Archive of Evangelical Methodist Episcopal Church 'Dr. Albert Long' (EMEC)

Archive of EMEC contains materials about the so-called 'North Mission' (of the Evangelical Methodist Church ) and 'South Mission' (of the Evangelical Congregational Church). Extent: 104 paper pages containing 331 photographs. Condition of original material: Good physical conditions of the materials, medium and low quality. Custodial history: The photograph collections are owned by EMEC 'Dr. Albert Long' Sofia. Author(s)/Creator(s): Unknown; Zornitsa newspaper. Arrangement: The photographs provided are not organized. They are glued to paper pages and stored in plastic folders. Paper pages and photographs attached are arranged only through handwritten clasiffication by city and relevant number. For example: 1-Shumen; 2-Ruse; etc. Additional date information: 2nd half of the 19th century-1970s. 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'