Photographs from T. Oprenov' s collection.
Extent: 10 photographs.
Condition of original material: Medium quality of the photos.
Author(s)/Creator(s): Unknown photographer.
Arrangement: The photos have been stored in the First Evangelical Baptist church's office in Sofia. Most of the Archive of Evangelical Baptist Church in Sofia was destroyed during a fire before 1989. T. Oprenov begins to collect anew old photographs and documents related to the Evangelical Baptist movement in Bulgaria. Owner of the photos is responsible for their arrangement. They are arranged chronologically. Some of the pictures are photographed again by the owner because they were quite old and damaged.
A note about terminology: Some of the material in this collection relates to Цигани [Tsigani / Gypsy] communities. Since 1989, these communities are often referred to using the term ‘Roma’. However, not all members of these communities accept the term Roma or identify as Roma. In Bulgaria, this is a heterogeneous community that comprises different groups with different ethnic identification (Romani, Bulgarian, Turkish or Rumanian), mother tongue, way of life, religion, and occupation. Moreover, the original material in this collection pre-dates 1989, when the term ‘Roma’ was unknown in Bulgaria. For these reasons, the term ‘Gypsies’ is used to describe these communities in the catalogue rather than ‘Roma’ because this more accurately depicts the identification of the communities recorded in this collection at the time the documents and photographs were created. The Protestant missionaries who worked among this population and whose results are related to the material in the collection, also used the term 'Gypsies'.
