The present book is more or less unusual. Its core is an unpublished manuscript written by Shakir Pashov (1898–1981). Contrary to Mikhail Bulgakov’s well-known dictum that “manuscripts do not burn”, in practice, the discovery and publication of previously unknown manuscripts is a relatively rare phenomenon. Moreover, the book that we present is an unrevealed manuscript authored by a historical figure, relatively less known to the wide public but, at the same time, surrounded by various rumours, myths, and even mystifications.
It would be wrong to say that nothing has been written about Shakir Pashov so far, at least in the small circle of researchers of the Roma community in Bulgaria. His name and his activities for the civic emancipation of the Gypsies (цигани in Bulgarian, the official name of the community at the time, which was used by Shakir Pashov himself) in Bulgaria appear in academic publications – both in his country (Марушиакова & Попов, 1993; Мизов, 2006; Стоянова, 2017) and internationally (Marushiakova & Popov, 1997; 2017; 2021). These texts, however, feature Shakir Pashov’s activities only as a fragment from the general historical study of the Gypsies/Roma socio-political movement over the years. The only exception in this regard is the book Shakir Pashov – The Apostle of the Roma by Lilyana Kovacheva (2003). Although this book is an important work, from today’s point of view, it is incomplete and insufficient because it has not exhausted all available historical sources.
What was missing before the present edition was Shakir Pashov’s own voice and narrative of the historical events in which he was not only an active participant but often the main driving force, i.e., his personal historical narrative. The purpose of this publication is to fill this gap by presenting Shakir Pashov’s own texts and, most importantly, by making available to the public the manuscript of his book History of the Gypsies in Bulgaria and in Europe: Roma.
Shakir Pashov’s present manuscript was preserved and provided to us by the late Gospodin Kolev, an important historical figure.
Gospodin Kolev was born in the town of Sliven in 1923 in a family of Roma textile workers (since the 19th century, many of the Gypsies in Sliven have been working in the local textile factories). When he was a high school student, he became a member of the Workers’ Youth Union, a youth organisation of the Communist Party, and participated in the outlaw anti-fascist resistance (at that time, Bulgaria was an ally of Nazi Germany in World War II). He was arrested in 1942 and sentenced to eight and a half years in prison, serving part of his sentence in the prisons in Sliven and Varna. After September 9, 1944, when the Communist Party in Bulgaria took power, he worked as a member of the Regional Committee of the Workers’ Youth Union in Sliven in 1944–1946 and as a Secretary of the City Committee of the Workers’ Youth Union in Sliven in 1946–1947. He graduated from the Military-Political Academy and later from the Sofia University St Kliment Ohridski, Faculty of Law. Since 1947, he has been a political officer in the Bulgarian People’s Army, where he reached the rank of lieutenant colonel. On March 18, 1958, he was appointed an associate in the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, responsible for the work with the Gypsies in Bulgaria, and remained in this position (with short interruptions) until March 15, 1990 (Колев, 2003, 271–278).
Our conversations with Gospodin Kolev did not reveal how the manuscript of Shakir Pashov’s book ended up with him. According to him, when he started working as an instructor (low nomenclature position) at the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party, the manuscript had already been in the archives of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party. Presumably, Pashov had handed it himself in the hope that it would be approved and published. Currently, the archives of the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party are part of the Archives State Agency, but Shakir Pashov’s manuscript is not there, and neither is it in the author’s personal archive, which was preserved by his relatives. The manuscript was probably confiscated by the authorities because it seems unlikely that Shakir Pashov had not preserved a copy of his own work. It is not clear how many typewritten copies of Shakir Pashov’s manuscript were printed out and where they can be found today (if they are preserved at all). In any case, Gospodin Kolev is the person who managed to preserve the text published here for future generations.
