Paper short abstract:

The paper aims at presenting two cases of effacement of the sacral site as a result of the construction of reservoirs in Bulgaria and their subsequent development, state and use. The parts of “submerged” churches remain on the surface nowadays, visible and experienced in a new way.

Paper long abstract:

With the increased construction of reservoirs in Bulgaria mostly in the second half of the 20th century, a number of settlements were evicted and erased along with their public, cultural, historical and religious sites. In most cases, their owners destroyed private houses to use the materials to build a new home in a new place. However, many public buildings – particularly the religious ones, often stayed untouched and were submerged, and their remains continue surfacing to this day. There are several such examples on the territory of Bulgaria, all of them with stories of desacralization and reuse.

In the presentation, the focus is on comparing cases of two churches that were submerged and effaced in the course of two reservoirs' construction. However, one may observe distinct differences regarding their present development, status and (re)usage. These are the church of the former village Zapalnya (under the waters of ‘Zhrebchevo’ reservoir) and the church of Viden village (flooded after the construction of the reservoir of ‘Koprinka’). Nowadays, the remains of these sacral buildings are on the surface – visible, experienced and rethought in a new way, on the one hand, but (re)confirmed as a cult object and realms of memory, on the other.

The analysis is based on field and bibliographic researches conducted in 2019 and 2020 within the scientific project “Submerged Heritage. A Village on the Dam’s Bottom: Migrations, Memory, Cultural Practices”.