Much of what he has written down and publicized in the time that was left to him, now would be completely impossible to find. In order to discover the history of the Romani people who suffered from the great tragedies of the 20th century (genocide by the Nazis, the Second World War, the GULAG) Bessonov tirelessly traveled around the country, searched the archives, spoke with thousands of people, studied family histories.
It is impossible not to pay tribute to his conscientious work, which was completely selfless and which unfortunately was appreciated and supported by very few people. Some of the generalizations he made may seem not completely grounded, some of his arguments may seem naive, but Bessonov’s undeniable merit was the collection of information and an honest search for real facts and personal stories. He published his work on his personal website, as well as on the website “Russian Roma”.īessonov was the only person who had systematically collected and published information about the participation of Soviet Roma in the Second World War and about the Roma victims of Stalinist repression. Not being either a historian or an anthropologist by education, he nevertheless collected and analyzed many important materials, personal stories, biographies of Roma people.
The legacy of Bessonov is vast and varied, he worked very hard – writing, drawing, making research. Suddenly, the news came in of the untimely death of Nikolay Bessonov, a Russian artist, researcher of Russian Roma and a great friend of the Romani people.
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