The Ursari (generally read as "bear leaders" or "bear handlers"; from the Romanian: urs, meaning "bear"; singular: ursar; Bulgarian: урсари, ursari) or Richinara are the traditionally nomadic occupational group of animal trainers among the Romani people. An endogamous category originally drawing the bulk of its income from busking performances in which they used dancing bears, usually brown bears and, in several instances, Old World monkeys. They have largely become settled after the 1850s. The Ursari form an important part of the Roma community in Romania, where they are one of the 40 tribal groups, as well as notable segments of the Bulgarian Roma population and of the one in Moldova. They also form a sizable part of the Roma present in Serbia and in Western European countries such as the Netherlands and Italy. The word Ursari may also refer to a dialect of Balkan Romani, as spoken in Romania and Moldova, although it is estimated that most Ursari, like the Boyash, speak Romanian as their native language. There is no scholarly consensus on whether Ursari belong to the Sinti subgroup of the Roma people or to the other half of the Roma population. A Romanian poll conducted in 2004 among 347 Roma found that 150 referred to themselves as "Ursari" (or 43.2%, and the largest single group). The Romanian-speaking Roma bear or monkey handlers in Bulgaria, called mechkari (мечкари), maymunari, or ursari, are occasionally seen as a separate community or as a distinct part of the Boyash population, as are persons identified as Ursari in Italy. The Coşniţari (or koshnichari) group, present on both sides of the Danube (in both Romania and Bulgaria), is believed to be a segment of the Ursari. Other such Eastern European groups, although linked by profession, speak different languages and dialects, and are considered to be not a part of the Ursari; they include the Medvedara in Greece, Ričkara in Slovakia, The Muslim Arixhinj in Albania and the Muslim Ayjides in the Istanbul area of Turkey.
History
Early migrations and slavery
Groups of bear-handlers are known to have existed during the population's transit through the Byzantine Empire, as early as the 12th century, when they are mentioned in connection with the Athinganoi (Roma people) by Theodore Balsamon. In later decades, they were probably among the people collectively referred to as "Egyptians". The Ursari formed part of the slave population in the Danubian Principalities (Moldavia and АвЙфWallachia) before the abolitions of the 1840s and 1850s. With the Boyash (including the gold-prospecting Zlătari), the Kalderash, and groups of Roma smiths, Ursari formed the category of lăieşi, who, unlike vătraşi slaves, were allowed to carry on with a nomadic lifestyle (being required by their boyar masters to pay various benefits in exchange for the permission). By the early decades of the 19th century, most of the state-owned Roma were lăieşi, as opposed to private-owned ones. The lăieşi were required to contribute an annual sum to the treasuries of Wallachia and Moldavia; Édouard Antoine Thouvenel, a French diplomat who visited Wallachia during the period, indicated that, for Ursari families, this sum amounted to between twenty and thirty piasters, and it is documented that the Boyash and the Ursari paid equivalent fees. Like other nomadic Roma, Ursari are known to have travelled in large tribal groups during the 20th century, although other sources indicate that they preferred to organize themselves on a tight and selective family-based structure. Ursari people and the Boyash-proper traditionally accompanied the Kalderash on their travels to Rumelia, contributing to the birth of the Mechkara community. Thouvenel described the group's "miserable condition", and, in reference to their handling of brown bears, wrote: "[...] they reunite to give chase to [the bears], whom they domesticate after capturing them in their youth, or whom they render unable to harm them. Bears in the Carpathians are, after all, much smaller and of a less ferocious nature than those in the "North"; their leaders train them with relative ease and run around from village to village in order to collect a few para as a result of peasant curiosity". Also according to Thouvenel, Ursari were known for "veterinary skills", which, he argued, "the superstition of people in the countryside attributes to the possession of a magic art". In addition to bear handling, the community would occasionally trade in wild animals (specifically bear cubs), and was known for keeping and training monkeys. Female members of the community were known for their practice of fortune-telling.
Emancipation
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