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Journal of Ethnology 4/2019 deals with the theme “Cultural Heritage and Everyday Life”. In her essay, Katarína Popelková presents results of the research into Easter in contemporary Slovakia (Easter and the Ways of Celebrating It in Slovakia in the 21st Century). Zuzana Beňušková introduces the role of cultural heritage in four villages which won the first place in the Village of the Year competition (Project “The Restoration of the Countryside“: Local strategies in the care of cultural heritage and their influence on the quality of everyday life in rural environment). Martin Štoll pays attention to everyday life in documentaries (Everyday Life as a Building Element of the Documentary Authenticity: about Scholars´ and Film Makers´ Common Paths). Marek Šebeš focusses on the research into watching the West-European TV programmes, which could be received in the vicinity of the borders with Austria and Germany in totalitarian Czechoslovakia (Foreign Television Watching in Everyday Life in the Period of Communism: South-Bohemian Experience). Helena Beránková explains how several constructions from the first third of the 20th century, which were built by one builder, have changed to date (Architecture Memory of a Location: Uherský Ostroh and the Builder Josef Šuta).
The Transforming Tradition column publishes texts Observations from Renewed Kermesse in Bedřichov in the Blanensko Region (author Eva Večerková) and Safeguarding of Cultural Heritage on the Example of the Water Mill in Bohuslavice (author Eva Abramuszkinová Pavlíková). Review Section publishes a reminiscence of the Czech natural scientist, ethnographer, photographer, and traveller Josef Klvaňa (1857–1919) (author Helena Beránková). Interview Section is devoted to the ethnologist Václav Hubinger. Social Chronicle remembers the jubilee of the ethnologist and historian Helena Nosková (born 1948) and publishes an obituary for the museum ethnographer Eva Urbachová (1924–2019). Further regular columns include reports on conferences and review of new books.
The text presents results of the research which was conducted in the form of a media search within the years 2001 – 2015. The blanket analysis of the press focusses on getting a transparent information about the ways how Easter is celebrated in Slovakia in the environment of global and information society. The material, which was subject to an ethnological content analysis, has generated data to monitor a wide spectrum of questions associated with the festive practice, its content and dynamics, parameters and themes of ongoing Easter social discourse. Surviving of that primarily religious Christian festival includes also two groups of secular elements in Slovakia, in addition to those spiritual. The one group includes family, community, and social activities, relax and entertainment, which the population enjoys on festive days off. The other group comprises symbolic activities that either spontaneously follow spring and Easter customs associated with traditional rural culture and phenomena termed as cultural heritage, or they symbolically refer to them. The spectrum of celebrating forms is influenced by the efforts of trade and business-oriented subjects to break through even in this sphere, meaning to increase consumption and adventure activities.
The text presents result of ethnologic research, which has been conducted since 2017 in the villages that won the Village of the Year competition. Taking four villages as an example, the text shows how traditional culture can contribute to the mobilization of economic resources. In suburban villages, its intangible form contributes to bringing the incomers and the original inhabitants closer together, its tangible form strengthens the rural character of a village. In mountain villages, traditional culture partially completes leisure self-realization of local inhabitants and it strengthens local identity, and it is both tangible and intangible form that takes an important part in representation of the village. Two examples (the villages of Soblahov and Malé Dvorníky) show how the emphasis on and ways of approach to cultural traditions can be diverse; examples of multi-ethnic villages (Liptovská Teplička and Malé Dvorníky) indicate the preferred use of majority’s cultural heritage. Cultural heritage becomes a cultural capital when used for the local/regional development; its identification and involvement helps mobilize new resources of economic incomes (financial funds from the EU and the state and commercial institutions, promotion of a village/region, foundation of festivals and events, development of local tourism, production of local products).
Everyday life is a natural subject-matter of historians’, philosophers’ and anthropologists’ research as well as a natural content of documentaries. Scholars’ and film-makers’ analytic methods are not identical, however their objectives are similar: to describe and to express what the world is and what it was. The study shows that the results of the research into everyday life can also be applied to the audio-visual material, and even to compact dramatic films and TV works. The author of the text proceeds mainly from Petr Sedlák’s approaches and he innovatively extends the terms “the scenery of everyday life”, introduced by Milena Lenderová, by the term “the props of everyday life”. He substantiates his arguments with three documentaries which are linked together by the theme and time of their origin (late 1960s). The films also represent three different approaches of their authors when working with the environment visualisation and with dynamics, rhythmisation, repetitiveness, and motivisation of their principal characters’ lives. With the films “Ztištění” by Rudolf Adler, “Císařští poddaní” by Jindřich Fairaizl, and “Respice Finem” by Jan Špáta, the author proves that everyday life and mainly its audio-visual presentation is used by documentary-makers as the basic ingredient of credibility, truth-resemblance, and building of their works’ authenticity.
Before the year 1989, a part of Czechoslovak inhabitants had an opportunity to watch foreign televisions, the signal of which penetrated through the border into Czechoslovak inland. Although there are known data from public opinion survey, by means of which the then political system tried to find out how watching the foreign (especially the West-European) televisions is disseminated in the Czechoslovak society as well as the citizens´ opinions on the broadcasting, we have just a little information about how the everyday practice of that watching looked like. This study focuses on everyday experience with watching the Austrian and the German television in South Bohemia. It is based on the qualitative research among survivors who could watch the programmes in the 1960s – 1980s. In ten in-depth interviews and one group discussion we tried to find out which role the West-European television watching played in the everyday life of people, which different forms it gained, and in what social context it occurred. The research results pointed out, among other things, several typical ways of watching the West-European televisions and the importance that the respondents attributed to it.
The text deals with the work by Josef Šuta (1863–1941), a project architect and building company owner, who designed more than 160 houses and 60 farm and technical buildings in the Uherský Ostroh area (south-eastern Moravia) from the late 19th century until the 1930s. Although only several buildings have survived to date, archival sources adequately present the supra-regional importance of this builder. While his layouts respected the operation of farmsteads and craftsmen’s homesteads, he used Art-Nouveau elements to adorn the facades of those buildings already at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. In her study, the author summarizes, in terms of quality and quantity, Šuta’s building activity, which lasted more than fifty years, completing this with the emic perspective of current owners, and searching for their relationship to the building heritage. The field research, lasting for several years, in combination with heuristic investigation in archives and with interviews with respondents confirmed the great inertia of folk culture’s phenomena in everyday culture as well as the readiness to accept and fund aesthetic elements which seem to be superfluous from the perspective of functionality. In the conclusion, the author of the study states that the uniqueness of the location’s building image is a very brittle value: it is not only historic buildings but also associated archives and photo-documents that are irretrievably disappearing.
