Andrej Pešta, a prominent representative of Romani emancipation movement within the Union of Gypsies-Roma, took part in the armed struggle in the Spišská Nová Ves area during World War II. After the war, he moved to Brno, where he worked at the Královopolské engineering works. He trained as a locksmith and, at the turn of the 1960s and 1970s, graduated from the Secondary Technical School of Electrical Engineering in Brno by means of distance learning. At the end of the 1960s, he became involved in the activities of the Union (1969-1973), where he worked as an editor of the union newsletter Románo lil / Romani paper. He began publishing his poetry and prose there. He led the Jagóri/Campfire children's song-and-dance group. He became an important personage of the emancipation movement and, as an amateur photographer, documented social events, union meetings, and research trips to Slovakia. After the union was dissolved, he withdrew from public life. He continued to devote himself to photography, but also to painting and handicrafts. In 2017, a photographic monograph about Pešta and his work, O fotki / Photographs, was published by the Museum of Romani Culture.
Foto: Museum of Romani Culture
