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The Journal of Ethnology 5/2017 publishes summarizing articles related to the knowledge of the development of Czech (and Slovak) ethnology and to the formation of their particular specializations. Marta Šrámková dealt with the history of the research into verbal folklore (Evolutionary Paths of Czech Prosaic Folkloristics from the Formation as a Scientific Discipline until the year 2000). Martina Pavlicová submitted the knowledge concerning ethnochoreological research (Czech Ethnochoreology in the Context of Time and Society). Martin Šimša assessed the experts’ interest in folk dress (The Research into Folk Dress in the Czech Lands: From Topography to European Ethnology). Zdeněk Uherek dealt with the research into ethnic themes especially in the Institute of Ethnology of the CAS (Ethnic studies in the Czech Republic). Gabriela Kiliánová explained the evolutionary stages of Slovak ethnology (Ethnology in Slovakia in Crucial Historical Periods /after 1968 and 1989/: From a Historical to a Social Discipline?). Miroslav Válka focused on ethnology and the university environment in the Moravian capital (Ethnology at Masaryk University in Brno. The 70th Anniversary of the Foundation of the Sub-Division for Ethnography and Ethnology).
The further section of the special issue includes the Personalia Column. It remembers the names of researchers who have left a significant trace in Czech ethnology and whose production reached the international level: Karel Dvořák (1913–1989), Jaromír Jech (1918–1992), Oldřich Sirovátka (1925–1992), Iva Heroldová (1926–2005), Josef Vařeka (1927–2008), Richard Jeřábek (1931–2006), and Jiří Langer (born 1936).
Two stages can be defined in the development of Czech prosaic folkloristics: the pre-scientific (it created the material basis of the discipline) and the scientific one (formation of the discipline, bounds to the social environment of European Romanticism, formation of theory and methodology). The study follows the discipline’s development and the principal representatives of the scientific stage until the turn of the millennium. In the second half of the 19th century, the revision of the Romantic conception caused the Czech folklore to have been integrated in the world context. The works by Jiří Polívka and Václav Tille were of essential importance – they showed wide knowledge of material, systematic nature, and broad cultural interpretation. Jiří Horák elaborated a comparative approach and laid the foundations of discipline’s theory. Frank Wollman interconnected folklore with the development of Slavic literatures. Piotr Bogatyriov’s works brought structuralism and functional conceptions into the discipline. After 1945, folkloristics as a scientific discipline spread to the Czech university environment and in 1954 the Institute of Ethnography and Folkloristics was founded. After the arrival of Communism the discipline and its task were required to correspond to the then ideology (coal-miners’ and outlaws’ folklore). Field research developed, and general properties of legends and folk ballads, function of folklore in regions, inter-ethnic aspects, types of fairy-tales disappearing, and development of artificial fairy-tales were studied. Attention was paid to memorates, contemporary folklore and folklorism. Works by Jaromír Jech, Oldřich Sirovátka, Antonín Satek, etc. were of significant importance. Czech oral folkloristics is a permanently developing discipline.
The history of Czech ethnochoreology follows the general development of the interest in traditional folk culture and formation of ethnochoreology in the European geographical space. At present, ethnochoreology is perceived as part of ethnology; however, it overlaps beyond this discipline, especially towards the art-historical study of dance and music. The beginnings of ethnology’s current dance specialization may be part of the abovementioned interest in traditional folk culture in the late 19th century. The work Jak se kdy v Čechách tancovalo [How People Used to Dance in Bohemia] (1895) with the sub-title Dějiny tance v Čechách, na Moravě, ve Slezsku a na Slovensku od nejstarší doby až do konce 19. století se zvláštním zřetelem k dějinám tance vůbec [The History of Dance in Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia and Slovakia from the Oldest Times to the End of the 19th Century with Special Respect to the History of Dance in General] by the historian of culture Čeněk Zíbrt remains a hitherto unequalled Czech synthesis about the history of dance. The work was published again in 1960 as a commented edition. From the late 19th century, dances began to be collected in particular regions and the first collections with folk dances were published. The always stronger wave of the interest in folk dance was intensified by the disappearing dance tradition in the countryside. The intellectuals’ efforts did not focus only on recording the dance, but also on maintaining them. The folklore movement, which built its social position between the two world wars, became stronger in the second half of the 20th century. At that time, the institutionalized aspect of ethnochoreology developed in the Czech lands, and both levels, the practical and the theoretical one, complemented each other. Czech ethnochoreology became involved in international professional structures and the subject-matter of its interest began to spread beyond the borders of traditional folk culture. It focuses not only on folk dance, but on dance as a phenomenon that is one of the oldest expressions of people’s souls and emotions in human existence.
