The contribution presents a complex bibliography of texts related to the only Czech village in Bulgaria — Vojvodovo, written in Bulgarian and published up to 2020. The items are arranged in an alphabetical order according to the author’s surname; where the name of the author is missing, the item is arranged according to the first letter of the title.
In the tradition of imagology, as it was elaborated in the works of V. Todorov and Z. Urban, the author presents an image of the Czech community living in a village of Vojvodovo in Bulgaria from the beginning of the 20th century till 1950, as it was seen through the eyes of their neighbors. As a source the author uses published texts as well as unpublished memoirs dealing with Vojvodovo, and testimonies gathered during his fieldwork in Vojvodovo in a period 1997–2009. Derived from the mentioned sources, the final image of the Czechs in Vojvodovo is very positive. It presents them as a noticeably united group of puritans, who were industrious in an exemplary manner, primarily peasants, nevertheless very good traders, neat and culturally advanced, honest and willing, which made them good neighbors, except the fact that they were not very hospital to strangers.
The text describes the history of the first Czech village in Bulgaria – Sesek. It is the first attempt to present systematically all known information about this village scattered in publications, unpublished materials and archives. One of the main purposes of the study is to prove that “Sesek” was de iure as well as de facto standard village inhabited by (primarily though not exclusively) Czech families – migrants from the Czech village Svatá Helena in Rumanian Banat, not just a “place” these went through on their way to later founded Vojvodovo (usually presumed to be the only Bulgarian Czech village).
This article deals with naming practices among the Czechs who lived in the first half of 20th century in two Bulgarian villages - Vojvodovo and Belinci. It is based on fieldwork carried out among the people who migrated in 1950 from Bulgaria and settled in several towns and villages in South Moravia (region of Mikulov and Valtice), and their descendants. Naming practices of the Bulgarian Czechs are analyzed in relation to naming strategies of the Bulgarians in the given period, and it is argued that the role that was fulfilled by surnames among the Czechs was fulfilled by first names among the Bulgarians. Relationship between the naming strategies and ideas about kinship and gender are discussed further.
The text represents another contribution in the series of articles on Vojvodovo, the Czech village in Bulgaria, published in recent years. The author attempts to answer the question in his analysis why so many Vojvodovo Czech Protestants chose as their marriage partners inhabitants of a nearby village of Bărdarski Geran, both Banat Bulgarians (Paulicians) and Banat Swabians. In both villages religion was perhaps the most important organizational principle, religious endogamy being one of its main rules. One would expect absence of intermarriage between Vojvodovo and Bărdarski Geran for this reason; the opposite, however, was the case. The author shows that the reason why members of both communities felt a kind of mutual affinity was culture, as both groups shared many cultural traits. One of these cultural traits was deep and genuine religiosity, perhaps better expressed as belief. So, although at first sight religiosity (in the form of their creeds) would seem to prevent any closer contacts developing between the two communities, it actually is religiosity (as belief) that stands behind the surprising and unexpected number of marriages that took place between members of the two local communities.
The article discusses Czech kinship terminology in a group of Czech-speaking protestants who lived in the village of Voyvodovo (Bulgaria) in the years 1900–1950. The author uses data from the re-emigrants from Voyvodovo, who settled after 1950 in the border regions of Czechoslovakia, and from their descendants. Kinship terminology is analysed in categories of nuclear family, further collateral relatives, more distant relatives, affines and the extension of kinship terms. On the basis of a structural analysis of kinship terminology of the Voyvodovo Czechs, the author argues that it is possible to speak about a correlation between the kinship terminology used and the type of kinship reckoning or the size and structure of the family households. No significant influence of Bulgarian on the Czech kinship terminology of the Voyvodovo Czechs has been recorded.
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