Od Čechů k Cikánům a zpátky. Antonín Jaroslav Puchmajer, jeho Románi Čib a program národního obrození
| Title in English | From Czechs to Gypsies and back. On the philological work of Antonín Jaroslav Puchmajer Románi Čib and its relation to the national awakening |
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| Authors | |
| Year of publication | 2024 |
| Type | Article in Periodical |
| Magazine / Source | Studia Slavica Academiae Scientiarum Hungaricae |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| web | přímý link |
| Doi | http://dx.doi.org/10.1556/060.2024.00171 |
| Keywords | Románi Čib; Antonín Jaroslav Puchmajer; grammar of Romani; national revival; Gypsy language; Roma |
| Description | The Czech national revival in its first two generations (as classified by Miroslav Hroch) was primarily philologically oriented; both generations were programmatically and consistently devoted to philology, believing that grammar, lexicon and literature actively written in the national language were in themselves the fundamental and most crucial external sign of the very existence of the nation (we can call this focus the philological turn). The fundamental and innovative Czech grammar by Josef Dobrovský significantly influenced contemporary Czech grammatology, which was often imitated both methodologically and formally by other revivalists of the same and younger generations. One of the most remarkable works of this type is the grammar of the Gypsy language Románi Čib, written in German (and partly in Czech and of course, also in Romani) by Antonín Jaroslav Puchmajer (priest, poet, national revivalist). The posthumously published Románi Čib is a remarkable work of grammatology that goes beyond the usual field of interest of the Czech revivalist movement, focusing on the non-Slavic language. It is a very modern grammar in the context of the time, admittedly created under the methodological influence of Josef Dobrovský’s grammar, supplemented by a Romani dictionary, a reader, and a dictionary of the thieves’ language of hantýrka, which Puchmajer consistently distinguishes from Romani itself, yet the volume is minute in size (only 88 pages!). In addition, Románi Čib is also (probably unconsciously) a miniature of the philological programme of the 19th-century national revival, as it was developed (and successfully used) by the Czech national revivalists of the first and second generation because it has all the characteristics that are considered paramount important for any national programme. Puchmajer’s Románi Čib contains all three parts of the programme: apart from the grammar and glossary, the reader contains not only the first ever published sample of original verses in Romani but also a sample translation of the New Testament and eighteen tales in Romani written by Puchmajer himself. The “ethno-genetic” concept of the preface is also essential. In it, Puchmajer sharply separates the Roma (whom he understands as a Czech-Moravian-Hungarian peculiarity) from the German Sinti and thus actually incorporates the Roma into the broader body of his nation. Since the Czech dialect he describes no longer exists (it disappeared during World War II, and modern Czech Roma came from Slovakia after the war), Románi Čib is also a specific ethnographic document sui generis. Also remarkable is his generally humanistic (albeit critical) view of the Roma, in which he emphasises the moral superiority of “pure-blooded” Roma (whom he calls Kálo) over “mixed-blooded” Roma (Párno). Puchmajer’s Románi Čib is both the monument of contemporary grammatology and of the lost population of Bohemian Roma. |
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