The text presents the development of the research into folk dress worn by the inhabitants of the Czech lands, beginning with the works by topographers focussing on a thorough description of particular countries and provinces of the Austrian monarchy and their inhabitants, to the development of an academic platform. This was preceded by the Czechoslavic Ethnographic Exhibition in Prague (1895) and the associated efforts to present festive and ceremonial clothing worn by rural residents. For the Exhibition, exhibits were searched for in the field, which were described and photo-documented. Many articles were published in special journals; these were supposed to support the collection of materials for an ethnographic encyclopaedia. The publication of monographs on particular ethnographic regions in the post-war period was a certain intermediate stage – folk dress was described in separate chapters of these monographs. The afore-mentioned efforts was crowned by the first volume of the publication Lidové kroje v Československu [Folk Costumes in Czechoslovakia], issued by Drahomíra Stránská in 1949. In terms of methodology, the publication became an inspiration for a generation of female research fellows who based on its spirit their struggle to assess the historical development of folk dress in particular regions. Marxist ethnography brought up new research theme in the 1950s – the interest in the life of the working classes and inhabitants in industrial areas. Later-on, the research got rid of political indoctrination, and the new methodological basis made it possible to focus not only on the historical dimension, but also on the social and cultural role of clothing in the history of the 19th and 20th centuries.
The term ethnic studies is not frequently used in the academic community of the Czech Republic. It is predominantly connected to the name of the Ethnic Studies Department at the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences and with texts produced by Czech ethnologists dealing with migrations, minorities and adjustment processes to the new environment (in the Czech academic texts of the second half of the 20th century, occasionally called „etnické procesy” [ethnic processes]). The author of this text scrutinizes the meaning of the concept of ethnic studies in the Czech context and poses the question what types of enquiries there have been so far. He compares the concept of ethnic studies in the Czech Republic and the USA, where ethnic studies departments originated in the 1960s and 1980s, and concludes that in the Czech Republic, in contrast to the United States, the theme of ethnic studies relates rather than the ethno-revivalist movements with social anthropological research into the dynamics of human relations and intercultural contacts, which were frequently called interethnic relations in the 1990s.
The contribution deals with the history of ethnology in Slovakia at the time of Czechoslovak period of “normalization” (1969–1989) and after essential political changes in 1989. The author focusses on the history of ethnology within the Institute of Ethnography of the Slovak Academy of Sciences (later the Institute of Ethnology of the Slovak Academy of Sciences) as a leading workplace in ethnography / ethnology in the second half of the 20th and in the 21st centuries. The author relies on the premise that political changes created new social processes to which the actors in those processes replied and which they co-created. In this case, it is the Academy employees that are understood as actors. The author observes the following issues: What was the impact of political changes from 1969 and after 1989 on the institutional changes in the Slovak Academy of Sciences, the adaptation of legislative regulations and the organization of scientific work? What was the scientific orientation of ethnography/ethnology in the Academy in the two observed periods; that means under the conditions of two different political systems? What were the results of the scientific programme between 1969 and 1989 and after 1989? Was the discipline’s paradigm changed? Was the originally historical science converted to a social science?
Since its foundation in the academic year 1945/46, the ethnological (ethnographic) section at the Faculty of Arts of Masaryk University in Brno (Czech Republic) has taken part in the formation of the discipline in the former Czechoslovakia and – since 1993 − in the independent Czech Republic. It was Prof. Antonín Václavík (1891–1959) and his student who defined the teaching’s orientation, so one speaks about the Brno (Moravian) ethnographic school. After 1948, the discipline was declared a historical science and at the Faculty of Arts it became part of several departments dealing with history and history of art together. In 1964, an independent Department of Ethnography and Folkloristics was founded, which was chaired by Prof. Richard Jeřábek ¬(1931–2006), but in the period of Communist “normalization”, from 1970, the discipline was again part of the Department of History and Ethnography of Central, South-Eastern and Eastern Europe. After social changes relating to 1989, the discipline became independent as the Institute of European Ethnology (since 1991). The teaching of the discipline gradually focused – as well as traditional folk culture observed within the Slavic context – on contemporary culture and society (working classes, countryside with cooperative agriculture, ethnic issues, folklorism, oral history, identity, and migration). The lectures on non-European ethnology were delivered by Richard Jeřábek. Domestic and international discovery trips became an integral part of the teaching. This line will be continued by the new study programme of ethnology, which is emerging in connection with the 2016 amendment to Higher Education Act.
