"...the terrible injustices of which the Gypsies have for centuries been the victims, with the result that my generation and those which preceded it were deprived of all civil rights, might have continued in our country if, around 1960, Katarina Taikon had not decided to combat prejudice and racism in all its forms..." - Rosa Taikon
Born July 29, 1932, near Örebro, Sweden. Her father was a Romani named, Johan Dimitri Taikon & her mother was his second wife, a Swedish woman, who died when she was only 3. Katarina had 3 older half-siblings, Paul, Rosa & Paulina from her father's first marriage. When she was a child, Romani still lived nomadically in temporary camps in Sweden & were obliged to keep on the move. This posed a challenge to the children receiving a formal education, though Johan had been campaigning for the education of Romani children since the 1930's, Katarina was illiterate until she was 26. He strove to have his children admitted to schools but was often turned away by administration & local families, who didn't want Romani children to be taught in the same classrooms as their children.
In 1946, when she was only 14, Katarina was married to a man nearly 10 years her senior. Just a few months after the wedding, she ran away from home but was soon forced to return. She made a second escape attempt, this time successfully. Katarina was able to find employment at a local shop with the help of a charity & was able to live independently for several years. In 1948, she took part in Arne Sucksdorff's documentary film, Uppbrott, where she danced around a campfire, as a performance in imitation of traditional Romani dance. The income earned from this film allowed for Katarina to divorce her husband & over the next 10 years, she went on to star in a number of Swedish films including: Singoalla (1948), The Motor Cavaliers (1950), Marianne (1953) & Sceningång (1956).
Throughout her life, Katarina devoted herself to the betterment of the Romani people in both Sweden & around the world. Thanks to her ceaseless advocating through multiple means including public speaking, writing & addressing Swedish authorities, Romani people were granted the same educational & housing rights as other Swedes. In 1953, the ban that had been in place on Romani immigration since 1914, was lifted. A population that had been less than a 1000, soon began to grow as new Romani immigrants arrived in Sweden. In 1964, Katarina & her sister Rosa, founded the Zigenarsamfundet (Roma Society). The same year, she was appointed an honorary member of the Swedish Youth Peace Alliance. In 1965, Katarina led the Romani May Day protest in Stockholm, this was the first demonstration of it's kind in the country; they were marching for equal rights to education.
Alongside her sister Rosa, Katarina attempted to persuade the Swedish authorities that Romani were also political refugees, as many of them had faced severe oppression in countries they'd been coming from. In 1967, she successfully petitioned the government to reverse their decision in the deportation of Polish & Italian Romani. However, she failed to convince them not to forcibly remove a group of about 50 French Romani. After this failure, Katarina decided to change her approach, she realized in order to make significant, long-lasting change, she would have to engage with the young. Katarina wrote a series of children's books based on her own childhood called, Katitzi, which contained 13 volumes published between 1969-80. The books deal with progressively more sinister themes & are intended to portray the troubles of Romani children due to systemic social & legal discrimination. A comic book rendition of Katitzi was released in 1975 & in 1979, a 6-episode tv series based on the books came out.
Previously, Katarina married her second husband, Bjorn Langhammer, in 1962; together the couple had 2 children, a daughter named, Angelica Strom & a son named, Niki. She also published an autobiography, Zigenerska (1963), which addressed the discrimination faced by Romani people in Sweden. In 1982, Katarina went into cardiac arrest, which caused her to fall into a coma, where she would remain for the next 13 years. Katarina Taikon breathed her last on December 30, 1995. In 2012, a biography, The Day I will be Free, about Katarina's life was published by Lawen Mohadi.
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Female Rebels & Activists
Non-Fiction"We need women who are so strong they can be gentle, so educated they can be humble, so fierce they can be compassionate, so passionate they can be rational and so disciplined they can be free" ...
