Roma in the history of Montenegro – displacement, marginalization and discrimination

ABSTRACT

The history of Roma population in Montenegro has been a history of exclusion, displacement, and refusal by the rest of the Montenegrin society. Members of other ethnocultural communities in Montenegro, social actors, and institutions are not sufficiently aware of the importance of understanding the position of this community in historical terms. The methodology applied in this paper entails analysis of ethnographic material, unpublished archival sources as well as relevant legal and political documents. The aim of the paper is to examine the deep historical roots of exclusion, marginalization and frequent migration of the Roma population in Montenegro in different periods of history.

KEYWORDS:

• Roma
• Montenegro
• discrimination
• history
• racial discrimination

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The designation is derived from the term čerga, a traditional nomad tent.

2. With reforms in 1879, Montenegro was divided into regions called nahija/nahije. Nahije were divided into captaincies that were the basic units of local government. On this issue, see (Jokić 2018, 312). Following the reforms of 1903, a division was established into regions headed by a manager who was subordinate to the Minister of the Interior (Jokić 2018, 312).

3. These are the Čergari Roma, that were described as čerga families in this context. For the meaning of the term čerga, see endnote no. 1.

4. The newspaper Crna Gora reported on this issue in the issue no. 23 on April 22, 1923 on p. 23.

5. The following newspapers – Crna Gora, Zetski Glasnik, Naše Selo, Zapisi, Slobodna Misao and Glas Crnogorca..

6. While researching material in the Archive of Yugoslavia, Ivana Dobrivojević found information that the Public Prosecution of the FPRY considered penalizing 3.000 Roma people for homelessness and refusal to take up work in factories (Dobrivojević 2009, 108).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Danijela Vuković-Ćalasan

Danijela Vukovic-Calasan is an Associate professor at the Faculty of Political Science, University of Montenegro in Podgorica, Montenegro. She teaches courses on Political theory, Globalization, Ethnicity and ethnic relations and Human rights of minority groups. Her main research areas include minority rights, ethnic and national relations and identities, ethnocultural pluralism governing, globalization and contemporary political theories.

Rajka Đoković

Rajka Đokovic holds PhD from Faculty of Law, University of Belgrade. She is Teaching Assistant at Faculty of Law, University of Montenegro. Her main research areas are national legal history of Montenegro and legal tradition.