Pal o projektos

The Giľora Project: Archive of Living Roma Songs in Czechia – ("giľora" means "songs" in Romani) was initiated during the spring of 2020 and its aim is to record Romani songs in the Czech Republic. The project of the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic was initiated by the project coordinator Ondřej Skovajsa, Ph.D., and its solution and supervision was undertaken by doc. PhDr. Lubomír Tyllner, CSc. The project was made possible by the kind financial support of Bader Philanthropies, Inc.

In parallel with this project, the Giľora association was founded (www.spolekgilora.cz). Its primary goal is to arrange concerts and overall support for excellent Roma musicians who have contributed their songs to the project so they can share their precious talent and skill with a broader public.

The Giľora Project records, archives, and makes available the songs of Romani singers who like to sing, ideally with other singers and musicians they often sing with. We record and study songs in the culture of Czech Roma, the current form of Romani song folklore in the Czech Republic. The project focuses on singers and their songs –i.e. not on bands –, and "unplugged" recording sessions are preferred. The goal is not perfect recordings in studio quality, but documentation of the role of songs and singing in the culture of the Czech Roma today. From this documentation and semi-structured interviews stems ethnomusicological research of songs within the Roma culture in Czechia.

We have recorded old songs (phurikane giľa), both halgatos and czardases, we have also recorded many religious songs or hymns and so-called new songs (neve giľa), both in their traditional folk-guitar form and their newer "disco" variant. We also recorded interesting instances of jazz, r’n’b, funky, hip-hop fusion with Roma song tradition. Many of the songs have unique authors, although often the line between tradition and original work is blurry.

The lyrical aspect of the recorded songs is also fascinating: be it love songs and praises (Romani spirituals!), songs about returning from abroad and prison, "blues" about poverty, the loss of a loved one, about police violence (when I came to the pub to drink, the cops came and beat me, so I told them not to beat me, that I had a wife and children at home...", lullabies, songs celebrating Romaniness, etc.

In parallel with the project as conceived by the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the association Giľora, z.s. was founded. One of its goals is to provide concerts for outstanding Romani musicians who have contributed their songs to the project.

Note on translations
Where possible, transcriptions and translations into Czech are given for the songs. For some songs, it was not possible to make a transcription, and therefore not even a translation – the singers already learned the song in an agrammatic, semantically opaque version. We also translate excellent Czech, Moravian and Slovak texts into Romani, and translations into English are being created. Transcriptions and translations that are gradually published on this website are reviewed by the editors: we will appreciate your comments and notice of errata.

Acknowledgements
For the quick start and the contacts to singers and singers we are very grateful to the Romani writer Iveta Kokyová and her sister, social worker Dana Hrušková, as well as Vojtěch Kelt and Helena Samková. I owe some of the most valuable recordings to the chaplains of the CCE: with chaplain Pavel Kočnar we recorded the hitmakers Kalo (Pavel Olách) and Josef Kaleja at the Střešovice rectory, and we recorded Feri Mika's praises "I want to compose songs to God" in the singing Rokycany with chaplain Blažej Pelán. As for the technical side of things, the audiovisual recording was made by Ondřej Skovajsa using a Lumix GH4 and a Sennheiser MK400 microphone. The more demanding recordings are handled by Lukáš Kosek, with a second camera and advice from Jan Šípek. Many thanks to Petr Nuska for conversations on Roma music. This website was designed by Juraj Príkopa. Thanks to Iveta Kokyová and Martin Gális, this website also contains translations of the recorded songs from Romani into Czech and vice versa from Czech or Slovak into Romani. However, the biggest thanks go to all the singers and musicians who were willing to be recorded and talk about their songs and music with us.