Charles Explorer logo
🇬🇧

Peace to their ashes: Czech compatriots' tombs in Serbian Banat

Publication at Faculty of Arts |
2022

Abstract

This text is an outcome of a fieldtrip to Czech villages in Serbian Banat, where we focused on the making of an inventory of the Czech tombs in Bela Crkva, Kruščice and Češko Selo. Czechs in Serbian Banat are mostly Catholics which distinguishes them from the surrounding Serbian Orthodox majority population.

During the fieldwork, pictures were taken of the Czech tombs and epitaphs from the tombs were written down into a table that could be used for further research. Tomb inscriptions and epitaphs could be used for a linguistic study, showing the influence of Serbian on the Czech language, or for a demographic study.

Present study focuses on the attitudes of the local Czechs towards the death. In comparison with the contemporary Czech Republic, death is not seen as a taboo in Serbina Banat and could be said to be more "tame death", according to P.

Ariés.