From café to stage to museum: The transformation of the Gypsy music industry in 20th-century Hungary (original) (raw)
twentieth-century music, 2007
In the Hungarian folk revival, Hungarian Roma (Gypsies) serve as both privileged informants and exotic Others. The musicians of the revival known as the táncház (dance-house) movement rely heavily on rural Rom musicians, especially those from Transylvania, as authentic sources of traditional Hungarian repertoire and style. Táncház rhetoric centres on the trope of localized authenticity; but the authority wielded by rural Rom musicians, who carry music both between villages and around the world, complicates the fixed boundaries that various powerful stakeholders would place on the tradition. Drawing on media sources and on fieldwork in Hungary and Romania, I examine how authenticity and ‘Gypsiness’ are presented and controlled by the scholars, musicians, and administrators who lead the táncház movement, in particular in the context of camps and workshops dedicated to Hungarian folk music and dance. Organizers often erect clear boundaries of status, genre, and gender roles through such events, which, among other things, address the anxiety raised by Rom musicians’ power in liminal spaces. In addition, I look at how Rom musicians both negotiate with the táncház’s aesthetic of authenticity and challenge it musically. Finally, I discuss how musicians and the crowds that gather to hear and dance to their music together create a carnival atmosphere, breaking down some of the boundaries that organizers work so hard to create. Throughout, I demonstrate that liminality is an extraordinarily pertinent lens through which to view Roma participation in the Hungarian folk music scene.
Myth Of Romani Music In Prague
Lidé města, 2009
In today's Prague one can find a great variety of musical events and recordings labeled as Romani/Gypsy music-from classical music with "Gypsy" themes to romano hip hop. For meaningful understanding and organization of it, the article uses both the basic ethnomusicological model of Alan P. Merriam (1964) and Kay Kaufman Shelemay's (2006) concept of soundscapes. With their help, four "musical worlds"-soundscapes-are presented: the romantic image that non-Roma have of Roma; Romani coffee house bands; traditional Romani bašaviben, that is, playing for their own entertainment, influenced by popular music; and emerging Romani hip hop. Each of these worlds-however they influence each other-is at the same time internally coherent and thus it is easy to follow the connections among the original purpose of this type of music, the behavior of the musicians and the public, and musical sound. Klíčová slova myth, Gypsy-Romani music, soundscapes In the following text I discuss the myth of Romani music in Prague. For the majority of readers the first association with the expression "myth" will probably be something unreal, opposing reality (whatever we understand by "reality"), some sort of chimera, and thus, in connection with Romani music, perhaps what non-Roma naively and erroneously imagine by the term "Romani music." It would be possible to present many examples; a striking one from the last ethnomusicological conference: Speranta Radulescu submitted two pieces of music by two famous non-Romani composers intended as explicit "representations" of Romani music: Ravel's Rhapsody Tzigane and the introductory section of Enescu'sImpressions, for the perceptions of Romani musicians. Neither one of them perceived them at all as "Gypsy" (RADULESCU 2009). This text, indeed, only partially deals with non-Romani concepts of Romani music. The introductory thoughts are, however, different: they discuss the phenomenon of myth and music in general, their bases and relationship, or more precisely, closeness. My basic concept of myth differs from that folk concept of myth as a "chimera." It is much closer to the concepts of the classics of Mircea Eliade and, especially, Claude Lévi-Strauss. As is clear from the following sentences, in this understanding, striking similarities, almost a twin relation of the music and the Lévi-Strauss myth, arise. The first, basic, most striking and very surprising parallel in their relations is the realm of concepts, that is, the notions about what myth and music actually are. In the introduction to his Mythologica, Lévi-Strauss does not deal too long with the definition or delimitation of myth (which, by the way, is also typical of the ethnomusicological approach to music). Basically it is concerned with the factual narrative of some sort of events, often of a sacral character, which approaches not only the horizon, but also the meaning of the world, but the author, without too much hesitation, also includes in his research folk tales, legends, and pseudo-historical traditions (1983:4). At any rate, the essence is crucial: Myth (like-in my opinion-music) is, according to Lévi-Strauss, composed of concrete cultural material which, when properly analyzed, reveals the existence of laws (of the mind) operating at the deeper level (p. 10). These laws, elsewhere called the logic of sensory qualities or a code, have an absolute nature. This code, like the others, has neither been invented nor brought in from without. It is inherent in mythology itself, where we simply discover its presence (p. 12). Furthermore, these laws become mutually convertible and therefore simultaneously acceptable to several different subjects; the pattern of those conditions takes on the character of an autonomous object, independent of any subject (p. 11). In contrast to ethnographers, who describe or trace motifs, Lévi-Strauss, equipped with his transcendental conviction, has the ambition to contribute to better knowledge of objectified thought and its mechanisms (p. 13).
