Gypsy is a nation that has been in a state of wandering without roots for thousands of years. Their footprints are all over the European continent, and the French Bohemians, the Spanish flamenco, the Russian Zigans, the Dutch Hidons, and the Polish Zalasi are often mentioned in various historical documents and literary works. Wait, it’s all another name for a gypsie. The first group of Gypsies who came to Europe said they came from Egypt. They were punished for trying to prevent the Egyptians from chasing the Jews and disobeying the will of God. They were blown away all over the world and wandered forever. It is derived from the Egyptian in English. The gypsies deceived the people of Europa with lies, but also deceived themselves, and they gradually forgot their own historical trajectory. Generation after generation, the lie was repeated so that even the Gypsies believed the land, nourished by the Nile, as their homeland. The origin of Gypsy has also become a tangled mystery in history.
Gypsies can forget their origins, but more serious scholars can’t. The 18th century was an era in which historical comparative language research was popular. The language relationship of Indo-European languages became the focus of scholars, and the language of Gypsies was naturally brought into the field of vision of scholars. In 1763, a Hungarian student Vary accidentally met three students from the Balama region of India. He found that the language of the three students was different from the language of the local Gypsies in Hungary in terms of grammar and vocabulary. similarities, which have aroused great interest among linguists. After a long period of extensive and meticulous research and follow-up research, German linguists Rudiger and Gorrelman and British Jacob Bryan finally unveiled the mystery of the origin of the Gypsies. They agreed that the Gypsies language came from ancient India and was closely related to the Hindi and Punjabi languages of northern India. In the process of national migration, Gypsy language absorbed a large number of vocabulary from Greek, Egyptian, Turkish and Eastern European languages, and evolved into different language branches. Afterwards, scholars continued in-depth research from the perspectives of language, folklore, culture, social system, etc., basically determined that the Gypsies were descendants of the Roma in India, and verified their migration route map. From the 10th to the 11th century, under the force of the invasion of foreign enemies (there are Persians, Arabs, Mongolians, Turks, etc.), some people began to embark on the journey of moving westward, where they left their hometowns and displaced people, and never again. back to this homeland.
Also known for their wandering life is the Jewish people. The wandering of the Jews has been covered with more religious colors. The “Bible·Old Testament” records the history of the Jewish people and the reasons for embarking on the journey of wandering around the world. The Jews never forget the history of the nation. On the contrary, they have a deep memory of history. The faith of Abraham, the great wisdom of the prophets, the sufferings of Babylon and Egypt, etc., are all stories told repeatedly by generations of Jews. Their memories, full of glorious years, of pain and abuse full of tears and blood, guaranteed the unity of the Jewish nation. With a strong belief that they are God’s chosen people, they are always trying to return to the “promised land” that calls them. With their tenacious belief in Jewish scriptures and national traditions guided by their beliefs, they avoided the doom of assimilation. They are scattered to all corners of the world, without an inch of land, but they have built a powerful spiritual kingdom with their faith. Discrimination and harassment made them more self-respecting and self-reliant. Persecution and slaughter did not cut off their vigorous survival ability. They survived in a cruel environment, and their power became more and more powerful. They believed in the importance of education and cultivated a large number of outstanding financiers, entrepreneurs, educators, writers, artists, etc., and made indelible contributions to the progress of mankind.
During the long-term wandering, the Gypsies created a wandering cultural landscape that was completely different from that of the Jews, leaving a special trace in European history. Wandering is the essence of Gypsy culture. Birth is the starting point and death is the end. Gypsies are forever strangers on European soil. They are accustomed to the life of constant migration, they have no destination, but keep wandering. They sometimes choose to stay in one place for a short time, but every time they stay is to save enough capital and rush to the next farther migration, and they gradually form their own unique survival philosophy during the journey. They can have no land or no country, but they cannot live without ethnic groups. The Gypsies regard the ethnic group as the support of life and soul. Take the happiness and well-being of your family as the highest criterion. Gypsies have preserved and developed a social structure based on family and family. In a relatively closed community, they strictly abide by traditional values and resist the penetration of foreign cultures. Gypsies try to maintain the unity of racial blood, practice intra-ethnic marriage, maintain strict ethnic boundaries, and emphasize the fidelity and purity of marriage. In the cracks of many powerful ethnic groups, their footprints spread all over the mountains and rivers of Europe. Driven by their desire for life, they make a living by marginal occupations such as divination, begging, fortune-telling, iron-smithing, horse-trading, and beast-taming. These occupations do not require excessive capital investment or technical skills, they only need to sell their labor to survive. They were at the bottom of society, engaged in marginalized occupations, and participated in the development of Europe in a unique way. Because of this, Gypsies are regarded as social buffoons by Europeans. The English lakeside poet Wordsworth once described Gypsies as: “an alienated people, black-haired, mysterious, fortune-telling, like to wear clothes. Colorful clothes, playing the violin, as long as you throw a copper plate, they will dance and sing immediately.” In the eyes of Europeans, gypsies are synonymous with rogues, misbehaving, and homeless people who are discriminated against and persecuted. , are constantly excluded, isolated and even expelled.
