Czech Radio archive has Romani-language recording from the 1968 invasion
News server iHNED.cz reports that for years a Romani-language recording from 25 August 1968 has gone unnoticed in the Czech Radio archive. The Czechoslovak Radio broadcasts during and after the 1968 invasion are considered historic.
Announcers and technicians broadcast the news from various hiding places around the country. The calls for action, news items and resolutions were not just broadcast in Czech, however.
Editors knew foreign journalists and members of various linguistic minorities were also listening to the radio. The protest against the occupation was also broadcast in English and Russian.
A message was also recorded and broadcast in the Romani language, read by the renowned linguist Milena Hübschmannová. "Dear friends, in our country, in our republic, more than a quarter of a million of our fellow citizens are Gypsies. At this moment there is a need for every citizen of our occupied republic to have a good understanding of the situation. That is why we will now reach out to our fellow citizens of Gypsy nationality in their mother tongue," the recording begins in Czech.
The broadcast then continues as follows in the Romani language:
"Phralale Romale amen sam tri šel e zera so dživas andre amaro štatos, andre Československo socialisticko republika. Amen Roma varekena phenas Rom romeha Gádžo gádžeha, bo hin ajse Gádže so naden le romenge paťiv, ale the maškar amende hin ajse manuša so mate maren peskere romenge ladž, nane oda čačipen? Ale akana hin ajsi situacia, že amen našti phenas Rom romeha, Gádžo gádžeha…."
"Romani brothers, there are 300 000 of us living in this state of ours, the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. We Roma sometimes say ‘Roma with Roma, gadje with gadje‘, because there are some gadje who do not consider us their equals. However, there are also people among us Roma who bring shame upon us, isn’t that so? The situation right now is such that we cannot just say ‘Roma with Roma, gadje with gadje…’".
AUDIO
The recording unfortunately ends there. The message was not preserved in its entirety – due to the improvised conditions, the broadcasting switched to another radio station at that point.
The recording has now been digitalized for the first time; until this year it had been preserved solely on analog tape. The unique recording is also unobtrusively mentioned in the typed transcripts of the August broadcasts.
The transcripts were made by the State Security forces, who used them to identify "guilty" editors who disagreed with the occupation. The transcriber briefly notes at the point where the announcement switches to the Romani language, "She’s speaking gypsy, I can’t understand it."