Shakir Pashov’s manuscript History of the Gypsies in Bulgaria and Europe: Roma was written in Bulgarian. It is published in this edition in English translation, in its entirety, with minimal editorial abbreviations and corrections (corrected were only some typographical errors, grammatical and stylistic forms, and some repetitions were removed). In some cases, we made additions (in square brackets []) to clarify some words or expressions and indicate omitted text parts in repeated passages. We also changed the numbering of the individual chapters in the manuscript, as in the original, the listing is inconsistent.
The Bibliography prepared by Shakir Pashov as an integral part of his manuscript is quite far from the established academic standards used nowadays. We left it in its original form but complemented Shakir Pashov’s references to authors in the text, with citations according to modern standards also in square brackets []. We included the cited titles in the general Bibliography.
The text is accompanied by short Comments, which explain some points that may not be clear in the manuscript of the book, as well as by some additional explanations of historical events and personalities mentioned in it. The academic credibility (from the point of view of the contemporary scholar achievements) of the stated facts and interpretations has not been commented on at all deliberately. The aim of the team that has prepared this publication is not to give an academic assessment of the work of Shakir Pashov but to present his reading of the history of the Gypsies, i.e., to publish the Gypsy historical narrative.
In the interest of a more comprehensive and thorough presentation of Shakir Pashov’s written historical heritage, a number of documents have been added to his manuscript, in Annexe No. 1. He is the author of most of these documents or the main contributor to the documentation produced by organisations that he had established. These additional documents are accompanied by brief comments. Annexe No. 2 includes the text of Lilyana Kovacheva’s book Shakir Pashov – The Apostle of the Roma in English translation, with some edits by the author. This text is important not only because it reveals some key aspects of Shakir Pashov’s life and work but also because it testifies that Shakir Pashov’s effort to create a genuine Roma historical narrative has been carried forward to the present day. Instead of a conclusion, this edition includes one of our works, which summarises Shakir Pashov’s life and work and highlights his contributions to the Roma civic emancipation in Bulgaria.
It was very important for us to include below the words of Mrs Lilyana Kovacheva and Mr Aleksandar Marinov, who are representatives of two different generations of the new Roma elite. With their participation, this edition has given life to Shakir Pashov’s hopes that the younger generations would continue his work.
We hope that our efforts in the preparation of this book have not been in vain and that the book will fill some significant gaps in historical knowledge of the past. Apart from the purely academic dimensions, this publication may have another, much broader social effect – to help the Roma in their civic emancipation movement, of which Shakir Pashov has been the forefather and which, unfortunately, has not yet fully accomplished the goals he had set. The future will show whether our aspirations were achieved.
Elena Marushiakova, Vesselin Popov
***
The memory of that day has faded. I was only five or six years old, and I vaguely remember the details, but I was very impressed by the excitement of my parents from the upcoming visit of a respected friend. They talked about him with the neighbours that he was a great man, and I expected to see a huge figure. I was surprised when I saw a very ordinary person who was not any different from the other Roma living in our mahala in Kyustendil. This ordinary man with an extraordinary soul was the famous Gypsy poet Usin Kerim. In his conversation with my father, the Roma activist Zhelyu Kovachev, he often mentioned the name Shakir Pashov. I hardly understood then what the adults were talking about, but I remembered his name as well as their words that “he was a great man”.
In the 1990s, when I started teaching the Romani language at the school in our Romani neighbourhood, the mahala, in the town of Kyustendil, I was trying to find and give examples of successful Roma to my students. In the library, I found an issue of the newspaper Nov pat (‘New Way’, from Bulgarian) from 1974, published by the National Council of the Fatherland Front, with editor-in-chief Stoyanka Sokolova, in which there was an article about Shakir Pashov and a photograph of him (Вапирев, 1974, pp. 1–2). I asked my father if he knew Shakir Pashov personally, what he knew, and what he could tell me about him. That is how I found out that Shakir Pashov is from Sofia, that he has been a member of the National Assembly, the founder of the first Gypsy organisation Ekhipe (‘Unity’, from Romani language), and the founder of the Gypsy Theatre Roma and all this provoked my interest in Shakir Pashov’s personality.