Journal of Ethnology 3/2019 deals with the theme “Diet as a Cultural Phenomenon”. Dragana Radojičić (Whose Dish Is This? Migrations and Food Culture in the 21st Century) contemplates the food at the time of globalization. Martin Soukup and Jan D. Bláha explain eating habits in Papua-New Guinea (PNG Made: Transformations of Papua-New Guinea Diet). Roman Doušek offers a view of the transformation of Czech diet through the chosen phenomenon of grilled chickens (Grilled Chicken in the Network of Cultural Significances. Innovations and transformations in Czech diet in the second half of the 20th century and in the early 21st century). Zdena Krišková deals with traditional diet in one of Slovak regions (The Determinants and Specific Features of Traditional Diet in the Context of Identity, with Selected Examples from Locations in the Upper Spiš Region). Markéta Slavková focusses on the diet at the time of the Balkans armed conflict (Cooking from Nothing: Cooking with Nothing: War Cuisine in Bosnia and Herzegovina between 1992-1995).
Review Section remembers the 100th anniversary of the birth of the folklorist Věra Šejvlová (author Sabrina Pasičnyková) and the ethnologist Václav Šolc (author Oldřich Kašpar). Interview Section introduces the ethnologist Alena Jeřábková. Social Chronicle remembers the anniversaries of the ethnologists Miloslava Turková (born 1949), Lenka Nováková (born 1949) and Zdeněk Uherek (born 1959), and it publishes an obituary for the folklorist Cecilie Havlíková (1927-2019). Further regular columns include reports on conferences, exhibitions, and festivals, and review of new disciplinary publications.
Our planet has become an unsafe place where many upsetting incidents such as natural and ecological disasters as well as social, national, ideological and religious tensions and conflicts occur. Migrations, being seen as a link in the chain and through the relation of cause and effect, symbolize a consequential challenge of the development of society. Majority of migration paths were driven by the need of finding better food conditions. Food has gained the status of a world traveler. It comes in the variety of shapes, from seeds to cooked meals, and defines our identity on different levels. Food classifies not only different social identities such as national, local, class and religious but our own personal identity which includes our personal attitude and taste. In the same way that eating habits are at the same time a signal of differences and a means of connection they are also a guardian of the past and the area of creativity and innovation. The issues that the modern era of globalization, technocracy, economic crisis, internet and easy access to information that do not necessarily imply knowledge, pose to the mankind are also reflected in the way we treat food. The question `Whose dish is this?` has become quite common. Various recipes and national dishes serve as a communicative expression of culture and eating out, away from your family and surroundings, has the social function of bringing people closer. The smells and flavors we carry from the childhood are a part of our cultural identity where cooking and diet can be a way of expressing personal identity and a form of creative expression. It is well known today that food is one of the most important external factors influencing our health and the life expectancy. We need healthy environment in order to produce healthy food and this is something we lack today. Future cannot be predicted but the tendencies and movements that have been noticed can be a good indicator.
The study focusses on the theoretical and empirical analysis of food as a cultural phenomenon at the global, macro-regional, and local levels. The study is divided into three imaginary sections. In the first one, the authors focus on the first and the second level of the hierarchization, and they describe the regionalization of sustainable foods. In the second section, the authors focus on sustainable foods in Papua-New Guinea (PNG) and methods in which they are processed, as well as on the impacts of colonization and globalization on the transformations of traditional diet by that state´s population. Attention is paid mainly to biscuits, instant noodles, rice, tea, and coffee. The last section focusses on the local level, and it demonstrates, using the example of the Nungon ethnic group, how industrial foods penetrate the villagers´ diet. The last section is based on fieldwork conducted by the authors there. Special attention is also paid to the rhythm and ways of nourishment, the selection and procession of foods for special occasions, and to the tabooization of several foods. The conclusion of the study focusses on the PNG Made brand, which began to be applied on industrial foods and drinks that are not imported, but produced locally.
The study follows the introduction of grilled chicken into Czech diet since the 1960s. The author considers the meanings, attributed to this dish at the social and individual levels, to be crucial. The political regime included the dish in the desired fast and public catering, whose positivity resulted from the consumers’ time savings. In general, it understood the poultry meat and the spread of its consummation as positive from the point of view of consumerism and modernization. Economic troubles of the Czechoslovak agriculture in producing the commodity long caused the dish to have a meaning of a festive meal at the individual level, and it also was understood as a practical and healthy dish. The political change in 1989 did not bring up a radical turn in the significance. The gradual decrease in poultry meat price, and the competition from other forms of fast and street foods led to the stagnation in the sale of grilled chicken only after the year 2000. These were no longer understood as an exceptional dish, and, on the contrary, they gained a significance of a cheap dish. Also the health benefits of the poultry meat began to be questioned. The symbolic tie to Andrej Babiš, the current Prime Minister of the Czech Republic, based on his entrepreneur activities, has only deepened the transformation in the dish meaning.
The study focusses on the region of Upper Spiš in Slovakia, beneath the High Tatras. The mentioned data are primarily based on multi-year ethnologic field research. The results of diet monitoring confirm that the diet is conditioned by primarily geographic, economic, and ethnic determinants based on which a location within the defined area creates specific lines: a) locations with mining industry in addition to primary agriculture, in which inter-ethnic, mainly German-Slovak socio-cultural contexts oscillate; b) locations with dominating agrarian culture and pastoralism in connection with Wallachian colonization, where we can also find Polish and Slovak influences, c) Tatra locations with focus on the High Tatras and the associated development of tourism. In the above-mentioned context, several specific features with distinctive cultural and identification accent has been created in the diet (designation of society members according to typical dishes). The diet and the processes and products associated with it can be undoubtedly defined as an element of communities´ identity, and within those ties as an important part of cultural heritage in the perspectives of sustainable development. However, a corresponding way and extent of preservation and mediation under current conditions is unavoidable, considering the developed tourism in that Tatra region.
This article elaborates the topic of food in the context of an armed conflict. It asks what happens to a social actor and his/her ”everyday bread“ in the conditions of extreme hunger and overall material scarcity? Using the example of eating practices during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina in the 1990s, the author explores the issue of everyday subsistence strategies during the radical structural changes. She develops a thesis that the ability of improvisation and the knowledge of the natural environment in the time of crises significantly increases the chance of survival. Moreover, she also argues that in certain situations food can be used as a tool of power and a marker of social exclusion. In extreme cases, targeted groups and individuals can be intentionally starved out. These research conclusions are based on author‘s long-term ethnographic and historical research in Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the towns of Srebrenica and Sarajevo.
