Papusza and the Origins of Tears of Blood

The uniqueness of Papusza’s work is often taken as an axiom, for example, it can be heard that ‘Papusza had a unique personality, and her songs are unique as well’ (Szott 2016, 469). Indeed, her work enters literature during the 1950s, when it was impossible to talk about female Roma poets and writers as a visible trend. The Soviet Roma literary project had actually come to an end in 1938, while the future female Czechoslovak Roma writers were still going to school.

Hence, the uniqueness and loneliness of Papusza as a literary figure is undeniable. On the other hand, a differing opinion also circulated among Roma that there were many people similar to Papusza: ‘Among Romnis (Roma women) there are many poets like Papusza’ (Machowska 2011: 62; Kuzniak 2013: 165). These opposed points of view are not mutually exclusive. If we consider all those involved in oral creativity as poets and poetesses, then this was indeed the situation. Each Roma family, perhaps, can find among its members a person reputed to be a ‘generator of texts,’ who on this account became part of the collective memory. However, not everyone was able or wanted to write down these texts, let alone have them published. The uniqueness of Papusza’s case lies in the fact that the poet had a clear understanding of the importance of presenting the results of her creativity to the reading public in the form of a book. This achievement required on her part quite extraordinary efforts and sacrifices. Furthermore, the feat would not have been possible without the help of state officials, in particular, writers with an established political position in the communist Poland. What is more, they facilitated Papusza’s membership in the Union of Polish Writers (Związek Literatów Polskich), as only this organization’s members were allowed to publish works of literature without too many problems.

To comprehend properly the phenomenon of Papusza’s poetry, one has to address simultaneously and in conjunction these three questions, first, how to grasp properly what was written; second, what compelled Papusza to write it; and third, how it should be pronounced correctly. The last point is of much significance in the poet’s absence. When Papusza was alive, the author’s performance of her poetry was conceived as the final stage of the creative process. At this stage, the poet could smooth out any rough edges and distortions left in writing with the use of another language’s spelling system. After all, ‘Papusza sings her poems’ (Szott 2016: 472).

These three issues are of import when researching the entire corpus of Papusza’s poetic and prose writings, both in Romani and in Polish, which together add up to her literary legacy. Yet, with respect to a single text, for example, the epic poem Ratwałe jaswa (Tears of Blood), such an approach is also necessary. Unfortunately, this approach is not easy, because it requires much attention from the reader to the questions of composition, when perusing the poem’s Romani original or English translation, both presented in this volume. It would be more comfortable to deal with these issues one by one. However, the need to move constantly from one perspective of analysis to another, from the minutiae of sound transmission to hidden meanings encoded in the overall structure of the poem compel us to consider these three issues as inextricably intertwined aspects of text interpretation.

The difficulty entailed by such constant consideration of these three issues in conjunction explains why Papusza’s poetry ‘has rarely become a subject of the analysis of literary discourse’ (Szott 2016: 470). Although many scholars discussed and analyzed her poems, driven by the fame of the poet’s oeuvre. For this reason, leaving aside the analysis of minutiae at the level of form, it is necessary to reflect more holistically on the poet’s idea of a given poem as a singular phenomenon.

But even with this caveat, the end result may not be satisfactory.

The opinion that Papusza did not emulate any examples needs to be clarified. Mirosława Szott justifiably corrects Ficowski’s statement ‘that her poetry does not draw on any other examples with the exception of Roma folk songs’ (Szott 2016: 474). However, by limiting research exclusively to the ethnically Roma origins of Papusza’s poetry, scholars risk to overlook the influence of Polish culture on her poems. The attraction of this culture was such that still in her childhood Papusza learned how to read and write in Polish.

In the two-layer model of Roma culture, it is appropriate to single out ‘the traditional layer, for instance, occupations, housing, dress, holidays, customs and rituals, oral and musical folklore, etc.’ and the recently formed ‘contemporary layer, that is, modern forms of artistic creation, such as literature, painting, music, theater, cinema, etc.’ (Marushiakova, and Popov 2016: 35). In contrast, the actualization of a particular culture is steeped in an inseparable fusion of phenomena belonging to both layers. In a car, one should not mention beng (‘devil’ in Romani), as well as one did not mention it in the traditional Roma cart (wóz kryty in Polish). Likewise, the Roma social decorum requires that when talking to assembled authorities via a video link, one should stand up before addressing them. The same rule applies at any meeting of one’s extended family indoors. Roma literature is an important part of the so-called ‘contemporary layer’ of Roma Culture (Marushiakova and Popov 2016: 35). But Romani linguistic means for creating texts in novel genres remain rooted in traditional types of discourse, developed earlier in the context of traditional culture.

During the formation of a literary (standard) language, initially its use spreads to social spheres and contexts where previously it was not employed. Therefore, what Papusza did with the Romani language should not be considered narrowly as mere object of linguistic analysis, but also in a more encompassing manner, which recognizes this achievement as ‘a fact of the history of culture’ (Шапир 1993: 120). No text exists outside the reference framework of a certain discursive model.² Hence, addressing humanity in literature emulates how one publicly speaks in front of one’s family.

Reading literature significantly impacted the formation of Papusza’s emotional world, for example, Helena Mniszkówna’s (Mniszek) melodramatic bestseller novel Trędowata (The Female Leper, 1909). Papusza reminisced: ‘We also had time to read. I chose novels, whose plots could help as an example with everyday life. Dyźko [Papusza’s husband] and I were crying over one book. Its title was Trędowata’³ (Kuźniak 2013:41). The sad fate of a poor noble girl touched the Roma camp girl’s heart and, perhaps, gave rise to some fantasies. Along with fiction, pre-war Polish cinematography could also influence the formation of Papusza’s imagination. Although the cinema was then still seen a poor relative of literature. In 1926, skeptical Virginia Woolf asked: ‘If the [cinema] ceased to be a parasite, how would it walk erect?’ (Woolf 1926: 382). Literature has remained the foundation for filmmaking since the latter’s inception. But soon enough, in the reversal of roles, the cinema began impacting literature. The first film adaptation of Trędowata (released in the same year 1926 that saw Virginia Woolf’s wry remark mentioned above) was silent, while a decade later, in 1936, was already a talking picture. As early as the former film, a special tie-in edition of the novel was published (Mniszek 1926).

Perhaps Mr and Mrs Wajs (Dyźko and Papusza) read this cheap mass publication. Books and films provided Papusza with models of noble behavior for emulation, including posture, gestures, facial expressions and intonation, which distinguished the poet until her old age. She remained so ‘pre-war’ in her demeanor. In this context, the relevant section from her diary on Papusza’s own sufferings follows the cinematic model, including the poet’s trip to the city of Grodno (today, Horadnia in Belarus) to find oblivion. It reminds a film-like mise-en-scène: the unfortunate ‘gypsy’ is crying, sitting alone on a bench on the banks of the Neman River, and passers-by cast her sympathetic glances (Pamiętnik: 12–13).

And a few words about the importance of the third question, namely, the performance of a poetic work on the stage. For Papusza, given the inherently imperfect shape of her writings, performance is of critical importance. Only then she can check upon and correct the realization of her artistic concept. So, in the documentary film about Papusza (1974), she reacts with the interjection ‘Czekaj Pan! ’⁴ (Cygańska 1978: 18:55) to Ficowski’s attempt to break into her monologue about the Gypsy idea of happiness with some clarification at the very moment when she is approaching the rhetorical acme of the final passage. From his point of view, it was an acceptable intervention as part and parcel of the ongoing intellectual dialogue with Papusza. In contrast, from the poet’s perspective, Ficowski thus could ‘ruin the song’ when the film was being shot.

When talking about texts that emerge at the intersection of cultural conventions, even different conceptual universes, one has to keep in mind that the meaningful value of communication is often inversely proportional to the ease of communication. Unlike small talk, which often is formulaic and part of the formal etiquette, messages that overcome intercultural barriers do not always correspond to the typical formats adopted in one of the interacting cultures. A high level of emotions is often communicated through the violation of the rules of grammar, etiquette, or style. For instance, often a paradoxical narrative arises when a non-English-speaking victim’s traumatic war experience is translated into this language (Kelman 2009). The imperfect form of the dramatic message may even discredit the seriousness of its content. However, it does not negate the emotional meaning of the event itself, as well as the sincerity and seriousness of the author’s intentions. The latter believes that the social value of this message amply excuses its imperfect form.

Briefly, the higher the barriers to communication are, the more the message costs. Bridging the gap between the meaning communicated by the Other and the limited possibilities of interpretation the addressee possesses and is prepared to apply, the Other can use any means in unusual contexts in order to achieve at least some understanding on the addressee’s part.

Creating texts in a foreign, not always fully mastered language, can be evaluated in different ways. Thus, Kelman writes about the content value of evidence rendered in imperfect (non-native) English. In contrast, R.M. Rilke’s Russian-language poetry was assessed highly in terms of lyrical imagery and linguistic originality. Papusza also tried her hand at writing in Polish (Pamiętnik ‘Diary’). The use of the Polish majority’s language and literary patterns Papusza acquired through her indiscriminate reading of sentimental mass publications, leading to a predictable initial stage of imitation. It is characterized by a combination of idiosyncratic and normative uses, including regional (dialectal) features and phonetic spelling. The poet commented in Polish ‘Czytać ómę dobrę Alie Pisać szkaradnie’⁵ (‘I can read well, but my way of writing is ugly’) (Pamiętnik: 2). Papusza found writing difficult.

Obviously, for the Other to resort to an unusual mode of communication is a challenge. But for the recipient, the acceptance and recognition of the relevant details of this message is not a trivial task, either.

