Czech Republic (European Ethnography)

Článek se věnuje okolnostem přesunu dřevěného kostelík sv. Paraskevy a jeho stavebnímu vývoji. Tento kostelík marmarošského typu stál původně v obci Nižné Seliště na území dnešní Ukrajiny v blízkosti hranic s Rumunskem. Vystavěn byl v 1. polovině 17. stol. Ve 30. letech 20. stol. byl přemístěn do města Blansko v Jihomoravském kraji. Kostelík byl slavnostně vysvěcen 23. května 1937, oproti původní lokaci zaznamenal na novém místě řadu stavebních úprav, které se promítly do celkové podoby kostelíka. Výrazné stavební úpravy na něm proběhly především po bombardování Blanska spojeneckými vojsky v květnu 1945, kdy byl značně poškozen. Stavbu spravuje církev Československá husitská, i přes řadu zásahů si dodnes zachovala svůj historický ráz a představuje jednu z nejvýznamnějších kulturních památek v regionu. / The article pays attention to the circumstances connected with transfer of the small wooden church of St Paraskevi and its building development. Originally, this church of Marmaros type used to stand in the village of Nižné Seliště in today's Ukraine. It was built in the mid- 17th century. In the 1930s, it was transferred to the town of Blansko in the South-Moravian Region. The church was ceremonially consecrated on 23 May 1937. As compared to its original location, remodelling made in the new place influenced the appearance of the church. Significant constructional changes were made especially after the Allied bombing of Blansko in May 1945 when the church was significantly damaged. The building is administrated by the Czechoslovak Hussite Church and despite many interventions, it has kept its historical character. The church is one of the most important cultural monuments in the region.

This paper will focus on the change in relations between punks and skinheads since their emergence in the former Czechoslovakia until now.
The first punks appeared in the former Czechoslovakia in the late 1970s and 1980s. In the mid-1980s, the first skinheads emerged amongst punks as a kind of small and unique part of the contemporary punk scene. From these beginnings, the sub-cultural ideologies of both groups were blurred and vague, partly because of the lack of information about both subcultures due to the existence of ‘the Iron Curtain’. Relatively harmonic relations started to radicalize and change rapidly after ‘the Velvet Revolution’ in 1989, leading to a split between both subcultures. At least for the first half of the 1990s, both subcultures opposed each other and were perceived as adversaries. Only in the late 1990s did an apolitical current of skinheads, drawing on traditional skinhead values, and a section of punks start to sympathise with each other again (although on a different basis). This led, in some cases, to a hybridization of these subculturalists as some of the punks and skinheads transformed into ‘skunks’.
Using this example of changing relations, we would like to ask to what extent a subcultural identity is formed by subcultural style and/or subcultural ideology. And also how different accents placed on one or the other creates such configurations that significantly influence the character of the subculture and possibly also its relations to another subculture. We will use the traditional concept of subculture (as defined by CCCS scholars) as an analytic tool, but, at the same time, we will try to critically assess its analytic potential for studying contemporary sub-cultural formations characterized by its fluidity and hybridity.

Also after 1969 the Communist Regime tried to reduce the question of national minorities only to the field of culture and school education. Therefore, most goals defined by the representatives of the Polish minority in the Czech part of the Těšín region couldn’t have been implemented. On the other hand, the initiatives of the year 1968 gave a new shape to the policy of the national minorities in ČSR. Besides the fact that the rights of the national minorities were codified in the constitution, their leaders showed a lot of activity in that period of time. Also it could be added that the summer of 1968 was the only moment in the history of Czechoslovakia when the national minorities took common actions and were often successful. At that time the concept of national minority self-government occurred, which did not represent a model of territory autonomy and integrated various state and non-state minority institutions. The events in the Těšín region confirm that reminiscences from the past play an important role in the national minorities’ policy. It was discussion about history accompanying emancipation efforts by the Polish minority that confirmed an important role of symbols and historical memory in politics. However, the events in the Těšín region also prove that national minorities are not homogeneous, but internally differentiated. On the one hand, the normalization political purges were managed also by some Polish leaders in the case of Polish minority. On the other hand, the national claims proved as an important integration factor, which considerably inhibited the process of natural political differentiation within the national minority which was weakened by assimilation and the low quantity of members. On the one hand it could be said that Polish minority was very active in the process of democratisation in 1968 and it took democratic approaches and loyalty to Czechoslovakia during the turning points of Soviet occupation. On the other hand many national claims did not succeed not only for the drop in the number of Polish people in proportion to total population of Czechoslovakia or more precisely the territory of Těšín region and the North Moravia, but also for the national indifference and for the advanced stage in assimilation of the major part of members of Polish ethnic group. This phenomenon weakened the legitimacy of the leaders of Polish minorities to a large extent.

The history of the Jewish settlement of the Czech lands dates back to the 10th century. For hundreds of years, the Jews lived next to their Slavic and German neighbours, often facing periods of religious intolerance and persecution. The figure of a Jew became a symbol of “the Other” not only in folk culture but also during the Czech national revival in the 19th century. Cheap popular prints (cz. kramářské tisky), sold at village fairs, pilgrimage sites and by itinerant salesmen, were one of the media through which various stereotypes were perpetuated, especially after the educational reforms of Joseph II in the late 18th century. The contents of such chapbooks were mostly religious songs, crude rhymes and news ballads. This paper presents the results of analysis of 55 Jewish-themed prints (containing 21 different texts) from the collection of the National Museum Library in Prague. Most of the analyzed texts are filled with an anti-Jewish sentiment, emerging from both the religious and political backgrounds. The stereotypes most commonly found in the popular prints (accusations of ritual murder, host desecration etc.) can be traced back to as early as the 12th century. In general, the image of a Jew in Czech popular prints is consistent with stereotypes and prejudices known in all of Christian Europe. The Jews are identified as enemies of Christendom (and as such of God himself), dishonest salesmen, moneylenders, and (in newer prints) a menace to the Czech national cause.

