Milena Hubschmannova was one of the most brilliant people I have known. I attach an obituary of her which I wrote for the British newspaper, The Guardian. (This is slightly longer than the text which appeared in the paper.)
-- Tom Gross
Obituary
Milena Hubschmannova
By Tom Gross
September 19, 2005
http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,3604,1573093,00.html
Milena Hubschmannova, who has died in a car accident aged 72 while on a visit to South Africa, was professor of Romany studies at Prague's Charles University, and one of the leading experts of her generation, if not of all time, on Roma (Gypsy) culture and language.
Although not of Roma origin herself, Hubschmannova spent most of her life studying and helping the Roma, winning their respect and intense affection through her warmth and sensitivity. "She helped us to find dignity in ourselves, our culture and our history," said Jana Hejkrlikova, a Roma activist.
Roma are a distinct people who have preserved their language and culture since migrating to Europe from India in the 10th century; and, contrary to legend, the vast majority of Europe's six to eight million Roma have not lived a nomadic lifestyle for centuries.
In the former Czechoslovakia, where Hubschmannova lived and worked, hostility
towards the 750,000 Roma remains acute. During communist times, when the authorities
broke up Roma communities, tried to ban the Romani language, and even forcibly
sterilised some Roma women, Hubschmannova was one of a tiny number of non-Roma
who tried to keep Roma culture alive.
Born into a middle class family in Prague in 1933, she first became interested
in the Romani language after she had graduated from Charles University, where
she studied Urdu, Hindi and Bengali.
When the communist authorities sent her on students' working brigades in
Moravia, she came into contact with Roma communities and to her surprise,
found that she could understand much of their language. "I was astonished
that I was able to recognise words extremely similar to Hindi," she said.
"I had studied Hindi but the communist regime made it difficult to travel
to India, so instead I discovered India here in Czechoslovakia."
Hubschmannova began a lifelong quest to learn about the Roma and to help
them promote a better understanding of their culture in the outside world.
Since it was forbidden to learn Romani in those times, she mastered it through
conversations with native speakers with whom she became close friends.
She spent long periods living in impoverished communities in eastern Slovakia
and northern Bohemia, recording Romani speech, songs, proverbs, folklore and
tales, in notebooks and on hundreds of tapes. She mastered many dialects of
Romani, not only Czech and Slovak, reaching a point where she could speak
in their own language to Roma friends from as far a field as Albania, Spain
and Argentina.
In the more liberal atmosphere resulting from the Prague spring, she helped
establish the Union of Gypsy-Roma in 1968, and (until it was banned by the
communists in 1973) co-edited their Romani language journal – a rarity
for a people who until then had been largely illiterate.
Following the fall of communism in 1989, there was a flowering of Roma culture
and of expressions of Roma identity throughout much of eastern Europe. Hubschmannova
played an important role in encouraging these developments.
She was the driving force behind the opening in 1991 of a Romany Studies department at Charles University, which she chaired until her death. The department offered the first undergraduate university course specifically devoted to Romany studies anywhere in the world.
Taking place as it did in a society that had done so much to repress Roma identity, and that even today continues to portray Roma in a negative light, this was an extraordinary initiative.
Hubschmannova invited ordinary Roma who had been unable to enter university
because of discrimination in the Czech school system to take part in her classes,
in order to learn about their own history and share their experiences and
stories.
She fought to overcome the prejudice which is still widespread even among
supposedly liberal fellow academics. "Be careful, they're quick with
their knives," one humanities professor warned her.
She published extensively, writing essays, contributing to many books, and helping to compile the first Czech-Romani dictionary. She also spent a great deal of time encouraging Roma to publish their own works.
Hubschmannova was an exceptionally good-natured woman, generous, modest, energetic, loving and much loved. She is survived by her daughter.
Milena Hubschmannova,
linguist, Romologist and folklorist, born July 10, 1933; died September 8,
2005
Article © Copyright Tom Gross