Closed borders

 

Slovakia has closed its border with Ukraine. Why? Didn´t Slovak premier Robert Fico recently meet Putin in Moscow?

Sheridan on Epstein

 

For the record only. Thomas Sheridan´s comments on the Epstein files and Epstein Island. Or some of them...

"Be Seing You": In the Spinal Fluid and Wheatgrass Juice Bar

Of Kings and Cannibals: Aristocratic Human Flesh Consumption

Alpine demons (part 2)

 

Here´s the Slav connection, folks. 

Is there some connection between the Krampus traditions and Slav traditions, perhaps about the Devil?

Yes — there are clear historical and thematic connections between the Alpine Krampus traditions and various Slavic wintertime devil or demon traditions, especially in the areas where Germanic and Slavic cultures have overlapped for centuries (Austria, Slovenia, Croatia, northern Italy, Czech lands, Slovakia, and parts of Poland).

These connections are not identical origins, but rather mutual influence in a shared cultural zone where winter demon lore is very old.

Below is a structured explanation.

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🐐 1. Geographical Overlap: Where the Traditions Meet

Krampus is strongest in:

• Austria (especially Tyrol, Salzburg, Styria)

• Bavaria

• South Tyrol

• Northern Italy (Trentino)

• Slovenia ← important overlap zone

• Northern Croatia

• Carinthia (Austria, with a Slovene minority)

In these areas, Alpine and Slavic folklore have interpenetrated for centuries. Many customs simply flow across linguistic boundaries.

Thus, Krampus shares motifs with Slavic winter demons, devils, chasing figures, and masked processions.

---

😈 2. Slavic Devil Figures Similar to Krampus

Across Slavic folklore, wintertime is full of demonic, horned, or beast-like figures who:

• appear during Advent or Christmas

• punish or frighten children

• accompany saintly figures

• carry chains or rods

• are hairy or beastly

• sometimes abduct the naughty

This makes them functionally analogous to Krampus.

Key examples:

---

🇸🇮 Slovenia: “Parkelj” / “Parkeljni”

This is almost the same figure as Krampus, and scholars view them as two names for variants of the same tradition.

• Horned, shaggy, demonic

• Accompany Saint Nicholas (Miklavž)

• Carry chains, bells, birch rods

• Frighten children

• Appear on 5 December

The word Parkelj is sometimes linked to:

• perk- (Slavic root for devil)

• or the German Perchten

This is the strongest Slavic connection.

---

🇭🇷 Croatia (especially Zagorje and northern Croatia)

Figures similar to Krampus are called:

• Krampus (loan from German)

• Krampuslauf traditions

• Djed Mraz’s devils (in some older areas)

• Krampusi (plural)

Catholics in northern Croatia adopted the Alpine Nicholas + demon pairing directly.

---

🇨🇿 🇸🇰 Czech and Slovak Traditions: Čert (Devil)

In Czech and Slovak folklore:

• Čert (“devil”) accompanies Saint Nicholas during Mikuláš festivities.

• He is blackened, horned, shaggy, with chains.

• He threatens to take naughty children in a sack.

• A benevolent angel accompanies Nicholas too.

This three-figure setup (Nicholas + Angel + Devil) is extremely close to the Krampus–Nicholas pair.

Čert is not identical to Krampus, but the functional role is almost the same.

---

🇵🇱 Poland

In southern Poland:

• Nicholas is accompanied by “diabły” (devils) in Christmas folk processions.

• They wear horned masks, furs, and chains.

• They test children’s behavior.

• They sometimes chase people.

In old Polish folklore, winter devils were part of the Dziady (ancestral) and Kolęda processions, which merged with Christian feast days.

---

🇺🇦 🇷🇺 🇧🇾 East Slavic Masquerades

While not directly linked to Krampus, East Slavic winter rituals include:

• horned goat demons

• devils who chase villagers

• “koza” (the goat spirit)

• masked beast figures

These belong to the same pre-Christian winter-cycle demonology.

---

🔥 3. Shared Indo-European Themes

Many Alpine and Slavic winter demons share:

• the goat symbolism (linked to fertility gods and liminal spirits)

• horns, furs, and wildness

• the winter solstice as a time when the dead or demons roam

• the threat of carrying away the naughty or impure

• ritualized inversion and chaos

These point to a broader Indo-European winter-spirit complex, not a simple borrowing in one direction.