Journal of Ethnology 4/2017 deals with the theme Contemporary Legends and Rumours. In her study Zuzana Panczová conducts a survey of selected Internet conspiracy theories in historical and international contexts (Apocalyptic Visions of Conspiracy Theories on Slovak Internet Antisystem Websites). Vladimír Bahna thinks about conspiracy theories from the perspective of their bearers (Argumentum ad hominem. Argumentation Strategies of Conspiracy Theories Advocates in Slovak Internet Discussions). Kateřina Dobrovolná pays attention to the treatment of contemporary research into demonological legends, the transmission of which is not bound only to oral tradition, but also to communication mass media, especially the Internet (Contemporary Demonological Legends from Western Bohemia and Their Categorization). Oldřich Kašpar explains results of his folkloristic research in Mexico in 2007–2014 (Several Notes on Contemporary Mexican Legends and Rumours). In further studies and materials - beyond the main themes – the treatises “New Speakers” in the Context of Minority Languages in Europe and Revitalisation Efforts (by Leoš Šatava) and Modern Dance Tradition in Popice near Hustopeče in the Context of Historical-Cultural Development of the Village (by Jarmila Teturová) are published.
Review Section submits a text by Gabriela Kiliánová, devoted to 100th birthday of the Slovak ethnologist Andrej Melicherčík (author Gabriela Kiliánová) and two texts by Oldřich Kašpar, which remember the Czech travellers Čeněk Paclt (1813–1887) and Josef Kořenský (1847–1938). Social Chronicle remembers the anniversaries of the Czech romologist Eva Davidová (born 1932) and the Slovak ethnomusicologist Soňa Burlasová (1927). It also publishes an obituary for Jean Rohe (1946-2017), an eminent personality in the international folklore movement. Other regular columns inform about exhibitions, conferences, reviews and reports from the discipline.
Conspiracy theories belong to rumours which are specific for their theme - they speak about secret coadunations that influence different spheres of public interest. Albeit the following may not be a rule, such theories often express negative attitudes toward the existing system, understanding official state institutions, media and authorities representing the official discourse as representatives of this system. Non-confidence against the system is connected with visions about approaching catastrophe, or about gradual planned decline of society. The increase in popularity of conspiratorial interpretations is also supported by specific features of the Internet communication. Current “conspiracy culture” spreads mainly in cyberspace, while absorbing a wide spectrum of themes and motives interconnecting different spheres of ongoing events with ideas going back to the past. It creates a platform for attitudes and persuasions being excluded, which moreover form coalitions of opinion through a picture of the common enemy. The article tries to explain narrative and argumentation strategies, which unite different types of ideological persuasions.
The article tries to analyse argumentation strategies of conspiracy theories advocates in Slovak Internet discussions. The goal is to comprehend the causes of persuasiveness and successful cultural transmission of conspiracy theories. The article is based on the presumption that arguments used by contributors in the discussion, are an image of what they consider to be persuasive, and for this reason, they reflect - to a certain extent - the successful cultural transmission. The results show that the pro-conspiracy argumentation in the discussions systematically repeats the “argument ad hominem”, which - instead of attacking the essence and content of arguments in official stories - attacked the sources of information or persons that supported them in a given discussion. The attacks accused them of intentional deception and participation in the conspiracy. Referring to cognitive-psychological literature, the author comes to a conclusion that this phenomenon can be explained by people´s natural tendency to prefer explanations that offer other people´s intentions as a cause of an event. Figuratively speaking, the conspiracy theories “sponge” on the natural property of human thinking to occupy oneself with intentions of other people.
The study deals with demonic beings and phenomena that appear in the documented demonological legends from contemporary Western Bohemia; furthermore, it studies the transformations in locations where these demonic beings are supposed to reside, as the narrators admit and if the locations in which frightening stories related to the demonic beings took part, as traditional demonological legends say, remained more or less unchanged, or if they have been transformed to the extent that the demonological legends are spread only in the urban environment today. The study presents several selected legends and similar narratives, which have been documented through semi-structured interviews with the inhabitants of the Pilsen Region and its surroundings, it categorizes them according to the venue, and catalogues them. The primary emphasis is put on the cataloguing of the collected legends and narratives using the catalogue of demonological legends by Jan Luffer.
