MOJE VÁLKY/MY WARS
Czech Republic, 2010, 26 min
Jiřina Kosíková
29.01.2011 14:00
Věra Fialová was born at the end of the First World War as the out-of-wedlock child of a Czech woman and a Polish man, a Russian prisoner of war. In an old suitcase she keeps her old letters and pictures from the First and Second World Wars. Her memoirs, accompanied by songs from her family repertoire, capture the "small history" - the life story of an "ordinary woman" against the backgraound of the great historical events of the 20th century.
An edited document taken as part of ethnological field research in 2007 and 2009. The Film was produced as part of the research project of the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, v.v.i. Prague "Cultural Identity and Cultural Regionalism in the Process of Shaping European Ethnic Patterns" (reg. number AV0Z90580513).
The director Jiřina Kosíková (*1952) works as ethnologist at the Institute of Ethnology at the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, v.v.i. Prague - Department Brno. Specialisation: Visual Anthropology. Use of video recording as an ethnological field research method and technique.
Production:Institute of Ethnology at the Academy of Science of the Czech Republic, Veveří 97, 602 00 Brno
Edit and script: Petr Baran
Camera: Jiřina Kosíková
Language of dialogues: Czech
Language of subtitles: English
This film takes us into the world of old man Peter Sengepov, tha last surviving Shaman of the Kazym River, who lives alone in the depths of the Siberian taiga. The region of the Khanty people is the basic source of oil recovery in Russia. About 70 percent of all Rusian oil is extracted here. The oil companies actively buy huge territories in the North of Siberia. Indigenous people are compelled to leavethese places, their own patrimonial territories, and do a modern civilization gradually absorbs an ancient culture.
The compatriotic village of Holuboje was founded in the so called Bessarabia (part of today’s Moldavia) by Czech colonists in 1864. Holuboj compatriots managed to preserve aspects of their language and folk culture, often long forgotten in the Czech Republic, in the manifold national variety of this region. The most extraordinary of all is the folk band which has continuously functioned here for incredible 146 years and which has various Czech songs in its repertoire.