I asked for a meeting with Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov, the authors of the book The Gypsies in Bulgaria, which is the first edition of this kind about the Roma in Bulgaria. They advised me where to find more information and documents about Shakir Pashov’s work. And as the saying goes, appetite comes with eating, I was not satisfied with what I had collected, so I decided to look for his heirs and ask how they remember him as a father and a grandfather. I first met his son Neno in the Roma neighbourhood Fakulteta in Sofia, who spoke to me with details about the activities of the Gypsy theatre and the reasons for its closure. I was really lucky to find Neno and speak with him because shortly after that, he passed away. From him, I learnt that Shakir Pashov’s archive and many of his photos are kept by Neno’s niece, Shakir Pashov’s granddaughter, Snezhana. She lived in Sofia with her grandfather till his last days, in Druzhba Housing Complex, Block 6, where many Roma still live today, and she had preserved his archive, which she gave to me, as well as many photos from her album. Snezhana also told me interesting stories about his life and work. I learned from her that Pashov had been interned twice and that his second internment in the village of Rogozino in the Dobrudzha region had been provoked by a report that he kept a photo of Tsar Boris III in his home, although a subsequent search did not discover the portrait. With tears in her eyes, she told me about Shakir Pashov’s regret that he was respected by Bulgarians but betrayed by his people, i.e., the Roma. Snezhana also shared that Manush Romanov had asked her grandfather for forgiveness on his deathbed, and she wondered why he had not done so while Pashov had been alive.
After the meeting with Snezhana, I had with me Shakir Pashov’s autobiography, his membership card for the Union of Fighters against Fascism and Capitalism, numerous newspaper clippings with his articles and interviews, posters and advertisements of performances at the Roma Gypsy Theatre, as well as many photographs from his social and family life. I also managed to collect stories of his contemporaries (Demir Aliev, Yashar Malikov, Sulyo Metkov and others), and that is how I got the idea of writing the book Shakir Pashov – The Apostle of the Roma in Bulgaria (Ковачева, 2003).
The book itself was dedicated to Shakir Pashov’s 20th death anniversary. My idea was to show the life and work of a praiseworthy person who would serve as a role model for the Roma with his public activities; who laid the foundations of the organised movement of the Roma community in Bulgaria with numerous awareness-raising and educational initiatives and promotion of the Roma culture. The book is a fact-based scholarly work. In addition to the documentary materials, I also used stories about Shakir Pashov, and through the artistic style, I tried to take the readers to the times when Pashov was a child and a pupil, for which there is no other historical evidence.
While writing the book, I was impressed by the fact that despite numerous defamatory reports against Shakir Pashov from his “friends” who aimed at ruining his reputation and taking his place, he never responded with slander and defamation. He would endure the blows with dignity until the truth prevailed, and he was vindicated, albeit belatedly. I often remember the story told by Demir Aliev, a former school principal in the Fakulteta neighbourhood and a prominent Roma public figure, about how Shakir Pashov sold his personal motorcycle to finance the last performance of the Roma Gypsy Theatre. The funding for the theatre was discontinued as a result of malicious reporting by people who were part of the theatre, which is so sad and unfortunate. It made a strong impression on me that Shakir Pashov successfully cooperated with both monarchists and communists in order to support the cause of the Roma, despite obstacles created by his colleagues. He was much envied, according to his granddaughter, because he was a well-set and handsome man with a stable family and enjoyed respect from Bulgarians. Pashov managed to overcome the hatred and the libels and established an organisation, a newspaper, and a theatre; he helped the establishment of schools and community centres in the Roma mahalas and organised football tournaments; these activities gave him the opportunity to attract followers and associates.
