Today is a day to remember. We celebrate the International Day of the Gypsy People and on this anniversary I remember the former President of the Government, Mr. Adolfo Suárez González, under whose mandate the first pro-Gypsy legislation in the entire history of Spain was enacted. And I do not forget it thanks to the National Association of Gypsy Presence, which on January 7, 1976 proposed a State Emergency Plan for the Roma Community, which was intended to inaugurate the dawn of dignity, rights and fundamental freedoms for Spanish Roma citizens.
But having rescued that memory from memory, on such a singular date I feel obliged to emphasize that of the many uncertainties that we who study the world continue to face, Flamencology, as a means, obviously, of contributing enthusiastically to the prestige of Art Flamenco, we emphasize determining its origin is becoming less and less uncertain, specify the aliquot part of those who made it possible and represent it fairly, and without abject interests, the evolution of the variants –Roma and non-Roma– that make it up.
Rejecting on principle the term payo, because it belongs to the language of Germanías and not to Caló, and refusing the derogatory gachóIt is known that the Andalusian Gypsy world participates in the development by which some forms of Andalusian folklore crystallize in flamenco, a transformation process that, as the Austrian researcher pointed out Gerhard Steingress in its communication submitted to the I International Conference of Flamenco (Jerez, 1988), It was only possible thanks to the decisive intervention of the Andalusian Gypsy element.
It is so true that years before the cante he will be called Cante Flamenco, English George Borrow applied the term in 1841 flamenco gypsies in his book The Zincali, published in London. Also the Baron Charles Dembowski published in London Two years of Spain and Portugal, during the civil war (1838-1840), where he uses the term flamenco as a synonym for gypsies at a party who sing and dance.
Shortly after, in 1846, Richard Ford alludes to the gypsies or Egyptians of Triana, whose women are the best dancers. Julian Zugasti, for its part, attributes in its first volume of Banditry (Madrid, 1876) the term flamenco to gypsy music, and at the aforementioned International Conference in Jerez, Eugenio Cobo stated, in his presentation El Flamenco in the theater, which towards the middle of the 19th century Gypsies who appear in folklore representations are often called flamencos.
Also Blas Infante, father of the Andalusian homeland, transfers the epithet flamenco gypsies, although he later corrected himself and derived it, from an etymological point of view, from the Arabic word fellah-mengu. What if Demophilus He wrote that, in the middle of the 19th century, the word flamenco was synonymous with Gypsy from Lower Andalusia, the ursaonese Rodriguez Marin already distinguished in his book The Andalusian soul (Madrid, 1929) two types of towns in musical Andalusia, the purely Andalusian and the gypsy or flamenco.
Continuing along that line of exploration, sing to the flamenco It was synonymous, therefore, with sing like a gypsy, as evidenced by a document that, for reasons unknown to me, is often overlooked. I am referring to the information it provides Walter F. Starkie (Dublin, 1894-Madrid, 1976) in Don Gitano, a book published in 1944 that, when addressing the meanings of the word flamenco, points out: "Whatever the origin of the word, it is used today in Spain in a general sense. Flamenco is the name given to music performed in the gypsy style. The word – continues Starkie – began to be fashionable in Spain at the time of the first performance of Carmen in 1875, when the Gypsy style became all the rage. Any piece of music more or less resembling the Cante Jondo or that which has a tinge of gypsyism is called 'flamenco'And generally the word is applied, in conversation, to everything that refers to something bright, lively and picaresque.'
"I, a Cantabrian Spaniard, Basque through and through, wish to declare here that I recognize all the influence—subliterary, folkloric, intimate—that the Gypsy has had on Spain. In superstitions, in beliefs, in the arts, in music—dancing and bullfighting above all—and even in literature." (Miguel de Unamuno)
Assertions such as those mentioned are so obvious that even the very Mr. Antonio Chacon, in the interview I did with him Luis Bagaria occasion of Contest Cante Jondo from Granada (La Voz. Madrid. June 28, 1922), he tells the journalist – who tells him that I wanted to talk to him about cante jondo– with which follows: “Stop right there,” he interrupted me with some severity. “You must call cante gypsy, nothing of cante jondo».
And to offer another touch on such a significant day, let's rescue the press release published in the Seville newspaper Andalusia, where he announces for September 29, 1860, Saint Michael's Day, the celebration of the saint of Mr. Miguel Barrera, owner of the Salon de Oriente, with a dance party, which will be attended by the main singers, the most famous flamenco guillabaoras and the most notable boleras of the country…The word is therefore associated flamenco at gypsy singers.
We could continue diving into the newspaper archives of the second half of the 19th century or even make a foray into gypsy romance, as we explained in The Traditional Gypsy Ballads in Antonio Mairena, a presentation that we defended in 1987 at the XV National Congress of Flamenco, where the romance (or its fragments) preserved in the gypsy population of Lower Andalusia flutters through the dark roots of the genre, leaving in its wake unquestionable traces –petenera, polo, bulerías, alboreá, romera, soleares, seguiriyas, tientos, tangos or tonás–, which confirm the aforementioned postulate.
Let these data serve, therefore, to commemorate the 600 years of the arrival of the Gypsies to Spain and show them our consideration and gratitude for the essential role that, in full coexistence with the non-Gypsies, they played in the decisive characterization of the FlamencoBoth were heroes of the same feat. And that's why we celebrate today.
The solution, however, to such absurd controversies, comes to us from the hand of Federico Garcia Lorca, who, in a conference given in Granada on the occasion of the preparation of the Competition of Cante Jondo from 1922, and although he shows himself in his works as a great friend of the gypsies, he says: "This does not mean, naturally, that this song is purely theirs (the gypsies'), because although there are gypsies throughout Europe and even in other regions of the Iberian Peninsula, these melodic forms are cultivated only by those from the south. It is a purely Andalusian song, which existed in embryo before the gypsies arrived."
If people, above race, beliefs and ideas, can also understand each other through the heart, what is appropriate on this 600th anniversary is, then, to settle with understanding the debt that we all have with the Roma people, a debt that reflected Don Miguel de Unamuno in a letter addressed to the writer, journalist and Lusophile Ignacio de L. Rivera-Rovira, when sending him a prologue for a book by the Romanian Mihai Tican.
Unamuno wrote: "Gypsies have not been given the full importance they deserve in the formation of the Spanish character. On the other hand, perhaps the importance of Jews has been exaggerated. And yet, there is a much greater proportion of Gypsy blood and even Gypsy spirit in the Spanish than is believed. Of which we have no reason to be ashamed (...). I," Don Miguel continues, "a Cantabrian Spaniard, Basque through and through, want to declare here that I recognize all the influence—subliterary, folkloric, intimate—that the Gypsy has had on Spain. In superstitions, in beliefs, in the arts, in music—dancing and bullfighting above all—and even in literature."
And whoever disagrees, during Lent, should at least respect the Bible's commandment: CAMELARAS TIRÓ SUMPARAL SATA TUGUE MATEJO (You love your neighbor as yourself).