The Christian framework (Saint Nicholas + demon) got mapped onto older winter rites across Europe.

---

📚 4. Did Slavic Devil Lore Influence Krampus?

Yes — in border regions.
Especially in Slovenia, Croatia, Carinthia, and South Tyrol, Krampus evolved in a cultural zone where:

• Slavic devils (čerti, parkeljni)

• Germanic Perchten

• Alpine Wild Men

• Christian Nicholas pageants

all interacted.

However:

• The core Krampus-Shint Nicholas pairing seems to have rooted mainly in German-speaking Alpine areas.

• It then spread into Slavic areas, where it merged with pre-existing devil folklore.

• But Slavic winter devils may have, in turn, reinforced and enriched the Krampus figure.

It’s a two-way osmosis, not a one-way borrowing.

---

🧩 5. So What Is the Relationship?

Short version:

The Krampus tradition is Alpine-Germanic in structure, but it blends seamlessly with Slavic devil traditions in regions where the cultures overlap. Slavic winter devils (čert, parkelj, diabły) play the same role and likely reinforced or shaped Krampus in border regions.

---

⭐ Summary

• Yes, Krampus has connections with Slavic folklore.

• In Slovenia, the Parkelj = practically Krampus.

• Across Czech, Slovak, Croatian, and Polish regions, winter devils accompany Nicholas just like Krampus does.

• These traditions come from pre-Christian winter spirits that Christianity “domesticated” by tying them to Saint Nicholas.

• Germanic and Slavic traditions blended in a shared Alpine cultural space for centuries.

---

The man who would be king

 

Hah hah, as a small kid, my grandfather actually told me about this "national hero". He was king of Madagascar! Allegedly.

Maurice Benyovszky

Yes, there will be a Slovak

 

Based Slovak?

I´m old enough to remember when the Czechs (or at least their much-vaunted intelligtentzia) accused Slovaks of being democratically unreliable rubes who always voted for pro-Russian right-wing populists in general elections. 

Look who just won the Czech general elections...

Yes, it´s a pro-Russian right-wing populist. *And he actually is an ethnic Slovak*. You can´t make this up. Nor is it the first time he wins.

Welcome to the rube club, ye Prominenten und Intelligenten! Not to mention Dissidenten.

Populist party wins Czech parliamentary elections 

Multipolärt inbördeskrig

 

Multipolär världsordning. Allegori. 

Tobias Hübinette försöker hålla redan på turbulensen inom euro-hård-högern. Observera att han fortfarande kallar slovakiska Smer för högerparti, när det egentligen är ett vänsterpopulistiskt dito. Dock intressant i övrigt!

Förvirring och inbördeskrig inom den europeiska radikalhögern

Swedish vampire

 

"Secrets of the Dead: Field of Vampires" is a somewhat macabre documentary about vampire panics in 17th and 18th century Central Europe. It centers on recent archeological excavations of a burial field outside the obscure village of Pien in Poland. Many graves were found to be disturbed in an apparent attempt to hinder the dead from rising again as vampires. 

The film-makers have decided to concentrate on an unknown female nicknamed Zosia, who seems to have died a natural death at the age of 18. She was buried with a padlock attached to her foot, a superstitious attempt to keep her "good soul" from leaving the body. If it would do so, its evil double would take over! For some reason, the grave was opened at a later date and the padlock found to be broken. To stop Zosia from rising again as a vampire, a scythe was placed over her neck, presumably to behead her if she ever tried. The remains buried in some of the other graves were treated even worse. For instance, a dead child had gotten half of its body removed. 

The archeologists speculate that Zosia may have suffered from seizures when alive, which would have marked her out from "normal" people. Somewhat surprisingly, she must have been rich. Analysis of her teeth suggests that she wasn´t a local, and may actually have been Swedish. During the 17th century, Swedish troops invaded Poland and attacked Torun (the largest town in the area where Pien is located). Could *this* explain why Zosia was suspected of being a vampire? A wealthy woman from an enemy nation who behaves strangely. We sense a mixture of envy, hatred and fear.  

However, since at least one third of the graves at the "vampire field" had been disturbed, something else was surely going on. Perhaps some kind of mass hysteria or should we call it vampire panic? The docu mentions a very bizarre case from 18th century Moravia of just such an occurence. In 1755, corpses were dug up and put on trial (!) in the small village of Svobodné Hermanice (Frei Hermersdorf). Found guilty, the corpses were then taken to a nearby forest and burned. Perhaps vampire scares had something to do with life becoming harsher during the Little Ice Age and the increasingly more deadly wars during the Early Modern Period? This was also the high tide of the witch-burnings.

