Abstract
The territory of southern Romania, where the Danube River is the border with Serbia, has become known to the public as Banat. It has a complicated history of repetitive displacement by various ethnic groups, which were to cross the wilderness of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy to rise economically and at the same time defend the border of the empire against the Turkish threat from the east.
The settlers from the Czech lands, who came here in the waves from the 1920s onwards, had a significant contribution to the local landscape. They transformed the mostly karst mountainous forest into a traditional small-scale and pastoral way and survived with their habits, inherited language and way of life in an isolated part of later Romania until the fall of the current political borders (1989).
Thus, the conditions of life reflected in the ecology of the landscape of this area have become a rare opportunity to study various aspects of nature and culture, especially at the time of the current changes, the outflow of inhabitants and the penetration of contemporary technologies into normal housing operations. To date, there are six villages with the prevailing Czech population (Svatá Helena, Gerník, Rovensko, Eibentál, Bígr, Šumice).
The book presents a unique capture of both conserved and changing relationships of people with Czech roots and nature, contains detailed chapters on customs, local names, folk art, villages, forests, meadows and eels with their richness of biological species and biodiversity conditionality as land is being handled, modern elements are being invaded into the traditional agricultural community. The value of a comprehensively conceived "guide" lies not only in the first such widely conceived processing, but also in a number of general new knowledge for ecology as a field.
The book is richly illustrated with photographs, maps and diagrams.