Paper short abstract:

The fall of communism in Central and Eastern Europe and the division of Czechoslovakia into two independent states brought many changes in identity of its citizens. We will discuss identity of some Roma/Gypsies who form a transnational group/network in this Central-European space.

Paper long abstract:

The division of the former Czechoslovakia established new borders, and, in some cases, new forms of identity of the inhabitants of these two Central European countries. Roma/Gypsies have for decades formed a minority which migrated between these two countries extensively, and many of their families today resemble a kind of transnational kinship network, extended, after the EU access, by many European countries. Their identities have, however, usually formed on a slightly different basis than identities of the non-Roma population, although they are attached to the country/countries where they were born. We will discuss the problem of identity of a Roma/Gypsy group we have studied for past almost ten years, whose members live (not only) in both the Czech and Slovak Republics, and the effect the social and political changes of the last 20 years had on their perceiving of who they are. The core of our investigation concerns the questions of identity (local identity, kinship identity, state identity, European identity or a trans-national Roma identity?). We will discuss interrelationships between various strata of identities and the extent to which these relationships are influenced by the division of Czechoslovakia and the processes of EU integration.