"Secrets of the Dead: Field of Vampires" ends with a Swedish forensic expert reconstructing the face of Zosia, which for some reason becomes very emotional to the Polish archeologists. Personally, I just shook the head at the "human condition" while watching this. For isn´t that what vampires really are? A kind of de-humanized humans. And a very human superstition...             

Austrofili

 

Ett tecken i tiden? 

Att resa i Habsburgarnas fotspår

Cryptid Slovakia

 

The skull of a red-necked wallaby (another one)
Credit: Klaus Rassinger

It´s not a kangoroo, it´s a wallaby! Europe´s only marsupial strikes again...

Slovakia´s unlikely visitor survived the winter, but not the road 

Pan-slavist oil?

 

- Why am I so lonely?
I used to rule the world! 

The real problem isn´t "Czechia" (apparently the new name for the Czech Republic in English). Try India. Or China. 

That being said...it *is* interesting that the Czechs still buy most of their oil from Russia, given the fact that their present administration claims to be pro-Western. 

Reminds me of how Vaclav Klaus pretended to be a Milton Friedman-inspired neo-liberal...only to heavily subsidize the Czech economy and establish friendly ties with guess who...yepp, a somewhat younger version of citizen Putin in the Kremlin. 

The traditional anti-German geopolitics of the Czechs always had a pronounced pro-Russian tilt, and here we go again, it seems...

NATO ally spending five times more on Russian energy than Ukraine aid

Neverending story

 

The charades continue... 

Hungary demands EU action against Ukraine

Hungary facing a fuel crisis

Populistisk gryning?

 

Hur många röster fick nationalister och populister i EU-valen? Från Hübinettes blogg. Vad som inte framgår är förändringar sedan tidigare val, samt valdeltagandet. 

Sedan kan man ju ifrågasätta Hübinettes definitioner i vissa fall. Varför kallar han slovakiska Smer eller tjeckiska CSSD för "höger"? Smer är snarast vänsterpopulister, CSSD är socialdemokrater. Visst, CSSD har anklagats för att vara pro-ryska, men i så fall är det tjeckiska kommunistpartiet rimligtvis också "högerradikala" enligt denna definition! Och om Smer är med på listan, varför är inte slovakiska Hlas det också? Hlas är en klon av Smer. 

Och varför är ungerska Jobbik med på listan? De är höger, visst, men de är mot Orbán. Och så vidare. Om CSSD är med för att de är pro-ryska, borde Jobbik således inte vara med eftersom de är anti-ryska...

That being said...still an interesting contribution.  

Valresultat för de högerpopulistiska och högerradikala partierna  

16 maj 2024 e.Kr.

 

Prioriteringar... 

Slovakisk politik:

Premiärministern kämpar för sitt liv efter skjutningen

Svensk politik:

Regeringen i krismöte p.g.a. "trollkonton"

Unknown pagan cult

 

This may be somewhat obscure news unless you are very well versed in Early Medieval Central European history. Archeologists in the Czech Republic and neighboring nations have found peculiar belt buckles showing a snake devouring a frog-like creature. The meaning of the symbolism is unclear, but could be connected to the cosmogonic myth of some unknown pagan cult. The buckles are dated to the 8th or 9th century AD (this is not clearly spelled out in the article linked below, but I´ve skimmed the original paper) and are "typologically Late Avar". 

The Avars were a nomadic people from the Eurasian steppes (northeast Asia, according to the original paper) who controlled Pannonia (today Hungary) during the Early Middle Ages, but aspects of their culture were also adopted by their vassals and neighbors, both Slavic and Germanic. Some of the belts were found at Lány in Moravia, described in the original paper as a multi-cultural melting pot at the northern periphery of the Avar khaganate. The metal used in the belts has been analysed and found to hail from the Slovak Ore Mountains, also outside the core area of the khaganate.

Well, aint that fantastic. 

The reason why the above caught my eyes is that years ago, I read some Slovak history books with a nationalist or crypto-nationalist tendency, in which the Avars were always depicted as really henious oppressors of the usual rape-and-pillage type, eventually overthrown by the heroic and valiant Slavs, et cetera. Note that the Avars were based in the area that later became Hungary, the traditional enemy of Slovak nationalists. Anachronism, much? 

