Documents and photographs from the Evangelical Pentecostal Church in Yambol.
Extent: 1 Protocol book containing 5 pages; 1 list book of actual members of the Church containing 19 pages; 2 albums containing 68 pages of photographs.
Condition of original material: Medium quality.
Custodial history: Materials present the history of the Evangelical Pentecostal society in Yambol. The Church building officially opened doors in 1929. The Church continues its activities even in the times of the Communism in Bulgaria (1944-1989) and today (2019) remains the biggest Evangelical Church in Yambol.
Author(s)/Creator(s): Unknown photographers and authors; T. Khristov.
Arrangement: The materials have been stored all together in a paper box. They were arranged as found.
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'.
