Alban Berg Ensemble Wien - Ralf Yusuf Gawlick: O Lungo Drom, Op. 22 (2024) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

Ever since their appearance in Europe over a thousand years ago, the “Roma” – the ethnonym that the Roma use to describe themselves – have been labeled with derogatory, disparaging, and ethnically insulting words such as “G*psy”, “Zigeuner”, “Zingari”, “Cygan”, etc…, words derived from the Greek “Atzinganoi”, which translates as “untouchable”. These designations reveal a brutal social hierarchy which continues to plague and condemn the Roma to a pariah status in many places world-wide, subjecting them to constant discrimination and persecution - punctuated by infernal periods of enslavement and genocide.