The submitted study focuses on the research into contemporary urban legends in Mexico. In contrast to Europe and other regions, these are influenced by three basic factors – the pre-Columbian cultural heritage, the strong influence of the Catholic Church, which is a breeding ground for folk superstitiousness, and the hitherto unsolved problem of Mexican identity. The text contains particular examples to illustrate the above-mentioned facts and to exemplify the difference between the contemporary and the European (Czech) legend and rumour. The author also points out the fact that in Mexico the contemporary rural legends exist. These become known only slowly, because their narrators and audience have only limited possibilities of using modern media for their more mass spreading. It can be said generally (and it is nothing surprising), that the rural Mexican legend is much more conservative that the urban one. The study is supplemented by a voluminous bibliography, which draws attention, among other things, to the basic works of Latin-American authors on this theme.
Until recently the (socio)linguistic studies concerned with minority languages focused chiefly on “native speakers”. Equally, the (ethno)linguistic revitalisation efforts tried to strengthen or reinstall the intergenerational language transmission. Currently, however, a change is occurring within the context of the phenomenon of “new speakers”, i.e. persons who have acquired the language in a way different from their family background, or that of “postvernacular languages” or “xenolects” formed on this basis. The increase in the significance of (activist) “new speakers” (in many cases outnumbering the traditional users of the language) has become so important since the turn of the 21st century that at present the research on this phenomenon ranks among representative branches of the ethnolinguistic revitalisation issues. Despite the shift under discussion, the given framework still contains a number of yet unsolved and open levels, e.g. in connection with the flexibility and fluidity of the linguistic field´s boundaries, which seemed to be fixed until recently, with questions of legitimacy and authenticity of various types of the language, or a possible bridging of the dichotomous gap and the integration of both groups of the users.
The study presents the results of the field research into modern dance tradition, which was carried out in the village of Popice in the Břeclav area between 2016 and 2017. The village is situated in the South-Moravian borderland, and before the Second World War the original German population predominated there. After the war, during which the village was united with the German Reich, the occupied territory was given back to Czechoslovakia and the German-speaking inhabitants of Popice were displaced. From 1946, within a settlement programme controlled by the government, the village was populated by inhabitants from the Slovácko ethnographic area. The study deals with the formation of modern dance tradition and its development to date, accentuating particular dance opportunities monitored in the context and historical-cultural transformations of the village. The dance opportunities are thoroughly described with an emphasis on their content and the importance of the organizers´ position within the commenced intergenerational transmission of modern dance traditions. Attention is paid to the ongoing process of the construction of Popice inhabitants´ identity in connection with the transmission and adoption of folk-costume and customary elements from the ethnographic area of Hanácké Slovácko. The knowledge summarized in the study can serve as a basis for longitudinal research.
Journal of Ethnology 3/2017 deals with the theme “National Schools in Ethnology and Socio-Cultural Anthropology”. Vilmos Voight pays attention to the oldest period of Hungarian interest in the nation and folk culture, and to basic works which constituted Hungarian ethnography (Hungarian Ethnography – a Description of Hungarian Nation?). Giuseppe Maiello outlines the research situation in Italy in the second half of the 19th and early 20th centuries (The Political Unity of Italy and the Building of the National Demo-Ethno-Anthropology). Jiří Woitsch observes important milestones in the ethnological research in Sweden (From Folklivsforskning to European Ethnology and Anthropology, and Back: Swedish Ethnology in the 19th through 21st Centuries). Indrek Jääts and Marlen Metslaid describe the history of Estonian ethnology (Ethnologies, Ideologies and Powers: the Estonian Case). Martin Soukup submits an outline of the development in social anthropology in Great Britain (British Social Anthropology: the Origin, Development, and Key Concepts).
In the Methodology of Science column Oto Polouček publishes his contribution The Ways across Disciplines for the Further Use of Narrative Sources. An Example of Oral History and Ethnology. Social Chronicle remembers the birth anniversaries of the anthropologist Václav Soukup (born 1957) and the ethnologist Věra Kovářů (born 1932). The obituaries for the dancer and choreographer Miloš Vršecký (1950–2017), and Luděk Štěpán (1932–2017), a researcher in the field of vernacular architecture, follow. Other regular columns inform about conferences and festivals and submit reviews and reports concerning the discipline.