Authors from the lower strata of society, be it Captain Lebiadkin (from Fyodor Dostoyevsky’s novel Demons) to present-day bloggers, produce works whose artistic and meaningful assessment cannot be based on the literary standards of their time. Such texts transcend or even hack these standards, even if their authors pledge allegiance to them. This is also the case of Papusza’s voluminous literary Diary (Pamiętnik), written and re-written several times in Polish prior to the composing of Tears of Blood in 1949 (Machowska 2011: 121). Only on one page does the Polish text (in an idiosyncratic spelling) is interspersed with Romani in 13 lines (Pamiętnik: 196). The poet took a firm decision, so to speak, to play on a foreign pitch, by writing in Polish. The publication of Papusza’s Diary is not even planned yet. Even choosing a compromise spelling may not be an easy task. Although a good solution could be to keep the original in Papusza’s own idiosyncratic spelling side by side with the text in standard Polish orthography.

The bilingualism of Roma ethnic groups (in plural) is a complex phenomenon. It also manifested itself in the use of various (language) forms of the poet’s official name Bronisława Wajs. It is worth reflecting on the well-known phenomenon of official (language) and community (Romani) names of Roma. The Roma(ni) name, usually intended for use in one’s own family and community, rarely coincides with the official one. In the case of Papusza, we have a rare example of revealing the Roma name to the outside world. Such a step, from the Roma perspective is considered unsafe in a practical and symbolic sense.

In Romani papusza (or nowadays papuša in popular Romani spelling) means ‘doll.’ How the poet received and used her Roma name appears similar to the story of the stage name of the popular Soviet actress of Roma extraction Lyalya Chyornaya (Nadezhda Sergeevna Khmeleva, 1909–1982). They say that when the actress was born, one of the guests called the pretty baby a lialechka ‘dolly’ in Ukrainian or Belarusian. The description stuck to her as the future actress’s Roma name, and as such became also entrenched in the outside world of gadže (non-Roma). Thus, the Polish equivalent of the Roma name Papusza is Lalunia or Laleczka (that is, diminutive forms of lala or lalka ‘doll’). ‘Oh! Mama called me Lalunia in Romani’⁶ (Machowska 2011: 95). The usage is not exclusively of Roma character and is widespread among Polish-speakers, too, for example, ‘the youngest sibling Anna, due to her beauty and height was called Lalka’⁷ (Sznajderman [2019]: 226).

Not each bilingual author in her creative work decides to switch from the majoritarian language with all kinds of registers fully developed to her native language that was not previously employed in such contexts. This requires a serious reconfiguration of attitudes and a switch in the already mastered patterns of language use. Also, a thoroughly different situation arises in the perception and evaluation of creativity in a self-taught author’s native language, which is also a minority language. This is always a cultural breakthrough, even if the achievement is limited to mastering trivial topics or meeting propaganda goals. Indubitably, such an experiment expands the horizons of a minority language that previously was limited to everyday communication.

In the case under consideration, Papusza simultaneously draws on two traditions, the Roma oral folklore system and its genres and their Polish counterparts. In the former case, it was stories about life experiences and lyrical texts about fate. On the other hand, the Polish models included poems and ballads, but also sermons and prayers. Often, to create a radically novel kind of a text in a minority language, its author must feel a strong internal conviction or compulsion. After all, an audience of readers who would enjoy and appreciate such a text has not coalesced yet. Only in the future, such a reading audience may arise, who would enjoy and appreciate texts in their native (minority) language. Subsequently, writers would create more texts for a growing number of readers, leading to an accumulation of genres and publications. In turn, the process may produce an entire literature in a minority language. But prior to this moment, a minority language author, like Papusza, needs to work in a cultural vacuum.

In the case of Papusza, we have no answers on the goals of her creativity, or why she wanted to enter the circle of a written culture. More than once she denies the sarcastic suggestion of other Roma women that she wants to become a teacher: ‘no Będzisz Poni naóczycielku’⁸ (Pamiętnik: 3). However, Papusza never reflects on her own literacy goals. Apparently, it was not clear to Papusza, either, what she intended to attain. Literacy is a basis of polite society. It is grzeczność (‘politeness’ in Polish) that Papusza and a Polish girl Irusia are hotly discussing (Pamiętnik: 194–196). Politeness and respect for one another is something that Papusza sorely missed at home. Acquaintance with another more comfortable and delicate world began with literacy in its language. In Papusza’s case it was Polish language and culture, to which the popular primer Elementarz (Falski 1910) or any other of that time opened the way.

What is striking in Papusha’s stance is her confidence that she has the right to be different from anyone else. Admirably and with steeled determination, she humbly endured the hostility of her family and other Roma, when confronted with her desire for gadjo (non-Roma, formal) knowledge. The image is biblical in its origin, reminiscent of an unrecognized prophet persecuted by his own people. ‘Co chcieli to mowili namnie’⁹ (Pamiętnik: 3), ‘dóżo omnie mówiono’¹⁰ (Pamiętnik: 4, 6), ‘się śmieli z mnie … Plóli namnie’¹¹ (Pamiętnik: 5). Apparent indifference and lack of reaction to humiliation appears to reproduce the (Polish) nobility’s pattern of reserved and courteous behavior. Papusza learned about it and its role in polite society from the popular novels she read. Yet, the attention paid to these situations in the diary shows that she was still hurt, after so many years.

In the context of any majoritarian culture in Europe, a reading Roma girl who joined a library at the age of 14: ‘josz mam Pełnych 14 lat lat życia zapisałam się do Biblioteki’¹² (Pamiętnik: 3) is an oxymoron. The mirror opposite of Papusza transitioning from non-literate to literate culture is young Julian Tuwim’s quest for pre-literate joy, as encapsulated in his ecstatic self-presentation as a dancing Socrates, which is also the title of his poem ‘Sokrates tańczący’ (Tuwim 1920).

Originality and insightful content that, as if by chance, shed light on the experience of the Other, thanks to the structures of a majoritarian culture is not always guaranteed. It is a high-risk area. Like Papusza, Mikhail Bezlyudsky (1901–1977) experienced this dilemma first hand. He was a Roma boy from the region of Ryazan. In 1928, in a Moscow prison, the future writer learned about literature and creative writing by attending courses led by Russophone poets (Marushiakova and Popov 2022: 456). Afterward, similarly to Papusza, he enjoyed reading Russian-language pulp-fiction indiscriminately (Marushiakova and Popov 2022: 451). Meanwhile, Bezlyudsky began to write poetry first, and then prose in the Romani language. Unfortunately, after the end of the Soviet policy of nativization (korenizatsiia) in the mid-1930s, he was unable to write and publish in Romani any longer. Romani was excluded from among the narrowing group of Soviet languages in which literary and book production was supported by the state.

The epic poem Ratwałe jaswa (Tears of Blood) was written, above all, to soften evil hearts. This lofty goal is declared at the beginning and at the end of the poem, constituting its overarching framework. Te skowloł łęgro / dzi ‘so that their soul will soften’ (Ratwałe 23–24¹³ ); sare swetytka dzija. te / skowlakireł ‘I would like you to soften / all the world’s souls’ (Ratwałe 1018–1019). It is worth noting that these fragments were dropped from the abridged publication prepared by Jerzy Ficowski. He did not appreciate this message, although it was also addressed to him. It was not for nothing that the Roma kept repeating: ‘It is justified what we say about Ficowski: A Golden head, but a Cold Heart’¹⁴ (Machowska 2011: 60). Obviously, the political and cultural context of communist Poland still in the grip of stalinism was not conducive to the publication of the entire poem. Had Ficowski disregarded censors’ suggestions, it would have never come off the press and probably would have been lost.

Apart from the overarching appeal for softening hearts, the poem is permeated by the eponymous metaphor of ratwałe jaswa (tears of blood). The rhetorical figure is repeated eight times in the text: Ratwałe jaswa (Ratwałe 2), jaswin / Ratwali (12–13), dzi roweł ratwałe / jaswęnca (20–21), jaswa {r} ratwałe (137), jaswa ratwałe (294), rowen ratwałe jaswęnca (516), syr ratwałę / perenys jaswa (712–713), ratwałę jaswa (868).

The poem’s title and main rhetorical figure of ‘tears of blood’ is an allusion to popular Catholic prayers in Polish, for instance, ‘Koronka do krwawych łez Najświętszej Maryi Panny’ (Chaplet for the Bloody Tears of the Blessed Virgin Mary) or ‘Różaniec do Łez Maryi’ (The Rosary of Our Lady of Tears). The image’s origin is biblical, for example, see: ‘he prayed more earnestly, and his sweat was like drops of blood falling to the ground’ (Luke 22:44). The figure is of such pivotal importance for the poem’s plotline that the adjective ratwało ‘bloody’ is used in the text exclusively in relation to tears (of sorrow). Repetitions of the appeal to God na de, Devla! (Ratwałe 101, 161) (‘Do not permit, God!’) and reminders of the selected genre gili, gili tugani (Ratwałe 15, 38) (‘the song of sorrow’) show the poem’s direct parallels with the aforementioned prayers.

The poem’s genre and rhetorical framework reflect the fate of its author, who can be justifiably seen as a poetess-cum-prophetess. Initially, the Roma rejected Papusza. Then the Roma perception of her as a fellow Roma person evolved from traitor to heroine (Krzyżanowski 2016: 67–81).

My Story of Acquaintance with the Poem

I decided to add a little about my own personal experience with the poem Ratwałe jaswa (Tears of Blood), since it sheds light on my attitude toward the text. I first came across an abridged version of the poem in the volume Cyganie na polskich drogach (‘Gypsies on the Polish Roads’) (Ficowski 1965). Probably, it was in 1986 I had a rare occasion to borrow this book for a brief period. During the time, I rewrote for my own use all Papusza’s texts found in this edition. The Romani dialect of the Lowland Roma of Poland is quite close to the North Russian dialect of this language. Romani linguist Matras says that ‘their [Polska Roma] dialect is closely related to that of the xaladitka roma or “North Russian Roma”’ (Matras 1999: 4). The dialect of the Polska Roma (‘Polish Gypsies’) constitutes part of the Northeastern macrodialect of Romani, spoken from Poland in the west to Vladivostok in the east (Tcherenkov and Laederich 2004, Vol 1: 370, 376). Unbelievably, in the mid-1920s, the same dialect was selected as a basis for the Soviet project of the Romani literary language in the period of nativization (korenizatsiia) (Demeter and Chernykh 2018: 168). Thus, despite some differences observed between these closely related dialects of Romani, potential readers of Papusza’s poetry live in numerous countries outside Poland.

