Поддържане на локалната памет: Култът към Света Богородица
Maintaining Local Memory: the Cult of the Virgin Mary

Summary/Abstract: Object of the attention in the paper is the cult of the Virgin Mary in the village of Popovo, Pernik region, and the way that cult becomes a factor in maintaining the local memory of the community which experienced traumatic changes at the beginning of the socialist period in Bulgaria. The villages of Popovo and Krapets were displaced because of the intensive industrialization of Pernik region in the early 50-es of the 20th century and the building of the Studena Dam. The population was moved near the newly built State metallurgical plant “V. I. Lenin” (Stomana Industry) where the building of the largest quarter of the town started. Access was prohibited to the villages and the settlers’ need to adapt to the new conditions resulted in looking for compensatory mechanisms in maintaining community life and local memory of the two previous settlements. Building of the “Dormition of the Virgin Mary” church in the new quarter “Lenin” (Iztok) is perceived as a kind of continuation of the destroyed village churches, and the previous inhabitants of Popovo and their heirs celebrate its patron saint’s day to the very present. The study is based on field research among the settlers from the two villages, as well as on observations on the restored village feast in Popovo after 1989 and on honoring the day of the Virgin Mary in Iztok quarter of Pernik.

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