The contribution offers an overview of basis terms and a brief history of Hungarian ethnography including the history of Hungarian society (and nation) from the Middle Ages to the present. The author deals more thoroughly with more important authors and works that can be considered to be ethnographic. The most significant ones include Miklós Oláh (1537), Mátyás Bél (1735–1742), a statistics describing the theory of state, János Csaplovics (1822, 1829), Herder´s prophecy about the extinction of the Magyars (1791), collections and regional descriptions in the “reform period”, Ferenc Kölcsey and his “national traditions“ (1826), János Erdélyi who further developed the same theme (1847), new beginnings after the revolution (1848–1849), Pál Hunfalvy (1876), foundation of the Hungarian Museum of Ethnography (1872), general and industrial exhibitions, the book Österreichische Monarchie in Wort und Bild (1886–1902), publication of comparative journals, the National Millennium Exhibition in 1896, foundation of the Hungarian Ethnographic Society (1889), Lajos Katon´s suggestion for terminology (1889: ethnologia – ethnographia – folklore), the period before World War I and the end of the “golden age” after World War I.
The study describes the building of anthropology and the disciplines connected to it during the first years of the Italian state. The schools of thinking inspired by Jean-Baptiste Lamarck and those of Darwinian inspiration are compared, and the text explains how Italian scientists discovered modern ethnography and folklore studies. The study focuses on several prominent personalities of what is now defined in Italy as demo-ethno-anthropology, such as Paolo Mantegazza, Giustiniano Nicolucci, Giuseppe Pitré, Cesare Lombroso and Angelo de Gubernatis. Less memorable figures are also mentioned in detail as well as their contribution to Italian and European ethnology. The study analyses strengths and weaknesses of Italian ethnology, as well as their development during the 19th century. Emphasis is placed on the perception of the substantial cultural distance between northern and southern Italy.These lands, after their annexation to the Italian Kingdom, became a field of research for ethnographers and anthropologists, and a place to experience the new racist theories that were at that time formed within the positivist science, too.
The chronologically approached essay outlines the development of Swedish ethnology from its amateur beginnings through establishing the museum and university scientific discipline in the 19th and the first half of the 20th century. Great attention is paid to the essential modernization of the discipline by Sigurd Erixon, which had all-European impact through the theoretical-methodological formation of the comparative all-European ethnology´s concept, as well as to the subsequent processes of sociologization and anthropologization of the discipline in the 1970s and 1980s, and the shift in the Swedish ethnologists´ focus from the study of the past to current social problems. The contemporary situation in Swedish ethnology, the example of which the so-called Lund School is, is described as a convergence of cultural-historical and anthropological approaches and the discipline is considered to be one of the most progressive in the all-European context. The essay mentions several profiling personalities of Swedish ethnology from the 19th century to date as well as key works, and it describes the past and the contemporary institutional basis of the discipline.
This article examines the inception and history of Estonian ethnography as it progressed various political regimes. The central axis is the connection between the discipline and the Estonian nationalism. The autors examine two periods at greater length, the interwar era and the Soviet period. The main research issue for Estonian ethnography up to the 1990s was the material part of peasant culture, while folkloristics dealt with the intangible side. In the interwar Republic of Estonia, ethnography was one branch of Estonian studies and helped strengthen the national identity and unity. During the Soviet period, Estonian ethnography was formally a part of Soviet ethnography and subject to Marxist-Leninist theory. However, in practice it did remain connected to Estonian nationalism and supported Estonian identity, especially since late 1950s. Estonian ethnography remained quite conservative in terms of research material and methods. A major change took place early in the 1990s as Estonia regained independence. Estonian ethnography became a part of European ethnology and name of the discipline changed accordingly.
The study deals with exploration of the origin and development of the British social anthropology. The author has defined its four principal features, which he considers to be, as follows: primarily deductive orientation, focus on the research into non-European societies, emphasis on applied anthropology and absence of standardized textbooks in the branch. The study aims at major schools and paradigms; simultaneously, the author deals with the analysis of key conceptions in the discipline, which include function and social structure in the British social anthropology. He also illustrates three dominating attitudes, which emerged in the discipline, by selected male and female representatives of the British anthropology. In particular, these include the diachronous (evolutionism, diffusionism), the synchronous (functionalism, structural functionalism) and the processual (Manchester School) attitude. He also demonstrates the narrow connection between the fieldwork concept and the dominating paradigm. In the conclusion of the study, the recent trends in the British social anthropology and its current situation are addressed.