My first encounter with Papusza’s texts impressed me immensely. But at that time, I had no idea how much richer the original manuscripts were. I had a chance to learn about much later. In August 2021, I received a letter from Volha and Tomasz with an offer to transcribe and translate the Romani manuscript of Tears of Blood in Papusza’s own hand. Subjectively speaking, it seems to me that this year lasted much longer than it actually did, since work on the manuscript completely absorbed me. Thanks to the covid restrictions and lockdowns, I had time and space to devote my full attention to Tears of Blood. And I did not let it go until the last letter was identified and transcribed. I discussed some Romani manuscripts of Papusza’s poems with Emilia Kledzik, which allowed me to gauge the scale and achievement of Papusza’s oeuvre as a poetic whole.

The full text of the poem turned out to be four times longer than the selection published in 1956. For some time now researchers have postulated the need to refer to Papusza’s unabbreviated and unedited texts of her poems. ‘Only Ficowski’s translations available for analysis, it is difficult to determine to what extent the translations of [Papusza’s] poetry differ from the Romani originals’ (Szott 2016: 471).

This cavalier approach to publishing Papusza’s writings was characteristic of Jerzy Ficowski, who followed the changing attitudes of communist Poland’s censorship (cf. Koper 2016: 170–181). The same is true of the publication of his Polish-language field notes of living with Papusza’s Polska Roma family group. The most altered and abridged version of these notes came off the press in 1953. According to Ryszard Krzyżanowski, in its published form only a quarter of the original account was preserved, mainly the parts concerning the persecution of the Roma by Nazis and Banderites (Kledzik 2020: 184). Particularly, Ficowski left out all the neutral and positive details of everyday Roma life. In an orientalizing fashion, he concentrated on Roma holidays and family celebrations. This was a politically acceptable image of Roma as ethnically non-Polish war victims and survivors. Furthermore, Ficowski cast aside almost all Papusza’s philosophy of peace and harmony with the universe, alongside her reflections on the sources of human brutality in war and day-to-day relations.

In the abridged version of Tears of Blood, Ficowski, as its translator and editor, strove to foreground the suffering. In comparison with the full text, his version is not only much shorter, but also strangely monochromatic. Perhaps, his command of Romani was probably insufficient for Ficowski to grasp all the nuances. In the Romani original, Papusza is an epic character, a Roma Homer. On the other hand, in Ficowski’s version she is molded into a socialist realist writer, who goes straight to describing a prescribed topic, like a diligent schoolboy.

The role of Ficowski as a researcher, translator and editor of Papusza’s oeuvre has not been fully assessed yet. Emilia Kledzik broached the subject by proposing that ‘the subject, whenever he decides to reveal himself, becomes a modernist ethnographer, using the language of discursive domination and orientalizing clichés’ (Kledzik 2019: 157). Such a ‘subject’ might misinterpret lengthy repetitions in Papusza’s texts and other oral poetic devices as a sign of insufficient literary skill. But Papusza was guided in her choices by the strictures of oral performance of poetry as songs. In addition, she followed the tradition of the Roma rhetoric, according to which it is necessary to make the performance comprehensible to the Roma audience. Above all, this approach entails the repetition of the most important events and statements.

Ficowski was open about the fact that he published fragments of Tears of Blood. ‘It is a selection of fragments of from a longer story in verse about the experiences of Gypsies [Roma] in the years of the greatest intensification of their extermination [by Germans] during the Second World War’ (Ficowski 1956: 153). Ficowski’s choices were dictated by politics of his times and the inability of the mass European reading audience to comprehend oral Roma narratives, especially about the experience of the Roma Genocide. Political considerations are quite obvious. For example, Ficowski left out the entry barrier painted in red and white stripes, or the Polish national colors, to the camp site of a detachment of the Armia Krajowa (Home Army), which was anticommunist and opposed the Soviet control of Poland (Ratwałe 816 and 818). Likewise, Romani-language monologues on serious and tragic topics are longer than their translated versions, which were shortened to suit the expectations and tastes of Polish and European readers.

In oral literary production and performance different rhetorical devices are employed than in writing or on the printed page in a book. The importance of words uttered by a senior member of a Roma community is signalled by the special Romani verb phukavel ‘to narrate’ or ‘to bear witness.’ A witness account of this type fulfils two main functions. First of all, it teaches the community, and especially its younger members, about life’s tribulations, including advice on how to stay away from harm’s way among the gadzios (non-Roma). Second, such stories confirm the correctness of the Roma way of life.

Ficowski had to conform to the limits of the printed page, which is not conducive to preserving the fullness of oral performance. But he was able to preserve and convey the main aspects of what Roma had suffered during the war, caught between various parties fighting against one another. In general, it can be said that the abbreviated version of Tears of Blood serves ‘the purpose of raising awareness about the Roma among the majoritarian (non-Roma) population’ (Berkyová 2017: 51). This role is confirmed by the translations of this poem into many languages of the world. Yet, the unabbreviated Romani original is considerably richer in content and literary devices.

The epic component of the original was thoroughly removed from the abbreviated version. What may at first glance seem like verbosity entailed by the poet’s ineptness, in reality is ritualized remembrance of the past and the dead. This is also a lament, so typical for oral culture, for the victims of war and the genocide. In this context, monologue is a manner of expressing grief and compassion.

The description of the death of Papusza’s friend, with whom they both led the Russian troops (Ratwałe 598–609) is a good example. The redundancy of the narrative is an indicator of the author’s emotional solidarity and involvement in the events described. The composition of the poem as an oral object forced onto paper shows the dominance of the former over the latter. The original, recorded in a slim copybook, ends exactly at the last line available on the copybook’s last page. The closing message is appropriately uplifting not to leave the (notional) listeners downtrodden. Perhaps, symbolically even the poet’s official (gadjo) name is split between the two last lines for the sake of an optimistic future and closing the poem. As with each note and melody turn in a song performed live, in the manuscript’s copybook Papusza strives to fill in each page to the last line.

Not always did Ficowski properly comprehend, transcribe, and translate lines from the manuscript of Papusza’s Tears of Blood. Romani adverbs with the ending -kiro (for instance, bikhameskro ‘without sun’) were not correctly identified and transcribed (Ratwałe 15–16, 38–39). It is typical for Ficowski to mix the noun rat ‘night’ and the adverb raty ‘at night’ (Ratwałe 50–51, 191, 472). He translated the verses {?} Gijam dór dór {?} swętenca (Ratwałe 57–58) as ‘*during the holidays / Christmas,’ though what the poet intended was ‘(s)he went to the (broad) world.’ Papusza’s substitution of the letter [e] for [ę] caused this misunderstanding.

Ficowski not only transcribed and translated Papusza’s manuscript, but also heavily edited it. Traces of his labors can be identified by comparing the manuscript with the published abbreviated version of Tears of Blood. We confine ourselves to two examples. First, Ficowski changed the manuscript’s isy ‘is’ to kamen ‘they want to’ or ‘they are going to’ in a syntactic construction that conveys obligation or inevitability (Ratwałe 50–51). Secondly, he replaced the borrowed Slavic adjective in the description of the night to a ‘more appropriate’ one of Indic origin. Papusza wrote och. odo {ciomno} [kali] raciory! (Ratwałe 536), while Ficowski transcribed this line as follows: Och, do kali raćori!

This approach to editing is a form of purism. However, the collocation ciomno raciory ‘the dark night’ is attested widely in Romani folklore texts. Their producers do not tend to mechanically increase the proportion of Romani lexical elements. Such purism has no esthetic value in folklore. On the contrary, fluency in two or more languages allows Roma performers to engage in complex word games and translingual puns.

At times, Ficowski excluded from publication fragments acceptable for communist censorship, because he misunderstood a word or expression.

Ficowski did not include in the abbreviated version, these fragments where the verb applied exclusively to the Germans, meaning ‘to retreat’. Let us have a look at the examples:

A_dzia kaj saso mós[i]ndzia te wychytoł ‘So, where should the German escape?’ (Ratwałe 72).

po|kóty sa Chylton ‘they keep gradually receding (stopping?)’ (Ratwałe 234–235).

czy | sasio doredyr chyltyja<?> ‘does the German retreat further?’ (Ratwałe 354–355).

sasy chylcien ‘the Germans are retreating’ (Ratwałe 639).

The four sentences give three forms of the same verb with the hesitation in the notation and pronunciation of the final consonant of in the root, namely /t/, /t’/ or / t͡ɕ/, which is written as

[wy-chy|l|toł], [chyltoł] and [*chylcioł] ‘(s)he retreats;’

[chylton], [*chylcion], [chylcen] and [*chylcien] ‘they retreat;’

[chy(*l)tyja] and [*chylcyja] ‘(s)he retreated’.

The first person singular form of this verb could possibly be [*chylciowaw].

Probably, Papusza quoted an expression either from some gadjo slang or another Romani dialect, which would explain the variability of spelling.

It is unclear why Ficowski avoided consulting obscure words with Papusza. A telling example of how Ficowski dealt with words he failed to comprehend is connected with the name of the walking stick. The word pcherybnagry (female grammatical gender) appears four times in the manuscript. It stems from pherav ‘I walk,’ and developed through the following forms: pherybena ‘walks’ (pl.), and pherybna|n|giro ‘something or someone related to walks’. All of these fragments were omitted from the abbreviated version.