After the presentation of my book in Sofia, some Roma activists from Sofia were angry that a woman from Kyustendil took the liberty of writing about the great Shakir Pashov. I heard expressions: “Why should she write about Pashov, we know him better than her; it should have been us, not her; she should have written about the locals from Kyustendil”. At first, it was difficult for me to comprehend such reactions, but eventually, I realised that the people who made the harshest critiques were among those who had written the defamatory reports against Shakir Pashov. My reply today is the same as it was before: The more books are written, the better; if I had not included, or if I had missed, due to ignorance, key moments of his life, they could also write; it is their right.
For me, Shakir Pashov is the Apostle of the Roma in Bulgaria – an exemplary person who spent his life in dignity and active work for society; an activist in his heart and soul. He is a role model as a Roma activist for the younger Roma generation. I believe that the first book about Shakir Pashov had its impact because many students from the country and abroad who write academic works on topics related to the Roma community in Bulgaria contacted me to order copies of the book. Also, many Roma activists from other countries were interested in the book, which was published in Bulgarian and Romani. A Roma organisation from Albania contacted me with a request to translate the book into Albanian, to which I consented. In the last couple of years, many young Roma, especially those active in Roma NGOs, have been eager to find the book, which, however, is no longer available although it had a relatively big circulation. Often, when I meet Roma from other cities in Bulgaria, they greet me and say that they know me because they have read my book about Shakir Pashov. I remember once, while I was travelling by train from Sofia to Dobrich, a boy who passed by my compartment, looked at me, and after a while came back with two other girls and asked me if I am Lilyana Kovacheva – the author who wrote the book about Shakir Pashov. I will not hide that such events make me happy and proud.
On the eve of Shakir Pashov’s 40th death anniversary and the 20th anniversary of my book about him, the Initiative Group for Roma Culture, of which I am a member, donated a portrait of him to Todor Kableshkov Primary School in the largest Romani neighbourhood in Sofia, Fakulteta. Shakir Pashov turned the first sod in the construction of the school. The Initiative Group intends to submit a request to the Sofia Municipality to rename Todor Kableshkov Primary School and the main street in Fakulteta after Shakir Pashov.
In the times after Shakir Pashov, many Roma activists have worked for the civic emancipation of the Roma community in Bulgaria. Following the publication of my book about Shakir Pashov, several other works dedicated to important personalities of the Gypsy/Roma movement were published: A Gypsy in the Central Committee of the Bulgarian Communist Party and The Bulgarian Communist Party and the Gypsies in the Period 1944–1989 by Gospodin Kolev (2003; 2010), as well as my books The Rom Knows the Way and The Kovachevs Family, Kyustendil (Ковачева, 2000; Kovacheva, 2000ab; Ковачева, 2020). However, these editions are by far sufficient. There are many other Roma whose life is worth writing about, including Rusi Zabunov from Shumen, Dimitar Golemanov from Sliven, Manush Romanov, Pavel Ivanov, and many others who have contributed to the Roma cause. I really hope that Roma university students, who are the future elite of our community, will understand the importance of such books and will write about the people who dedicated their lives to the advancement of the Roma community. These people have been forgotten; calling attention to their life and work would allow young people to learn about them and carry on their legacy. There is no better motivation for the young generations than the inspiring examples of the old generations of Roma activists. Such books challenge the long-standing negative stereotypes about the Roma; they reveal the authentic insights, values, and character of the Roma community. I believe and I am convinced that books written by Roma about Roma are very important for both Roma and non-Roma, for history studies, and for science in general.
I am happy that I had the opportunity to join the team who prepared the present book about Shakir Pashov. This edition of the book presents unknown until today historical documents that have complemented and enriched the first edition. I knew that Shakir Pashov had written a book entitled History of the Gypsies, but I was unable to find this manuscript. That is why I am glad that, thanks to Elena Marushiakova and Vesselin Popov, we have the opportunity to become familiar with this relic.
Good luck with the new book, and hopefully, it is not the last!
