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Gypsies and Orientalism in German Literature and Anthropology of the Long Nineteenth Century by Nicholas Saul

2008; Modern Humanities Research Association; Volume: 103; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/mlr.2008.0464

2222-4319

Todd Kontje,

Romani and Gypsy Studies

1154 Reviews thecontext ofAchim vonArnim's poetics, and itprovides a fullbibliography that is a veritable treasure trove forthedebate about ars poetica in the long nineteenth century. JESUSCOLLEGE, OXFORD KATRIN KOHL Gypsies and Orientalism inGerman Literature andAnthropology of the Long Nineteenth Century. By NICHOLAS SAUL. London: Legenda. 2007. ix+ i88 pp. ISBN 978 I-900755-88-7. Together with Jews, political dissidents, the physically and mentally disabled, and homosexuals, theRoma and Sinti peoples were among thosewhom theNazis systema ticallypersecuted, incarcerated, and murdered. Nicholas Saul's excellent monograph traceswhat might be termed the prehistory of genocide, focusing on the represen tation of theGypsy inGerman literature and anthropology from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century.As Edward Said defined the term, 'Orientalism' refers primarily to a series of stereotypes projected byWestern Europeans onto thepeoples of the Middle East, or,more broadly, onto the largercolonized world ofnon-European peoples. Similar stereotypes can also be imposed upon minorities within Europe, such as Jews,Muslims, and 'Gypsies'. Saul iswell aware that the often derogatory term 'Gypsy' is rejected byRomani people, but he distinguishes between those people, who had no written tradition in the nineteenth century, and the literaturewritten about them by non-Gypsy gadjos. 'Gypsy' thus refersnot to the actual nineteenth-century individuals, but to the image of those people in theGerman imagination. The single most influential anthropological treatise about theGypsies for nine teenth-centuryGerman writers was Heinrich Grellmann's Historischer Versuch uiber die Zigeuner (1783). The Gottingen scholar debunked the notion that the Romani people came fromEgypt and located theirorigins more accurately innorth-western India. Unfortunately, he also disseminated a series of cliches that were echoed throughout the nineteenth century, branding theGypsies as a sensual, immature, passive, and non-intellectual race-and he does use the term 'race'. Only a handful ofwriters moved beyond such prejudice, according to Saul. InDie Zigeuner und ihre Musik inUngarn (i 859; German i86 i),which was originally intended as the preface tohis Hungarian Rhapsodies, Franz Liszt empathized with the pain and melancholy expressed inGypsy music, and sought to channel this voice into the larger human community. Clemens Brentano's Gypsies are cosmopolitan heroes triumphing over cultural difference in a Romantic utopia, while Gottfried Keller andWilhelm Raabe display a critical awareness of the harsh reality that confronted Roma and Sinti in theirdaily lives as targetsof persecution in a police state. For themost part, however, Saul catalogues a series of increasingly hostile images in 'thegrand narrative [... .]from institutionalized anti-Gypsyism to the state crime of industrialized genocide' (p. 139). Sad ironies accompany the literature from thebegin ning of thenineteenth century: Caroline vonWolzogen's novella Die Zigeuner (i 802) combines an early plea forwomen's rightswith an unrepentant anti-Gypsyism 'perhaps unexpectedly for any who might presume the immediate solidarity of the marginalized' (p. 28). Achim von Arnim offers a positive image of theGypsy in a work that radiates anti-Semitism. Eduard Morike and Karl Immermann shared some of Brentano's idealism, but their romanticized Gypsies remain tragic outsiders in a rapidlymodernizing society.Others writers are less ambiguous: inTheodor Storm's Immensee the dark-haired Gypsy girl is a femmefatale; Friedrich Hebbel portrays Gypsies as 'naive, kleptomaniac and irrational savages' (p. 63); and 'the only good Gypsy for [Karl] May turnsout tobe either a Prussian at heart or dead' (p. I03). Late in the century, Wilhelm Jensen and Carl Hauptmann (elder brother ofGerhart) link MLR, I03.4, 2008 I155 Gypsies to thepseudo-scientific discourse of racial difference and Social Darwinism, a trend thatonly intensifies in thework of Ferdinand von Saar and Otto Alscher. After an introductory chapter on German cultural anthropology and theGypsy, Saul proceeds in chronological order through nineteenth-century literaryworks. Chapters typicallypair twoor three similarwriters and consist of succinct analyses of individual texts set in the context of largercultural and historical developments. Saul discusses many of themajor writers and best-known works of nineteenth-century German literature,but also unearths long-forgotten authors and texts. Most welcome ishis carefully differentiated understanding of theGypsy inGerman literature:most of thewriters perpetuate popular myths, but not all are negative in the same way, and some actually introduce more positive images of theGypsy or portray them as persecuted victims. Saul thusworks both...