A Village for a Day: Annual Meetings of Relocated and Flooded Villages in Bulgaria

Abstract

The text attempts to explain the need for annual meetings of village communities after the village has been relocated due to the construction of a reservoir. The object of research are meetings in Popovo (Vitoshko), a village that was flooded by the waters of the Studena reservoir, and in Zhrebchevo, submerged later in the Zhrebchevo reservoir. The study applies the theories of collective trauma, collective memory, and cultural memory. Through analysis of interviews, archives, and literature, the study examines the motives of the former village communities to gather each year and the reasons that their leaders organise these meetings. The text attempts to answer the following questions: how do these meetings manage to revitalise the village for one day, what rituals do they include, how is generational dialogue brought to realisation, what is the meaning of memory for the submerged villages, and finally, what are the perspectives for continuing such meetings?