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Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Post-Socialism
Alaina Lemon
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Description for Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Post-Socialism
Paperback. Since Tsarist times, Roma in Russia (known to others as Gypsies) have been portrayed as rebels, isolated from society and excluded from mainstream history. This book examines how Roma themselves have negotiated such dualities, in both everyday interactions and in stage performances. Num Pages: 320 pages, 18 b&w photographs, 1 table, 1 map. BIC Classification: 1DVUA; 3JH; 3JJ; AN; HBTB; JFC; JFSL; JHMC. Category: (P) Professional & Vocational. Dimension: 227 x 154 x 23. Weight in Grams: 499.
Since tsarist times, Roma in Russia have been portrayed as both rebellious outlaws and free-spirited songbirds—in each case, as if isolated from society. In Soviet times, Russians continued to harbor these two, only seemingly opposed, views of “Gypsies,” exalting their songs on stage but scorning them on the streets as liars and cheats. Alaina Lemon’s Between Two Fires examines how Roma themselves have negotiated these dual images in everyday interactions and in stage performances.
Lemon’s ethnographic study is based on extensive fieldwork in 1990s Russia and focuses on Moscow Romani Theater actors as well as Romani traders and metalworkers. Drawing ... Read morefrom interviews with Roma and Russians, observations of performances, and conversations, as well as archives, literary texts, and media, Lemon analyzes the role of theatricality and theatrical tropes in Romani life and the everyday linguistics of social relations and of memory. Historically, the way Romani stage performance has been culturally framed and positioned in Russia has served to typecast Gypsies as “natural” performers, she explains. Thus, while theatrical and musical performance may at times empower Roma, more often it has reinforced and rationalized racial and social stereotypes, excluding them from many Soviet and Russian economic and political arenas. Performance, therefore, defines what it means to be Romani in Russia differently than it does elsewhere, Lemon shows. Considering formal details of language as well as broader cultural and social structures, she also discusses how racial categories relate to post-Soviet economic changes, how gender categories and Euro-Soviet notions of civility are connected, and how ontological distinctions between “stage art” and “real life” contribute to the making of social types. This complex study thus serves as a corrective to romantic views of Roma as detached from political forces. Show Less
Product Details
Publisher
Duke University Press United States
Place of Publication
North Carolina, United States
Shipping Time
Usually ships in 7 to 11 working days
About Alaina Lemon
Alaina Lemon is Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Reviews for Between Two Fires: Gypsy Performance and Romani Memory from Pushkin to Post-Socialism
“The highlight of Lemon’s book is her discussion of the archival record of a Lovari Rom’s trial and the interpretation of it by his descendants, to whom she read the material. . . . [S]he is imaginative and insightful in her analysis of Pushkin. . . . [A] valuable contribution. . . .” - Judith Okely, Times Literary Supplement “Lemon ... Read morehas produced an innovative and path-breaking analysis of some of the representational challenges facing Muscovite Roma. . . . It is not possible in a short review to do justice to the range of interests and concerns Lemon covers.” - Michael Stewart, Slavic Review "[A]n insightful, engaging monograph on the Russian Romani experience. . . . [I]nformative, illuminating, and a major contribution to the study of Romani culture. . . . Lemon presents a sensitive, informed portrait of the Romani Theatre and Romani communities in today’s Russia. Between Two Fires is a powerful, exquisitely researched monograph that contributed significantly to the study of Romani society, Russia, performance, ethnicity, and culture." - Margaret H. Beissinger, Slavic and East European Journal "This is a ground-breaking work that engages with race and performance in the post-Soviet space. . . . Lemon's theoretical sophistication and political awareness, besides the obvious focus on performance, make this work appealing to performance/theatre studies readers." - Ioana Szeman, Theatre Research International “Between Two Fires addresses an important series of topics for anthropology in general and for the study of the Soviet Union and for postsocialist Russia in particular. Lemon weds current theoretical concerns to an understudied but significant community.”—Martha Lampland, author of The Object of Labor: Commodification in Socialist Hungary “This is an extraordinarily insightful account of the performance of being ‘Gypsy’ in Russia. Theoretically sophisticated, it illuminates Russian as well as Romani culture, and delves into issues of naming, mobility, transgression, and authenticity. This book is a must for anyone interested in advances in anthropology as well as contemporary Russian culture.”—Caroline Humphrey, coauthor of The End of Nomadism? Society, State, and the Environment in Inner Asia “Lemon has produced an innovative and path-breaking analysis of some of the representational challenges facing Muscovite Roma. . . . It is not possible in a short review to do justice to the range of interests and concerns Lemon covers.”
Michael Stewart
Slavic Review
“The highlight of Lemon’s book is her discussion of the archival record of a Lovari Rom’s trial and the interpretation of it by his descendants, to whom she read the material. . . . [S]he is imaginative and insightful in her analysis of Pushkin. . . . [A] valuable contribution. . . .”
Judith Okely
TLS
"[A]n insightful, engaging monograph on the Russian Romani experience. . . . [I]nformative, illuminating, and a major contribution to the study of Romani culture. . . . Lemon presents a sensitive, informed portrait of the Romani Theatre and Romani communities in today’s Russia. Between Two Fires is a powerful, exquisitely researched monograph that contributed significantly to the study of Romani society, Russia, performance, ethnicity, and culture."
Margaret H. Beissinger
Slavic and East European Journal
"This is a ground-breaking work that engages with race and performance in the post-Soviet space. . . . Lemon's theoretical sophistication and political awareness, besides the obvious focus on performance, make this work appealing to performance/theatre studies readers."
Ioana Szeman
Theatre Research International
Show Less