The most impressive thing about the Gypsies is the exquisite song and dance and the fairy-tale caravan. Gypsies dance is not deliberately choreographed but improvised. They have a talent for dancing. As long as the melody is together, they can dance with the rhythm and express themselves. The caravan rolled over the land of Europe, carrying the Gypsies and their heavy history, through the endless cycle from dawn to dawn, telling the story of wandering. The caravan embodies the wisdom of life of the Gypsies, it perfectly integrates the two of walking and living. In an era of animal power as the transportation power, the Gypsies combined caravans with horses, which on the one hand gave the Gypsies a relatively fixed living place, and the caravan was the home of the Gypsies; on the other hand, It maintains the characteristics of nomadic movement and gives the caravan a wider space for activities. In a cramped space of a few square meters, the caravan accommodates all living utensils such as beds, heating stoves, and kitchen utensils. The gypsies gave full play to their imaginations, and used the means of one thing to be used for multiple purposes to skillfully arrange the various facilities on the caravan. Grocery store, full of various items, they have created infinitely rich life in a very small space.
After entering the 19th century, especially the 20th century, the rootless wandering of the Gypsies entered the spiritual level and showed it in a new form. Literature has become a place for gypsies to wander, and their frequency in various works is increasing. The life of gypsies, especially gypsy girls, has become the darling of Western writers and artists. As early as the Renaissance, Cervantes, who was famous for his “Don Quixote”, wrote “The Gypsy Girl”, which tells the story of the Spanish nobleman Andres and the gypsy girl Preciosa getting married. love story. From the end of the 18th century to the middle of the 19th century, romantic literature flourished unprecedentedly. This literary trend was characterized by the pursuit of intense emotional life, advocating freedom, and yearning for heterogeneity. Mysterious gypsies and passionate gypsy girls have become the objects that writers compete to write. Pushkin, the father of Russian literature, created the long narrative poem “Tsgan”, which shaped the true concubine who dared to love and hate: Esmeralda in Hugo’s peak romantic work “Notre Dame de Paris” touched the heart of every reader. Fragile Heartstrings: Carmen in Merimi’s novella “Carmen” is the embodiment of raw strength and evil beauty. Most of these gypsy girls are beautiful, passionate, full of temptation and wisdom, love freedom,
Wild and uninhibited, he has a strong sense of mystery and magic. In fact, this is the “collective imagination” of a generation of writers, and it is more about the writers’ own subjective ideas. The peculiar temperament of gypsy girls satisfies their aesthetic desires. In fact, they know very little about gypsy women.
After the romantic literature, the wandering way of life of the gypsies has brought a new cultural connotation to the modern civilization, which is the birth of the “Bohemian spirit”, and the wandering spirit has risen to the height of culture. Bohemia was originally a place name, located in what is now the central and western parts of the Czech Republic. This place has been a gathering place for Gypsies since the 15th century, so people often use Bohemia to refer to Gypsies. In 1845, the French writer Henri Moog’s “Silhouettes of Bohemian Life” popularized the concept of Bohemia to describe the new way of life and spiritual and cultural beliefs formed since the mid-19th century. Gypsies have the characteristics of wandering, unrestrained, unfettered, rebellious against society, and willing to marginalize in life, which inspires modern artists from two aspects: the wandering characteristics of Gypsies cater to modern people’s imagination of freedom, Gypsies’ life becomes the contrast of modern life, which is constrained and restricted everywhere; Gypsies’ unique way of life and values are the dream objects that modern intellectuals use to fight against society.
In the middle of the 19th century, a group of ultra-romanticists and anti-romanticists, often impoverished poets, musicians, and tramps, came on the stage, and it was such a group of people who became the first bohemian modernists. people. Their general characteristics are: abandoning God, opposing Bourgeois’ morality and value system, rejecting cynic life, they yearn for freedom and rebellion, romance and decadence, they never entrust their thoughts to anyone or any class. In the melancholy “Flowers of Evil” by Paris wanderer Baudelaire, the fantastic combination of bohemian and modern consciousness can be seen; Rimbaud and other decadent symbolist poets chanted “I will go far, far away. place like Bohemians”: the lost generation such as Hemingway witnessed the delusion and cruelty of modern society, and they chose spiritual exile; the lost generation such as Ginsburg, Kerouac, etc. Mia’s indulgence, hedonism and nihilism are on full display. These spiritual tramps have lost the soil on which their spirits stand and the homeland of their souls, and can only be exiled to the end of the world. Bohemia is a combination of bohemian intellectual lifestyle and spiritual temperament. It challenges social norms in a non-mainstream form and becomes an ideological and cultural movement that has a profound impact on modern society. On the other hand, with the increasing rise of the commercial society, the bohemian spirit, as a cultural symbol, is ultimately unable to escape the fate of being dispelled and then labelled as a consumer. The heterogeneity of Bohemia is distilled into the words “wild, romantic, rough” for the masses to chase. Evolved into a ubiquitous accessory in mainstream lifestyles. Bohemia has become a new favorite in the fashion industry, with layered lace, batik prints, leather tassels, handmade twine knots, embroidery and bead strings representing classic elements of bohemian style. Bohemia dissolves the center and the mainstream at the same time. Inevitably into the vulgarized situation, which is the general confusion of modern civilization.