Pał jamęder sasy klistes i Aménca pcherybnagry, na {d}_maras ‘The Germans after us on horseback, chasing us, we <only with a hiking staff> won’t escape’ (Ratwałe 62–64). In the manuscript, this place is marked with the symbol [/], which indicates the end of a fragment omitted from the abbreviated publication.

jek i pałestyr bót gadzio desz dzine pcherybnagrja pre pchikie. bolbowcy zamarde ‘he was alone, many non-Roma [chased] him, ten people with sticks on their shoulders. The Bulbovites killed them’ (Ratwałe 408).

pcherybnagrja lidzianys tykne rakla ‘little girls <local Ukrainian girls> were carrying these sticks’ (Ratwałe 585).

A_dre foryco zatradyjam gadzi czechi tsinde roma sawe) tylko mamósza pcherybnagraja A_dre wasta i partyzantka dre wesza ‘we entered the little town, namely, Poles, Czechs, Jews, Roma, what different kinds of people <you could meet in this townlet>, walking stick in hands, while the guerrilla detachment [remained] in the woods’ (Ratwałe 946).

Usually, it is easy to reconstruct the reasons for the deletion of certain fragments from the abbreviated version of Tears of Blood. For example, at the poem’s end, there is this passage, which praises the positive aspects of free life in the forest. It had to be cut:

As clearly visible, Ficowski wanted to emphasize the negative aspects of nomadic life. For this reason, the optimistic vision of unity with nature and the likening of the Roma to birds of the forest were considered inappropriate. They had to be deleted. The poet’s vacillation in her assessments of the new sedentary way of life was not allowed to reach readers’ eyes.

Another obvious reason for deleting some lines was communist Poland’s official atheism. The word ‘God’ was removed wherever possible. It occurs 37 times in the manuscript, but only only 12 references of this kind made it to the abbreviated version.

In general, the feeling that permeates the entire text is the state of shock. The narrative depicts wartime suffering, everyday life, nostalgia for the waning nomadic way of life. Yet, Papusza concluded the poem with a cautious hope for a wonderful peaceful future under the novel conditions of sedentary life in communist Poland. Often, her poetry is seen as veiled propaganda for sedentarization, but the poet was quite satisfied with the results of ‘the beginning of the action for sedentarizing Roma in communist Poland, which was to make them “more productive”’ (Kledzik 2019: 166) from the perspective of the country’s centrally planned economy.

The first impression from the point of view of language use is overwhelming. It was sufficient to grasp Ficowski’s way of reflecting Romani phonemes in order to read out the poem as it should sound in Romani. However, the manuscript of Tears of Blood in Papusza’s own hand opens a path to a deepened understanding of this masterpiece and its further dimensions that are absent in Ficowski’s abbreviated version. It is not alone the fact that at least 75% of the Romani original were left out. What really strikes is the frankness with which Papusza described military life and emotions of the poem’s protagonists.

However, on the way to read and transcribe the manuscript, a prominent obstacle is encountered. First of all, it was Papusza’s own idiosyncratic hand, typical for autodidacts with no formal training in calligraphy. I immediately recollected the peculiar hand of Roma poet Evdokiia Orlova from Moscow. It felt that this singer and dancer embarked on drawing each letter like on a difficult quest. Similarly, Papusza showed diligence and labor with which the poet wrote her texts, letter by letter. The reader must bear in mind the process and its ramifications. Polish spelling re-employed for conveying Romani’s phonemes constitutes the initial barrier. Another barrier is posed by Papusza’s regular omissions of letters in certain phonemic contexts, alongside typical and ad hoc ligatures, so typical of the Polish written school hand.

While boundaries between words are easy to establish, separating sentences posed a problem. It was especially difficult to discern boundaries between different speakers’ words in the dialogues, which also happens in traditional Roma songs. However, reward was rich for the hard work. The suddenly revealed Romani manner of leading conversations with peasants, Soviet guerrillas, Bulbovites or AK (Polish Homeland Army) soldiers turned out to be amazingly accurate.

The Manuscript

Unsurprisingly, the handwritten manuscript of Tears of Blood is executed in a specific Romani spelling. After all, any of the projects for the consensual Romani orthography has only met with limited acceptance, e.g. the alphabet which was coined in the 1990s. Papusza used her son Władysław’s (Tarzanek) school copybook, ironically earmarked for lessons of the Polish language. The poem’s text exceeded the slim copybook’s 16 sheets. So, the poet had to resort to inserting additional sheets of paper. Probably, it was Ficowski or an archivist, who paginated all the manuscript’s pages in pencil, from folio 1 recto and 1 verto (corresponding to page 1 and page 2) to folio 27 recto and 27 verto (corresponding to page 53 and page 54).

The 12 inserted sheets, perhaps torn out from another copybook, Papusza paginated in her own hand. In the completed manuscript, this pagination commences with number 2 on page 29 (NB: ‘F. 15r’ means folio 15 recto, while ‘F. 19v’ means folio 19 verto):

⁵⁷⁵ 2. (P. 29 <F. 15r>).

⁶²⁰ 3. (P. 31 <F. 16r>).

⁶⁶⁴ 4.) (P. 33 <F. 17r>).

⁷⁰⁷ (5.) (P. 35 <F. 18r>).

⁷⁸⁹ (6) (P. 37 <F. 19v>), at the bottom, circled.

⁷⁹² (7) (P. 39 <F. 20r>), at the beginning of the first line, circled.

⁸¹⁷ (8) (P. 41 <F. 21r>), circled.

⁸⁵⁷ (9) (P. 43 <F. 22r>), circled.

⁸⁹⁶ (10) (P. 45 <F. 23r>), circled.

⁹¹⁶ (11.) (P. 47 <F. 24r>), circled.

⁹⁵⁹ (12) (P. 49 <F. 25r>), circled.

¹⁰⁰² (13.) (P. 51 <F. 26r>), circled.

The rearrangement of words in a number of cases testifies to copying from an earlier draft. For instance,

dzijepen \\ szukar – in the manuscript, while in Ficowski’s published abbreviated version: šukar džiipen (Ratwałe 114);

Bary \\ tu sam (Ratwałe 118) – in the manuscript, while in the abbreviated version: tu san bary ‘thou art great (fem.)’ (pronounced /sam_ba.ˈrɨ/). This example suggests that the original word order read tu sa/m/ bary., compare with the two following instances: moginem men te chtyłeł ‘they can catch us’ (Ratwałe 67), where moginem + m … < moginen + m …; ⁴⁶⁷ merem bokchatyr 2 dój ćhawore ‘2 children are starving’ (Ratwałe 468), where merem + b … < meren + b. … Perhaps, Papusza rearranged the order of these words in the final draft by mistake, while the corresponding editorial markings only correct these errors.

Insertions in blue ink are a later markup, probably in Ficowski’s hand. Likewise, it was probably him who also edited the manuscript in black ink and pencil, as far as can be deduced from the scanned copy of the manuscript.

The communication of evidence of public importance to Roma communities, even today on the internet, necessitates the replication of traditional rhetorical figures required by the situation, for instance, expressions of respect to listeners or spectators: Te javen saste i baxtale sare Roma, terne i phure. Mangav tumen te skenden tumen p ada lajfo ‘May all Roma, old and young, be healthy and happy. Please join this running brook’ (Шаповал 2022: 311). The goal is to stress that the truth is going to be imparted. For instance, the collocation ćaći vorba ‘true speech’ is a designation for signalling that a told or sung version of an event or thought should be considered ‘true’ (that is, believable) (Kovalcsik 1993: 20, note 8). This commitment to telling the truth is repeatedly emphasized both in Tears of Blood and Papusza’s other poems. The poet once commented: “A Pan może sobie jak chcie. pisać aja kłamac niemogę Bo niema sęsa”¹⁵ (Papusza in Machowska 2011: 128, 130).

A public statement made by a member of a traditional Roma group cannot be banal. It is always devoted to some extraordinary deviations from the usual order of things. The decision to deliver such statement entails a high degree of responsibility and is bound to evoke a similarly high level of emotions both in the speaker and among the listeners. For example, it is exactly this aspect that poet Osip Mandelstam comments on in reference to Dante’s verse Così gridai con la faccia levata (Inferno 16: 76) (‘Thus cried I with my face uprais’d’ [Alighieri Hell 16: 76]). According to Mandelstam, these words signal Dante’s ecstatic state, when he is addressing all the world. Appropriately, this message is multi-layered in semantic and emotional terms (Мандельштам 2004: 3). The same methods of expression for the same ends are attested in Papusza’s rhetorical manner, which can be described as ‘astronomical, like a concert, deeply public, and similar to a preaching dictionary’ (Мандельштам 2004: 4).

The way in which such a public statement of the truth is performed, Papusza strives to reflect in writing. As the song or speech fills in the space of a room to the fullest, the poet aims at achieving a maximum text density, so that no blank spaces are left. In the process, the final letters in a line are squeezed tight, at times requiring that the line’s end is bent downwards to accommodate the last word.

Papusza avoided splitting words between lines, or pages, because when sung each word constitutes a whole in its own right. But if a word did not fit in the line, then only one letter could eventually be transferred to the next line. When after filling the entire page with text it was necessary to split a word, Papusza did not use a hyphen, but rather underlined the penultimate letter of the split word on one page and the word’s last letter on the next page. In some places such underlining is missing but is never used for any other purpose.

Papusza never wrote more than one word in the last lines at the bottom of the page. Apparently, from the purely technical point of view, it was difficult to fill in the entirety of this line. First of all, the writing hand did not have sufficient support, while at the same time it was necessary to be careful to not touch the finished page, because the ink was still wet.

When in some instances the bottom of the page is left blank, this may indicate the poet’s desire to distribute the text rewritten from the first draft in accordance with some typographic plan she had in mind for the final draft. For example, at page 7, a couple of lines are left blank at the bottom, because a new section begins at page 8. It opens with a second address to the listeners, so the importance of such an address did not let Papusza to start it at the end of a page. Directly addressing the listeners is a common rhetorical practice in the case when an official testimony is delivered orally at a Roma community meeting. It can be said that Tears of Blood, as a witness account, was addressed to a close circle of family and friends belonging to a single Roma group. On an important occasion, they met at a community gathering and listened to Papusza singing about their wartime tribulations.