Journal of Ethnology 2/2019 deals with the theme “Tradition and Religion”. Jan Horský analyses the treatment of the category “tradition” in connection with the study on religion (Tradition, Experience, Innovation: a sketch of the possible specification of terms (not only) in relation to the study on European Christianity). Zdeněk R. Nešpor deals with modern Protestant churches and the development in their allegiance to the tradition of Bohemian reformation (Tradition and Construction of the Tradition of Bohemian Reformation in Modern Protestant Churches). Barbora Navrátilová focusses on the relationship of funerary rituals and religious tradition in the Balkans (Orthodox Church and Folk Religiosity in Bulgaria and Macedonia, an Example of Present-Day Funerary Rituals). Anna Grůzová explains individual adherence to church regulations focussing on believers’ nutrition and fast in the Czech Republic (Believers’ Approaches to Dietary Recommendations in Christian Churches and Religious Communities /an example of Three South-Moravian cities/). Olga Nešporová writes about present-day burying and its transformations in comparison with traditional customs (Religious Traditions and Their Absence in Present-Day Czech Funerary Practice). Peter Salner focusses on the Slovak environment and Passover – the Jewish festival (Passover – a Festival of Matzos, Memory and Identity: Transformation of a Religious Tradition in the Bratislava Jewish Community).
The Transforming Tradition column publishes a contribution devoted to the symbiosis of religion and folk magic on an example of folk female healers from the Moravian-Slovak borderland. Social Chronicle remembers the life anniversaries of the ethnologist Jiřina Langhammerová (born 1939), the ethnologist and the ethmusicologist Eva Krekovičová (born 1949), the ethnologist Pavel Popelka (born 1949), and the composer Jaroslav Krček (born 1939); it also publishes an obituary for the ethno-musicologist Jiří Traxler (1946–2019). Further regular columns publish reports on conferences, exhibitions, and new publications.
The study analyses, from the perspective of the theory of historical sciences, the way of working with the category “tradition”. It differs between the tradition at the noetic level (interpretative tradition) and the tradition at the ontic level (dogmatic, doctrinal, and cultural tradition on the example of European reformation). The “tradition” is analysed in relation to the “innovation” and “experience”. The idea of tradition’s “continuity” was subjected to criticism. It is not the wording or the form of tradition, but the kerygma, the understanding of the “substance” that are really valuable. However, this can be addressed solely by patient questioning while observing the critically tolerant respect for traditions. And also with the awareness that the struggle for innovations is legitimate and it can be even more beneficial when connected with the humbleness towards traditions, which we try to maintain, and with the respect for experience. Of course, both traditions and innovations can come into conflict with the experience. In ontic culture, the constitutive tension exists between the tradition and the innovation, while in researcher’s culture the constitutive tensions exists between moving within the tradition and the effort to break it.
Modern Protestant churches, approved by the Patent of Toleration issued by Joseph II, could not (and in many respects they did not want to) continue the heritage of Bohemian Reformation. However, such legacy appeared thorough the “long” 19th century, and at its end it was emphasized by national movement and political programmes of several political parties. At the beginning of the 20th century, the importance of the above legacy grew significantly, and culminated after the formation of Czechoslovakia: most Czech Protestant churches claimed their allegiance, explicitly and even confirmed by the change of their names, to the tradition of Bohemian Reformation. Besides the largest Protestant Church of Czech Brethren, these were: the Unity of Brethren, the Church of Czech Brethren, the Chelčický’s Unity of Brethren, as well as the Czechoslovak (Hussite) Church, the United Methodist Church, the Salvation Army, the Religious Society of Czechoslovak Unitarians, the Orthodox Church and some other communities. The aim of this article is to analyse historical and theological justification of that self-declaration, its importance for the work of each community, and its development in the 20th century to date.
Orthodoxy is the majority religion in Bulgaria and Macedonia. While the influence of the Orthodox Church fades away in the present-day society, the religion’s importance grows, among other things, as a symbol of ethno-identification. The current expressions of belief of Bulgarians and Macedonians can be understood as a kind of individual syncretism – the expressions of belief include, in everyday life, the canonical acts (lighting of candles at icons, prayers, making the sign of the cross, fasting) as well as acts which could be identified as being magic (use of a red thread against bewitching, belief in sorcery, and relating prophylactic rituals. etc.). As one of the contemporary belief’s expressions, the article depicts a memory feast forty days after death in the village of Bitovo in western Macedonia, which it puts in the context of funerary rituals. This micro-probe shows, using a real material, the symbiosis of religious and magic practices, and it points out the current functions of the ritual (the stabilization, integration, and religious ones) and the positions of the Orthodox Church representatives in these rituals.
The study monitors individual approaches to dietary recommendations (consumption, addictive substances etc.) in various Christian churches and religious communities in the Czech Republic. Some religious groups define the dietary rules and recommendations officially, others do not – some churches adhere to the traditionalist concept (especially the Roman-Catholic church), some build on their own dogmatic principles (especially the non-conform churches) and some leave their believers more free to take their personal decision (especially traditional non-Catholic churches). The diversity in the features of these restrictions (terms, form, etc.) is also important, i.e. whether the church representatives and co-believers consider the recommendations to be binding, recommended, or expected. With regards to the nature thereof, the believers are offered a larger or smaller space for their own adaptations. Based on her interviews with particular believers, the author comes to a conclusion that despite obvious perception of circumscribed limits, the crucial aspect consists in an individual approach in dependence on personal piousness as well as every-day situations. However, it emerges that most believers understand a form of self-denial as an important part of religiosity (in the case that no restrictions are defined, or these restrictions are insufficient from the believer’s point of view). The demands for own discomfort or modesty are, however, very different in dependence on subjective limits (individual adaptations and believers’ approaches).
Funerary practices in the present-day Czech Republic are a very specific field that is worthy of special attention. High rate of cremations and especially the fifty-percent and still growing rate of cremations without a funerary ceremony are unique in the world. The article presents specific features of funerary practices, and tries to point out the reasons that gave rise to them. It uses data from several field researches conducted by the author in funeral services in 2003–2018, as well as historical and ethnological data and studies. The author refers to the interconnection between religious and secular traditions (cremation movement and civil funerals) and the present-day burials, cremations and funerary ceremonies in the Czech Republic. Cremations without ceremonies (direct cremations) are most usual in Prague, and central, northern and western Bohemia. The text interprets this phenomenon as a consequence of the absence of religious traditions and the massive spread of civil funerals during the reign of the Communist party in the second half of the 20th century.
