Weiss, Bronislava

The role of women in gypsy society did not allow deviations from the unwritten canons of behavior, which are very strict for some ethnic groups . Among nomadic Polish gypsies, correspondence with a man was considered “depraved” behavior.

Daddy sent her manuscript to the Polish writer and critic Jerzy Fitzowski , which he, without asking permission, published in the journal Problemy, considering her verses to be talented. The problem was that the poems were accompanied by a text agitating for the prohibition of the gypsy nomad. The publication, firstly, revealed to Gypsies the fact of Papushi’s correspondence with a man, and secondly, they were later perceived by them as the reason for the Law on Settlement (1950), as a result of which Gypsies were forced to change their lifestyle. All this served as the reason for the rejection and subsequent recognition of the desecrated and the expulsion of Papusha from gypsy society. This caused her heartache so severe that she ended up in a psychiatric clinic, where she died in 1987 .

Subsequently, Jerzy Fitzowski wrote a book about Papush.

Thanks to the media and the poetess Lina Kostenko , the myth widespread that Papusha was expelled due to the fact that she wrote poetry, which was supposedly forbidden to a woman in gypsy society.

In 2013, at the Karlovy Vary festival, the film “Papusha” by Johann Kos-Krause and Krzysztof Krause was presented based on the biography of the poetess.

About Papusha it is known that she herself learned to read and write , in adolescence. She was a prisoner of Nazism and a public figure.

At the age of 15, she married harpist Dionysus Weiss ( Polish: Dionizy Wajs ), a gypsy from the same kind as her stepfather .

According to Kenrik and Paxson, 35,000 of the 50,000 Polish gypsies were killed during the war in Poland. Fitsovsky recalls in 1956 that gypsies, fleeing, threw all things except musical instruments. People from the Weiss clan hid in the Volyn forest, in the cold, hungry and terrified. This event is dedicated to the longest poem by Papusha (“Blood tears - that we carried from German soldiers in Volyn (in 1943 and 1944).” As Fitsovsky shows, Papusha began to write regularly in 1950. What she wrote and composed in childhood, relatives were perceived as sometimes inherent in girls eccentricity and a sign of frivolity.

In fact, Fitsovsky collected only about a third of Papusha’s poems, but these are quite unique and strong works of art , in which they note a sense of absolute honesty, purity, and the authenticity of “nomadic life in the lap of nature”.

Since 1962, she was a member of the Union of Polish Writers ^[2] .

• "Gili Romani Papushakre Sharastyr Care", 1956

• Roma genocide
• Gypsy culture
• Gypsy language

• Skadia A. Germane Romano almanac. - M. , 1934.
• Poésie Tsigane - P. , 1974.
• Rom som, Cigány klubjának havi tájékoztatója. Bdpst. 1974-77.
• Pieśni Papuszy. Papušakere gila. / Ficowski, Jerzy (ed.) - Wroclaw, 1956.
• Ficowski, Jerzy The Gypsies in Poland. History and Customs. - Warsz. , 1985.
• Kenrick, Donald S. / Puxon, Grattan The Destiny of Europe's Gypsies. - L. , 1972.
• Bronislava Weiss (Papusha). Poems. New Poland. - 2005. - No. 1.
• Kenrick D., Paxon G. Gypsies under the swastika. - M. , “Text”, the magazine “Friendship of Peoples”, 2001.

• Jerzy Fitzowski Demons of another's fear. / Review
• Biography of Daddy in "Gypsy Culture and Life"
• The main events of gypsy culture in 2013
• Gypsy secret
• Weiss Papush Bronislaw Plots of classical literature on the website of the philately
• National contest for the Roma poetry "Papusha" (Bulgarian)
• Biography of Daddy in the collection of didactic materials on gypsy culture
• Growing a New Skin: The Life and Poetry of Papusza (English)