Delia Grigore

Delia Grigore (Romani: Deliya Grigore; born February 7, 1972) is a Romanian Romani writer, philologist, academic, and Romani rights activist.

Delia Grigore was born in Galați and grew up under the Romanian communist regime, when the Roma were not recognized as an ethnic group, but as foreign elements that must assimilate in Romanian society.

During that time, her family hid their real identity so as to avoid discrimination.

After the Romanian Revolution of 1989 she could reassert her Romani ethnicity and relearn the language.

In 1990, she completed secondary studies at the Zoia Kosmodemianskaia High School in Bucharest, while in 1992 she graduated the Sanskrit Language and Indian Old Civilization and Culture course from the University of Bucharest.

In 1995 she obtained a degree in Romanian and English philology from the Faculty of Philology at the University of Bucharest.

Since 2000, Delia Grigore has published a series of writings about Romani culture and language.

In 2002 she obtained a Doctorate in the Anthropology of the Romani culture with the Ph.D. thesis Family Customs of the Rromani Traditional Culture with Nomadic Identity Pattern in the South East of Romania.

Currently, she teaches in the Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures at the University of Bucharest.

She also became involved in the defense of Romani rights as the president of the Association ȘATRA/A.S.T.R.A. – "Amare Rromentza".

In February 2002, Delia Grigore requested that the Romanian state authorities and the leadership of the Romanian Orthodox Church acknowledge their responsibility for the enforcement and the consequences of five centuries of slavery of the Romani people in the historical Romanian states of Wallachia and Moldavia.