Based on the field and archival research into the Bratislava Jewish community, the author explains the transformation of the Passover (Pesach) traditional religious festival in the 20th and 21st centuries. The Festival commemorates the liberation of Israelites from Egyptian slavery and their forty-year long journey through the desert, during which Moses presented Torah to them. On Passover the Jewish believers have to pass down a message about these events to next generations. Passover is celebrated at two nights by Seder (ritual dinner) accompanied by reading of Haggadah. Beside this, the observing Jews are not allowed to possess and eat any leavened foods for the eight days of the Festival. They can eat only matzos which is a symbol of Passover and which has an identity-shaping meaning. The Jewish origin was a life-threatening factor during the Holocaust time. However, many members of the Bratislava Jewish community continued observing the religious rules, while some others gave up their faith, and chose various compromises. During the Communist rule in Czechoslovakia, Atheist ideology and repressions conducted by the regime dominated the country; this was strengthened by the fact that after 1948 there remained only one rabbi who decided to emigrate after August 1968 when the Soviet army occupied Czechoslovakia. Since November 1989 the Bratislava Jews have shown a selective attitude to Jewish holidays (including Passover). From a variety of options, they have chosen only a few traditional elements, namely those that are suitable to them. Some of Slovak Jews observe only a few regulations and bans of the Passover, and some others ignore this Festival entirely.
Journal of Ethnology 1/2019 deals with the theme “National Schools in Ethnography and Folkloristics”. Giuseppe Maiello focusses on the formation of those disciplines in Italy (On the Development of Italian Folkloristics and Ethnography: from Renaissance collections of folk literature to positivism), Jiří Woitsch submits an overview on the origin of ethnology in Switzerland (Going Their Own Way? The Swiss Ethnology in the 19th and the first half of the 20th Century). Alexandra Bitušíková pays attention to the research into city in Slovak ethnology (The Urban-Ethnological Research in Slovakia in the 21st Century: Reflections and Challenges). Jaroslav Šotola and Mario Rodríguez Polo explain discourses of Romani studies in the Czech environment after 1989 (The Representation of Roma Otherness: a Reflexion of Constructing a Subject-Matter of Czech Social Sciences). Ivan Murín and Gergely Agócs present the application of folkloristics in the realm of folklorism (Applied Folkloristics in Hungary: Case Táncház – Módszer). The methodological essay by Miroslav Vaněk (From One Hundred Student Revolutions to One Hundred Student Evolutions. On the Method of the First Longitudinal Project in Czech Oral History) has been involved out of the main theme.
The Transforming Tradition column publishes a record from the field research into Nicholas door-to-door procession in the village of Lužná in southern Wallachia (by Jana Poláková and Milada Fohlerová). Review Section includes a contribution Bernardino de Sahagún and Beginnings of Anthropology in Mexico (by Oldřich Kašpar) and a reminder on Václav Pletka´s life and work, an important person of Czech musical folkloristics. Social Chronicle publishes a greeting to the life anniversary of the ethnologist Soňa Švecová (born 1929), and obituaries for the Romist Eva Davidová (1932–1918) and the ethnologist Karel Pavlištík (1931–2018). Further regular columns publish reports on exhibitions, conferences, festivals, shows and new publications.
The study offers a description of the difficulty of describing the boundaries between various study disciplines such as ethnology, folklore and ethnography in the context of pre- and post-unitary Italy. In a specific paragraph are presented the oldest collections of fairy tales, collected by Giovanni Francesco Straparola (1480?-1557), Giambattista Basile (1566-1632) and Pompeo Sarnelli (1649-1724) and the first romantic attempts to comment on oral lore. Other paragraphs are devoted to the italian collectors of folk tales, with a particular attention on Niccolò Tommaseo (1802-1874), Vittorio Imbriani (1840-1886) and Costantino Nigra (1828-1907), and to the theorists of folklore studies Ermolao Rubieri (1818-1879) and Alessandro d'Ancona (1835-1914). The study describes where folklore studies in Italy met with ethnographic studies and where and when they moved away from themselves.
The article submits a chronologically explained development of the Swiss ethnology with an emphasis on the development in the 19th century through the 1960s, whereby the interest in cultural diversity as well as that defined in other ways in older periods is partially included as a theme. Great attention is paid to key personalities in the history of the Swiss ethnology, in particular to Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer and Richard Weiss, and to how they influenced the theoretical and methodological as well as thematic shifts in the orientation of the discipline. Further significant persons and important works of the Swiss ethnology are mentioned as well, and the institutional basis of the discipline is described. The author presents the Swiss ethnology as quite a peculiar and progressive research discourse. This was formed under a strong influence of the German Volkskunde, but evolving in a country featuring a specifically multi-ethnic composition of the population, a significantly different historical development, as compared to Germany, and special, even extreme natural and geographical conditions that contributed to the survival of many archaic elements of the so-called folk culture until the 20th century.
The paper brings an overview of the development of urban-ethnological research in Slovakia with a special focus on the first two decades of the 21st century. It also briefly defines key milestones, thematic areas and methodical approaches in the older periods, which are necessary for the understanding of further developments. It introduces key personalities who formed urban ethnology and who influenced the establishment of the sub-discipline within the ethnology and social anthropology development in Slovakia. The main objective is to focus on changes in the approach to the urban ethnological/anthropological research in Slovakia in the 21st century, particularly on changes in topics, theoretical concepts, and methodical approaches, and to propose new visions and opportunities in line with the global trends in urban anthropology.
Since the year 1989, we can observe a significant development of the scholarly interest in Romani population in the Czech environment. We believe, however, that the way of constructing the research subject-matter after November 1989 did not bring a corresponding framework for the reduction of social marginalization of the Romani people. In the text, we analyse examples of three different approaches to the study of Romani people whereby we see a paradox in the fact that although these approaches hide behind the emphasis on “the support of understanding”, “the search for problems´ roots”, and “the proposal of solutions”, their way of otherness conceptualization in fact does not offer any alternative to the public discourse within which the Romani people are perceived as being “fundamentally different”. For this reason we suggest to move attention from the discussions searching for an explanation concerning the otherness of Romani people to the research into the logics of its reproduction within the science. In the text, we focus on the reflexion of the most significant expressions of Romani people´s exoticness and the related limits within the explanation potential for the understanding of social reality. The Romani people´s otherness, in our opinion, is irreplaceable as the theme for ethnographic research, but only providing the reflexivity of epistemological position, the understanding of otherness as (re)produced by social practice, and the thorough involvement of the broader all-society context in the entire analysis.