Among the Polska Roma, such community meetings are referred to with the polonism sendo ‘law court’ (in Polish sąd). They continue to play an important role in traditional Roma culture when making final decisions on issues of importance for the entire community, often controversies and conflicts (Marushiakova and Popov 2012). Sendos follow a strict formal. Especially speakers take an oath to ascertain that they would tell the truth.¹⁶ Nowadays, the rise of modern means of communication allows for keeping in touch with all the members of a single Roma community, who live in different countries. As a result, sendos are held more rarely.

A sendo was to be convened in 1950 for discussing the possible damage to the Roma community from the publication of Papusza’s poems. ‘Unconsciously Papusza revealed “secrets” to Ficowski and he published them’ (Machowska 2011: 31fn62, 46, 186).¹⁷ The question whether Papusza should be allowed to publish texts arose before writing Tears of Blood. That a sendo would deliberate the issue perturbed the poet. In late 1950 the Roma community was alarmed at the publication of Julian Tuwim’s interview on the Roma with Ficowski (Tuwim 1950). ‘In this year Tuwim’s interview with Ficowski appeared in the periodical Problemy’ (Kledzik 2019: 162, 177).

A sendo on the case of Papusza never took place. But in her 1952 poem the poet reiterates arguments in defense of her innocence. She listed her services to the Roma community rendered during the war and afterward.

Monologues, like speeches at a sendo, usually begin with well-wishes and an address to the audience. Next, these elements are repeated as markers of a new section, which is a witness account communicated through the monologue. Papusza borrowed this ‘communication etiquette’ from oral performances at Roma gatherings (Шаповал 2022: 310). Thus, it can be safely assumed that in Tears of Blood, Papusza wrote down her story on paper. She did so by rehearsing an imaginary monologue-cum-speech, addressed primarily to her own Roma community.

However, the poet also turns to another addressee, a much larger audience that includes all people in the world. The problems of ‘including the Gypsy population into the production processes’ (Kledzik 2019: 170) of communist Poland’s economy were not resolved as gently as the representatives of the Roma communities expected. This negative outcome gave rise to the desire of identifying the culprits. Certainly, Papusza found herself among them. Yet, it must be emphasized that the poet’s oeuvre and archive have not become a subject of thorough and rigorous study yet. Hence, it is difficult to sift between the description of real-life events, self-censorship and flourishes required by literary (folklore) conventions of Roma performing.

Furthermore, it is necessary to analyze and describe Papusza’s ‘spontaneous and intuitive’ (Sonnemann 2019: 25) Polish-style spelling system, which she employed to write down Tears of Blood and her other writings. This task must include a reflection on the poem’s phonemic features. So far reasons for the variability in the spelling of this or that word has not been established. But it should be presumed that these changes communicate important shades of a meaning or altogether different meanings.

Papusza’s way of writing Romani is phonetically faithful. Working in a family of professional harpists, she had a perfect pitch. As a result, the poet tried to reflect as many phonemic, suprasegmental and other prosodic elements of spoken Romani as possible. This ambition explains why Papusza’s spelling is quite variable.

Another important aspect of Papusza’s narrating is detailed remembrance, which makes Tears of Blood both a witness account and a historical document. The text is overloaded with quotes. Numerous Polish expressions were used under the guise of Romani words, mostly through calquing. For instance, the Romani expression syr dewłes kamam ‘as I love God’ is a calque of the Polish set saying jak Boga kocham for confirming the sincerity of one’s words. The poet faithfully translated dialogues conducted in a variety of languages. For example, she used the polite plural form of the pronoun ‘you’ (that is, wy in Polish, cf. vous in French) for addressing a person, which is unattested in regular Romani speech.

As a result, Papusza ‘distorted’ Romani to imitate the specific way of addressing Polish soldiers or common people in Volhynia. Quite exceptionally, the Romani used in Tears of Blood is not only the poet’s native dialect. She quoted what Roma from different groups had spoken in a variety of their own Romani dialects, variously influenced by the languages of their gadjo (non-Roma) neighbors, be it Belarusian, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian or Yiddish. Thus, Papusza’s epic poem deserves to be treated as testimony, carefully crafted and delivered by an experienced observer, rather than a message from a barely literate person. Unfortunately, the latter lazy and orientalizing assessment (or rather dismissing) of Papusza’s oeuvre still prevails.

Peculiarities of Papusza’s Rhythmic Prose

The first task is to describe of the method of reproducing Romani speech, which Papusza developed for writing her texts. Without the reconstruction of phoneme to grapheme correspondence in Papusza’s writing, any decoding of her texts will be limited and prone to erroneous readings. Not surprisingly, Papusza’s writing system is typical for autodidacts. Unlike an uninitiated non-Roma reader may think, Papusza’s manuscripts are written in an extremely careful hand. Due to the idiosyncrasies of Papusza’s writing, some letters and their shapes may seem ambiguous or hard to establish. Yet, it should be borne in mind and appreciated that the poet invested much time and effort into writing relatively extensive texts by a hand untrained in school calligraphy. The pages of the manuscript of Tears of Blood are a testament to the poet’s great concentration and perseverance. She was clearly inspired by the self-imposed mission to bear witness on Roma sufferings during World War II.

I researched numerous Cyrillic hands of Roma authors who wrote in the interwar Soviet Union. Those who received elementary education as adults had a clear, but not fully developed, style of handwriting (Шаповал 2020). Papusza’s hand is similar. The poet’s hand displays regular deviations from the standard Polish school hand, especially in the form of additional characters, which I believe, arose spontaneously in the process of writing. Without the correct identification of these characters’ functions and phonemic values, it is almost impossible to grasp which specific Romani words are intended. Researchers of Papusza’s writings need to focus on the restoration of how her texts were spoken when performed, given the ‘oral character of her poetry’ (Machowska 2011: 31).

The squeezing of letters and words in order to fill in each blank space on the page is another remarkable feature of Papusza’s manuscripts. This desire to maximize the use of the entire sheet, Papusza shared with the neurotic Fyodor Dostoevsky’s approach to writing by hand. This feature is a sign the author was overwhelmed by the visceral urge to get rid of the memories of a traumatic experience as soon as possible through leaving its detailed description on paper. This tension dictated the peculiar emotional and dynamic rhythm of writing the manuscript of Tears of Blood. Papusza wrote at night, she was very tired, but felt unable to stop. ‘At times I wrote so long until all the kerosene in the lamp was gone’ (Papusza in Kuźniak 2013: 85). Fatigue was the main cause of errors, omissions and unnecessary repetitions of letters and words.

Often reasons for missing a letter are not of a phonemic nature, but a plain error, for example, sz[u]kar Te dziweł ‘[it is] wonderful to live’ (Ratwałe 31), ja[s]|węnca ‘with tears’ (Ratwałe 36–37), or char[a]kter ‘character’ (Pamiętnik: 3). However, in each case, a check is recommended to identify a possible phonemic reason for omitting a letter. For instance, wytsiór[e]nes ‘[they] were stealing’ (Ratwałe 758) can be pronounced as /vɨtɕuˈrenɨs/ or /vɨˈtɕurnɨs/. Yet, the latter option should be discarded in favor of the former, which works much better in relation to the rhythm observed in the preceding and the following verses.

Papusza sometimes repeated the last word on the page at the beginning of the following page. In some instances, reasons for this practice may be different, but typically it was a mnemonic aid often observed in hand-written books, for instance, [Page 34] wawyr ziakirde [Page 35] (5.) żakirde ‘the other [people] waited || waited’ (Ratwałe 706–708).

The shift of the Polish postalveolar fricatives and affricates /ʂ, ʐ, t͡ʂ, d͡ʐ/ (written [sz, ż, cz, dż]) into the dentialveolar sibilants /s, z, t͡s, d͡z/ (written [s, z, c, dz]) is called mazurzenie. Another linguistic phenomenon occurring in Polish is jabłonkowanie, or the merger of the retroflex sibilants /ʂ, t͡ʂ, ʐ, d͡ʐ/ (written [sz, cz, ż, dż]) and palatal sibilants /ɕ, t͡ɕ, ʑ, d͡ʑ/ (written [ś, ć, ź, dź]) into the intermediate series /ʃʲ, t͡ʃʲ, ʒʲ, d͡ʒʲ/ (sometimes written [śz, ćz, źż, dźż]). Both phenomena are reflected in Papusza’s variable spelling. Palatalization observed in the manuscript of Tears of Blood may be used for stylistic reasons. For instance, sasio Baro ‘the Great German’ (for obliquely referring to Adolf Hitler) (Ratwałe 123), Mas ‘meat’ (Ratwałe 267, 385), but: kuč masiore ‘tasty pieces of meat’ (Ratwałe 147).

Some words repeated in a row (‘doubled’), which reflects different ways of their pronunciation, for example:

so łęn dewła ziakireł żakire[ł] ‘Oh Lord, what does for them wait || wait’ (Ratwałe 99) – regional vs standard pronunciation of Polish ż;

konyka / konika ‘a horsey || a horsey’ (Ratwałe 768–769) – Ukrainian vs Russian pronunciation.

These repetitions in all likelihood arose spontaneously as a result of the poet’s ‘mental dictating’ to herself). At other times, such repetitions are inadvertent, the seemingly repeated word belonging to the autonomous phrases stem from the overlapping words from neighboring phrases.

A_daj boba / ćhórdeja niekones na zamar[dzia] / A_dzia jek dywes ‘they dropped another bomb, but didn’t kill anyone. / So that is how once …’ (Ratwałe 936–938).

The word na zamar[dzia] ‘[a pilot] didn’t kill [anyone]’ is unfinished at this page. Its ending was added at the following page, where it also doubles as the beginning of another phrase, namely, A_dzia ‘so.’ Such overlapping of the neighboring parts in the two phrases written next to each other should be suspected, when no sensible syntactic structure can be restored through the simple transcription of the manuscript.

