Abstract
The distinctive culture of the Romani settlements can be approached as one of the last relicts of traditional society, which has been preserved in a surprisingly complex form. The traditional society is based on the belief in the mutual inequality of people.
This belief is connected to the concept of ritual impurity and sub-ethnic separation: individual groups are perceived as mutually unequal as far as the basic quality of humanity is concerned. In the Romani settlements, humanity itself is understood as a differentiated and hierarchical quality. The fundamental premise of the civic society stating that all human beings are equal is missing here.
This is why it is impossible to include the members of the Romani settlements in the Romani nation, as nation in the modern sense of the word is a group of equal human beings with equal rights. So, as far as the Romani settlements are concerned, it is contra-productive for the majority society to support the establishment of the Romani nation, because the