The Ursitory E-Book

Matéo Maximoff

• Herausgeber: Editorial Kohelet
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Serie: Collection Mateo Maximoff
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 168

Beschreibung

The first French edition of Les Ursitory was published just after the Second World War. During the war Matéo suffered the horrors of the concentration camps, like many others in his village. This is why many years passed until the publication of this book, written at the end of the 1930s. Matéo was part of the gypsy community, always on the move, at a time where not many knew how to read or write. And he knew this. As a narrator he had a great talent and he dared to write. This first novel was rapidly followed by another two: Le Prix de la liberté and Savina. In November of 1961 Matéo had a spiritual experience which changed his life. This can be found in his later works. Matéo continued to be a communicator of the gypsy culture, and he toured thirty-three countries sharing the testimony of his encounter with God. Other works that will be translated soon: Le Prix de la liberté (1955) Savina (1957) La septième fille (1982) Condamné à survivre (1984) La poupée de Mameliga (1986) Vinguerka (1987) Dites-les avec des pleurs (1990) Ce monde qui n´est pas le mien (1992) Routes sans roulottes (1993)

Leseprobe

THE URSITORY

The Angels of Destiny

Mateo Maximoff

Kohelet

Copyright © 2024 Editorial Kohelet

Kohelet Publishing House Original Title: Les Ursitory, les anges du destinFirst Edition by Kohelet Publishing House: April 2024Copyright ©Matéo Maximoff (1988 troisième édition)Copyright of the translation ©Andrea Marín MartínezISNI 0000 0005 1444 3563Copyright of the revision ©Marina Moore MartínezCopyright of the prologue ©Elizabeth GiuffréAll rights reserved for all English editions:© Kohelet Publishing HouseC/Circunvalación Encina 23, 7 C18015 Granada (Spain)e-mail: [email protected] 0000 0000 7101 8807ISBN: 9788412813937 Any form of reproduction, distribution, public communication or transformation of this work can only be carried out with the authorization of its owners, unless otherwise provided for by law. Please refer to CEDRO (Centro Español de Derechos Reprográficos, www.cedro.org) if you need to photocopy or scan any extracts of this work.

Contents

Title Page

Copyright

PROLOGUE

MATÉO MAXIMOFF, GYPSY WRITER.

PART ONE

A DAY OF CELEBRATION

URSITORY

THE THIRD NIGHT

THE URSITORY DO NOT LIE

TEREINA'S COURAGE

AT BARON TILESCO'S HOME

PART TWO

ARNIKO

ARNIKO’S MEMOIRS

PART THREE

PARNI

AMONG THE MINESTI

THE THIRD REQUEST

SUICIDE

THE EXPEDITION

ARNIKO’S STRENGTH

THE EXPLANATION

TEKLA

THE KRIS

GYPSY DUEL

PART FOUR

ARNIKO’S WEDDING

TEREINA’S SECRET

HELENA

ORKA’S WEAPON

GLOSSARY

Collection Matéo Maximoff

The first French edition of Les Ursitory was published just after the Second World War. During the war Matéo suffered the horrors of the concentration camps, like many others in his village. This is why many years passed until the publication of this book, written at the end of the 1930s.

Matéo was part of the gypsy community, always on the move, at a time where not many knew how to read or write. And he knew this. As a narrator he had a great talent and he dared to write.

This first novel was rapidly followed by another two: Le Prix de la liberté and Savina. In November of 1961 Matéo had a spiritual experience which changed his life. This can be found in his later works. Matéo continued to be a communicator of the gypsy culture, and he toured thirty-three countries sharing the testimony of his encounter with God.

Other works that will be translated soon:

Le Prix de la liberté (1955)

Savina (1957)

La septième fille (1982)

Condamné à survivre (1984)

La poupée de Mameliga (1986)

Vinguerka (1987)

Dites-les avec des pleurs (1990)

Ce monde qui n´est pas le mien (1992)

Routes sans roulottes (1993)

PROLOGUE

Matéo Maximoff was born in 1917. At twenty-one he wrote The Ursitory, his first book. Opening any of his works leads us to encounter a gypsy author, who writes in French, and has a Russian surname. Let him explain this himself:

“When my great—grandfather went to the Civil Registry, he measured 2.10 metres, and weighed 180 kilos. When the employee asked him what name he wanted… he responded: "The biggest one" (Maximoff). And that has been my family’s name ever since.” (Taken from Routes sans roulottes)

Years later his family left Russia, and crossed Europe until they arrived in France, where Matéo would live almost his entire life.

