The Stojka family

The book traces the history of a Romani family from the territory of today’s Slovakia across the 19th and 20th centuries. Working with a large body of diverse historical sources as well as with a wealth of ethnographic data, Markéta Hajská places the story of the Stojka family in two historical arenas: the history of Czechoslovakia, as an example of a newly-emerging Central European nation-state during a highly turbulent period of complex political changes, and the history of Roms in Central Europe as a heterogeneous ethnic group that has historically formed part of local multi-ethnic societies.

The Stojka family belonged to a particular group of Roms, a minority within the diverse Slovak Romani population, self-identifying today as Lovara or Vlax Roms. The Lovara economies were based on regular trade routes of varying lengths across today’s Czech and Slovak Republics, Austria, Poland and Hungary. At the same time, contrary to the popular misconception of “travelling Gypsies” as non-belonging nomads, and notwithstanding the continuity of policing practices and securitisation of varying intensity directed at the people subsumed under this term by the changing state authorities, the Stojka family was also residentially and socially anchored in a particular local rural community through a network of diverse social relations including house ownership.

In conclusion, the new form of historical narrative proposed by Hajská is not only intellectually valuable but also compelling in its literary appeal. The author does not distance herself from the emotional resonance of her subjects—especially Štefan Stojka, whose tragic figure emerges as he relinquishes his place of settlement after the war and is denied restitution for lost property. Hajská treats her protagonists as emblematic of the Lovara experience in Czech lands and Slovakia. The story of Štefan’s sister Zaga is contrasted with his own narrative—where Štefan illustrates territorial anchoring and the importance of Lovara occupations to local communities, Zaga’s history exemplifies regulations shaping mobility. Their diverging trajectories raise questions about differences between Slovakia and the Czech lands—areas, Hajská contends, that were generally less tolerant toward wandering “Gypsies.” Her narrative thus proposes a form of Roma historiography rooted in individual lives, rather than generalized assumptions about origin or culture.
Emilia Kledzik (PhiN-Beihefte 39/2025, str. 62–70)