Never-before published words of the renowned Czech writer Bohumil Hrabal about Romani people: A message of understanding and humanity

I’ve read Hrabal’s books and enjoyed going to see the films based on his works. However, this unique material affected me even more deeply. Hrabal speaks about Romani people in it using the term “Gypsy”, which is old-fashioned today, and Pavel apologized to me for that. However, Hrabal’s observations and thoughts are unbelievably deep and humane, despite being written in the language of his time. His words demonstrate that he didn’t just perceive Romani people as his neighbors, but above all as people with a unique culture and spiritual essence.

For instance, Hrabal reminisces about his Romani neighbors from the Libeň quarter of Prague, saying the following: “If you see a beautiful little gypsy girl with those eyes, that’s a child of God, it’s all just about how they are raised. […] When she looks at you, then you see that in the eye of that gypsy child it’s exactly the same as if you were looking at the Madonna della Tenda, the Madonna della Scala and the Sistine Chapel, it’s that little Christ child, too. The child’s eye is gorgeous.“

I was also captivated by how he managed to highlight our Romani artistic sensibility and joie de vivre. “Gypsies just dig up the streets in Prague, but if you go to Slovakia or Hungary, then you see their fondness for music has stayed with them. […] They improvise, they play what they learned from their fathers. A gypsy band refreshes and pleases you.” It is, therefore, no surprise that a Romani band played at Hrabal’s funeral.

However, I was most moved by how Hrabal linked Romani people with a sensitivity to the beauty of the present moment and spiritual values. He believed that it was exactly their lifestyle that holds inspiration for all of us: “Those gypsies always give me the courage for life. […] Even though they basically shouldn’t be happy at all, they manage to raise any moment up to one of celebration.”

From Hrabal’s words it is apparent that Romani people were not just an anonymous “minority” to him, but human beings with whom he shared his own moments and stories. Whether he is reminiscing about funerals and weddings in Libeň, or about the time a neighbor brought him firewood, one can always feel respect and understanding in his storytelling about them: “I am more or less melancholy, and they give me the courage for life. I have to stand up for them, you understand.”

I think this is exactly the reason this speech should be published. It is a message of humanity and understanding that is applicable even today.

Transcription of Bohumil Hrabal’s speech about Romani people

Question: One controversial subject related to you has always been that of the gypsies. Could you say a few words to us on that theme?

Well, when I moved to Libeň, it was flooded with gypsies, and next to my house, as I called it, the street was called Na Hrázi [At the Dam], but we called the house no. 24 Na Hrázi Věčnosti [At the Dam of Eternity], because Egon Bondy and the philosophers all gathered there…. Well, understandably we had gypsies next door, so you have to communicate with them, and ultimately you find that if you see a beautiful little gypsy girl, with those eyes, that’s a child of God, it’s all just about how they are raised, when all the gypsy children came to me and I fed them, when they were watching me it was just like my tomcats, those gypsy children, it’s just that later the child becomes a bit degenerated by the environment, but otherwise, when she looks at you, then you see that in the eye of that gypsy child it’s exactly the same as if you were looking at the Madonna della Tenda, the Madonna della Scala and the Sistine Chapel, it’s that little Christ child, too. The child’s eye is gorgeous. Well, what becomes of them later as they grow up and are involved in society, well, it’s an unfortunate nation that once had a culture, too, they were once driven out of where they were by those who were stronger, and we, too, could have been driven away by those who were stronger, so many times, snatched away like the Jews were. […] Gypsies just dig up the streets in Prague, but if you go to Slovakia or Hungary, then you see their fondness for music has stayed with them.