So I thought it was kind of funny that the Slavs were culturally influenced by the Avars even outside the territory controlled by the khaganate. Even to the point of adopting an unknown pagan cult!   

Medieval belt buckle might be from unknown pagan cult

OK, so I might as well link to the original paper, since I mentioned it three times already:

Copper-alloy belt fittings and elite networking in Early Medieval Central Europe

Peace in our time

 

So according to rumors, cited by Bloomberg, a secret Russian delegation recently visited the US with a "peace proposal" concerning Russia´s war against Ukraine. The deal would be to let Russia keep all the occupied territories. In return, the rest of Ukraine would be allowed to join NATO and (I presume) the EU. 

In other words: Western surrender. 

First, Putin has long advocated the partitioning of Ukraine, once even telling Poland that they can have the Western part. This was when Eastern Ukraine (including the ethnic Ukrainians there) still voted for pro-Russian parties. Western Ukraine, by contrast, has always been more nationalist. So Putin wouldn´t lose *that* much by effectively ceding most of Ukraine to the West.

Second, Putin has Trojan horses in NATO and the EU. Yes, in NATO, that would be Turkey and Hungary. And perhaps Slovakia. In the EU, that would be Hungary. And perhaps Slovakia. They could block Ukraine´s membership in NATO-EU even in the event of a "peace agreement".

Third, the occupied territories have the largest natural resources and access to the Black Sea. They could perhaps be integrated into the Russian economy (which is largely unhurt by the "sanctions"). The rest of Ukraine is an economic basket case and probably can´t be integrated just as easily into the EU. And while it´s possible that both parties have lost an equal number of men in the brutal war, Ukraine has a smaller population and may have lost its best fighters, while Russia has mostly lost dispensable cannon-fodder. 

Fourth, and following from the above, there won´t be any lasting "peace", just a temporary cessation of hostilities, until the Evil Empire decides it´s about time to resume the Drang nach Abendlandes...

"Peace in our time."   

Make Slovakia great again

 

Can anyone please teach the Amerikan barbars at Breitbart News the basic facts of European geography? 

Slovakia is one of the EU´s smallest member-states, and has a population of less than six million people. Indeed, Slovakia is smaller than the territory their Prime Minister wants Ukraine to cede to Russia! 

In fact, I doubt even the Slovaks themselves refer to Robert Fico as a "world leader"...

LOL.  

Another Russian veto

 

Is NATO turning into some kind of sick joke, or what? 

Turkey and their Hungarian vilayet are blocking Sweden´s NATO membership bid, and now Slovakia say they will veto any future attempts by Ukraine to join NATO.

Having three Putinist Trojan Horses in NATO seem to come with consequences...   

Slovak PM says Ukraine isn´t a sovereign nation

Friends again

 

So Robert Fico of the "Social Democractic" Smer party did manage to become Slovakia´s new Prime Minister, heading a coalition government of Smer, Hlas (a similar party) and the right-wing nationalist SNS. 

Fico is often seen as pro-Russian, and has indeed promised to stop all military aid from Slovakia to Ukraine. It will be interesting to see how this will affect the EU´s attempts to sanction Russia (and perhaps Hungary). 

And for how long will Fico´s cabinet last? The Hlas party is led by a former ally of Fico turned rival, Peter Pellegrini...and now ally again? 

I also note that Fico has promised not to take Slovakia out of the EU and NATO, but who knows how much mischief they can cause while still being a member-state. After all, Hungary haven´t left the EU and NATO either!

More questions than answers... 

Slovakia swears in a new cabinet

Robert Fico appointed Prime Minister

Putin win or false alarm?

 

The pro-Russian party Smer (alias Smer-SD and other aliases) won a plurality of votes in the recent Slovak parliamentary elections. Usually, nobody much cares about elections in Slovakia - one of the smallest member-nations of the EU and NATO - but this year, everything is different due to the war in neighboring Ukraine. Slovakia´s pro-Western government have apparently shipped off a substantial amount of arms to Ukraine and also welcomed Ukrainian refugees. They also voted yes to Swedish and Finnish NATO membership.

Smer could change all this. Led by former prime minister Robert Fico, this "Social Democratic" party (really a kind of left-populist nationalists) have promised to discontinue all military aid to Ukraine and might also attempt to stop further EU sanctions against Russia. If so, Slovakia would become a bit like Viktor Orbán´s Hungary.