When I think about explaining the novels I have read by Matéo Maximoff, the first thing that comes to mind is the scene where Lucy goes through the wardrobe and discovers a world that, until that moment, she never knew existed. In this book, we encounter the Roms, Matéo Maximoff always named them in capital letters. In romani language, Rom is a man from the Romani community, gypsies from the Balkans and from various other Eastern European countries. Rom is also used as a synonym for husband or spouse. The feminine form is Romni. I wanted to maintain this way of identifying them throughout the whole book, because I think it denotes love and respect for the Rom community. And from this first book we can read between the lines, Matéo Maximoff’s pedagogical intention of explaining from within the stories, customs, and beliefs of the Roms; whilst highlighting the different roles that the women play in the community, to the point of making us wonder who the real angels of destiny are.

This text arises from his life experiences, from his attentive listening to stories stemming from his family’s memories, collecting with a precocious attitude for his age, an extensive collection of oral narratives to put on paper for the first time. And in this way open before us the opportunity to enter his community and meet the Roms.

It took Matéo Maximoff thirty-one days to write this book while he was in jail. It was his young lawyer who encouraged him to narrate the events that had led to his arrest. This hard experience lasted a hundred and ten days, but when the young Matéo left, he had changed: now he was a writer. Possibly the first gypsy writer in French.

This book has been translated into English, Swedish, German, Dutch, Italian and Greek. We have the privilege to translate into the Spanish language, Catalan and Russian. It is our recognition of his legacy, with the intention of making his work known to those of us who were unable to get to know him during his lifetime.

Elizabeth Giuffré

MATÉO MAXIMOFF, GYPSY WRITER.

Matéo was born in 1917 in Barcelona, Spain, where his family, after having travelled through many countries in Eastern and Western Europe, took refuge trying to escape the First World War. A few years later, in 1920, his relatives settled in France, initially as nomads, with no fixed abode, then settled in wooden huts in Pantin, near Paris, in what is still called "the zone". Their father was a Rom kalderash (coppersmith) who had left Russia with his whole family (about 200 people) at the beginning of the 20th century to flee from the Bolsheviks. His mother came from a family of manouches from France. Before that, his ancestors had lived for five centuries as slaves in Moldavia and Wallachia, principalities of present-day Romania.

Matéo never set foot in a school. His father, a coppersmith, spoke French badly and his mother, a circus performer, was illiterate. At the age of five he already spoke several languages, but he did not know how to write because no one had taught him. His father, who could read and write a little, taught him to count (it was important for work) and then taught him to write the letters of the alphabet. That was the extent of his learning. The rest, he acquired on his own. Completely self-taught, he learned from everything he could get his hands on: newspapers, magazines, low-quality novels, and great classic authors. His mother died when he was eight years old and his father died a few years later. At 14, he was the oldest of five children and had to work to feed his brothers and sisters. Initially, he worked as a coppersmith, just like his father.

At the age of seventeen, he was married to an older woman, with whom he had a son, Bourtia. But the marriage ended badly. They separated and Matéo distanced himself from his Roma family. In 1935, after this separation, Matéo left in search of his mother's Manouche family, who travelled by caravan through central France. For two years, he shared a nomadic life with his maternal aunts and uncles and with his cousins. He was, at the same time, a circus worker, a traveling salesman and, best of all, he projected movies on an itinerant basis in various villages. Cinema was his new passion and he discovered, among others, the films of Harold Lloyd, Buster Keaton, and Charlie Chaplin. Later, he would collaborate first as an extra, and then as an assistant to the extras in numerous films.

At this time, when he was 21 years old, a dramatic event led him to write. In Auvergne, near Clermont-Ferrand, two Manouche families violently confronted each other over the honour of a young girl. One of these families was Matéo’s. There were numerous injuries and several deaths. Matéo, like other members of his clan, was arrested and put in prison on charges of collective murder. But Matéo had not killed anyone, he had only tried to protect his own. In prison, Matéo wrote a letter to his lawyer, a young intern named Jacques Isorni, who would later become famous for his defence of Marshal Pétain. The lawyer, surprised by the young gypsy's ease with which he expressed himself in writing, asked him to tell his version of events in detail, in order to be able to support his defence. Matéo did so and in a few pages, he described the events of that tragic night. Isorni, impressed by Matéo's personality, sensed that he had a genuine talent as a storyteller and, possibly, as a writer. He provided him with paper and pencils to write, and encouraged him to take advantage of his incarceration to write.

