The Romanis of Drohobych in a Photo Story

Before the 20th century, Drohobych used to be provisionally divided into three equal parts: Ukrainian, Polish, and Jewish. Marian Hemar, a Polish satiricist, devised a ‘formula’ of ‘Drohobych as a City and a Half’: half of it Polish, half of it Jewish, and another half of it Ukrainian. There was, however, another important element herein: the Romani one. 

The Romani community of Drohobych is comprised of at least 200 families. Most of these are concentrated in Mlynky, a city district far away from the city centre. They settled here in the middle of the previous century when the construction of an oil refinery in Drohobych was underway. The construction site was in dire need of workers, especially skilled metalworkers. So there are many smiths among the locals. The history of local Romanis before the 1950s is all but unresearched. There are some early reports in the Gazeta Lwowska newspaper. Before 1952, there was no concentrated Romani settlement here. Those are mostly Romanis from the Lovari and Polska Roma subgroups.

“As far as the local identity map of Drohobych is concerned, the first thing I wanted to delve into is the research into the lives of those who, due to complicated historical, social, and political circumstances, have been left on the margins of their existence. The advent of the twentieth century has brought about the final destruction of the multicultural diversity of nations of the pre-war Galicia. Romanis were the ones who have suffered the most from the regime changes.”, — says the author of the photo story.

Today, the Romani question in Ukraine remains a complicated social issue which is rarely being discussed. In order to improve the situation of the Romani question, we need to learn to be compassionate and coexist. But first and foremost, we need to learn to be emphatic towards each other. 

“For the Romanis, a person with a photo camera coming to their home is someone mythic, someone from outside their world. For me, this is someone who is close but absent at the same time”.