MOMOT Anastazij - Acta PATRISTICA, volume 15, issue 31/2024
CYRIL OF JERUSALEM AND HIS SYSTEM OF CATECHESIS
Anastazij MOMOT
assistant professor, Faculty of Orthodox Theology, University of Presov, Masarykova 15, 08001 Presov, Slovakia, anastazij.momot@unipo.sk, 00421517724729, ORCID: 0009-0002-4537-7517
Abstract
The paper describes with the position of Roma people in Slovakia during the socialist period. It focuses its attention mainly on the approach of the state and analyses various measures in relation to the assimilation and integration of the Roma people. The article aims to identify the priority concepts of the state that determined the contexts and basic views of the Roma people in Czechoslovakia from 1945 to 1980. Socialist society had a strong interest in elevating "citizens of Gypsy" to a higher level of social development through the settlement of nomadic groups, social engineering, resettlement, and socio-cultural integration. An important common feature of these approaches is the applied paternalism, which is characterised by very low involvement of the Roma people in solving their own problems.
Keywords
Roma people, socialism, state concept, paternalism
SUMMARY
The existence of the Union of Gypsy-Roma in Czechoslovakia proves that the Roma people were interested in solving their own problems and also challenges the notion that the Roma people did not have their own intelligentsia during the period of the previous regime. Assimilationist efforts in the past caused the devastation of the Roma's ethnic self-awareness and forcibly imposed cultural, political, social and economic ideals without regard to previous historical and ethnic contexts. The concepts presented have often remained on paper without practical implementation. Efforts to assimilate the Roma people were only partially successful and the planned changes were not achieved. It should be added that the communist regime in the last two decades has achieved some successes in the fields of employment and education, gradually eliminating illiteracy and improving the quality of life through the obligation to work, but even in this respect the problem has been dealt with ideologically.
(Language: english)