Journal of Ethnology 2/2017 deals with the theme “The Urban Space”. Petr Lozoviuk documents on the example of the German traveller Johann Georg Kohl (1808–1878) and his study about Odesa, that the text concentrated on the town in terms of ethnology could be found as early as in the mid-19th century (Ethnographic Geognosy and Beginnings of Urban Protoethnology). In her contribution, Martina Bocánová pays attention to town outskirts as a space where the socially weaker and marginalized inhabitants are concentrated (Possibilities and Forms of Adaptation of Socially and Economically Excluded Inhabitants Living in Town Outskirts into the Majority Society /an example from Trnava/). Jan Semrád brings up the theme of ethnological research into prefabricated housing estates in the Czech Republic and he supports several aspects with his own research (Prefabricated Housing Estates as an Item of Ethnology´s Interest /an example of the Lesná housing estate in Brno/). Aleš Smrčka brings a view of an ethnologist – bus driver – on a social and professional group whose part he is (Bus Drivers: an Emic View on a Socio-Professional Group in Prague Urban Environment). In her contribution, Barbora Půtová introduces graffiti as part of the public space in towns and she analyses it from the point of view of anthropological conceptions (Graffiti, City, and Anthropology).
Review Section publishes contributions by Oldřich Kašpar “Homage to a Moravian Native in the Distant California in 2015” (about Wenceslaus Linck /1736-1797/, a Jesuit missionary) and “Ángel María Garibay Kintana – a founder of Nahua Studies”. The interview is conducted with Ladislava Košíková, a choreographer and dance teacher, on the occasion of her birth anniversary. Social Chronicle remembers the birth anniversaries of the ethnologist Milena Secká (born 1957), the historian Eduard Maur (born 1937), the ethnologist Stanislav Brouček (born 1947), the ethnologist Ludmila Sochorová (born 1942) and the amateur ethnographer Jan Pavlík (born 1937). Other regular columns include reports from exhibitions and reports concerning the discipline, as well as reviews of new books.
The objective of the submitted study is to point out the fact that examples of unusually mature protoethnological texts, which focus on the urban environment in a surprisingly modern way, could be found as early as in the mid-19th century. As an example for the aforementioned statement, a study from the year 1841 is analysed, which was written by Johann Georg Kohl (1808–1878), a German ethnographer and traveller. Kohl’s text deals with Odessa, a town which – due to its special features – drew attention of many Russian and foreign observers immediately after it had been found. Kohl’s hitherto unusual sensibility for the perception of the town as a specific social space resulted in an unusually modern synthesis. The texts of Kohl’s type can be viewed as valuable sources for ethnographically directed information which is relevant even today due to the diachronic analysis of populations thematised in them; in addition, those texts are important sources usable for the study of the history of European ethnology.
The study deals with the theme of town outskirts as a space where the socially, economically and otherwise handicapped inhabitants cumulate, and it uses the town of Trnava as an example. The study also analyses the possibilities and ways to convert that space into a locality of a different quality. The first section introduces the Kopánka location that was perceived as an outskirts in the first half of the 20th century. There used to live people there who were handicapped due to the problems based on their extreme poverty, and a closed group of Bulgarians who worked as farmers. Another large group included people who moved in from mountainous regions of Orava where they lost their homes when the Orava dam was built. The study highlights the factors which allowed the particular groups to cooperate and create models that gradually changed the character of that town district. In the conclusion, the author describes and analyses the problems in such a type of space, she points out the life and its typical problems in a socially excluded location as well as the processes of adaptation, becoming closer to majority, dynamical changes within that location and its gradual integration into the life of majority as an equal partner.
The study deals with the theme of ethnological research into prefabricated housing estates in the Czech Republic and the possibilities of ethnological research into this specific type of housing. The text shows different points of view of housing estates and contemporary life of their inhabitants. First, the study brings up the theme generally and accentuates its importance within the contemporary urban-ethnological research. Then the theme is specified through the research into the Lesná housing estate in Brno. In the last ten years, several clubs have been founded there whose aim is to enhance the life space of the housing estate, to safeguard its contemporary appearance and to create or improve neighbourly relations. Through activities developed by these clubs and their members, it is possible to illustrate in which way inhabitants can develop a close relationship with the place or space where they live. The research has shown that the people are aware of the value of their place of living as well as of their affiliation to the given locality, especially when the existing state is endangered. Another finding includes the fact that where strong leaders are available, a wider interconnected group of inhabitants within the neighbourhood emerges more easily. For this reason, a housing estates is not always a space of anonymity.