The media success of the Hungarian and Slovak folklore show anew has opened up a discussion about the current forms of folklorism. Less known is the development of folkloristics that it has passed through - beginning with theoretical schools of historical and musical folklore to its application to public sphere. The contemporary folklorism boom in Hungary is associated with the attempt of Hungarian folklorists´ to renew the older forms of Hungarian traditional culture by means of scenic (art) and public presentations. These best practice methods (UNESCO) become theoretical and methodological concepts of Hungarian folklorists and ethnomusicologists. The aim of this study is to inform the readers with Hungarian schools of historic and music folklore research, which is directly related to the applied method, also called Táncház - módszer. The study is one of the reflections concerning discussions within folklorism - scenic art versus public spread, and creation versus citation of folklore contents.
This contribution is based on two projects, twenty years apart, which are dedicated student activists of 1989. The project Students during the Fall of Communism in Czechoslovakia – Biographical Interviews (1997-1999) was a key to the development of oral history in the Czech Republic. The current follow-up longitudinal project The Student Generation of 1989 in Longitudinal Perspective has an ambition to capture the influence of the formative experience of the revolution of November 1989 on the life stories of the narrators, former student activists of 1989, in their personal, professional, and political dimensions. The longitudinal approach, which was applied for the first time in Czech oral history, is discussed in the paper also from the point of view of psychologists and documentary filmmakers, and a similar project of Czech ethnologists, focusing on the folklore movement in totalitarian Czechoslovakia, is also mentioned. The author describes the problems of the role of an insider in collecting interviews, as well as in conducting the interviews by individual younger interviewers. Special attention is paid to the phenomenon of “longitudinality within longitudinality”, i.e. a period between the realization of the first and the follow-up interviews, during which presidential and parliamentary elections took place, which the narrators reacted mostly negatively to. Changes in their personal lives – if mentioned by the respondents – were not vocalized as strongly as the country’s social situation.
Journal of Ethnology 4/2018 deals with the theme “The Professions and Their Social Positions”. In her study, Petra Košťálová submits a historical analysis of Armenian diaspora with the emphasis on the role of Armenian merchants who, mainly in the 19th century, began to go beyond their trading activities and acted as benefactors, philanthropists, and bearers of education and national ideas (Armenian Diaspora and Its Identitary Strategies: Khodjas, Amiras, Guilds). Katarína Koštialová pays attention to the formation of the social-professional group of foresters in relation to the city of Zvolen, and to the creation of a city symbol containing the forestry tradition (An Interaction of the Socio-Professional Group and the City (based on the example of the town of Zvolen, a Slovak Forestry Town)). Daniela Machová focusses on the profession of a dance instructor (Knowledge Transfer among Czech Dance Instructors), and Josef Bartoš writes about the profession of a dancer (The Motivation to Carry On the “Freelance” Dance Profession in the Contemporary Czech Society). The study by Jörgen Torp, which does not relate to the main topic, deals with the dissemination of popular music in urban settings (Popular Music in the Network of Cities).
Review Section publishes treatises about anniversaries of two significant persons of the Czech National Revival – Václav Matěj Kramerius (an article by Oldřich Kašpar about Kramerius’s contribution to the beginnings of the Czech non-European ethnography) and Václav Bolemír Nebeský (an article by Dalibor Dobiáš, presenting the reflection of writer’s output). Social Chronicle remembers the anniversaries of the ethnologist Judita Hrdá (born 1958), the ethnologist and archaeologist Jiří Pajer (born 1948), the ethnologist Kateřina Klápšťová (born 1948), the ethnologist Bohuslav Šalanda (born 1948), and the ethnologist Vanda Jiřikovská (born 1933). Further regular columns inform about exhibitions, conferences, concerts and new books.
The article focusses on the analysis of crafts and professions that occurred in particular Armenian communities and diaspora centres in modern history. In this respect, it is possible to discover a certain trend to carry out some types of professions, which then determined the social status and the social position. Influential Armenian merchants (khodjas) acted not only as mediators who connected several cultures due to their minority position, but also as benefactors and philanthropists who supported the Armenian Apostolic Church first, and then even the first generations of Armenian revivalists. Their virtual monopoly for trading in silk, gold and jewellery helped them create international trade networks the effect of which became evident both in West-European cities and in the Far East. Judging from period travellers´ reports, the share of Armenian city elite was quite distinct in Ottoman and Persian cities; (according to European authors) they represented the “visible minority” which most reference works from that time refer to and whose image became, due to frequent descriptions, an integral part of the European discourse concerning Orient, or Christian Orient by extension. Armenian merchant dynasties of amiras became the main motor for Ottoman industrialization; the Armenians in the role of sarrafs (bankers) guaranteed both sultans´ and European banks´ loans.
The study focuses on the socio-professional group of foresters in Zvolen, with the emphasis on the interaction between the group and the town. It works on the assumption that the group is involved in creating the image of the town image in a specific way. The introduction to the study focuses on the transformation in professions within the social and urban context, which had happened in connection with the changes in the nature of work, the changing socio-political climate, and the introduction of modern technologies and innovative processes. The main section highlights the geographical, natural, historical, cultural and social determinants, state and political decisions, as well as support initiatives of town´s representatives, which affected the formation of the researched group. The group presents itself by means of an established network of forestry institutions, buildings and specific spaces, which complete the overall architectural and urban image of the town. The research illustrated that the socio-professional group influences the educational as well as the employment structure of inhabitants and by means of educational, cultural and social activities it is becoming a creator and co-shaper of town´s/municipal specifics. The interaction between the group and the town also includes the creation of policy and development projects, which resulted in fulfilling the visions and image of the town of Zvolen as a forestry town.
Ballroom dance and etiquette lessons are considered to be a unique phenomenon with more than one-hundred-year long tradition in the Czech lands. It is the young people´s sustained interest in the education in ballroom couple dances as well as the sufficient number of dance instructors leading the lessons that are necessary for the dance lessons to survive. Based on the investigation of archive sources and the analysis of qualitative interviews with twenty active dance instructors, the author of the study reveals the mechanisms of how the dance knowledge is acquired and passed down from generation to generation of ballroom dance instructors. From the year 1836, dance instructors were allowed to perform their professional activity only based on the license; beginning with the year 1924 this licence was conditional on passing an examination before the examination board. In the 1940s, the requirement of professional qualification resulted in the introduction of mass education of the applicants. In 1992, the profession of dance instructor was declared an unqualified trade, and in 1998 the subject “ballroom dance” ceased to exist in the only institution supposed to educate dance instructors. The study brings up different models of the path to becoming a dance instructor within the context of the afore-mentioned changes in legislation and the perception of the social status and prestige of these professionals.
