This book, published in 2017, is part of the series Archives of Women and Minorities. It is the result of the long-standing and systematic work of the Balkan Society for Autobiography and Social Communication (BSASC) on the recent history, everyday life, and culture of the Roma. Students of different ethnic origins and from different faculties of Neofit Rilski South-West University (Blagoevgrad) took part in preparing the collection. This open access publication is available online: http://roma-swu.weebly.com/uploads/9/1/1/0/91107766/kniga-final-s-koritsa.pdf (in Bulgarian)

This collection combines different types of materials in three groups: oral stories from different generations of Roma individuals, written testimonies from representatives of the Roma population (e.g., petitions, institutions) and government documents regarding the Roma.

The objective of the book, through emphasizing individuals’ life stories, is to present the Roma not as simply objects of history, but as subjects of historical action. Here the personal experiences of major historical events are regarded as "an important starting point in the search for a common historical memory across the generations" of the 20th century. The volume emphasizes the importance of Roma culture to the development of Bulgaria’s overall historical memory.

The second part of the book consists of transcripts of selected documents written by Roma members which are kept in archives. This part mostly includes official applications, and petitions. The published documents highlight important cases where Roma interacted with institutions, especially with regard to the Bulgarization of names and other violations of the traditions and dignity of the Roma. They also highlight the strategies that Roma pursued in their attempts to preserve their rights. The editors of the collection highlight the small number of such documents as an indicator of the "absence of dialogue between the population and the institutions"

 

The third part of the book gives an overview of the policies of the socialist state towards minorities in general and the Roma specifically. It shows the goals and means of state policies and the attitudes of the authorities towards the Roma minority during communism. These policies have had a broad public impact which continues to this day.

The editors consider this publication to be the starting point of the Roma Archive digital collection’s future development.