Georgy Tsvetkov was born in 1950. His father was a Lovari and his mother belonged to the Russian Romani group.

Tsvetkov grew up in various cities in Ukraine. In 1967 he started working in Romani song and dance bands and, after moving to Moscow in 1977, eventually found a job at the [Romen Theatre. He left the theatre in 1991 and began working as a free-lance musician.

Tsvetkov started writing in 1983, but his first book did not appear until 1999. Since then, he has published a number of poems and short stories both in Romani (Lovara and North Russian dialects) and Russian.

In recent years, Tsvetkov has also been active in promoting Romani culture. He has been art director of international Romani festivals in Moscow and is the author of Romani-language educational programmes as well as a co-founder of the online platform www.kulturom.ru (https://perma.cc/EV84-2E4M), which provides information on Romani culture in the post-Soviet countries. He received a PhD in philology in 2011.

(Ilona Makhotina)

Works

Tsvetkov, Georgy. 1999. О чем пела скрипка… [O chem pela skripka…] [What the violin sang about …]. Moskva. [In Russian]

Tsvetkov, Georgy. 2001. Приложение 1. Prilozhenie 1. Appendix 1]. In: [Цыганско-русский и русско-цыганский словарь (диалект лова́ря). Cygansko-russkij i russko-cyganskij slovar (dialect lovarja) [Romani-Russian and Russian-Romani dictionary (dialect Lovara)]. Moskva: Апостроф [Apostrof], pp. 153–83. [In Romani]

Tsvetkov, Georgy. 2003. Śukar Lana [The beautiful Lana]. In: Amaro Gendalos. Praha, № 7, 2003. [In Czech and Romani]

Tsvetkov, Georgy. 2010. Сino Joza [The Little Joza. Story]. In: Андрал [Andral]. София, 2010. № 56-57, pp. 80–82. [In Romani]

Tsvetkov, Georgy. Хасардо тхэм. Страна предков. Khasardo tkhem. Strana predkov [Lost country. Ancestors’ country. Reading book in Russian and Romani. 137 pages, in print].