Building a Part of Nation Abroad (How Civitas Dei Voyvodovo become a Czech Village in Bulgaria)

Abstract

Voyvodovo, a village in Northwest Bulgaria, is standardly described as a Czech village in Bulgaria, inhabited by the Czech compatriots. The article tries to prove this conceptualization historically inadequate and offers a different line of interpretation. It shows that members of this community, who had left Czech lands before the Czech national revival movement, did not share Czech national identity because this was established only after their departure. Instead of being a Czech village, Voyvodovo community was nationally indifferent. The main element of collective identity of its members was religion, which represented the central organizing principle of the community. Czechs become Voyvodovans only much later, due to the outside influence of the socalled “fellow-countryman care” executed upon them by the Czechoslovak Republic in the interwar period.