This was a very difficult period for the Gypsies. Few people know it, but the Gypsies were persecuted just like the Jews, as undesirables and people of an inferior race, and more than five hundred thousand perished in the Nazi camps. Fortunately, Matéo and his family escaped deportation to the death camps. They spent most of the war under house arrest in the internment camps of Gurs and Lannemezan in the Pyrenees, in terrible conditions that left him with physical and psychological scars. He would often recall in his writings his suffering and that of his people during this period. During his confinement in the camps, he wrote numerous stories, drafts of novels and poems, based on what was narrated by his great-uncle Savka. Most of these writings have unfortunately been destroyed, or simply lost.

When the war ended, he and his family, as well as hundreds of other Roms and refugees of all kinds, Spanish, Italian and others, settled in barracks, tents and caravans in the Paris belt, which is still called "the zone".

Matéo's first novel, Les Ursitory, was published in 1946 by Flammarion, thanks to the perseverance of Isorni who had befriended the young man. The novel was an immediate success upon its publication. This young gypsy who wrote in such a particular style, sharp and lively, intriguind and seductive. It did not take long for him to acquire a certain notoriety in the literary media. Newspapers, radio, and television in the 1950's dedicated articles and broadcasts to him. For a long period of time, he only wrote for newspapers and magazines. In the 1950s, he returned to writing and published two new novels with Flammarion: Le prix de la liberté and Savina. He gave interviews and lectures on gypsies and participated in the creation of associations such as Les Etudes tziganes. The world of cinema frequently called him for films featuring gypsies: Singoalla (1949), La caraque blonde (1953), Elena et les hommes (1956), Goubbiah mon amour (1956), Cartouche (1962), Les amants de Teruel (1962), Kriss romani (1963). At this time, many producers approached him to stage Les Ursitory but no project went ahead.

In 1952, Matéo married Jacqueline, a young Swiss woman with whom he began an epistolary relationship, and who fell in love with him by reading his books and letters. She had a daughter from a first marriage named Carmen. They settled together in Montreuil-sous-Bois where Matéo's Rom family lived. Jacqueline was renamed by the family as Tita, and her daughter Carmen as Savina. Sometime later, in 1953, this marriage gave birth to a girl they named Nouka.

The beginning of the 1960s marked a decisive turning point in his life.

For some time, he had been hearing about a new religious movement that reached many gypsies: the evangelical movement. Touched by grace he converted, and his faith was so strong that in a few months he became pastor and missionary of the Mission Evangelique Tsigane in France. He consecrated his life to God and travelled the world in search of his Rom brothers and sisters, to bring them the Gospel.

His new role led him to translate the Bible into the Kaderash dialect of the Romani language, but only the New Testament and the Psalms were published.

However, his religious commitment did not put an end to his literary activity, quite the contrary. He wrote the novels: La septième fille, Condamné à survivre, La poupée de Maméliga (fantasy novels), Vinguerka, Dîtes-le avec des pleurs, Ce monde qui n'est pas le mien and Routes sans roulottes, which is an autobiography.

All his books were published in French and translated into a dozen languages. In 1986, his literary work was crowned by the award of the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres medal. In 1983, he himself founded the Prix Romanès to promote gypsy culture.

Matéo Maximoff was not only a well-known writer but also a storyteller, poet, filmmaker, photographer, reporter, militant for the cause of the Roms, and also a pastor. His exciting life was the subject of a biography written by his friend Gérard Gartner: Matéo Maximoff, carnets de route, as well as numerous articles in the journal Etudes tziganes which in 2017 dedicated a special issue of 160 pages to him. His name is cited in almost all the books that appear or have appeared concerning the Gypsies. Since 2014 a media library in Paris bears his name.

Matéo's first objective in writing all his books was, above all, to make the Gypsy culture known to the Gadjés (non-gypsies) all over the world. He had also made it his mission to preserve this essentially oral culture, leaving a written and lasting trace that would allow future generations to get to know it. He later translated some of his books into Romani, but they have never been published, basically because of technical problems with the transcription of a language that never had a script. Matéo's novels and short stories are of ethnographic interest to scientists and researchers because they are set in Romania during the time of slavery (Le prix de la liberté), in the Russia of the Tsars after then the Bolshevik revolution (Vinguerka, Ce monde qui n'est pas le mien), in a Europe shaken by the Second World War (Condamné à survivre), in internment camps (La septième fille). The two autobiographical novels: Dites-le avec des pleurs and Routes sans roulottes are closer to the contemporary world. All his novels give a particular focus on these periods of European history and on the history of the Gypsies in Europe. On the other hand, all the stories that take place among the Gypsies provide a lot of information about the customs, traditions, and ancestral beliefs of this People.

