Devleskere čhave

Curatorial Note

Drawing on a collection of 239 historical postcards issued from the late nineteenth century through the 1930s, this richly illustrated volume examines the visual construction of Roma in European popular culture. Jana Horváthová combines the postcards with historical and ethnographic commentary, addressing recurrent representations of Romani life, including clothing, occupations, music, mobility, domestic life, and the idealized image of the “Gypsy woman.” Rather than functioning simply as documentary photographs, many of these images participated in the production and circulation of a romanticized and stereotyped “Gypsy” imaginary. Spanning Central Europe, Carpathian Ruthenia, Russia, the Balkans, and Spain, the collection is therefore valuable both as a visual record of Roma-related imagery and as a source for studying the history of representation, exoticization, and the construction of the “Gypsy myth” in European visual culture.