The Rights of the Roma writes Romani struggles for citizenship into the history of human rights in socialist and post-socialist Eastern Europe. If Roma have typically appeared in human rights narratives as victims, Celia Donert here draws on extensive original research in Czech and Slovak archives, sociological and ethnographic studies, and oral histories to foreground Romani activists as subjects and actors. Through a vivid social and political history of Roma in Czechoslovakia, she provides a new interpretation of the history of human rights by highlighting the role of Socialist regimes in constructing social citizenship in postwar Eastern Europe. The post-socialist human rights movement did not spring from the dissident movements of the 1970s, but rather emerged in response to the collapse of socialist citizenship after 1989. A timely study as Europe faces a major refugee crisis which raises questions about the historical roots of nationalist and xenophobic attitudes towards non-citizens.

Finalist, 2017 Ernst Fraenkel Prize, The Wiener Library

Winner, 2019 Czechoslovak Studies Association Book Prize

'Donert places the lives of Roma in twentieth-century Czechoslovakia within the larger context of citizenship and human rights. What results is a superbly researched history that resonates far beyond this small country’s borders.'

Paulina Bren - Vassar College, New York

'The Rights of Roma is the best work available on the history of Roma in twentieth-century Europe. Donert’s powerful social and political history of the Romani population simultaneously forces us to rethink our understanding of Socialism, minority rights, and human rights in twentieth century Czechoslovakia.'

Tara Zahra - University of Chicago

'Histories of Roma in Eastern Europe have often focussed on their experience as victims: in this important work, Donert provides a much more complex and intriguing account, not only highlighting their varied idealisation and suppression by a socialist state, but also giving them agency as advocates for their own rights under socialism. This will be invaluable reading for those interested in understanding the historical roots of Roma issues in contemporary post-Communist Europe.'

James Mark - University of Exeter

'… offers a rich analysis of Romani history in Czechoslovakia based on extensive archival research … Donert offers a uniquely detailed reconstruction of Romani life between World War Two and the fall of communism … a careful,multi-perspectival history of Romani life in a communist state over the course of many decades.’

Ari Joskowicz Source: Journal of Contemporary History

'… [a] strength of the book is its efforts to show how Roma activists emerged and shaped the ongoing struggle for Romani rights … Donert’s work contributes much to a greater understanding of their social and economic lives as well as their political activism - something that has been almost completely overlooked in western analyses of the Roma.'

David W. Gerlach Source: Austrian History Yearbook

‘Both books are serious and lucid works of scholarship. Both do an exemplary job of embedding a Czechoslovak case in larger literatures and contexts … Gerlach and Donert put Czechoslovakia on the map of dystopian history.’

Jeremy King Source: The Journal of Modern History