Bus drivers are a peculiar socio-professional group that is associated with certain social position, professional tongue, working habits, nutrition habits and way of clothing. However, a specific form of cohesion, which can be perceived in greetings, verbal and non-verbal communication and way of behaviour not only in the road traffic, is an interesting phenomenon despite the mutual anonymity of the members of that group. We could encounter that socio-professional group in Prague in 1908 for the first time, when the first bus line in the area of Lesser-Town Square and Pohořelec was put into operation. Currently, the urban bus transport services in the territory of the City of Prague are provided by the Prague Public Transit Company, Inc. as well as by several private transit companies with different number of employees. The way of organizing the driver’s shifts, the individual demands of particular employers, the look of uniforms and partially the work performance are different in many aspects and they influence the everyday way of life of bus drivers. The ethnological research on the theme is based mainly on the emic view by an ethnologist – driver; the author of the study has worked as an auxiliary driver in the territory of Prague since mid-2013 until now. His emic view is confronted with literature and interviews conducted with respondents of different age, who worked or still work as bus drivers in Prague urban territory.
The paper analyses and interprets graffiti as part of the urban public space. It focuses on the basic categories given by the motivation of their creators and the recipients’ ability to interpret and decode them. Special attention is paid to the discourses that are used not only to interpret, but also to determine the relation between graffiti and the public space and the degree of its inclusion or exclusion. The objective of the paper is to analyse graffiti from the perspective of anthropological concepts and categories, such as liminality, impurity and ritual. The paper includes a concept of no place that is not filled with meanings and can thus represent a spatial reference that is reflected in the mental map. The paper also accentuates the power context due to which graffiti may be viewed as communication of speech actions. Creation of graffiti (re)appropriates the counter-space that is not absorbed by the dominant standards. Within this meaning, graffiti represents a revolt against inferiority to the space of the majority society, as it generates an alternative space and creates new territories of shared communication. The paper describes how the creation of graffiti allows its makers movement within the liminal space, repeated performance and shared ritual act that may be part of the citizens’ right to change their city through art and visual production.
Journal of Ethnology 1/2017 deals with the theme Musical Folklore in Contemporary Research. In his contribution, Peter Obuch speaks about brass music bands in the Moravian-Slovak borderland and about tasks of individual brass instruments in such groups (Aerophones in Traditional Ensemble Music in White Carpathians). Tomáš Spurný pays his attention to bagpipe music in southern and south-western Bohemia (Several Comments on Folk Music Culture in the Regions of Chodsko and the Cheb Area and its Interpretation), while Marian Friedl concentrates on folk flutes in north-western Carpathians (What is the Origin of Long Flutes Ordered as 3+0 and 3+0+2 in Depositories of Moravian Museums?). Marta Toncrová a Lucie Uhlíková explain the importance and context of the collection Moravské písně milostné [Moravian Love Songs] by editors Leoš Janáček and Pavel Váša (Moravian Love Songs – an Unappreciated Milestone in Moravian Musical Folkloristics). Andrej Sulitka in his non-thematic study deals with the theme of ethnicity based on the research into Ruthenian minority (Ruthenians in the Czech Republic: the “revitalization” of a minority’s national identity).
The Transforming Tradition column publishes the essay It would be sad if we weren’t cheery… (by Josef Holcman). Review Section submits a view of the history of woman’s travelling – Beginnings of Woman’s Travelling in the World and in Our Country: from Ida Pfeifferová to Barbora Markéta Eliášová (by Oldřich Kašpar) and remembers the 100th birthday of the ethnographer Josef Beneš (by Josef Jančář). Social Chronicle is devoted to the anniversary of the theologian, ethnologist and historian Eva Melmuková Šašecí (born 1932); furthermore, obituaries for the ethnomusicologist Olga Hrabalová (1930–2017), ethnologist Ján Podolák (1926–2017) and the cultural worker and dancer Jiří Parduba (1923–2017). Other regular columns include reports from exhibitions, conferences and festivals as well as reviews of new books.
Modern aerophones permeated the rural musical traditions in the Slovakian-Moravian borderland in the last quarter of the 19th century. At that time, the boom of rural brass music bands began and clarinet and trumpet (as well as other brass instruments later-on) became stable parts of string and cimbalom music bands. After the World War I., the brass instruments formed music bands with 2 – 4 members and an accordion. This happened mainly on the Slovakian side of the borders; the music bands became part of “jazzes” – groups representing the rural form of town dance orchestras; the rural bands also included saxophone. From the perspective of the style of play, common regional earmarks can be found – despite individual peculiarities – in variations and mutual coordination of melodic voices. The clarinet players featured figurations that seemed to be deciding to create an own style; the trumpet players rather used time-proven melodic patterns for their variable heterophony. The play of melodic musical instruments in brass music bands is typical for its moderation in variants; peculiar is the deformation of several rhythmic patterns (the Trenčín area). From the perspective of polyphony, heterophony and tierce-parallelism dominate; the advanced style of playing the clarinets (the ethnographic area of Horňácko) features figurative contra-voice.
