration for their perceived free and proud spirit and disregard of human vanities-have dominated attitudes toward Roma in Russia for centuries. While Roma have been simultaneously disdained and romanticized by every European people with which they have interacted, nowhere have those attitudes been more equally balanced than in Russia.

Roma made profound impacts on the musical cultures of many European nations, particularly in the form of Spanish flamenco and Hungarian instrumental music. But nowhere was their contribution as integral to the national musical tradition as in Russia, where a genre of Romani choral singing unique to Russia dominated the development of what were called the "little musical forms" in the late 18th century and 19th century. Spurred partly by the fascination Russian writers had with Romani performers, the romantic Romani theme became a regular feature in the classics of Russian literature.

To a great extent the Roma became hostages of their own music and to the images that built up around them, which stemmed partly from the imagination of Russian romantics and partly from the mystery in which Roma surrounded themselves as a defense against persecution. The two popular stereotypes of Roma-as passionate and proud freedom lovers, and as cunning and daring thieves-reflected more on the Russian character than on that of the Roma, who in fact lived in conservative tribal societies according to ancient laws and customs. As Yefim Druts and Aleksei Gessler wrote in their 1990 book Tsygane (The Gypsies), Romani self-perceptions had little to do with either of the two prevailing stereotypes.

The Aristocrat's Favorites

Roma entered the area that became the Russian empire relatively late-in the late 15th and early 16th centuries, from Europe, central Asia, and the Caucasus. Starting with a 1733 decree by Empress Anna Ioannovna, Peter the Great's niece, Russian rulers tried to turn Roma into humble subjects and obedient taxpayers by binding them to the land. But anti-Roma legislation in Russia was not so harsh as elsewhere in Europe, partly because of the difficulty of tracking down nomads in Russia's enormous land mass, but perhaps more importantly because of the unique role of Romani performing arts in Russian society.

The development of Romani choral singing is chronicled in Taisia Shcherbakova's 1984 book on Romani performing arts. As early as the reign of Peter the Great, Roma were employed as entertainers at courtly masquerades. In the late 18th century, Count Orlov organized the first Romani chorus from his Romani serfs, headed by Ivan Sokolov. In 1807, Orlov freed the artists and they became the first professional chorus in Russia. The group included the famous Stepanida Soldatova, compared by her admirers to an Italian diva of the time. Initially, the repertoire of the Romani choruses consisted mainly of Russian folk songs, given new life by a Romani style of performance that heightened the songs' tense, emotional tone.

The golden age of Romani choral music lasted until the 1850s and coincided with the period of romanticism in Russian culture. In Shcherbakova's words, the contemporaries of Aleksandr Pushkin and Mikhail Glinka dreamt of music as the language of passion and freedom, and Romani songs, as well as the Gypsy theme in literature, reflected the romantics' quest for new forms of expression that would open the heavens. While Roma did their best as performers, listeners heard what they wanted to hear.

As Romani choruses became part of Russian urban life, Roma featured in many literary works, either in episodes of longer works, as in Leo Tolstoy's War and Peace, Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Brothers Karamazov, and Ivan Shmelev's Puti nebesnye (Heavenly Ways), or as main characters, such as in Pushkin's Tsygany (The Gypsies) or Tolstoy's Dva gusara (Two Hussars). At the turn of the 19th century, before devoting himself to socialist realism, Maxim Gorky paid tribute to romanticism with his Makar Chudra, a beautiful short novel later used as the foundation for the film Tabor ukhodit v nebo.

A closer look at the lives of Romani choral singers reveals that the stereotype of a Rom as a passionate, free individual was somewhat irrelevant. A chorus, like any Romani camp, functioned according to harsh tribal rules with their rigid hierarchies and conservative traditions. All members were obliged to surrender their earnings to the community, although all also shared in the profits according to their contributions.