Or will it? Could it all be a false alarm? With 23% of the vote, Fico´s party needs the support of other political parties to form a coalition government. But one of these possible coalition partners is led by Peter Pellegrini, another former prime minister and a personal rival of Fico´s. Pellegrini, then a high-ranking member of Smer-SD, took over as prime minister when Fico was forced to resign in 2018 after a number of mafia-related scandals (yes, the Italian mob is active in Slovakia). Later, Pellegrini and Fico had a fall out, prompting Pellegrini to form his own political party, Hlas-SD, apparently a kind of Smer-SD copycat. 

However, the personal conflict between the two populists might complicate any coalition negotiations, or threaten the stability of a future Fico-Pellegrini administration. Which brings me to my next remark. In contrast to Hungary, long dominated by Orbán´s Fidesz, Slovakia´s political landscape is notoriously fractious. Unstable coalition governments come and go, old political parties dissolve, new are formed, and so on. Think Italy! Thus, any coalition headed by Fico might turn out to be short lived. There are also cynics who point out that Fico´s rhetoric might not be entirely in line with his actual politics when in power. After all, Fico has been prime minister of Slovakia twice before, and yet, the country is still a EU-NATO member in good standing.

When the chips are really down, the future of Ukraine is decided in Washington DC. Not by a snap election in some obscure Central European backwater...

Coalition jockeying revs up in Slovakia  

Begging the Question

 

Previously posted on January 12, 2019. 

“Varför tigger romer?” (Why do the Roma beg?) is a controversial book by Stanislav Emirov, a priest in the Calvinist Church in Sweden. Roma or Romani people is the “official” designation of the ethnic group (or perhaps cluster of groups) popularly known as Gypsies. Many Gypsies from Romania and Bulgaria regularly travel to Sweden in order to beg in the streets and on the commuter trains. Most are strictly speaking illegal aliens, but the police do nothing since the Swedish establishment doesn´t care. Emirov has interviewed beggars, former beggars, and Roma activists in an attempt to understand the underlying problems. His book contains material from several European nations, although the emphasis is on Sweden.

The book feels disjointed and contradictory, more like a draft than a finished product. It´s peculiar in some ways. Emirov claims that the Calvinist Church has a special “team” aiding beggars in Stockholm, but their aid is never specified. Instead I get the impression that they served as the author´s intelligence operatives, mapping the beggar underworld. Emirov does come across as very critical, even hostile, to Gypsy culture which raises the question why the Roma wanted to talk to him (and his team) at all? Perhaps the author became progressively more skeptical to the Gypsies during his travels around Europe. “Varför tigger romer?” has been loudly denounced as “anti-ziganist” (i.e. anti-Gypsy) in the left-leaning parts of the Swedish media, while conservative daily Svenska Dagbladet has given it positive coverage.

Most controversially, Emirov reaches the conclusion that the Roma beg because they are Roma. Begging is one of the traditional Roma “trades”, and is always an option for any Roma who can´t get enough income from some other source. While begging is of course connected to poverty in most cases, other poor groups don´t beg, which to Emirov indicates that begging among the Roma is a culturally conditioned response to destitution. The fact that some Roma are rich but beg anyway also points to a cultural component. Emirov further argues that the Gypsies actually prefer poverty to assimilation. They obviously don´t *want* to be poor, but their hostility and paranoia towards majority society forces them to separate from it, both physically and mentally. To many Gypsies, any form of integration into, or accommodation with, non-Gypsy society is really assimilation and hence unclean by definition. Today, this separatist strategy has become dysfunctional: traditional Gypsy trades such as entertainment, peddling, horse-trading and certain handicrafts have either disappeared or been taken over by non-Gypsies. This forces separatist Gypsies to take up begging and other kinds of criminal activity.

But what should be done about the problem? Emirov advances several different perspectives on the problem of Roma begging, and these are not easily reconciled. When at his best libertarian-capitalist mood, Emirov proposes that begging is a trade like any other. Indeed, begging can be seen as a rational choice for some people. It can be compared to charities asking (begging!) people for a donation. The beggar simply eliminates the charitable institution as a middle-man, taking money directly from citizens in the street. This is also good for the giver, who thus gets some kind of choice in the matter of whom she should give to. Logically, Emirov should therefore call for the wholesale legalization of begging. However, he rather proposes that begging should be regulated by the state according to a quota system and that all beggars be forced to buy a license. The police will make sure that the regulations are followed by more frequent controls. The explicit purpose is to discourage Gypsies (who hate being regulated and registered) from begging, or entering the country at all. Emirov calls this the “nice way” in contrast to the “hard way”, which entails border controls of a more classical type.

