Tears of Blood: Making Papusza's Witness Account Available to the Global Public

Description

Papusza’s oeuvre is known worldwide in Jerzy Ficowski’s Polish translations. Until recently
the poet’s work in Romani-language originals was not accessible, let alone published. The
Polish translations were customized not to fall foul of communist censorship and in order
to meet the mid-20th-century sensibilities regarding what ‘proper poetry’ should look like.
In this process the voice of Papusza the Roma Homer was almost lost and quite seriously
distorted. Unfortunately, these Polish-language adaptations continue to serve as the basis
for translations into other languages.
The epic poem Tears of Blood has been hardly noticed in scholarship, yet it is the
most important early witness account of the Roma Holocaust (Kali Traš). In 2018, with the
support of Elena Marushiakova and Veselin Popov, Tomasz Kamusella initiated a project of
translating the poem from the Romani original into English, Scots and Gaelic. The Scots
poet Hamish MacDonald joined the team. Three years later, Emilia Kledzik located the
poem’s manuscript in a Polish regional library in Gorzów Wielkopolski and shared it with
Elena. At this stage, Volha Bartash joined as the leading editor, while Viktor Shapoval as the
project’s paleographist and Romani translator. While a group of authors contributed
chapters on the historical and cultural context of Tears of Blood and Papusza, Viktor
painstakingly transcribed the Romani original phonemically recorded in the interwar Polish
school hand. On comparison with the available Polish version, it was discovered that
Ficowski excised almost three-quarters of the text.
Viktor translated the poem into Russian. Elena checked the translation against the
Romani original. Drawing on the Russian translation, Tomasz developed a literal English
translation, which Elena again compared with the original. Finally, Hamish used this version
for developing an English poetic translation. At this time, with no standard Romani
universally accepted, translation of Romani language writings into even main European
languages requires teamwork. But this achievement shows that translating Papusza’s
writings from the Romani into English is possible and sheds much needed light on her work
and its context. The resultant open access volume is a groundbreaking contribution to
world literature and historiography. It makes this masterpiece of Romani literature freely
available to scholars and readers at large.

Period	26 Sept 2025
Event title	Annual Meeting of the Gypsy Lore Society 24-27 September 2025 Campus Condorcet at Aubervilliers, Paris, France
Event type	Conference
Location	Aubervilliers, Paris, FranceShow on map
Degree of Recognition	International