Romanistan

Flag of the Romani people, a national symbol of the Romani

Romanistan, Romastan or Romanestan is the name of a proposed country, for the Romani people. ^[1]

Romanistan is generally understood as a cultural and historical presence centralised in the eastern Balkans of southeastern Europe. ^{[2] [3] [ vague ]} The creation of an autonomous region for the Romani was suggested by the leaders of a party in North Macedonia known as the Party for the Complete Emancipation of Roma (and also reportedly by a Romani party in Hungary) in the early 1990s, at Šuto Orizari. ^[4] The proposal of such a region in North Macedonia was also briefly considered by Josip Tito, leader of Socialist Yugoslavia but the idea never materialized. ^[5] Several times during the 1920s and 1930s, ideas of an autonomous Romani state within the USSR were raised. Such efforts were dropped by 1936-7. ^[6] In the early 1950s, Romani leaders petitioned the United Nations for the creation of their own state, but their petition was rejected. ^[1] Given the South Asian origins of the Romani, Romanistan has even been envisaged as being in South Asia, within the borders of the Indian subcontinent. ^[7]

See also

• King of the Gypsies
• Romani in North Macedonia
• Black separatism, various movements that advocate for the establishment of a state for the Black diaspora
• Zionism, an ethnocultural nationalist ^[8] movement that emerged in Europe in the late 19th century with a goal of the establishment of a home for the Jewish people

References

1. James Minahan (1996). Nations Without States: A Historical Dictionary of Contemporary National Movements. Greenwood Press. p. 464. ISBN   978-0-313-28354-3.
2. Radical, Norwich (31 January 2024). "THERE IS NO ROMA NATION". The Norwich Radical. Retrieved 23 March 2025.
3. Xenos, Nicholas (22 August 1996). "For and against Romanistan". London Review of Books. Vol. 18, no. 16. ISSN   0260-9592 . Retrieved 23 March 2025.
4. Charles Vance; Yongsun Paik (2006). Managing a Global Workforce: Challenges and Opportunities in International Human Resource Management. M.E. Sharpe. p. 760. ISBN   978-0-7656-2016-3.
5. Crowe, David M. (2000). "Muslim Roma in the Balkans". Nationalities Papers. 28 (1): 93–128. doi:10.1080/00905990050002470. ISSN   0090-5992.
6. O'Keeffe, Brigid. "The Roma homeland that never was".
7. Mieder, Wolfgang; Scrase, David (2001). Reflections on the Holocaust: Festschrift for Raul Hilberg on His Seventy-fifth Birthday. Center for Holocaust Studies at the University of Vermont. p. 232. ISBN   978-0-9707237-4-1.
8. Gans, Chaim (2008). A Just Zionism: On the Morality of the Jewish State. Oxford University Press. p. 3. ISBN   978-0-19-534068-6.