Thirty Years of the Museum of Romani Culture in Photographs

This new exhibition of 18 photographs presents the early beginnings of the Museum of Romani Culture, including its founding figures.

The idea to create a museum about, by and for Romani people was nothing new at the turn of the 1990s. The Union of Gypsies/Roma, which was allowed to operate from 1969-1973 in Czechoslovakia as the first-ever officially recognized Romani organization in the former Czechoslovakia, attempted to establish a museum in the 1970s. The acquisitional, documentary and exhibition activities of the Union were concentrated in Brno, the place that the educated figures striving for the emancipation of the Roma (the Daniels and the Holomeks), who came from Moravia, chose for the central headquarters of the Union. Thanks above all to the endeavours of the graduated historian Bartoloměj Daniel (1924–2001), those efforts began to take concrete form – at the beginning of the 1970s the first research trips were undertaken to Slovakia, aiming to document life in Romani settlements and their traditional crafts, especially blacksmithing. In the depository at the then-headquarters, which was improvised, the museum researchers assembled a collection of the first historically valuable objects and other documentation of the artisanal crafts, culture and history of the Roma. In October 1970, the exhibition Romáňi Harťikáňi búťi – Romské kovářství [Romani Blacksmithing] was planned by the Union for presentation in Prague in 1973. However, the Union was forced to shut down in March 1973, so the exhibition was never installed and the museum was never established by it. Some of the collected artefacts mapping Romani artisanal crafts were transferred to the Ethnographic Institute of the Moravian Provincial Museum and in 1992 became the basis for the collections of the newly-established Museum of Romani Culture.

The Society for the Establishment of the Museum of Romani Culture was registered on 7 April 1991. The founding members of this society were the columnist and politician Karel Holomek, Bartoloměj Daniel, the ethnologist Eva Davidová, and the historian Jana Holomková (later Horváthová). One of the museum’s main tasks from the beginning was the work of acquisition, documentation and research focused on preserving proof of the intellectual and material culture of the Roma, and not just from the territory of the former Czechoslovakia, but if possible also from other countries where Roma live.

In 2005, the museum changed its status from being a public benefit corporation to being a state-subsidized organization. Thanks to state support, the museum was able to develop a wide range of activities. In the year 2005, the first part of its permanent exhibition was opened to the public (thanks to the financial support of the Kingdom of the Netherlands), which was completed under the name “The Story of the Roma” in 2011.

The collections of the museum are registered with the Czech Central Collections Inventory and today include more than 30,000 items in five sub-collections of 14 subsets. The museum administers collections documenting traditional Romani artisanal crafts, professions and employment; kinds of housing; interior decoration; clothing and jewellery; fine art; written materials; invitations to and posters for events; audio documentation; photographic documentation; video documentation; archaeology; echoes of Romani culture in mainstream culture; and the museum’s self-documentation. A library is also available at the museum that specializes in the literature of Romani Studies and in works by Romani authors.

The museum is dedicated to editorial and publishing work. In 1992, the Bulletin of the Museum of Romani Culture was issued and has been published without interruption to this day. In 2013, the Bulletin became a peer-reviewed periodical. In addition, it publishes academic and popular-instructional literature and audiovisual content. In 2005, the museum started issuing catalogues for its sub-collections (e.g., the catalogue on the fine art collection, the catalogue on the artisanal crafts collection, or the catalogue on jewellery and textiles).

The museum has been holding short-term exhibitions since it first opened. These activities were first implemented in collaboration with other institutions; after the museum began operating out of the Bratislavská Street building in Brno, its exhibitions were usually held there (the building was reconstructed for museal purposes with the aid of a significant state subsidy in late 2000). The museum also holds many cultural and educational activities, e.g., film screenings, concerts, theatrical productions, readings, etc. Its most-visited events include the programs run traditionally as part of Brno’s “Night at the Museums”.

The museum has also continued the work of the Union of Gypsies/Roma since its establishment by focusing on the subject of the Holocaust and its Romani victims during the Second World War. The museum has consistently dedicated itself to commemorating the Holocaust of the Roma and Sinti, educating the public about it and researching it, and since 2018 has administered the memorials at two sites of this persecution and genocide, Hodonín u Kunštátu and Lety u Písku. Since 2019, the museum has also administered a functionalist villa in the Dejvice neighbourhood of Prague where, after its reconstruction is completed, another specialized workplace of the museum will be housed, the Centre for the Roma and Sinti.