Veijo Baltzar

Veija "Veijo" Oskari Baltzar (born June 9, 1942) is a Romani author and visual artist from Finland.

Baltzar's artistic output comprises over 72 literary works, including novels, short stories, plays and musicals, a film, librettos and TV screenplays.

Baltzar has described his childhood as extremely poor but very rich socially and spiritually.

Veijo Baltzar has been engaged in the visual arts since the late 1960s.

Baltzar has been active in promoting Roma policies in Finland since 1965.

Alongside other members of the Finnish Roma community, including artist Kiba Lumberg and singer Rainer Friman (fi), he has criticised Miranda Vuolasranta, President of the European Roma & Traveller Forum and suggested she leads conservatism in the Roma community who seek to downplay problems and exclude critical voices.

Baltzar's first novel Polttava tie, "The Burning Road" (1968, published in Swedish 1969 as Brännande väg) was successful and brought attention to him.

It was the first Finnish book that was written about the Roma and their culture, seen through the eyes of a Roma.

Verikihlat (1969), "The Engagement of Blood", is a story about love, hate and blood revenge.

In Mari (1972), Baltzar discusses women and their position inside the tribe.

His works were presented at the exhibition for young artists in the Ateneum art museum in 1975.

Since then Baltzar has had numerous exhibitions in different parts of Finland, Sweden and the Czech Republic.

He was the founder of the first and only Roma theatre in Nordic countries, Drom Theatre in 1976.

When Baltzar started managing his own theatre and teaching / directing in 1976, he created his own pedagogical method based on multicultural emotional intelligence, known as Intercultural Experiential Education.

Baltzar has also written a novel for children about Gypsies (Mustan Saaran kristallipallo, The Crystal Ball of Black Sarah) in 1978.

At the beginning of the 1980s, Baltzar worked as a leading teacher in the Theatre Academy of Finland.

Baltzar wrote and directed tens of tragedies, poetic plays and musicals to the group.

Since the 1980s Baltzar has also done architectural design.

Baltzar's 1988 mythic novel Käärmeenkäräjäkivi was a nominee for the Finlandia Prize.

Musta tango (1990), "The Black Tango", tells about Gypsies in modern Finnish society after they moved to the suburbs.

In the 1990s Baltzar continued playwriting and directing, as well as taught in municipal and state institutions.

In Imatra, he wrote and directed a folk opera Orli with 200 actors 1994–1997.

The premiere of so-called "second" Orli, patronaged by Finland's Prime Minister Paavo Lipponen, took place in the Finlandia concert hall in March 1997.

Phuro, published in 2000, is an extensive epic novel about the Roma living in Central Europe, the saga of a family, which tells a tale of the community through that of the relatives.

In 2002, in order to strengthen the position of Romani literature world wide, Baltzar founded the International Roma Writers Association: A joint organization (IRWA) and acted as its president between 2002–2005.

The latest novel by Veijo Baltzar, In love and war, published in 2008, tells about the tragic faith of European Roma in the middle of the Second World War.

Veijo Baltzar has written several plays, most of them focusing on Roma, but there are also plays about myths, religion and war.

In 2012, Baltzar published a polemic work Towards Experiential Philosophy (Kokemuspohjainen filosofia in Finnish), in which he introduces his pedagogical method and its philosophical and educational background.

Since 2013, Veijo Baltzar has produced theatrical and music work at the premises of Alexander theatre.

The book was published in English in 2014.

In 2014, Baltzar organized an international minister-level The Conscience of Europe conference at the Finnish Parliament.

The conference critically addressed the issues of multicultural society in Europe.

The conference issued a 24-item set of proposals for law initiatives for reforming European policies of multiculturalism, which were then sent to European Commission.

'2016 Sin.

On November 21, 2019 Baltzar was detained for suspicion of human trafficking.

On November 24, the newspaper Helsingin Sanomat published a multi page story about Baltzar's alleged inappropriate behaviour regarding young women, some of them underage, whom he had recruited to his theater productions.

The charges were subsequently dismissed.

''Novels by Veijo Baltzar (Tammi publishers):

Plays by Veijo Baltzar (written and directed)

Whole night plays