Matéo Maximoff died on November 24, 1999 in Romainville. He remains today the first and most famous Gypsy writer of the 20th century. His out-of-the-ordinary personality, his prolific work and his commitment to the Roms make him an indispensable author of Gypsy literature in the world.

Nouka Maximoff

PART ONE

Tereina

A DAY OF CELEBRATION

The story you’re about to read is the most extraordinary story the Roms have ever known.

It was Christmas eve. In the forest glade the Roms met again according to their custom, to celebrate the festivities.

They had brought wines and other drinks, pigs, poultry and flour, which would allow them to live in a dignified manner until the new year. In the evening, more than fifty wagons camped near the forest.

Many groups of gypsies had gathered, fierce enemies who were to forget their grudges during this week of festivities.

But regrettably, grudges grow in secret in the hearts of wolves and once the festivities ended, they would awake in a terrible manner.

In the night we call the night of Juno, because they have consecrated, without knowing why, Jupiter’s wife, the Roms gather in the biggest tsera (tent) to decide on the order of the ceremony.

Once they have agreed, the Roms go in procession, from tsera to tsera, until one by one, they visit them all. At every stop the romnia (women) served liquor, while the borya, that is to say the young women, sang and danced.

But when there were fifty tents, and in all of them it was necessary to drink such strong liquor, the men were not able to make it to the end. Many stopped, exhausted by fatigue and inebriation.

Meanwhile, the children, practically naked and barefoot, despite the cold and the frozen ground, hid as best as they could, trying to indulge in a few bottles of alcohol.

In the morning with the sun already high in the sky, about twenty men were left standing and drinking Gin in the last tsera.

The last tsera? No, and the Roms knew that. There was one more tent where nobody had entered, where nobody would enter.

It was the closest one to the forest. There were no men living there, only two women, an old one and a young one.

The sick young woman lied on her feather duvet.

Yes, no one, neither the young people nor a shavoro, that is, a child, had come to wish old Dunicha happy festivities, nor to inquire about Tereina’s health.

Tereina was beautiful, and not yet twenty. She had lived happily, until six months after her wedding when her husband Frinkelo suddenly died.

The Minesti, Frinkelo’s parents, immediately expelled Tereina, because they said their son had died on account of Old Dunicha. Like all the Roms, they knew that Dunicha was a drabarni(a witch) and, if he had been wise, he would never have married the daughter of a witch.

If in their desire for revenge they had not killed Tereina, it was only because they were afraid of her mother.

That is why, on the day of the feast, no one had the intention, nor was it necessary to have the intention, nor the audacity to go to the tent of the two outcasts.

Tereina was about to be a mother, and outside the tent, the festivities continued on the cold Christmas day.

Those who drank, sang and danced were the Minesti. They had forgotten that Frinkelo had died only three months ago. Tereina had not forgotten. Until her very last day she would preserve the memory. The echoes of singing and dancing reached her, but the singing, because of the gin was transformed into outcries. Fights broke out and men were injured.

In the night with the great snow the silence returned. By the frozen trees a new-born child let out his first cry.

URSITORY

Tereina asked her mother:

— Is it a boy?

— Yes, my child, and a beautiful baby boy!

— Dalé, mother, I so long that he would live and grow!

— He will live and grow —Dunicha said.

Tereina began to cry.

— I don’t want him to suffer evil like his father.

— Don’t be foolish. May Frinkelo rest in peace! He was ill before you married.

— I know that, Mother. But others don’t believe it.

— Tereina, tomorrow after you’ve rested, I need to talk to you.

Tereina leaned over her son.

— He’s beautiful! —she said.

Dunicha smiled. How can she find a new-born child beautiful?

The witch was right. In the morning Tereina felt much better. She wanted to get up and look after her son, when for the first time since the festivities, a woman, Malilini, Frinkelo’s sister-in-law, showed up at Dunicha’s tent.

Tereina greeted her with a fierce stare.

— What do you want?

— I come to wish you happy holidays.

— It’s about time!

— No, Tereina, it’s not too late. It is true that Christmas is over. But there is still New Year.

— Well —said Tereina— I acknowledge that you have always been the kindest to me. Malilini blushed with pleasure and asked:

— Could I see the baby?

With a glance, Tereina consulted her mother, who was silently smoking a pipe. Dunicha signalled that she may allow Malilini to approach.

— Oh! How beautiful! He’s more beautiful than Féro’s! — she exclaimed.

— What? Saviya and Féro also have a child? —said Tereina surprised.

— Yes, since eight days ago, did you not know?

— No, honestly.

— And we named him Prasniko: party.