Season 3 / Episode 5

In this episode, Natalie Smith, a PhD candidate in the School of History, examines an anthropological account of the Roma written by the priest Cristfried Ganander in 1780, which marks the earliest study of the Roma people in Sweden. This text explored the history, culture and language of the Romani in Sweden-Finland.

This episode uses Ganander’s text as a case study to explore the relationship between the Swedish state and the Romani population. By analysing its portrayal of the Roma and the way they were contrasted with the Sámi, I seek to unravel the hierarchy of otherness imposed on minority populations by the 18th-century Swedish state.

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Bibliography: 

Primary Material:

Grellman, Heinrich Moritz Gotlieb. Dissertation on the Gipsies: being an historical enquiry, concerning the manner of life, family cononomy, customs and conditions of these people in Europe, and their origin, trans. Matthew Raper 1787 [1783]. 

Kongl. Svenska Vitterhets-academiens handlingar, Förste delen p. 5. Stockholm, Lars Salvius, 1775. 

Undated competition entry from Cristfried Ganander to KSWA, Undersökning om de så kallade TATTARE eller Ziguener, Cinqari, Bohemiens, Deras härkomst, lefnadssätt, språk, m. m. Samt om, när och hwarest några satt sig ner i Sverige? Original capitalisation. SE/ATA/ARK2_1-1F2:4 ATA Tävlingsskrifter MM 1779-1782. 

Secondary Material: 

Boatca, Manuela and Parvulescu Anca. “Creolizing the Modern: Transylvania Across Empires” Cornell University Press, 2022.  

Sunderland, Willard. “Taming the Wild Field: Colonisation and Empire on the Russian Steppe” Cornell University Press, 2004. 

Svensson, Birgitta. “Bortom all ära och redlighet : tattarnas spel med rättvisan” Nordiska Museets Förlag, 1993. 

Yuval-Davis, Nira. “Gender and Nation” Sage, 1997.