Well, there’s always a gypsy band that refreshes and pleases, you can see they have it in them. Especially when they improvise, when they play not just according to the sheet music, but what they got from those fathers of theirs. So in Libeň I went to every wedding, because all of those ways, to them, all of those property rights or any kind of property is basically nothing to them. They manage to immediately spend everything they have on just one moment, a wedding or a funeral, they throw hundred-crown notes there, they put them in the coffin, in my opinion it’s a nation that is very unfortunate, but then some gypsy beauty comes along every once in a while, here and there, and one such lived in number 26, that Helenka, her father stacked coal so she was not allowed to do anything, and she was always beautifully dressed and pretended she was going shopping.

We’d stand around drinking those beers there at Svět [The World], and she’d walk by wearing those clinking little things on her, such a little beauty, she’d come there just to give her papa a little kiss. Tears would come to his eyes, she trotted around, and he’d give her a sip of beer, right? He would break down in tears over the beauty of his daughter, he raked at his hair like this, pulled out a bunch and threw it away, as they do. Well, can anything be better than that? There were moments, when I was younger, when one even fell in love with me, she was the most unpretentious of gypsy women. She used to sleep over at my place, right, she brought her little girl with her and the girl slept in the cupboard, in a drawer, we pulled the drawer out of the cupboard and that’s where she slept, she was the most unpretentious of gypsy women and still to this day, the National Committee sends its correspondence to her just through the window, right, and she tells them to go to hell and they tell her to go to hell too, but politely – well, she was extremely nice to me, right, she was like a giantess, right?

You know, I used to be poor, I was constantly borrowing money. It’s only now that I’m rich, and since I loved drinking beer and so forth, I was always borrowing money, I owed so much money, and that gypsy woman, who was with me there at the Dam of Eternity, always brought something just for me from the demolition sites, she brought those beams and planks, I heated my place with a wood-burning stove, and she always stacked the wood. I gave her a little ax, she split the kindling, and then we’d cook some goulash… and she just gazed into the fire. They’re huge devotees of fire. They’re so extremely unpretentious, but people are against them. I have to stand up for them…

Prague looks at least a little bit like a world where you meet nice gypsies. If they’re walking around – and they’re always going somewhere, they always have somewhere to be, understand? Always and forever and they ultimately go to the pub, and they’re just drinking coffee, right, but I consider that free time to be such a celebration. They have a feeling for how to celebrate. Well, for me, you understand, I am more or less melancholy, and those gypsies gave me the courage for life so many times.

Basically, they should never be happy at all. What do they have to be happy about, right? If you think about it, though, a gypsy really knows how to honor you, right, there near the town of Rokycany they’re drawing those paychecks and… they really know how to put on some kind of celebration, I know it takes money away from their families, but we shouldn’t think it through the way Czechs do, be careful, the Czechs have one big disadvantage here. Our politicians have even gotten mixed up with that. A Czech, if he puts on the horsehair robe of the Czech Brethren, loses his sense of humor, and is always asking what the point is of everything, and why everything is, you understand, and he’s constantly sad, you understand, so beware the horsehair robe of the Czech Brethren, right, that’s what that is, and now, when our politicians take that up, well, the catastrophe is complete.

To return to my point: Those gypsies have always given me the courage for life, they still do, and the meaning of it, in other words, how to elevate it to something higher, for one moment, so nicely, so Platonically, drawn out in all its detail… like when he asks “How can an essence come to life?” One single thing, drawn out to the point of its own death. That’s what gypsies know how to do. When you take one single thing to the extreme, as one does in a drama, then the essence will be revealed.

Who among us can do that? We might know about it, but those gypsies live it.

Well, so it’s a kind of sacred relationship toward the gypsies, and I understand them because I lived with them. They’re badly off in this society of ours. As you know, I’m always with the poor people, I stick with them the most, and I have the impression that if Christ were to come back to the world, he probably would prefer to be friends with the gypsies, he would simply prefer to be in Libeň than to be friends with some highly-positioned politicians or ideologues.

Certainly not, he definitely would put the politicians in the category of “Pharisees and Sadducees” and he would prefer to be with the gypsies, because they are able to walk with you and qualitatively transform themselves through just the single word in which that essence would show itself.