Social Inclusion , 2020
The governments of the Horthy era did not formulate a central Gypsy policy and, consequently, the so-called 'Gypsy issue' fell fully into the hands of the assigned ministries and local authorities. The public authorities acted at their own discretion: Largely, they acted according to their basic tasks and understanding, or simply ignored the issue. As a result, the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Welfare and Labour were the decisive authorities in this issue. Mainly law enforcement dealt with travelling Gypsies-a small portion of the estimated one hundred thousand Gypsies living in Hungary-the majority of whom lived in 'colonies' and were dealt with as an issue of public health. Regarding Gypsies, the same era is frequently judged by the legal action affecting these travellers and the often criticised measures regulating public security and health. The foundation of the Hungarian Gypsy Musicians' National Association, which intended to represent the interests of nearly ten thousand Gypsy musicians, somewhat changed the picture that had developed, since the organisation enjoyed the full support of the heads of the Ministry of the Interior and the city of Budapest. Regulations were enacted to protect their interests and initiatives. Behind the patronage, one might note, was that after the Treaty of Trianon Gypsy music became part of irredentist ideology and the revisionist movement, and therefore the interests and claims of the Gypsy musicians fully fitted the age. The topic is very important for social inclusion today because Gypsy music continues to be considered part of Hungarian cultural heritage and thus gives Gypsies work and integration opportunities.
István, a király: Rock-Opera As an Expression of Hungarian National Identity
History of European Cinema. Intercultural Perspective, 2015
Despite its popularity-or perhaps because of it-musical is considered, more often than not, an undemanding movie genre. It is usually associated with pure entertainment. While there is little doubt that musicals can be classified as a part of popular culture, the conviction that they only about entertainment is not entirely true. Their success stems not so much from their spectacular nature, but from the fact that they perfectly fulfil the needs of modern audiences and, among other things, are capable of creating a sense of belonging to social groups, that is-a sense of identity. This idea may seem far-fetched, but only at the beginning. The idea that an addressee can mediate his or her identity through products of popular culture is by no means new. It has already been raised by several scholars. In Understanding popular culture John Fiske remarks that popular culture is, just like any other, a culture-the active process of generating and circulating meanings and pleasures within a social. 1 He also points out that all available commodities can be used by consumers to form meanings of self, social identity, and social relations. 2 But there is also a darker side to it: cultural commodities, Fiske claims, bear within them traces of power relationships and reproduce the ideology of the system that produced them. This means that they are never 'innocent' or meaningless, but epitomize ideology. Yet at the same time they also carry marks of the struggle between domination and subordination. This is because popular culture is, on one hand, the culture of the authorities, but on the other, the culture of the subordinated who use it to construct their own meanings that often go against official interpretations. It seems then that popular culture contradicts itself, being on one hand the culture of the authorities, but on the other, that of the oppressed society. But if popular culture is to be popular, it has not only to provide certain ideas, but, more importantly, to be relevant to the immediate social situation of the people, to comfort to their demands and needs. 3 Among them, as Fiske believes-to their need to create a sense of self. Similar ideas can be traced in Marek Krajewski's views on popular culture. What is most significant is his
English-Language Bibliography of Interest for Hungarian Cultural Studies: 2011-2012
Hungarian Cultural Studies, 2012
As the above title indicates, this bibliography straddles 2012-2013, covering the period since the publication in Fall of 2012 of last year's bibliography in this journal. Each yearly bibliography is supplemented by earlier items that were only retrieved recently. Although this bibliography can only concentrate on English-language items, occasional items of particular interest in other languages are included.
STAGING ETHNICITY: CULTURAL POLITICS AND MUSICAL PRACTICES OF ROMA PERFORMERS IN BUDAPEST
Acta Ethnographica Hungarica
During the last two decades Roma musical styles have gone through numerous changes in Central and Eastern Europe. The effects of these cannot be assessed merely through changing musical performances and products in themselves, they must also be seen through the ways the Roma shape their relationships with their broader social surroundings. In spite of this, music-making is often considered as marginal compared to the mainstream issues of Roma research, justifi ed by oppositions such as the one between the 'sunny side' of cultural creativity and the 'gloomy side' of everyday life in Roma communities. This view can be supported by some of the academic accounts that depict Roma performers as 'apolitical' subjects who are closer to the members of the majority -in the role of service-providers -than to their own co-ethnics. This paper introduces a case that counters these assumptions. Based on the heritage of the Roma cultural movement in Hungary, Roma performers and their practices of music-making were placed in direct association with the struggles for recognition in post-socialism. Especially from the 2000s on, these musical and discursive resources were deployed by Roma performers in their project to create a music scene and a niche market in the subcultural landscape of Budapest. Through their participation in this market, Roma performers had been engaging with the micropolitics of recognition and social participation. The liminal space defi ned by musical events determined both the possibilities and the limits of the experiments in which Roma performers and their mixed Roma and non-Roma Hungarian audiences were involved. The paper discusses the development of this niche, including the content, the politics and the space of musical performance. 1