Lilyana Kovacheva
***
Shakir Mahmudov Pashov’s (sometimes spelt as Pashev) History of the Gypsies in Bulgaria and in Europe: Roma stands out for many reasons and can have various interpretations depending on the audience. Before you, dear reader, start reading this historical work, I would like to share briefly the insights that I, a relatively young Roma academic, have about it. My own understanding is that the book aims to portray the Roma, referred as Tsigani (popularly translated as ‘Gypsies’), as a group of people who have positive contributions to society, superb talents, honour, a dignified past, and a history that deserves to be told. Even though some of us might feel like hiding their Gypsy identity or adopting a different (non-Gypsy) identity, Pashov’s work underscores that we should not be ashamed of who we are because the Roma possess valuable characteristics and they have an important role in our civilisation. Pashov had an optimistic view of the Roma and vested his hopes for a brighter future of the community in the young generations. On several occasions in the book, the author expressed his hope in the Roma youth and stressed the importance of working with them. He described them as progressive, brave, capable, and forward-looking, and believed in their potential to build a bright future for the Roma in Bulgarian society. He trusted that the young generation of Roma would have a better life.
The publication of this book aims to raise awareness among today’s and future generations of Roma, scholars, and society as a whole, about Pashov’s personality and legacy. Unfortunately, Shakir Mahmudov Pashov’s personality and work for the advancement and emancipation of the Roma in Bulgaria are familiar only to a small circle of people. He is largely unknown and forgotten by the Roma, and especially by today’s Roma youth and intelligentsia in Bulgaria. What is missing in the historical narrative is acknowledgment and respect for Shakir Pashov’s role in Bulgarian history and especially in the history of the Roma in Bulgaria. Pashov was one of the earliest, most active and successful leaders of the Roma civic emancipation in Bulgaria and in Europe, and deserves to be remembered as such.
Pashov was working on his historical book for several years. In the beginning of his monograph, he explains that he had been discussing the idea of writing a book about ‘the Gypsies’ with his contemporaries for several years before he actually began working on it. In fact, even during the most difficult periods in his life, when he was struggling to secure the livelihood of his family, he did not stop talking with friends about his work and dedication to the educational advancement and development of the Roma. As he explains in the Foreword, even as a soldier in the First World War, in the trenches, under shelling and bombing, he kept talking about his favourite subject – the situation and the problems of the Roma in Bulgaria and the need to build an organisation. In this most difficult time of his life, he gave a promise to himself and to his friends to write a book about the history of the Roma, as it had been told among the Gypsies for generations and centuries.
Shakir Pashov’s book aims to tell the history of the Gypsies in Bulgaria and in Europe but does not deal in depth with the history of the Gypsies in Europe. He writes about Gypsies in Austria, England, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Romania, Spain, and the USA, among others, without providing a comprehensive historical picture. The lack of in-depth analysis of other countries is understandable given the limited written and oral historical sources at the time. Overall, Pashov’s history book is a revolutionary work because it was written by a person who had dedicated his life to the emancipation of the Roma in Bulgaria and advocated for their rights, interests, and public image, and ultimately for the improvement of their situation. My reading of the book is that it seeks to raise the spirit of the people who identify as ‘Gypsies’ and give them a sense of pride and dignity that they are not “a people without a history”. The book focuses on a critical moment in the history of the Roma: the active formation of nation-states on the Balkans, after the First World War and the dissolution of the Austro-Hungarian, the Russian and the Ottoman empires. In this period, the process of nation building determined who does and who does not belong to the nation in the new nation-states. In this context, Pashov’s work is unique and revolutionary because it seeks to disseminate knowledge, raise the spirit and pride of the Roma, and define a new, dignified position for the Roma in Bulgarian society.
