Writings about Roma in Bosnia and Herzegovina from the end of the 19th to the end of the 20th Century / Prilozi o Romima u Bosni i Hercegovini od kraja 19. do kraja 20. stoljeća

On the occasion of the 120th anniversary of Rade Uhlik’s birth / u povodu 120 godina od rođenja Rade Uhlika

Abstract

A number of scholars studied the Roma people in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the period between the end of the 19th to the end of the 20th century. Their approach to the subject of the Roma people was conditioned by different disciplinary perspectives (anthropological, folkloristic, ethnographic, historical, ethnological, linguistic). Although their works contributed to a better understanding of the Roma in BiH, the research on the Roma during this period was still accidental and fragmentary. The only exception to this was the work of Rade Uhlik, who for over six decades studied solely the language and culture of the Roma. As a linguist, Rade Uhlik contributed significantly to the standardization of the Roma language. His own fieldwork, which he preferred, enabled Uhlik to, through empirical examples, point to the complexity of the relationship between the Roma and non-Roma, and the reverse, as well as the complex issue of the relationships within a single Roma community. In this way, Uhlik offered a unique picture of the Roma “from within” through some of his scholarly works.