The Romani in the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation

The aim of this essay is to present a comprehensive review of the collective monograph Tsygane (The Romani), published in 2018 in the series Narody i kul’tury (Peoples and Cultures). The authors give an overview of the modern developments in Romani studies to acquaint the reader with the background of the reviewed monograph. Every chapter of the monograph is analyzed in detail, taking into account the most recently gathered ethnographic and folklore materials, such as the data recorded by Aleksandr Rusakov and Aleksandr Novik in Leningrad region and in the Balkans (Albania, North Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia, Turkey) in the late 1980s and early 2000s–2010s, and the newest publications on the subject, such as a monograph by Evangelia Adamou and Yaron Matras on language contacts, published in 2021.