MIGRATIONS OF ROMA (HISTORICAL DOCUMENTS ABOUT MOVEMENTS AND MIGRATIONS)
Historical sources which talk about the origin and beginning of migrations Roma are rather limited. Until today many different ideas on beginnings of Roma people as well as the reasons of beginning of migrations were going around.
We are listing down several hypothetical examples, based on work of researches, historian, ethnologist, linguist as well as chronicle record and archives.
Documents from Germany published in 1982 talk about genocide on Roma and researches of anatomy of Roma that was done under command of SS boss Heinrich Himmler, based on the published data done by Nazi.These data bring to conclusion, together with other information, that Roma are from Tibet and that their anatomy is the closest to anatomy of the Aryan. When had they left Tibet and moved to the areas of Khorosan (India) is still not know as there are no concrete information.
It is presumed that they lived in the said areas for several centuries, until 5 th century when they left India through the desert of Tar running in front of Hun. They arrived to today’s town of Karachi in Pakistan where they split into two groups.
One group left through Afghanistan for the Turkistan and Turkmen all the way to the Caspian Sea. After Mahmud Gaznij invaded the northern India (1001-1026) this group was joined by rest of Roma from India. But they split again. The smaller group left across Aserbadjan in Georgia and further on to Caucasus and the second bigger group towards Armenia and Turkey.
The second group from the Tar desert started of towards middle Asia. In Syria this branch also split. One group left for Turkey and the second group along the coast of Mediterranean and arrived to Egypt and Gibraltar. It has been established that the biggest Roma group arrived to the area of todays Balkan before Turks, running before Turks from Asia Minor. In these long journeys Roma mixed with other nomadic groups which brought to the present 60 different Roma groups. The most numerous Roma group are Lovari, 13 million of total 15 million of Roma that presently live in the world (report by International Union of Roma, Prague 2000).
The third path of Roma movement followed the Turks and their invasions. These Roma (Horahaja, Arlija, Gopti, Askalije, Blacksmith, Bear baters etc.) of Muslim religion were deemed to be disdained sons of devil as apparently their ancestors forged nails for crucifixion of Jesus on the cross. With Turks coming to Balkans they experienced strengthening of spirit of liberalism and tolerance which the Turks showed towards all, in line with religion and ethnicity which favoured their nomadic existence. They were migrating and inhabiting and still live today in the country which the Turks invaded. They also continued with their journeys together with the conqueror’s army in which they worked as blacksmith or armourers (Samuel Ellazar, Cronical, DUD).
Today, it is interesting to look at the way Roma look after all these historical migrations. Roma who moved along Mediterranean are of dark skin and mostly brown eyes while Roma who moved towards north have fairer skin and green or blue eyes. After meeting after many centuries on the territory of today’s Austro-Hungaria they joined and mixed. It is interesting to look at their features now. Today there are Roma who have dark skin and green or blue eyes and also there are Roma with fair skin and dark colour of eyes.