I know about the personality of the Roma leader Shakir Pashov perhaps as much as someone who has made an effort to learn or a scholar who has taken interest in the history of the Roma mobilisation movement. Unfortunately, Pashov’s name has been forgotten, and it could be brought to light only when someone studies historical sources and archives. For example, if someone seeks information about the Roma civic movement, political situation, and representation, at the birth of the modern Bulgarian state, they would come across some of Pashov’s achievements and contributions in these areas. His legacy and contribution, however, have not been sufficiently publicised.
My research on the Roma civic organisations in Bulgaria in the interwar period has provided me with the opportunity to learn more about Shakir Pashov’s tireless work and legacy (Marinov, 2020a, 2020b). While studying Roma newspapers and other editions, I learned about the organisation Common Mohammedan-Gypsy National Cultural, Educational and Mutual Aid Union in Bulgaria, which was headed by Shakir Pashov, and about its founding members listed in the Constitutive Meeting protocol of December 25, 1933 with their registered addresses (CSA, f. 264, op. 2, a.e. 8413, l. 28). To my surprise, these addresses are located in an area a couple of blocks away from where I grew up (Stamboliyski Boulevard), and close to my grandparents’ old house and the birthplace of my father – Tatarli Street in today’s Roma mahala Konyovitsa in Sofia. This fact sparked my interest and I made some inquiries with my grandmother and my father. My grandmother, known by most Roma in Sofia as Chala, easily recognised the names of the organisation’s founding members, which I read to her. She told me that her family and Shakir Pashov’s family knew each other because both families lived in Boyana mahala (today Gotse Delchev neighbourhood) in Sofia, and she remembered that he had led a Romani organisation. She told me that Shakir Pashov had bought her father’s house, and she remembered his wife and his children. My father, Georgi Marinov, remembered Shakir Pashov as a person who was extremely devoted to and honest about his work for the betterment of the situation of Roma in Bulgaria and in other countries. He was “always well-dressed and was respected by both Roma and non-Roma”, my father explained. Interestingly, when Shakir’s eyesight weakened with the age, he used to ask my father to come to his house and read newspapers to him. My father also remembered reading to him a passage in a newspaper about a Roma painter, reportedly from France, who had called for the formation of an independent ‘Gypsy’ state. Pashov was so much excited by this information that he asked my father to read it over and over again. A simple and quick inquiry like this, with the elderly people in my family, was enough to cast light on Pashov’s personality and his genuine love and dedication to the Roma in his native country and beyond.
The more I learned about the turbulent past of the pioneer of the Roma emancipatory movement in Bulgaria; about the hardship in his life; his visionary hope to unite all Roma in Bulgaria, regardless of their beliefs, professions, affiliations or geographical location; and his passion, charisma, and drive, the more I wanted to tell everyone about Shakir Pashov. Incidentally, 40 years after his death, and about 64 years after he had written the monograph, which is presented in this edition, I was invited by Elena Marushiakova, the Principal Investigator in the project RomaInterbellum: Roma Civic Emancipation between the Two World Wars, to transcribe and translate his book in English. It was a real honour for me to undertake this task, and I did it with a great pleasure and love. This was my tribute to the continuation of Shakir Pashov’s work (just as my father had helped him read in the later years of his life). Moreover, by joining the publication team, I helped with making the book accessible to a greater audience and had the opportunity to express in public my gratitude for Pashov’s work for the Roma.
Shakir Pashov is largely unknown to the Roma in Bulgaria, but not due to restrictions on the freedom of speech as Tahir claims in one of the few articles written about him (Тахир, 2020). The responsibility for this situation is entirely ours, of the Bulgarian Roma and leaders, because his legacy could have been publicised through countless platforms and channels. Let us not leave our past in history and make sure that no Roma youth, anyone from the Roma intelligentsia in Bulgaria, or scholar in Romani Studies, is unaware of the lifelong contributions and sacrifices of the visionary Shakir Mahmudov Pashov. We hope that this first publication of Pashov’s work would enlighten and inspire the Roma to live up to their potential, talents, and legacy of contribution to society.
Aleksandar G. Marinov