It is not always clear whether this phenomenon is a result of skipping one word or its segment when alike with the initial word in the following line, which might happen in the process of copying from the preliminary draft. Another possible explanation is that Papusza faithfully reflected the properties of performed (sung) speech, when such overlapping may be dictated by the needs of rhythm or rhyme. In such a formalized setting, the listener is ready to attribute the same word or its segment both to the previous and following line. For example:

gorownia rowen syr mamósza / wymarde so ki cherój katelaregę / i załen łęgro Barwalipen ‘Cows cry, like people / killed to the last one, from the Catholics, / [they] are taking their property’ (Ratwałe 372–374). The sentence can be also interpreted differently if the phenomenon of overlapping is borne in mind (overlapping elements are emboldened): ‘Cows cry, like [any] people killed to the last one; / as this <Polish> people were killed to the last one, from <these> Catholics / [they = Ukrainians] are taking their property’.

The doubling of a word in a written text occurs also due to other reasons. Let us consider this example: soske na mereł ciororo {ty[l]ko} tylko / mósineł wesz weszestyr Tepchereł ‘Why don’t the poor die, only / have to wander between the forests’ (Ratwałe 880–881). Papusza considered the first attempt to write the word tyko as non-standard. She corrected the spelling by inserting the letter [l], resulting in ty[l]ko. But this outcome did not suit her, either. Subsequently, the poet crossed out this attempt and rewrote it as the perfectly correct tylko.

Sometimes the doubling of a word is a result of unrealized automatic repetition (dittography). Instances of this phenomenon can be found in Papusza’s unpublished diary, written mainly in Polish, for example, i do śmierci Pamiętać Będę Będę ‘and until [my] death I will will remember’ (Pamiętnik: 2). The end of the phrase is also repeated in this example: Apre Boli / ben Boliben ‘in the sky sky’ (Ratwałe 193–194); jatsian sygedyr {sygady sygede} / [syg]^[e]dyr ‘[Why have you] stayed behind? Faster, [faster, faster] faster!’ (Ratwałe 253–254); {T}[d]ykch|e|n A_pre boliben syr // syr migoczyneł zdrał ‘do you look at the sky, how // how does it flash, tremble [with fires of explosions]’ (Ratwałe 208–209).

Two close, but slightly different, grammatical forms written in a row can express hesitation, for example, bistyr[ła] // bistyreł ‘<God> will forget // forgets [us]’ (Ratwałe 300–301). The repetition of an adverb may express emphasis, for instance {?} Gijam dór dór ‘we went far, far’ (Ratwałe 57).

All in all, both repetitions and omissions were a result of Papusza’s hard work on Tears of Blood. She was fatigued but pressed on with the necessary work to bear witness. Her tiredness and haste generated minor flaws in the design of the manuscript and spelling. At the moment of writing, she did not notice such errors, because the poet paid her full attention to the sung internal dictation of the text in her mind. It is a complicated business to transfer an oral text in its fullness onto the written page.

Papusza’s Idiosyncratic Spelling

The letters used by Papusza to write Tears of Blood stem from the Polish-style Latin alphabet. The peculiarities of Papusza’s usage are caused by the lack of formal education and by the poet’s application of this writing system to represent the phonemes of the Romani language. Because of the former, the poet did not really distinguish between uppercase and lowercase forms of letters. On the other hand, faithfulness to the pronunciation of Romani generated several spelling variants of the same word.

Most Polish Latin-alphabet letters, as employed by Papusza, are used in a standard manner. Yet, some require a detailed explanation, regarding their use.

Letter A

Papusza prefers to use the capital [A] at the beginning and even in the middle of a word or phrase, for instance, pszegijam Apre Wołyň ‘we suffered in Volhynia’ (Ratwałe 3). Papusza learned to write by drawing in sand time and again all the letters of the Polish alphabet in the established order ‘A, b, c and the rest of the letters, as they stand in the primer’ (Papusza in Kuźniak 2013: 32). However, this does not explain why the uppercase [A] is more common in Papusza’s hand than the lowercase [a]. In her diary, Papusza recollects differently the process of learning how to write: i tak sę̇ naóczyłam a B c d i tak dalej¹⁸ ‘and thus I learned a B c d, etc.’ (Pamiętnik: 2).

Papusza’s spelling idiosyncrasies include the widespread use of the capital [A] and [B]. At times it is hard to establish whether a given letter executed by the poet is a capital or minuscule. The use of such uppercase [A] and [B] (for instance, Bersza [Ratwałe 3]), alongside the lowercase [t] with a high crossbar typical of the capital [T] (for example, ne so Tę keres Tszębi Te bagęł [Ratwałe 8]) served to better distinguish these letters from the minuscule [f] and [ł]. This method can be observed in numerous hands at the turn of the 20th century.

Letter Ą

In the Polish vernacular (dialect) used and heard by Papusza in everyday life, the nasal vowels, so typical for standard Polish, did not occur. The denasalization of these vowels is a distinctive feature in the eastern dialects of Polish, or in today’s western Lithuania, western Belarus and western Ukraine (Dejna 1973: 191). That is why Papusza rarely uses the letter [ą]. In Tears of Blood it occurs only three times. Twice this happens, when a need arises to represent the Indic phoneme in the Romani adjective nągo /naŋo/ ‘naked’ (Ratwałe 179). Perhaps, the poet wished to emphasize the difference in pronunciation between this adjective and its Polish counterpart, nagi, which is rather similar, due to the interrelatedness of the Indo-European languages. The third occurrence of [ą] is observed in the Russian-language song, namely, kąsomol[i]c ‘komsomolets’¹⁹ (Ratwałe 795). Papusza used the ad hoc letter [ǫ] twice to differentiate between the Romani nasal vowel designated with [ą] and the close Polish nasal vowel (in Polish orthography written with the letter [ą], but here with [ǫ]), for instance, kǫsomoliec ‘komsomolets,’ bǫby ‘bombs’ (Ratwałe 764, 917).

Perhaps, it is not necessary to consider all the letters employed in writing by Papusza, but some clearly need detailed commentaries, due to their idiosyncratic use.

It is difficult to say whether phonemic or spelling factors caused Papusza’s tendency for confusing [B] and [P], for instance, Brosiła[m] rodzicow (in standard Polish: Prosiłam rodziców) ‘I asked my parents’ (Pamiętnik: 3). When relating a Russian-language song, the poet wrote: probała (correct phonemic transliteration of this Russian word into standard Polish spelling: propała) ‘she was lost, perished’ (Ratwałe 798). One case was difficult to decide, because Papusza clearly wrote [B], but the context strongly suggested that it should be [P]: Pirja ‘pots’ (Ratwałe 735). Fortunately, other cases of the poet confusing certain letters with each other when writing words in Polish or Russian, allowed for identifying this Romani word.

For conveying some Romani phonemes, Papusza employed digraphs and trigraphs. For instance, the digraph [ci] in the case of the phoneme /t͡ɕ/ in the word for ‘bird,’ that is, cierykło, Cirykło (Ratwałe 1055, 1075). Striving to convey the affricative /t͡ɕx/, Papusza used several options. First of all, the trigraph [ćch] and the digraph [ćh], as in A_pre ćchórja ‘on the knives,’ ćhórdeja ‘he threw’ or ćhawen ‘Roma children’ (Ratwałe 198, 937, 1044). It can be assumed that the trigraph was simplified to the diagraph under the influence of Ficowski’s editorial choices when Papusza’s poems had been published earlier. In some cases, Papusza forgot or decided not to use the acute accent [ ́] in [ć], resulting in [c], as in: cchawore ‘Roma children’ or chaworo ‘Roma child’ (Ratwałe 93, 14). The last usage is quite confusing, because it is left to the reader to decide whether [ch] denotes /t͡ɕx/ or /x/, as in chyrja ‘bad, evil’ (Ratwałe 9).

For denoting the palatalized version of the aspirated voiceless affricate /t͡ɕɕ/, written [čh] in academic Romani transcription, Papusza used the trigraph [tsi], for instance, matsiore ‘fishes’ (Ratwałe 95). This trigraph [tsi] is regularly contrasted with the digraph [ci] for the same but unaspirated affricate, as in ciororo ‘poor (m.)’ (Ratwałe 13), but also as a reflex of /t/ in the context that entails palatalization, leading to / tʲ/ as in pacien ‘believe (2nd p. pl.)’ (Ratwałe 5). On the other hand, the corresponding voiced alveolo-palatal affricate /d͡ʑ/, like in Polish, is denoted with the trigraph [dzi], for instance, nek dzinen ‘let them know’ (Ratwałe 10).

Letter E

Papusza’s use of the letter [e] reflects phonetic peculiarities of Polish dialects as observed east of today’s Poland. Interestingly, the Slavonic vowel denoted with the Church Slavonic letter yat’ [ѣ] (originally a long vowel /ē=ě/), yielded the tradition of the pre-1917 Russian letter yat [ѣ] for denoting variegated modern realization of this old vowel. In the case of these eastern Polish dialects it entails, among others, the morphing of /e/ into /i/, which Papusza faithfully reflected in her spelling, as in lidwo = (standard Polish: ledwo) ‘barely’ (Ratwałe 660), nie widzialam (standard Polish: nie wiedziałam) ‘I didn’t know (1st p. sg. f.)’ (Pamiętnik: 4), or gdziś (standard Polish: gdzieś) ‘somewhere’ (Pamiętnik: 9), and vice versa: sielny jak liew (standard Polish: silny jak lew) ‘as strong as a lion’ (Pamiętnik: 7).

The sporadic preference for the letter [i] in place of the standard [e] next to palatalized consonants in Romani is noticeable in the second half of Tears of Blood, for example, sawi żeś / keren /saˈwʲe ʒe ɕ kʲeˈren/ ‘[you used to] do the same [things]’ (Ratwałe 627–628). The expressive doubling of the particle [że ż] is characteristic for Romani-speaking in what today is the western sections of Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. Papusza took careful note of the assimilation of consonants, for example, when [że ż] finds itself next to the phoneme /kʲ/ the following assimilation takes place [że ś], as [czy ż > czy /s/] in czys saso pszepereł ‘will the German perish?’ (Ratwałe 742–743).

