Kalendarzo cover design by Krzysztof Gil
„Roma culture is one of the Polish traditional cultures most at risk of disappearing. The Roma culture varies in different corners of Poland, because of the fact that groups with a different history, with a different route of wandering before settlement, live there. Its common feature, on the other hand, is that it’s passed down orally from generation to generation. Oral transmission is forgotten or transformed in the next generation, so it is important to save it, to document both tradition and modernity.”
Perła Krystyna Markowska, Center for Advice and Information for Roma in Poland.
„Romano kalendarzo” is a record of Roma culture and provides education about this traditional culture in a modern and accessible way – through an online calendar based on the most popular calendar in the world, the Gregorian calendar. In practice, the calendar is the first ever calendar for Polish Roma: a record of important dates. At the same time, it describes and explains issues related to Roma traditions of interest to both Roma and non-Roma.
The Calendar, which is in the process of being created, includes all Christian holidays and anniversaries of events, mostly tragic, related to the Holocaust. There are also joyful holidays, such as International Roma Language Day and International Roma Day.
The goal of „Kalendarzo Romano” is to collect and document information about important events and holidays celebrated by Polish Roma, also in a worldwide context, documenting them and describing them in a way that is clear to the average audience, Roma and non-Roma. A one-of-a-kind document will be created, an artefact and source of reliable information about the Roma and their contemporary culture and heritage, told by the Roma themselves.
Written and edited by Roma, it will be published already in the fall of 2023 in a beautiful layout, with illustrations by one of the most interesting artists of the younger generation, Krzysztof Gil. It will be a unique documentation of Roma tradition, so far unrecorded. Thanks to its digital form, the calendar will be able to accommodate an almost infinite number of links and be developed from year to year.
The editor-in-chief of „Romano kalendarzo” was until 2023 Agnieszka Caban, a cultural studies scholar, a doctoral student at the University of Warsaw’s Doctoral School of Cultural and Religious Studies, a researcher of the culture of national and ethnic minorities, a specialist in multiculturalism, a long-time activist for the Roma community. Lecturer and trainer in the field of national and ethnic minorities, especially history, Roma culture, intercultural communication, anti-discrimination, Self-Advocacy and others. Winner of the Helena Radlinska award for social animators (special award in 2014). Author of numerous articles, reports, editor of books and magazines. Vice president of the Radom Roma Association „Romano Waśt” (2009 – 2020).
Head of the branch of the Museum of Dialogue of Cultures at the National Museum in Kielce (2017 – 2019). Currently associated with the “Dom Kultury” Foundation (member of the Program Council) and head of Bluebell Lab. Education and Development.
The project was co-financed by funds from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage’s Cultural Promotion Fund.