However, in a later section, the author also proposes what he calls “the only right way”. This turns out to be a very peculiar “Austro-Marxist” proposal to give the Romani people status as an extra-territorial or non-territorial member-state of the European Union. All Roma (and presumably similar groups) around Europe should become “citizens” of this extra-territorial state, which would have representatives at different levels of the EU hierarchy. In this way, Emirov believes, the Gypsies will gradually become more positive towards the idea of integration. I consider this proposal to be unrealistic in the extreme, but above all, it´s faulty even on the basis of the author´s own premises. Thus, Emirov believes that Romanians and Bulgarians will remain racist towards the Gypsies for the foreseeable future. But if so, why should Romania and Bulgaria accept a non-territorial Gypsy political entity supported by Brussels on their territories? Further, Emirov claims that the only way to stop Gypsy begging without repression is to give them ample welfare payments. Apparently, 80% of all able-bodied Gypsies in Sweden are unemployed and hence live off the tax-payer. If so, the only way to stop Gypsies from the Balkans to beg, in Sweden or elsewhere, is to give *them* generous welfare payments, too. But what makes Emirov think that European tax-payers will accept such a solution? There are literally millions of Romani in Europe, and the Balkan republics are hardly the only places where you can find anti-ziganism.

The Gypsy cultural autonomy proposed by the author would simply become an enormous drain on the EU resources – or so it will seem to many EU citizens. The final objection is that even such an autonomous organization would probably be seen by the Roma themselves as a form of assimilation (perhaps the subtlest one yet). The initiative to form it, after all, comes from the unclean EU. It´s integrated into the EU´s structures. And Emirov says himself that “integration” is the ultimate goal, and on his own premises, this will be interpreted as racist “assimilation” by those whom it chiefly concern. Emirov´s liberal “pro-ziganist” opponents also have a problem, however. They really are integrationist, and have attacked “Varför tigger romer?” precisely for its “separatist” tendencies. I happen to agree with Emirov that opposition to majority society is strong among many Gypsies, guaranteeing that only small elite groups willing to interact with mainstream society will be attracted to the liberal perspective. I almost suspect that the welfare money is a way of hiding the fact that most Roma are still fundamentally Roma (for good or for worse).

As for Emirov, he closes his book by describing Moldova and Russia. Moldova is the only nation in Europe where the Romani population *does* intermarry to a relatively large degree with the majority, but the author sees this as a situation unlikely to be introduced anywhere else. In Russia, there is a truce or modus vivendi between Gypsies and Russians, the latter having a romantic picture of the former, something the former use to their advantage. Here the book ends, with the somewhat counter-intuitive statement that Putin´s Russia of all places might be the best place for the Romani people.

Despite everything, “Varför tigger romer?” is an interesting work, if seen as the journalistic report of one man. It does give a sneak peek into the world of beggars (including non-Gypsy ones). That being said, some of the author´s interpretations of Romani culture strike me as weird on the face of it (and I´m certainly no expert). Thus, why does Emirov constantly claim that Gypsies “can´t plan ahead”, “live from day to day”, and so on. His own book proves that those who beg *do* organize their work well in advance – as well they might. How else are they able to compete with all the non-Gypsy beggars? The same with those who form Gypsy associations in order to receive grant money from the state, and so on. Since Gypsies don’t like the prying eyes of unclean gadjos, has it never struck Emirov that the fatalistic and indifferent attitude towards life espoused by many of his interviewees is really a trick to make him, the annoying Calvinist busy-body, loose interest and go away? 

I´m also surprised by the author´s claim that most Gypsies lack a religion! If so, they would be the only people (before the modern era) to do so, a sensational claim that surely calls for a more extensive discussion. My guess is that Emirov construes “religion” and “supernatural” very narrowly. I´ve been informed by a Catholic priest from Slovakia that while most Gypsies are indeed indifferent to the central tenets of Catholicism (except baptism), they do believe in curses and look upon the priest with considerable awe, in the belief that “rasha” is a conduit of supernatural power. Why isn´t this a kind of religion, I wonder?

With these, perhaps somewhat disjointed remarks, I close my review of “Varför tigger romer?”.