The Balkan Ethnology Department was represented at the international workshop “Decentering Empires: Local Communities and Cross-Cultural Interaction in the Black Sea Region (17th–Early 20th Centuries)”, held on 27–28 August 2026 at the Oriental Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague. The workshop gathered more than thirty researchers working on the premodern and modern Black Sea region. They examined imperial history from below, focusing on local communities, borderlands, mobility and cross-cultural encounters.
PhD student Polina Trifonova took part in the panel “Everyday Multiculturalism, Local Communities, and Informal Networks of Survival”. She presented a historical and ethnographic study of the Crimean Tatar community in the village of Tsarev Brod, Bulgaria. Her paper looked at cross-cultural interaction in the village’s multiethnic setting and at the everyday practices and relationships through which residents negotiate identity, coexistence and cultural exchange.
The workshop concluded with a guided walk through “Oriental Prague,” led by Volodymyr Poltorak. The route through Prague’s historic centre highlighted the city’s connections with the Ottoman world and the Black Sea region, tracing how knowledge about these regions was collected, translated, and institutionalised in Central Europe.
Over the two days, the discussions brought together perspectives from Ottoman, East European, Caucasian, and maritime history. By bringing topics such as Crimean Tatar mobility, Cossack communities, Armenian trade, Greek displacement, Caucasian migration, and Black Sea port cities into a shared analytical framework, the workshop contributed to a more interconnected understanding of the Black Sea region.
Photo Credit: Orientální ústav AV ČR / Oriental Institute CAS