alternative forms of education
alternative lifestyles and resistance of the everydays
avant-garde, neo-avant-garde
censorship
conscientious objectors critical science
democratic opposition
emigration/exile environmental protection
ethnic movements
film
fine arts folk culture
human rights movements
independent journalism
literature and literary criticism media arts
minority movements music national movements party dissidents
peace movements philosophical/theoretical movements
popular culture
religious activism
samizdat and tamizdat
scientific criticism social movements
student movement surveillance
survivors of persecutions under authoritarian/totalitarian regimes
theatre and performing arts
underground culture
visual arts
women's movement
youth culture
applied arts objects
artifacts
cartoons & caricatures
clothing equipment
film
furniture
graphics grey literature
legal and/or financial documentation manuscripts memorabilia
music recordings
other other artworks
paintings
photos publications
sculptures video recordings voice recordings
This interview collection provides fascinating insights into the barely known everyday culture of grassroots Catholic communities under late socialism. Sociologist István Kamarás’ research collection represents an alternative lifestyle which never suited the official communist ideology.
The collection was established in the period from 2010 to 2016. It includes personal memories and materials of members of the Turkish minority of Bulgaria, who today live in different countries, most of them in Turkey. The collection sheds light on the life of ethnic Turks in Bulgaria and their responses to the contradictory politics, in long periods - discriminatory and assimilatory, of the socialist state.
The Roma Archive is the first digital collection devoted specifically to the Roma community in Bulgaria. Its aim is to show the history and memories of a people which have been invisible to the general Bulgarian public, and who are usually portrayed by the media in terms of deviant social and cultural behavior. The collection was created by the Balkan Society for Autobiography and Social Communication (BSASC). It includes numerous autobiographic interviews, rich visual materials, and a variety of other documents and images containing information on the Roma community in Bulgaria taken from Bulgarian State archives.
One of the main themes of the collection is the fate of the Roma minority under communism, during which it was subjected to frequent assimilation campaigns and when expressions of Roma culture was severely restricted. The collection aims to contribute to the democratization of historical knowledge, raising the profile of Bulgaria’s Roma community as well as increasing awareness within the community of the value of historical documents. At the same time, the ongoing process of building the collection itself contributes to overcoming ethnocentricity in Bulgaria’s education system. It strengthens intercultural dialogue and aids in the educational potential of Roma community members. The Roma Archive help makes the Roma more visible in Bulgarian society, education, and academia.
The collection reflects, on the one hand, the oppositional activity of the Romanian Greek Catholic (Uniate) Church towards the communist regime, and, on the other hand, the intense surveillance and harsh repression of this Church carried out by the repressive apparatus of the communist authorities. The Romanian Greek Catholic Church Ad-hoc Collection represents the most comprehensive collection of documents, which illustrates the multilayered resistance to dictatorship of one of the most repressed religious groups in communist Romania and its vivid underground religious activity from 1948 to 1989.