The study deals with the motivation of Czech dancers to carry on their profession. The author focuses on contemporary dance, meaning on the environment outside ballet ensembles, and in particular on the entities founded after the “Czechoslovak Velvet Revolution” in 1989. An exploration about artists’ thinking is based on the qualitative analysis of interviews with the leading representatives in that realm, and on the analysis of already published texts dealing with important aspects of researched persons’ working life. As resulting from the research, the major motivation factor for the dancers is their personal and strong tie to the dance; the drive to carry on the professions comes solely and exclusively from the inner mental world of artists. The dance is considered to be an embodied life philosophy for the respondents; to them, it is a paraphrase of the meaning of life. The investigated materials also point out key personal characteristics which can influence the quality of their lives directly: flexibility, assimilation, self-reliance, self-discipline, and liability.
The article describes the historical development of growing transcultural connections in the modern human world. Cities played a special historical role in the development of “popular music”. (Modern) cities are interconnected with each other. The city as a place is by that way not an isolated place. The city has undergone a “heterogeneous cultural process”, and currently it is producing “hybrid” musical genres that often lead to similarities with parallel emerged genres of other cities. The genres are becoming to a certain degree more “uniform”. The article is focusing on the interlinking of cities rather than on music in or of urban areas. For the popularization of musical genres (mass) media (man media, print media, electronic media, digital media) are of considerable importance. Finally transnational music industry and translocal networks are forcing global effects. With the digitally based internet a new digitally based force overshadows the dominant role the cities played in the development of “popular music”.
Journal of Ethnology 3/2018 opens the theme “Transformation of Society and Culture after Formation of the New State”. Within a broader historical context, Michal Pavlásek focusses on the research into the adaption of Czech immigrants to Banat, particularly in the Serbian location of Veliké Srediště (From the Czech Lands to South-Eastern Europe: A Case Study to Overcome the Discontinuity). Jana Nosková deals with the theme of homeland at the inhabitants of German origin and their descendants who have remained in the Czech borderland even after the forced expatriation – displacement – of German ethic group after World War II (Heimat is Heimat?: “Homeland” As a Theme in the Memory of German Inhabitants who Have Remained in the Czech Lands). In his study, Martin Soukup presents Papua-New Guinea in its development from a colonial state to its official independence (“Let’s Rise Up, Sons of this Country“: Social Transformations in Papua-New Guinea after Independence). Martin Štoll submits an evaluation of essential societal themes at the time of dissolution of Czechoslovakia and formation of the Czech Republic (1992–1996) based on a documentary series produced by the FEBIO movie company (The EYE – the Look at the (Then) Present. Thirty-two hours of author´s witness to the Czech society in the new state). Out of the principal theme, the study by Serbian ethnologist Miroslava Lukić Krstanović is included, which deals with humanitarian actions in Serbia and the role that mass media played in the formation of public opinion in the realms of perception and value systems (Humanitarian Action, Solidarity and the Market of Interest in Serbia: The media discourse).
The Transforming Tradition column publishes a feuilleton The Force of Tradition, which is contemplation about cultural heritage in present-day society (written by Josef Holcman). Review Section remembers seventy years from the death of the reporter Egon Erwin Kisch (written by Oldřich Kašpar) and the formation of the Czech and Slovak CIOFF Section (written by Josef Jančář). Interview Section writes about the anniversary of the ethnologist Hana Dvořáková (born 1948). Social Chronicle remembers the anniversaries of the ethnomusicologist Dušan Holý (born 1933) and ethnologist Vlasta Ondrušová (born 1948), and it publishes an obituary for the Slovak ethnologist Zuzana Profantová (1953–2018). Further regular columns inform about exhibitions, festivals and new books.
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.
The Czech lands‘ borderland underwent an essential social and cultural transformation between 1945–1946, which was determined by expatriation of most inhabitants of the German origin, as well as by new arrivals, formation of the “Iron Curtain”, and socialization of agriculture. In the public discourse, an image about uprooted borderland was created after 1989. The study deals with how the homeland is thematised by inhabitants of the German origin and their descendants, who were allowed to stay in the Czech lands‘ borderland after 1945/1946 but whose all lived world significantly changed after 1945. The empiric materials includes interviews with eight persons, made using the method of oral history. The author divides the narration about homeland into three groups (according to the time, space, and social and cultural sphere), and as an independent category she sorts out the narrations in which the relation to homeland is compared between those who have remained, and those who had to leave. The author also asks whether it is possible to use the narration about homeland, the “Heimat” concept, for an analysis, which she confirms. The analysis of the material shows that the “homeland” is mostly thematised in connection with its social and cultural components, and that it is most suitable to use the term “displacement” to interpret the narratives.
The study focuses on the analysis of social political and economical transformations in connection with the decolonization of the former Territory of Papua and New Guinea. The study core includes an analysis of colonial arrangements and its influence on the transformation of society at the time before the independence and after the formation of the independent state of Papua-New Guinea. Special attention is paid to the analysis of the formation of elites and working classes within the former equalitarian communities, the blending of original, i.e. Big-Man systems with politics, and the influence of monetary economics on the former systems of socio-political ceremonial exchanges. The author documents how the colonial arrangement influenced the segmented ethnic identity of the inhabitants in the state of Papua-New Guinea, which the author understands as a vertical scale of ethnic consciousness. In the case of Papua- New Guinea the author shows that ethnic identity is divided into four levels: the country, the provincial, the territorial and the national one. Simultaneously, the author documents that in addition to the vertical division, also the horizontal division developed in the new state, which is result of the commencement of monetary economics.
Between 4th April 1992 and 17th December 1996, Czech Television presented 112 parts of the documentary series called The EYE – a Look at the Present-Day. It was made by the then newly established FEBIO production company owned by Fero Fenič. This project was the first systematic activity after 1989 to map the situation of the transforming Czech society and to catch its ongoing state, using audio-visual means. If each of the part was 20 minutes long, the total series amounted to 2 240 minutes, i.e. more than 37 hours of a pure author´s reflexion of the then social phenomena; it is not only a “bank” including the phenomena themselves, but even possible approaches to them. The study verifies whether and by which means the series reached the level of complexity in the thematic realm, and which dimension the author´s creative approaches and selected processes of expression brought to this unit, which is part of archive materials today. The author researches that part using a new concept of “key situation”, which help define the “form of authorship” that is essential for the impression of the theme.
The codification of humanitarian action and humanitarian aid in Serbia belongs to the broader area of social politics and the civil sector, which are shaped under the influence of social, economic and political circumstances. The main analytical vein in this paper was focused on decyphering the ambivalent face of humanitarianism or rather humanitarian practices, which stem from concrete social, economic and political circumstances in Serbia. One of the social playgrounds of humanitarianism is the media, which is an important transmitter of the message and shapes public opinion in the zones of perception and value systems. This is why humanitarianism is placed in the narrative discourse of the media as a case study. The analysis is based on a fundamental question – how do personal stories of poverty and illness get constructed as humanitarian stories as social problems? The research is based on the analysis of newspaper articles shaped into narrative mechanisms in order to construct “subsequent” realities with which people identify.