By the early 20th century, the fame of Russian Romani choruses became international, and a chorus led by Nikolai Shishkin performed at the prestigious Trocadero Hall during the Paris Exhibition. Yet the art of Romani choral singing was showing signs of decline. Following the fashion, the folk songs in Romani repertoires gave way to a new form of urban song: romances. Written by such leading Russian composers as Peter Tchaikovsky and Sergei Rakhmaninov, to name but a few, and performed by well-known Romani soloists such as Varvara Panina, they became extremely popular. However, their success also encouraged numerous weaker imitations, bringing to life yet another stereotype of Romani performing art as sentimental kitsch.

Meanwhile, Russian peasants had built up an image of Roma as cunning thieves and liars through their dealings with Romani horse traders and craftsmen. But in many Russian folk tales, Romani characters are featured as insolent, cunning, and resourceful, yet hardly evil individuals. Moreover, while a Romani horse thief, if caught, would almost certainly be beaten to death, a successful horse thief was traditionally held in awe. In the popular mind, stealing a horse was not exactly a crime but an ultimate expression of one's bravery and heroic recklessness-qualities traditionally highly regarded by the Russians.

Displaced by the Soaps

The Bolshevik revolution dealt a powerful blow to the traditional Romani way of life. As the entertainers of the "bourgeoisie," Romani choruses were dispersed and often became the subject of persecution by the Proletkult, an organization whose activists aimed at liquidating all pre-revolutionary culture as "useless." Many artists were swept up by the powerful wave of emigration, and found themselves performing in a handful of restaurants in Paris that catered mainly to former Russian aristocrats and military men now holding such jobs as taxi driver or porter. Together with Cossack dancers, the Romani performers helped foster the stereotype of the "mysterious Russian soul" with sad songs, fiery dances, heavy drinking, and smashing glasses in a frenzied, what-the-hell gesture.

Back in Soviet Russia, the surviving artists ended up in the Studio of Old Gypsy Art, the Gypsy attraction at the State Circus, or the ethnographic theater at the Russian Museum in Leningrad. A new professional Romani theater, Romen, was established in Moscow in 1931 and has survived to this day. In the 1960s and 1970s, members such as Nikolai Erdenko and Nikolai Slichenko were among the most popular performers in the Soviet Union. In the 1930s, in another attempt to bind nomadic Roma to land, the authorities tried to organize them into collective farms. By 1941, 41 such collectives, uniting less than 6 percent of the Roma, were established, mainly in the western parts of the country. Most of those farms' members died in mass executions during German occupation.

Under the Soviet regime, old Romani stereotypes continued to be propagated through a new genre of cinematography. Among the all-time favorites is a 1967 film Tsygan (Gypsy) by Yevgenii Matveev, which tells the story of a Romani family during World War II. While the father is away in the army, his wife is killed by a German tank, and a surviving little boy is adopted by a Russian peasant woman. After the war, the father comes home to his village and works as a smith but does not reveal his identity in order not to disturb his son's new family. True to the literary tradition, the main Romani character is passionate and noble in nature.

In a 1970s romantic serial about four youngsters fighting for the "proletarian cause" during the Russian civil war, Tsygan, a cool and adroit character, commanded particular admiration from the young audience. Later came Tabor and Eldar Ryazanov's brilliant 1986 film adaptation of Nikolai Ostrovskii's play Bespridannitsa (A Girl Without a Dowry). In the film, titled Zhestokii romans (Brutal Romance) after a popular genre of Romani songs, Romani music and dance serve as the crucial foundation for a fluttering and permeating narrative. Sadly, during the years of perestroika, the role of "Gypsy-style" romantic tragedies in popular culture was taken over by American and Latin American soap operas.

In contemporary Russia, the Gypsy theme does not feature prominently in either the arts or in politics. While Central Europeans heatedly debate the "Gypsy problem," in Russia the issue is marginal. Roma are, of course, still subject to prejudice in Russia but not as severely as in Central Europe, and even Russian ultranationalists are generally far more worried about Caucasians than about Roma. The bad news is that the traditional performing arts of the Russian Roma could soon be lost forever.