Letter Ę

As in the case of the letter [ą] for the nasal vowel /ɔŋ/, Papusza sporadically used the letter [ę] for the nasal sound /ɛŋ/ in a denasalized manner instead of [e] for /e/, for example, so Tę keres ‘what have thou done’ (Ratwałe 8).

We retain the rare spelling variant of the Greek epsilon letter [ɛ] in the function of [e], as employed by Papusza in the manuscript. However, this variant denotes only the sound /e/ and does not indicate any phonemic peculiarities, for instance, nągɛ ‘naked (pl.)’ (Ratwałe 155).

The mutual linguistic influences between speakers of Polish, on the one hand, and speakers of Belarusian and Ukrainian, on the other, brought about interferences in the form of the subsystem of smooth sonorous consonants (liquids). Instead of the standard Polish alveolar lateral /l/, Papusza preferred the dialectal palatalized approximate /lʲ/, typical for the region, for example, Alie (standard Polish: ale) ‘but,’ w_calie (standard Polish: wcale) ‘at all, quite’ (Ratwałe 414, 1021); lieśna (standard Polish: leśna) ‘of forest (f. sg.)’ (Pamiętnik: 2).

On the other hand, [ł] for denoting /w/ and [w] for conveying /ʊ̯/ are not differentiated in Papusza’s individual phonetic system, as in many Polish dialects (Dejna 1973: 114–115). As a result, a fluctuation is observed in Papusza’s spelling of Romani words that contain these sounds, for instance, na chochawalw = na xoxavav ‘I don’t cheat,’ phocia{ł}w = phučav ‘I ask,’ and in the Russian-language song: prowa[ża]{w}[ł]a ‘she accompanied’ (Ratwałe 460, 455, 774).

Furthermore, traces of self-correction are worth noting, when the poet replaced the initial choice of regional [w] with the more standard [f], for example, {w} feder ‘better’, {w}foryco ‘a small town’ (Ratwałe 883, 834).

Eastern Polish dialect, alongside Belarusian and Ukrainian, also influenced Papusza’s pronunciation and spelling of Romani. For instance, she spelt the title of Tears of Blood poem in accordance with this type of pronunciation, that is, gili Ratwałe jaswa ‘Tears of Blood: A Song’ (Ratwałe 2). Ficowski, in his abbreviated version, modified the spelling of the Romani title to make it closer to the standard Polish pronunciation, namely, Ratfałé jasfá (Ficowski 1956: 118). With time, thanks to prolonged exposure to these variants, Papusza acquired most nuances of Polish standard and dialectal pronunciations. In later interviews, she reproduced them flawlessly.

Another specifically Polish feature worth mentioning is the inter-word voicing of the voiceless consonant. This phonemic phenomenon occurs in Tears of Blood just once, dadywez rakie[r]łęs = dadivés rakírłys ‘today <a soldier> was telling’ (Ratwałe 188; Ficowski 1956: 128). Usually, this phenomenon of inter-word voicing is not reflected in the poem’s manuscript, perhaps, meaning that Papusza did not use it in her own speech, for instance, paniory Agił dywes rakireł ‘a river chatters before dawn’ or połokes rakiren ‘they speak softly’ (Ratwałe 93–94, 96).

Sporadically, Papusza confused [r] and [ł], as in Bersz ciero = correctly: Bersz cieło ‘the whole years’ (Ratwałe 1009), ciała = correctly: cała ‘whole’ (Pamiętnik: 180).

It is evident that the manuscript the final draft of Tears of Blood was executed in haste. Hence, in many places the acute accent [’] is missing in the Polish diacritical letter [ó] for the phoneme /u/, confusingly resulting in [o] for /o/, for instance, phore = phure ‘old (pl.),’ Bocho, bócho = buxo ‘book,’ bótedyr = butedyr ‘more,’ tó = tu ‘thou’ (Ratwałe 164, 1005, 1084, 1004). This proves that Papusza usually wrote the whole word, and then introduced missing diacritics. Hence, the wider morphemic context must be borne in mind to ensure the correctness of deciphering. What is more, Ficowski’s spelling choices for the publication of Papusza’s writings also influenced the poet’s spelling, for example, Tómanósa = tumanósa ‘with fog’ (Ratwałe 1045). In this instance, the first [ó] for denoting /u/ is Papusza’s own choice, while the other [ó] for the stressed pronunciation of /o/ was Ficowski’s editorial intervention.

At times, Papusza went for a deliberately simplified, for instance, writing [ó], instead of [iu], as in samótka = samiutka ‘very lonely (f)’ (Pamiętnik: 9). This does not suggest that in the poet’s pronunciation no palatalisation of the consonant /m/ occurred. Basically, the letter [i] for signalling such softening could be skipped, as the phenomenon could be easily deduced from the phonemic context, see: katylary ciacióne ‘real (true) catholics’, Betki ciacune ‘genuine (true =eatable) mushrooms,’ or gila cacune ‘true songs’ (Ratwałe 988, 144, 170).

Such variability might indicate Papusza’s expectation that the reader fluent in Romani (and in Polish) would actively cooperate while reading out this text, most probably aloud. This expectation saved the poet time and effort necessary for paying close attention to the details of spelling and writing conventions adopted.

Unusual Letters

Apart from the Polish-style Latin alphabet letters used for the composition of most of the manuscript, sporadically atypical letters are also employed. Their status is ambiguous and difficult to establish, as these are rare occurrences. The letter [ɛ], mentioned above, probably was a variant of [ę], while [ǫ] a variant of [ą]. The letter [ə] was used just once as a variant of [e] or [a], in: səmęnca ‘family, clan’ (Ratwałe 22). The letter [ï] could arise with the poet accidentally doubling the dot over [i] or was borrowed from the Ukrainian-style Cyrillic letter [ï], for instance, tsïaworen ‘children (acc. pl.)’ (Ratwałe 96).

Perhaps, some hybrid characters arose in an ad hoc manner, for example, daj̃a ława = dala lava ‘these words’ (Ratwałe 631). The phrase was restructured in the process of writing. The original intended daja kamanda ‘this order (Romani+Russian)’ was amplified into daj̃a ława wypchendzia i kamanda / podyja ‘Having spoken these words, he ordered’ (Ratwałe 631–632). In the process of correction, the tilde was put above [j], making this letter look almost like the handwritten [ł]. At times apparently erroneous characters or diacritics were introduced in haste, for instance, chıyra, typically: chyrja ‘bad’, or 9 [6] mamószegę, typically: manuszenge ‘to the people’ (Ratwałe 415, 9).

In some cases, Papusza spelled the same word in several different ways. It was not only a result of insufficient proficiency or attention, but also an effort at reproducing sung words from memory. In this way, Papusza conveyed nuances in pronunciation depending on the context of which other words the given word was employed during performance. This seems to explain the rise of the following spelling variants manósza, manusza, or manosza ‘people’ (Ratwałe 425, 60, 588). Yet, the following variants appear to be clear errors, namely, mamósza, correctly: manusza ‘people,’ mani, correctly: nani ‘there is not’ (Ratwałe 372, 946, 202), or chany, correctly: chamy ‘boors’ (Pamiętnik: 10).

Ligatures occur when a text is composed in hurry. An important feature of Papusza’s hand is ligatures, which arise from merging the neighboring letters in the continuous manner of writing, that is, without detaching the pen from paper, for instance, kali pchen mirej ‘my black sister’ (Ratwałe 226). This manner of handwriting was typical for the Polish school hand. Papusza hesitated when choosing between the phonetically close vowels [e] and [y], especially when it was stressed in a word. She tended to write [e] first, and then added the letter [y] to it. However, it might also be an attempt at indicating the lengthening of the final syllable in a word, which is quite appropriate in a lamentation, for example, for a dead friend. So, what at the first glance appears arbitrary may turn out to be phonetically relevant or even deeply thought out in Papusza’s system of idiosyncratic spelling.

Let us have a look at more examples of ligatures in the manuscript of Tears of Blood. In the case of daa býda (dꜳ býda) = daja bida ‘this woe’ (Ratwałe 228), the ligature was formed through the fusion of the two neighboring letters [a], probably to indicate the lengthening of the vowel /a/ in the pronoun daa ‘this.’ In this manner, Papusza probably conveyed the peculiarities of her deceased girl friend’s speech. Other examples of interesting ligatures, include,

Nakand/en ‘they don’t obey’ (Ratwałe 131–132), [nd] is written as a ligature. These two letters were merged probably to spare place at the line’s end.

rom miro ‘my husband’ (Ratwałe 266), [mi] is a ligature. The merged letters look like [ṁ] or [ni]. It might be also a result of the doubling of [mm]. alongside the loss of the sixth stroke.

Me wolin-aw ‘I desire’ (Ratwałe 421). In this case [in] was replaced with the ligature [ṅ].

kaj na kaj, a calque of the Polish expression gdzieniegdzie ‘here and there’ (Ratwałe 424). The merger of the letters [a] and [j] into the ligature [aj] results in what looks almost like [ej].

Papusza’s Meters, Verse Rhythm and Rhymes

The Austrian slavist and philologist of Slovenian extraction Franz Miklosich’s opinion on Romani-language folklore poetry retains its relevance to this day:

as far as content is concerned, it includes elements from both Romanian and Hungarian fairy tales. The folk poetry of the Rumunians and Ukrainians had an unmistakable influence on the Romani songs. The songs are sung without instrumental accompaniment. The verses are rhymeless. Each verse regularly has two accents. Only one stressed syllable can be in the accented syllable, the tone may be the tone of the word or, in the case of monosyllabic words, the tone of the sentence (Miklosich IV. 1874: 2).

Unfortunately, the boundaries of the verses are not marked in the manuscript. Of course, I would like to listen to Papusza’s performance in order to understand her preferences in the case of possible options for the distribution of pauses. It is possible to reconstruct such a division into verses during a recitation.