Journal of Ethnology 2/2018 deals with the theme “Free Time as a Subject-Matter of Ethnological Studies”. Lidija Vujačić analyses free time from the perspective of a newly evolving “culture of needs”, conditioned by the present-day influence of mass-media (The Phenomenology of Free Time and Homo Consumens). Ľubica Voľanská focusses on free time related to the retirement and on new social roles which are caused by this milestone in people’s lives ("We Are Getting Old Whilst Always Doing Something...": Retirement as Free Time?). Joanna Maurer writes about leisure time of Polish migrants as a factor reflecting the level of their integration (Migrants’ Leisure with the Example of Poles in Brno). From the perspective of anthropology and its understanding of music as a social act, Anežka Hrbáčková presents research among participants in meetings aimed at music and dance folklore (Folklore Party: “Folklorists” in Prague as a Cultural Cohort). Kateřina Černíčková focussed on the development of competitive shows within the Czechoslovak and Czech folklore movement as a specific leisure activity (Czechoslovak Shows and Contests of Folk Ensembles in the Second Half of the 20th Century: a Mirror of an Era and Creative Approaches).
The Transforming Tradition column publishes an article by Alena Schauerová, which analyses the results of a multi-annual project “Here We Are at Home – Regional Folklore to Schools”. Review Section remembers two hundred years from the death of the collector Jan Bohumír Prač (also Ivan Práč), and one hundred years from the death of the Czech ethnologist Karel Fojtík. In Interview Section, Marta Šrámková introduces the prominent Polish folklorist Dorota Simonides. Social Chronicle remembers the anniversaries of the ethnologists Irena Štěpánová (born 1948) and Jarmila Pechová (born 1958), and it publishes an obituary for the collector of folk songs and dances Milada Bimková (1926-2018). The Journal also includes reports from shows and concerts, and reviews of new books.
The free time (leisure) phenomenon is an increasingly inspiring theme in anthropological discourse, especially in the so-called anthropology of everyday life. First of all, free time fills media content, creating a new "culture of needs" represented, mostly, through consumeristic (materialistic) values, since consumption is embedded in everyday patterns of behavior and is in constant interaction with technology and new types of media. And our identity, through the mentioned spheres, is "defined" first within the (daily) free time. It is shaped by rest, fun, creative processes, but also leisure, consumption. In the postmodern era, Z. Lipovetsky observes, and "a kind of democratization of hedonism", in the sense that new spaces are opened without prior exclusivity, and the boundaries between styles, purposes, values become relative, in everyday life both in the sphere of art, in the economy, politics, etc. Thus, the usual daily dynamics, as a kind of practical policy, becomes an anthropological interest, especially through cultural studies, which emphasize topics from the popular, media and consumer culture, at the local and global level, maintaining an active attitude towards reality.
The paper focuses on the phenomenon of free time or leisure time in retirement, as these phrases are often perceived as equivalents in public discourse in European space. Research shows, however, that in reality, the life of people in retirement is filled with various activities that usually do not have to be classified as leisure activities. In line with the concept of third age as an age of fulfilment, the concept of active or successful ageing and the concept of busy ethics, the paper deals with the way how people obtain different roles when they do not have to, but they still do. The choices or decisions about retirement are undoubtedly influenced by the discussion of the right to leisure, the increasing value of leisure time and the re-evaluation of the value of work in personal and social life, on the one hand, and some pressure to continue to be beneficial to society and active on the other. The author concentrates on how the sketched discussion is reflected by a group of people who, especially in the European environment, are becoming due to the demographic development more and more numerous – the oldest generation in society. They are confronted with two different attitudes at the opposite end of the value spectrum. The empirical basis for the study is qualitative research based on ethnographic interviews with pre-retirement and retired people in nowadays Slovakia, with a specific theme on preparing for retirement and living in retirement, as well as the results of several focus groups with this group of people..
The article focusses on the analysis of migrants’ leisure activities with the example of Polish minority in Brno. Based on participant observation and interviews with Polish migrants who spent at least one year in Brno, it is possible to reveal the diversity in leisure activities as well as common trends occurring during free time. Migrants’ understanding of free time in their new destination is encumbered by the context of the place of origin and the customs formed there. The analysis of migrants’ leisure activities shows the level of migrants’ integration and their interest in active participation in the life in their new environment. During their free time, they maintain contacts with their country of origin – family, friends, and cultural background. Migrants’ specific habitus is created, which can be implemented due to their stay “here” and “there” (most migrants use their free time to travel home), and the trans-national identity is constructed. Free time also becomes a space for more or less official meetings of Poles within their own language and ethnic group.
The study focusses on the community of people who deal with musical and dance folklore. The author builds on the musical-anthropological conception of music as a social act, and she applies the concepts of Caroline Bithell´s and Jennifer Hill´s music revivals and Thomas Turin´s cultural cohort on the researched field. She defined the field by a musical-dance event which currently takes place regularly in Prague and which has been called “Folklore Party” by its organizers. She specifies the event as an interconnection between the world of modernity, which the life in the Czech metropolis offers, and the world of folk traditions (folklore). Through participant observation and semi-structured interviews, she studies the way of bargaining the concepts of authenticity and legitimacy, their granting to particular participants and entities, and in general how the event´s participants construct the folklore and what the resulting construct looks like. Prague as a fluid musical environment makes it possible to create and bargain traditions (in Henry Glassie´s concept) running in different directions. One of the traditions which are of recursive nature and which serve the participants to construct meanings and to implement a socio-cultural change relates to the concept of folklore. As understood by my informers, folklore music has a potential to be confronted with the pressure of modernity, thanks to other levels which are also described in the study and which the folklore music includes.
The study deals with staged folk dances in the Czech cultural context. The main goal is to observe the development of the national and state-wide contest/show of folklore ensembles as an important phenomenon associated with the development of artistic values of the specific Czechoslovak staged genre in the second half of the 20th century. The author explains the history of this phenomenon, which is unique in many respects, with all its positions of thinking, internal discrepancies and transformations in deliberations. Especially in the 1950s and in connection with the staged presentation of folk dances, matters relating to the period cultural-political tendencies were brought to the forefront; these, however, weakened in the 1960s, and it was folk ensembles´ own production that became the major preoccupation at that time. This broad platform appears to have been the basis for a significant stream of thinking within folklore movement, which over time has brought the staged folk dance to the form that essentially differs from how the staged folk dance is understood in other countries.
