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May 2015 back issue
by Iva Zimova
As a Czech, when I heard about Czech minorities living in Romanian Banat, virtually isolated both from the Romanian
culture within which they were an enclave, as well as from the rest of the world, I immediately wanted to document and
to see these Czech villages.
I spent two months in the region, traveling from village to village. I not only photographed them but I lived with them,
took on the same work and shared the same responsibilities as though I was part of the same community. I worked with
them on their fields, I helped them to harvest their potatoes, cleared the weeds in the vineyard and I attended to the
grazing sheep and cows.
These villages depicted in my work were settled in the early 1800s by Czech natives who were lured into this region
by a rich and unscrupulous Romanian lumber merchant named Mad'arli. In search for cheap labourers to clear the
large pristine forests of the Banat, Mad'arli sent recruiting agents to Bohemia and Moravia. Poor Czech peasants were
approached and promised, among other things, land and wages in exchange for their work. Upon their arrival, after a
two-month journey, they discovered that their homeland was a rocky terrain high in the Carpathian Mountains
completely untouched by civilization, and very unfavorable to human habitation. Stranded in the hills, the labourers
and their families built log cabins and set to work.
Several years later when the forests had been cleared, Mad'arli disappeared and was never heard from again. Having
overcome the extremely difficult beginnings by this time, the immigrants were settled and decided to stay on in these
villages, many of which exist today.
Czech miners pose for a photo at the Baia Nouva coal mine.
A young man carries a cross during a religious holiday.
Czech traditions are important for villagers. The cooking
and baking is traditional Czech and not Romanian. Old
Catholic traditions also are still very prevalent here.
A bell ringer at the church announces church service.
Masses and Divine Services are held on Sundays.
Religion is an important part of every day life. Prayers
are said before each meal and Christian values are
strongly inculcated.
Women speak about their potatoes and fertilizers. Banat Czechs sustain themselves with farming, albeit sparse given
the difficult soil conditions.
Two men chat and drink home-made spirit.
A portrait of a mother and her two daughters.
A man smokes a cigarette before going to the Divine Service. Puritanical values prevail: clothing is simple and
Victorian manners and respect is strictly observed. Women do not smoke and the relationship between children and
adults is quite formal.
A cross with Jesus on the crossroad.
A girl and a cow rush home through an empty village.
Women, dressed in traditional costumes wearing head scarves hurrying to Mass. The Banat Czechs are the
descendants of a group of traditional Czech people that emigrated to a remote region of Romania in the 1800s. They
have preserved the traditions, lifestyle and values of their forefathers, despite cultural and geographic isolation from
both their homeland and the influences of the Romanians that surround them. Their relative seclusion and self-reliance
has perpetuated centuries-old ways of subsistence farming, puritanical values and the common use of Old Czech as
their spoken language.
Women return home after a day's work in the fields. A small community of Czechs have been living in the Banat region
of south-western Romania for almost two hundred years. In many ways the area looks like the Czech lands would
have looked a century ago, with most of the work still done by hand.
A young boy tenderly holds on his grandmother’s dress.
A boy attends a math class, an abacus is use instead of a modern calculator. Schooling pratctices have changed little
in the past years. The schools are small, sometimes only one-room. The classroom enviroment is austere.
Men gather together at a local pub for a drink after Sunday mass.
Young men carry a birch tree during the celebration of the coming of spring, the musicians accompany them. The tree
will be put up in the square and the youths will dance around it. Ones who are not yet married, will dance first.
A couple dance during a wedding celebration. Young people are the future of any vibrant community and the villages
in the Banat region will not have a chance for survival if they can't somehow keep them.
A man carries a bottle filled with homemade plum brandy.
A couple showing their domestic animals.
A man plays the accordion on the third day of a wedding. Wedding celebration takes usually three days, food and
drink is fresh, natural, healthy and delicious.