From the Czech Lands to South-Eastern Europe: A Case Study to Overcome the Discontinuity

The study reflects adaptation and economical working mechanisms of a selected religious community of expatriates (reformed Evangelists who came from south-eastern Moravia) that in the mid-19th century settled in the multiethnic village of Velké Srediště in current Serbian Banat. The migration of monitored colonists from Central Europe was associated with the process of overcoming the moment of discontinuity (leaving the place of origin) through their adaptation in the new settings. The text presents institutional mechanisms that were used by the newcomers to overcome the stage of discontinuity, which brought doubts on the future life in the new settings. Based on written sources we assume a thesis that this social group brought a functioning social organization from Moravia to southern Hungary – an autonomous congregation community with own standards, forms of farming, confessional school and family religious education. The follow-up to the pre-migration model of a religious organization translocated by migration participants was based on the fact that it was time-honoured, tested and functioning. Through examples of several practices of this adopted model I argue that this was a social practice which significantly facilitated and accelerated the process of gradual adaptation in the new settings.