The contribution submits a thought about some phenomena which are connected with bagpipe music in southern and western Bohemia. In terms of methodology, it is based on an analysis of period sources as well as author’s own musical practice, and it tries to apply these on another analysis and the interpretation of bagpipe folk music in the regions of Chebsko and Chodsko. Based on catalogued hand-written records of German songs from Bohemia, Moravia and Silesia, which are stored at the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences in Prague, as well as printed Czech and German collections of songs from Bohemia, and the oldest voice records of Bohemian folk music, it is possible to map the continual development of bagpipe folk music in southern and western Bohemia since the beginning of the 19th century to date. The analysis of all the sources shows that the bagpipe folk music from the regions of Chodsko and Chebsko formed a compact culture despite all the language differences between both regions. Due to musical notations in the oldest collections of folk music and due to the oldest voice records, it is possible to interpret the bagpipe folk music from the aforementioned regions reliably and in an informed form even today.
The usage of long flutes with three to five holes ordered as 3+0, 3+0+2 or 5+0 is evidenced in an area going from Moravia, through northern and eastern Slovakia, southern Poland and Hungary to Romania and Moldova. Other similar instruments can also be found in Arabian, Persian and Turkish traditional music and in the Uralo-Altaic region. In north-western Carpathians the tradition of playing and making these instruments has completely disappeared, or it has been replaced by a possible successor of these instruments – the Central-Slovakian fujara. A research recently executed in museum depositories and private collections in the Moravian-Slovakian borderland caused several questions. Based on the analogy, the common origin of long flutes with three finger holes (3+0) is assumed to be in bass versions of so called tabor pipes (Trommelpfeife). Together with a one handed drum, these instruments created a typical entertainment instrumental group in the late Middle Ages. However, very similar instruments with five finger holes of the 5+0 type can be found in Romania under the name caval, and in Hungary under the name hosszú furulya. If these instruments are related to the Eastern-Moravian variants, the so called tuning holes can be rudiments of the earlier finger holes, and such long flutes an unknown evolutional step of the Central-Slovakian fujara.
The study sets out the first scientifically treated Czech edition of songs – Moravské písně milostné [Moravian Love Songs] prepared by the composer Leoš Janáček and the philologist Pavel Váša, and published in parts between 1930 and 1937. The authors assess the collection´s importance, explain the reasons why its publishing lasted for more than twenty years (and Janáček did not live to see it), set out an unusual structure of the edition as well as possible causes for the insufficient appreciation of the work. They state that within the Czech context, the publication is a unique event in publishing for more reasons: 1. it can justly be described as the first scientifically treated edition of one sort of songs in the Czech folkloristic research; 2. based on a peculiar conception, mainly by Leoš Janáček, the material is divided into groups of songs based on the relationship between the musical and the literary component as well as the psychic and the emotional effect; 3. it is the first scientific edition supplemented with a lot of registers, although that part of the work has not overcome initial difficulties yet and it has introduced many inaccuracies into the collection; as a collection of love songs from Moravia and Silesia, it represents an important stage of development on the way to a model edition of scientific type.
The contribution points to selected activities and their role that they play in constructing the national self-identity of Ruthenian minority. It is the Rusíni.cz – rusínská iniciativa v ČR (Ruthenians.cz – a Ruthenian initiative in the Czech Republic) association, founded in 2011, that initiates the regeneration of club life. In contrast to the members of the Společnost přátel Podkarpatské Rusi (Society of Carpathian Ruthenia Friends), who come from older generations, the members of the new association come from young generations of Ruthenians, immigrants from Eastern Slovakia. The Rusíni.cz association set themselves a target to develop the activity in the field of the community life of Ruthenians in Prague, to maintain and promote cultural traditions of Ruthenians and to inform the Czech public about Ruthenians. As resulting from the attitudes of the Rusíni.cz representatives, the revitalisation of “ruthenianism” is based on the safeguarding of customary traditions, calendar cycle and language in the form of Ruthenian dialects spoken in Eastern Slovakia. From the Rusíni.cz perspective, the national identity of Ruthenians is declared as a culturally and ethically determined matter-of-fact.