It is possible to use the bar sign [|] for helping readers to visualize borders of poetic verses. Nevertheless, some parts of manuscript are in prose.

Papusza’s poetry shares some traits with Polish folk songs, especially changing number of syllables in a verse (Dłuska 1954; Dłuska 1987). ‘Asyllabism, or to put it more mildly, relative syllabism, thrives through the 17th century in urban lyrics, even longer in folk verse, but it no longer returns to the upper regions of poetry [as practised by nobility and intelligentsia]’ (Dłuska 1987: 192).

Papusza used to emphasize, that she was not ‘any poet at all’ (Papusza in Kuźniak 2013: 167). Thus, the poet defines her genre with the Polish term piosenka ‘little song:’

Coś we mnie znajszli. Bo pan Tuwim jeszcze. Znajszli jakiś wielki talent. A ja takich pioseneczek, co oni chcieli, to mogła kiedyś miliony zrobić. Szłam górami, lasami. Jeden moment i już. Pan Jerzy mówił, że to wiersze, ale to nie byli wiersze. Piosenki. Wierszy są inny. Trzeba rym składać, a piosenka to prosta. Piosenka to niżej. A wiersz wysoo, trzeba kształconych ludzi. Musi być uniwersytet, a ja nie mam ani jednej klasy kończonej. Nie mogę być wierszopisarka (Papusza in Kuźniak 2013: 70).²⁰

‘Papusza’s poems are dubbed “songs” because they stem from the deeply rooted Roma oral tradition’ (Szott 2016: 472). Papusza translated into Polish the common Romani term gili ‘song’ (Ratwałe 2) as piosenka ‘little song.’ In regular usage this Polish term denotes a song of several to about 15 verses. Yet, Papusza’s ‘songs’ are much longer. Tears of Blood is comprised of over a thousand verses. According to Papusza, the main difference between her gili ‘song’ and real poems is the absence of rhymes, alongside the simple structure of Papusza’s ‘little songs.’ On top of that, Papusza saw the lack of formal education as disqualifying her from being a poet. It is worth adding that when the Soviet Romani literature developed on the basis of a dialect quite similar to that of the Polska Roma, its codifiers had to coin a term for ‘poem.’ They settled on the Romani гилы /gily/, literally ‘song,’ which came to mean also ‘poem’ in Soviet Romani (Безлюдско 1933: 1).

Papusza’s rhymes are irregular. The peculiarity of Roma morphology often causes words’ stressed endings to become phonemically similar, for instance,

But such similarities in the pronunciation of word endings may occur more often, as in:

All these features of the Roma folk song verse are present in the work of contemporary poets. Having stepped rather painlessly over attempts to accurately imitate the strict poetic meters characteristic of the academic poetry typical of the surrounding peoples, many Roma poets turned to freer poetic forms. ‘Nothing justifies treating the rhythm of a folk poem as a cinderella of artful poetry. Spoken rhythm and melic rhythm must be treated separately, but as equals, with respect for each, according to the laws that govern it’ (Dłuska 1954: 502).

Osip Mandelstam noted about the famous Italian poet that ‘Dante sees the beginning of prosody in the foot’s step, which is locked with breathing and spawns thought’ (Мандельштам 2004: 10). Papusza walked a lot and quickly. This rhythm of movement manifests itself in her blank but rhythmic verse. In one place in Tears of Blood, the poet refers to the tendency to sing in an undertone during a lengthy march: dzian Tełę nak gili bag / en ‘they go, they sing a song under their breath’ (Ratwałe 193–194). Later, Papusza broke out into singing in full voice, though it was risky, the German troops searching for Roma, Jews, and guerrillas. ‘Voice is an important tool for the poet: discursive practices related to the metaphor of “voice” in the texts of Bronisława Wajs are various and purposeful’ (Novac 2010).

Languages of the Indigenous Populations and of the Occupiers

Multilingualism of interwar and wartime Volhynia is an aspect of utmost importance for grasping the complex phonetic score of Tears of Blood. First of all, Papusza’s writing is phonetically oriented, and then visually motivated. Writing as such was a later addition that did not impact the poet’s memory but afforded her an instrument to record words and images to bear witness of the Roma genocide. Papusza mentions in a conversation with Ficowski that in her dreams she hears words uttered in languages that she does not understand: i coś mi przychodzi, jakaś mowa inna²¹ (Papusza in: Cygańska 1978: 4.00–4.07).

Formally, Tears of Blood is written in Romani. Yet, foreign intrusions are quite numerous in the text. Most are almost imperceptible, because they are skillfully calqued into Romani,²² while direct borrowings from other languages are fewer. Analyzing Polish borrowing in this section would be inappropriate. After all, apart from Romani, Polish was also a native language for the Polska Roma. ‘Romani was Papusza’s first language. In this language, she composed her songs. But with the passing of years, it appeared that Papusza began to think exclusively in Polish’ (Machowska 2011: 72).

Below selected examples of intrusions in other Romani dialects and foreign languages in Tears of Blood are analyzed.

Conclusion

The uniqueness of Papusza’s poetry stems from the tension between the poet’s two cultural identities, namely, Romani and broadly speaking ‘Polish’ (but embracing interwar Poland’s multicultural character). On the one hand, Papusza’s sensibilities were shaped in a typical Roma family of musicians, while on the other, she was at home in interwar Polish culture. It was a tragedy for the poet that she lost both of her identities. After World War II, not only Roma life changed dramatically, but many features of prewar Poland did not make it to communist Poland. This discontinuity in Papusza’s life was similar to the fate of actor Aleksander Żabczyński (1900–1958). Upon his return to postwar Poland, he realized that he would not be able to restart his acting career. Yet, surviving the total war was an incredible stroke of good luck. The fate dealt a worse to actor Eugeniusz Bodo (1899–1943), who like numerous interwar celebrities.

The uniqueness of Papusza’s oeuvre and its very existence were possible thanks to an incredible combination of favorable factors. Firstly, the poet’s enormous labor to write down her own songs and other texts was not supported by the social environment in which she lived. In Roma society, few men, let alone women, would dare to undertake such a long-term creative commitment against all odds. It was a gadjo thing, not part of the Roma social world. Secondly, with all the restrictions of political censorship observed in communist Poland, the ‘civilizing project’ to sedentarize Roma created minimal conditions for the partial publication of Papusza’s poetry. This Polish Roma policy emulated the vast interwar Soviet program of language standardization and nativization (korenizatsiia), alongside the Kremlin’s 1956 decree that sedentarized Roma living in the Soviet Union. In this contradictory context, the fact of the very publication of a part of Papusza’s oeuvre became a foundation of the poet’s well-deserved worldwide fame. Nowadays, the published fragments fit a variety of ethnic, feminist and other emancipatory projects with identity and the recognition of the past wrongs at their center. However, most of Papusza’s writings remain in precariously preserved manuscripts, unavailable to researchers, let alone readers. Papusza as an icon is widely known and revered, but no serious research on her writings has commenced yet.

The Romani dialect, in which Papusza wrote, is a phenomenon largely formed in the sphere of the Polish linguistic culture. This is manifested at all linguistic levels from phonetics to phraseology and to meter. The interpretation of previously unpublished fragments of Tears of Blood often depends on the correct reconstruction of Polish phrases and translations, which Papusza almost literally translated (calqued) into Romani.

The inclusion of elements borrowed from other languages must be also analyzed, especially in the case of the dialogues in Tears of Blood. Although Papusza translated them into Romani for her Roma audience, she left enough distinctive features that make it possible to establish whether quoted speakers uttered their parts in Ukrainian, Russian or even Belarusian. Given the portrayal of Jews in the poem, an interesting question arises whether they spoke in a Slavic language or in their native language of Yiddish.

In 1956 Tears of Blood was published for the first time in Ficowski’s abbreviated version. In this version the emphasis is on the sufferings of the Roma extended family (group) of musicians in wartime Volhynia. In line with the needs of communist Poland’s culture and propaganda, Soviet guerrillas are portrayed as saviors of the Roma. The Germans are these guerrillas’ antagonists. However, in the full text of this epic poem, the picture of the military confrontations is more nuanced, confusing, and ambiguous. The Germans, Ukrainians and Hungarians fight against Catholic Poles, Soviet guerrillas, the Red Army, Polish anticommunist guerrillas (AK, Armia Krajowa Homeland Army), or pro-Soviet Polish communist guerrillas (AL, Armia Ludowa People’s Army). In the maelstrom of these multidirectional conflicts, Roma, Jews or ethnically Czech colonists are caught. On top of that, the genocidal-scale mutual Ukrainian-Polish ethnic cleansing then unfolded, a kind of regional civil war within World War II.

However, the poem’s message to humanity is not limited to the denunciation of war crimes and cruelty, and to bearing witness on the Roma Genocide. Tears of Blood includes an important layer, which almost does not show up in the abbreviated version. It is a repeated emphasis on the emotional unity of the human soul with nature, which constitutes a platform for Papusza to address all the world’s people. The poet calls for peace. Her visualization of peaceful life inevitably evokes an idyllic image of the Roma past, unhurried and devoid of external duties and pressures; life led in the forest, on the go from one country to another, with no border officers stopping and harassing Roma and their caravans. This lost ideal of Roma freedom is not compensated by anything else in the poem, except for Papusza’s hope for softening people’s hearts.

Papusza is deservedly presented as a witness to war crimes. Communist Poland’s propaganda showed the poet as an unwavering supporter of the state program of sedentarizing the country’s Roma way of life. But she was not. Papusza’s doubts about sedentary life did not make it to the abbreviated version of Tears of Blood. Censors would not allow it. Neither would they accept Papusza’s universalist philosophy and exhortations to Roma life immersed in nature. The poet’s benchmark of a good and happy life fell too far away from the strictures of marxism-leninism in the heydays of the stalinist period.

Translated from Russian by Tomasz Kamusella

December 2022