The Presence of Stereotypes and Prejudices about Roma People in Selected Youth Prose

Mateja Hadler

Summary:  The Roma people have always been excellent tellers of stories, legends and songs, which were usually written by others. According to migratory theory of fairy tales, these were changed and preserved by transferring from generation to generation from landscape to landscape. Although the Roma did not leave behind any written literature, their tradition is old and rich, dating back to the Vedic period. The dedicated collection of folk and author Roma traditions gave a good insight into myths and legends, fairy tales and tales. The Roma theme is also widely used in Slovenian youth literature. After analysing selected literary works with a specific topic, we have found that they carry historical facts, but also a critical / uncritical, acceptable / unacceptable attitude towards the main or side literary character. It is believed that reading literary works with multicultural content can contribute to education for accepting otherness and foreignness, and also for peace and human rights. The article systematically presents the content elements that appear in the two groups of youth literature texts studied, namely in Roma youth literature (author and folk) and in Slovenian youth literature on Roma issues. In both groups the examples from prose works of youth literature have been collected.