The Rromany Ethnic Identity Reflected in the Rromano Folklore

The article introduces the way in which the theme related, directly or indirectly, to the Rromany ethnic identity is addressed in Rromano folklore, a main manifestation of the Rromany collective memory, approaching, as case studies, some myths and proverbs or old sayings. In the analyzed pieces of Rromano folklore, the Rromany ethnic identity is viewed from a few angles, either from the ancestral customary layer of the traditional Rroma community, or from the confrontation with racism and with the consequences of a tragic history, to which the Rroma survived through the force of remaining Rroma at any risk or through the effort to try, obsessively, to live like everyone else, to integrate through assimilation, even if an unconscious one.