On the last evening of the series of readings titled [‘When the sun goes down to rest, seize the last ray’ at the Austrian National Library, Tera Fabiánová recited some of her poems, including one of her earliest: In ‘Av manca, čhajori’ [Come with me, Romani girl] a man – here the first person protagonist – woos his beloved and promises her everlasting love, esteem and security within his family, which respects the values of romanipen. A traditional understanding of the relationship between the sexes and members of the group as well as images from the realm of nature, which offers true wealth, dominate the love poem.
Tera Fabiánová was the first person in the former Czechoslovakia to write poems in Romani. She was motivated to do so by Milena Hübschmannová, an expert on Romani studies, who recognized Fabiánová’s great talent in her oral ‘fits of metaphors’ (Hübschmannová 2015: 344). According to Hübschmannová, Tera Fabiánová ‘improvised’ her poems orally rather than through the process of writing; she had to be persuaded to write down or dictate her words. This creative process represents the smooth transition from oral to written literature: the poet’s recitations – characterized by her as ‘dream’, ‘genuine experience’ (čačipen) or ‘my sorrow’ (mro pharipe) – become fixed written lyrical texts (cf. Hübschmannová 2015: 344f.). Accordingly, the fixed written version of the poem (first published in 1979 in Romane giľa) differs from the orally presented version.
(Translation: C. Fennesz-Juhasz)
References
Eder-Jordan, Beate. 2016. Oral and Written Šukar Laviben of the Roma. The Beginning of a Romani Literary Historiography. Translation: Maria Witting. In: Daniel F. Chamberlain/J. Edward Chamberlin (eds.): Or Words to That Effect. Orality and the writing of literary history. (A Comparative History of Literatures in European Languages, XXVIII). Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company, 194–205.
Hübschmannová, Milena. 2003. Tera Fabiánová. In: RomBase – Didactically edited information on Roma. http://rombase.uni-graz.at/cgi-bin/art.cgi?src=data/pers/fabianova.en.xml (= https://perma.cc/4WSS-QZVN)
Hübschmannová, Milena. 2006. Moje setkání s romano šukar laviben, in: Romano džaniben, ňilaj 2006: 27–60, here p. 42. [= http://www.dzaniben.cz/download.html?f=de787bf3d588e0d4d37e4de04397e2b2.pdf = https://perma.cc/F353-FWVG]
Hübschmannová, Milena. 2009. Mes rencontres avec le romano šukar laviben, in: études tsiganes 36, Vol. 1: 98–135.
Hübschmannová, Milena. 2015. Meine Begegnungen mit dem Šukar Laviben der Roma. Übersetzung aus dem Englischen von Susanne Costa. In: Erika Thurner/Elisabeth Hussl/Beate Eder-Jordan: Roma und Travellers. Identitäten im Wandel. Mit einem Vorwort von Karl-Markus Gauß. Innsbruck: innsbruck university press: 325–366. DOI: 10.15203/2936-95-0-21 [= https://www.uibk.ac.at/iup/buch_pdfs/roma-und-travellers/10.152032936-95-0-21.pdf = https://perma.cc/93B6-M68Q]
Romane giľa: Genďi romaňa poeziatar = Romské písně: Sborník romské poezie. České překlady Milena Hübschmannová, Vladimír Sloup. 1979. Praha: Obvodní kulturní dům v Praze 8.