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This paper analyses the phenomenon of the death of informants. Based on his own experience with the long-term (1999-2016) research of Voyvodovo -- the only Czech village in Bulgaria, the author shows what the death of one's informants means for the research and the researcher. The author argues that any long-term fieldwork entails emotional involvement of the researcher, and so the departure of his or her informants has a deep impact on the researcher's well-being. The articles also address methodological consequences of the death of informants, namely, the case when the death of all of them leads to a situation that the group ceases to exist. The author shows that with the last member's passing away Malinowski's 'native's point of view' is lost forever. The author also suggests that the topic of death of informants should be included into educational curricula for fieldwork training.

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One of the most cited anthropological books, Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (Barth, Fredrik, ed. 1969a. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference. Bergen: Universitetsforlaget) is an output of the symposium held in Bergen in 1967. Eleven participants took part in the symposium and eleven papers were discussed. The book, however, consists, apart from Barth's prodigious 'Introduction', of only seven chapters. Four papers remained unpublished. One of these unpublished contributions is 'Inter-etniske relasjoner i Toro' ('Interethnic relations in Toro') by Axel Sommerfelt. In 2019, the year of 50th anniversary of publishing Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, Sommerfelt's manuscript was disinterred from oblivion. The text presents an outline of a background of Sommerfelt's research in Western Uganda from 1958 to 1960, on which it is based, and a discussion of its terminological and conceptual point of view, with a special attention to key shift from 'tribe' to 'ethnic group'. In the last part, a kind of counterfactual Ethnic Groups and Boundaries are presented, i.e. what Ethnic Groups and Boundaries might have looked like if Axel Sommerfelt's chapter had been included in the original book. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution recapitulates and appraises the work of the Czech linguist Jiří Lípa (born December 12, 1928, Sušice, Czechoslovakia - died December 24, 2020, Broadview Heights, Ohio, USA). The first part is devoted to the beginnings of Lípa's interest in the Romani language and his publications from the period before he emigrated to the USA, including the two key monographs written in Czech, Příručka cikánštiny (A Handbook of the Gypsy Language, 1963) and Cikánština v jazykovém prostředí slovenském a českém (The Gypsy Language in the Czech and Slovak Linguistic Environment, 1965). The second part describes Lípa's work in the field of Roma studies in the USA, his participation in the activities of the Gyspy Lore Society and offers a commented review of his contributions written in English. Special attention is paid to two polemics triggered by Lípa's works. First, in 1983, in the Newsletter of the Gypsy Lore Society, and the second, a decade later, in 1993 in the Nationalities Papers. The author explains Lípa's stance in these polemics and shows that his position has been rather misunderstood and misinterpreted. The final section discusses why Lípa's pioneering work in the field of Roma studies has been mostly forgotten in his motherland. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The core of this contribution is an annotated translation for the Czech settlement of Banat – or, more precisely, for the settlement of Banat from the Czech lands – key chapters in the book Ethnographie der oesterreichischen Monarchie (1857) authored by Karl Czoernig, Baron of Černousy (Karl Czoernig Freiherr von Czernhausen). This concerns chapter § 53. Böhmische (cechische) Colonien in der Militärgränze, which deals with the very beginnings of the corresponding colonization processes. The translation is preceded by a biographical sketch of K. Czoernig, which recapitulates the most important moments in the life of this remarkable personality, and it’s supplemented with his selected bibliography and an outline of the development of the study of the Czech settlement of Banat, taking into account the impact of the disappearing linguistic competences of the researchers. The publication of an annotated translation of this source aims to contribute to the long-term interest in the Czech settlement of Banat by providing a Czech version of this key source to those to whom it would otherwise remain inaccessible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is universal agreement in the scholarly community on the crucial position of the book Ethnic Groups and Boundaries: The Social Organization of Culture Difference (ed. F Barth, 1969) in the modern study of ethnicity. General consensus goes that this work has a status of a founding work that developed a theoretical paradigm and model of ethnic groups, on which the study of ethnicity draws until today. This study critically reviews this reputation. The author, drawing on the works of authors who had published their works before Ethnic Groups and Boundaries, suggests that theoretical positions proposed by Barth and his colleagues in the famous book were not at all new by that time, neither were they considered novel by contemporary readers. Ethnic Groups and Boundaries acquired the status of a ground-breaking work, founding a new era of anthropological study of ethnicity only later, and not because of the results the book really provided, but rather thanks to statements about the contribution of this work to the study of ethnicity made by its editor, F Barth in his famous 'Introduction'. This conceptualization of the history of ethnicity studies was, thanks to the immense influence of F Barth´s book, gradually accepted and the results of all work that had been previously done in the field of ethnicity studies, was covered by amnesia, continuing until today. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study represents an application of the concept of national indifference in the Post-Ottoman Balkans. It addresses the question of why two minority communities in Northwest Bulgaria in the first half of 20th century – the Protestant Voyvodovo community and the Catholic community of Bărdarski Geran, both marked by a strong principle of religious endogamy, intermarried. The author maintains that the main reason why these two communities intermarried was – despite all the differences between them – their national indifference, a parameter that both communities shared. These marriages did not cross the ethno-national boundary (the communities were nationally indifferent and thus ethno-national borders did not divide them). Contrary to standard understandings of the concept of national indifference, the author emphasizes that national indifference can be said to have two sides. On the one hand, nationally indifferent groups represent those in which the "we-they" opposition does not follow national lines, while on the other hand these groups identify and organize themselves on the basis of principles other than national ones. In the example of the inhabitants of Voyvodovo and Bărdarski Geran, this principle was religion. The appreciation of the "positive" side of national indifference enables us to grasp "the native's point of view," how people themselves perceived and understood their reality, their identities, and loyalties. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The contribution is devoted to the history of Vojvodovo, a Czech village in North-western Bulgaria, sixteen kilometres from the Danube port town of Oryahovo. It was founded in 1900 mostly by migrants from another Czech village, Svatá Helena, located in today's Romanian part of the Banat region. The history of Czech Vojvodovo was a short one: it lasted only for fifty years until 1950. At the end of the period, following post-war inter-state agreements on 'returns of co-nationals to their fatherland', Czech Vojvodovans left the village and settled in the region of south Moravia in Czechoslovakia. A local legend says that it was Tsar Ferdinand I of Bulgaria who invited Czechs to come to Bulgaria to show local villagers how to work their land. True or not, the fact is Vojvodovans were living as if they sought to fulfil Ferdinand's wish - during the Czech period, Vojvodovo became an exemplary village (not only) in the regional context. It had become well-known for tidiness and orderliness of the communal space as well as of the inhabitants. Vojvodovans were renowned for their diligence and ascetic ethic of Protestantism, for being outstanding farmers, horse breeders and stallholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]