Journal of Ethnology 1/2018 deals with city festivities. Jolana Darulová focuses on modern-day festivities in the Slovak town of Banská Bystrica (Festivities in Urban Environment with Focus on Mineworkers’ Traditions in the City of Banská Bystrica). Jana Lochmanová explains contemporary historicizing festivities in three Moravian towns (City Festivals in Jemnice, Brtnice and Jihlava). Marta Ulrychová deals with the development of an urban festival in the German location of Furth im Wald, and especially with a part of it, which consists of scenes depicting the fight between Saint George and the Dragon (Slaying of the Dragon – Traditional Summer Festival in the City of Furth im Wald in Upper Palatinate). Barbora Půtová describes and analyses urban festivities in Morocco, which intend to strengthen national identity and legitimacy of the local monarchy (Moussems: Moroccan Urban Festivals). Helena Nosková submits the theme of the Russians in Czech environment and the development of its festivities in the course of the 20th century (Festivities and Everyday Life of Russian “White” Émigrés in Prague Exile in Blending of History and Memories).
Social Chronicle remembers the anniversaries of the ethnologist Alena Plessingerová (born 1928) and the script editor and script writer Naděžda Urbášková (born 1938); obituaries are written for the Czech historians Josef Petráň (1930–2017) and Ctibor Nečas (1933–2017) and also for the Slovak choreographer Štefan Nosáľ (1927–2017). Other regular columns include information about exhibitions, conferences, as well as reviews of new books.
The study focuses on modern-day festivities in the city environment. In its first section, it deals with theoretical definition of feast and celebration with two concepts - the epidemiology of representations by D. Sperber, and the invented tradition by E. Hobsbawm. In terms of space, the research is based on the city of Banská Bystrica in Central Slovakia, which tries to present the oldest and most significant events through selected historical events integrated in festivities. This concerns mainly mining industry, even though the development of Banská Bystrica has not been associated with the mining industry for several decades. Initiated by mineworkers’ associations and supported by the city, Emperor’s Visitations were held for three years. The festivity, at which representatives from different mining regions in Slovakia and abroad presented themselves, comprised several elements of ceremony, ritualized behaviour, dramatization, and mineworkers’ symbols. It was an attempt to establish a new tradition that was to remember the Emperor’s visits with the aim to complete the city’s image, to support tourism, and to reach economic benefits. It is the local self-government and the citizen’s interest that decide about its periodicity and cyclic repetition.
The study deals with modern-day city festivals in three Moravian cities (Jemnice, Brtnice and Jihlava). Those historicizing festivals emphasize specific features of their development and the history of the venue; they are based on self-identification, local pride and specificity. Although their origin reflects different geographic and historical circumstances, they share many common elements (long tradition; particular opportunity – a historical milestone to which the festivity´s development relates; very good support by local inhabitants who are organizers, parade participants and visitors). In the past, the festivals were strongly associated with Christianity. From the mid-20th century, the religious part was suppressed, however, it was at least partially renewed in all three cities after 1989. During the festivals, the cities experience a festive and extraordinary time and space separated from the everyday life. The organizing supports the perception of local identity, and it welds the community together. The residents of the cities feel compelled to organize the festivity. The festivals are important in terms of representation, economics and tourism, which is more and more emphasized. This puts stress on theatrics and rich accompanying programme.
The article deals with the development of a city festival in the Bavarian city of Furth im Wald, whose part also the Drachenstich (Slaying of the Dragon) play is. The play has evolved based on tableaus depicting the fight between Saint George and the Dragon, which used to be part of liturgical Corpus Christi procession. The first mentions come from the 16th century. In the 19th century, it was the German writers Alexander Schöppner and Maximilian Schmidt, and the Czech writer Božena Němcová who paid attention to the Slaying of the Dragon play. After repeated restrictions by the Church, which accumulated more and more from the 18th century, the scene got profane in 1887 – local amateur actors performed a new and longer text written by the teacher Heinrich Schmidt. He extended dialogs significantly and brought new characters to the play. His version survived until 1953 when Josef Martin Bauer replaced it by a new one, the story of which was set in the period of Hussite wars. The latest version, which was put on the stage in 2007 for the first time, was written by the professional theatre person Alexander Etzel-Ragusa, who also directs the play. The article observes the play’s development from a simple dramatic start to the present 80-minute-long performance, which is the principal axis of the two-week-long city festival. It pays attention to accompanying events, and – by means of a common characteristic of the location – it tries to find out the social conditions that have allowed this traditional phenomenon to be maintained for many years.
The subject of the paper is a description and analysis of the phenomenon called moussems – urban festivals that take place in Morocco from April to August. The current moussems, in comparison to their traditional sacral form, represent an international, secular and institutionalized festivity that is systematically modified and supported by the Moroccan king in order to develop tourism and to preserve local cultural traditions. The objective of the paper is to describe the creation of moussems, which originally celebrated the birth or death of saints in the rural environment and which offered an opportunity for nomadic tribes from the mountains to meet. Most importantly, it describes the transformation of moussems into an urban festivity whose current form and functions serve to enhance the national identity, the legitimacy and the power of the monarchy as well as to emphasize the diversity of Morocco´s tangible and intangible heritage. At the end of the paper, the transformation of moussems and the possibilities of how they could be used are exemplified by the Festival des Musiques Sacrées du Monde in Fez.
The study focuses on the history of the Russian white émigrés in the then Czechoslovakia. The author shows that the white émigrés were perceived by the then Czechoslovak government as the future intelligentsia for new free Russia and for independent and free Ukraine. The emigrants were offered the opportunity of completing their studies, continuing their creative activities, or extending their education. The emigrants founded their own professional institutions, organized social life even for the Czech majority to make it familiar with the Russian culture. To the Czech environment, they translocated some of their festivals associated with Orthodoxy and folk tradition. After the Czechoslovak-Soviet Treaty of Alliance was signed (1935), the emigrants´ position got worse. The activity of domestic communists introduced Soviet festivities to Czechoslovakia. After 1945, new Soviet citizens arrived in Czechoslovakia, and the white émigrés became a persecuted group. Some of them were abducted to Soviet forced labour camps (Gulag) by Russian bodies. The domestic communists implanted new Soviet festivals, feasts and ceremonies – Great October Socialist Revolution celebrations, Grandfather Frost and others – with the help of the Association of Czechoslovak-Soviet Friendship in Czechoslovakia. In 2001, the Czech Republic officially acknowledged the Russian national minority that got its historical rights as a minority thanks to the Russian white émigrés in the 1920s. Several associations within the minority try to renew original Russian traditions and feasts in the Czech environment.
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.