Focusing on politics of culture in early socialist era, this article explores struggles for imposing particular visions of “folk” during the revolutionary zeal characterizing the post-1948 period's development in the discipline of Czechoslovak ethnography. It examines the self-proclaimed turn from previous ethnographic traditions, accused of bourgeois nationalism, to socialist orientation towards studying “true folk”. By tracing struggles around the re-conceptualization of constitutive criteria and boundaries defining the essential object of ethnographic inquiry, the socialist ethnographers readjusted to the changes by focusing on more “progressive” traditions and shifted towards the “working-class” seen as possessing revolutionary spirit and the true authentic essence of the nation. The article argues that the new ethnographic wave ultimately re-inscribed the essentialist categories they virtually combatted by embedding them within the same structural framework rooted in the national order of things.

The article tries to characterise the spiritual life of a group of members of the Czech Reformed exile community in Husinec near Strzelin in Silesia at the turn of the 18th and 19th century. It starts with a detailed analysis of a unique manuscript miscellany written there by certain senior Bureš in 1833 and containing Czech translations of various German texts, mostly sermons (especially of the famous Pietistic preacher Ludwig Hofacker), but also travel diaries of Herrnhut missionaries in North America and Greenland from the 1770s, translated by a certain J. S., probably the former local teacher Jan Sovák. It identifies both the scribe and the translator as diaspora sympathizers of the Herrnhut Unitas, striving to supply for themselves and other members of their community spiritual texts suit able for reading aloud during their worship. As a possible model for the miscellany, the article identifies Gemeinnachrichten, the German manuscript periodical of the Unitas, which also combined sermons with missionary reports and diaries and was accessible to a limited extent to diaspora sympathizers. Finally, the article characterizes the spiritual life of the Husinec diaspora as rather eclectic, but capable of active reception of various Pietistic spiritual impulses, partly, but not exclusively emanating from the Unitas. This seems to support the thesis that Early Modern Czech non -Catholic exile played an important role in the Czech -German literary, cultural and religious relations.

Článek představuje projekt Gistralik, zajímavý internetový rozcestník, který nabízí prostřednictvím aplikace na bázi geografického informačního systému snadný přístup k bibliografickým informacím a historickým pramenům tradiční lidové kultury. / The article presents the project GISTraLiK, an interesting Internet guidepost, which offers simply access to bibliographic information and historical source of traditional folk culture through the web application based on the geographic information system.

The work deals with the Ohlas od Nežárky weekly periodical. The periodical was being published in Jindřichův Hradec in 1871–1942. The aim of my article was to process ethnographically valuable articles published during the 72 years of Ohlas od Nežárky and to evaluate the periodical in quantitative and qualitative terms. In the article, I attempted to outline the concept of the weekly periodical, to delimitate its geographic and thematic scope and thus create a work that would help other researchers with orientation in this rich printed source.

The mobile work-lives of migrant workers circulating within the EU space, including within the manufacturing zones of the Czech Republic, problematize spatial imaginaries embedded within some iterations of social reproduction theory. The cartographical messiness in charting how the borders of production and reproduction map onto the spatio-temporalities of (waged) work and (unwaged) home in the context of the workers dormitory signals the need to re-think how we approach their relationality as an analytical category. Rather than attempting to chart lines of connection between two self-contained or coherent spheres, their border determined by waged and unwaged time or the location of work and home, this context demands analysis focusing on processes of (re)production which encompass multiplicity. Drawing on ethnographic research in workers dormitories and with migrant workers in the Czech Republic.

This article is a contribution to the Society & Space forum, 'Beyond Binaries and Boundaries in 'Social Reproduction'.

Abstract: Can one nation be personified through a fiction hero? From a historical perspective, we shall see
some aspects of the Czech national identity through the symbolic meaning of Jara Cimrman. Moreover,
we shall observe in brief what national identity is, why it is so relevant nowadays, some of the latest
studies about national identity, and finally the relationship between national identity and la longue
durée. This method can give us a deep explanation of the present through a deep observation of the past.
Yet also, it is a good tool to imagine the future.

Romani children are disadvantaged within the Czech child protection system and highly overrepresented within the system of Czech institutional care. Relevant legislative and policy is not unified or sufficiently defined. A legal definition of child endangerment and legally binding guidelines for assessing child endangerment are lacking. Preventative social work is inadequate to address the problems experienced by marginalised Romani families. Significant problems experienced by a great number of Romani families in the Czech Republic, such as structural poverty, inadequate housing, unemployment and indebtedness are rarely addressed effectively and often form the basis for child removal, although the highest Czech courts have confirmed that this is not permissible. Low rights awareness negatively affects the position of Romani families during related court proceedings. Social work with Romani families while their children are in State care rarely results sufficient improvements to enable the return of affected children to their families. Romani children experience various problems while in institutional care, including physical abuse, ill-treatment and ethnic discrimination. Very few children’s homes offer programmes to support the development of positive ethnic identity. Romani children are less likely to be adopted than non-Romani children in the Czech Republic due to their ethnicity, and Romani children diagnosed as having a disability have limited educational and adoption opportunities. It is very difficult if not impossible for many Romani children to escape the existing system.

European Ethnology and Concept of Intangible Cultural Heritage

The article deals with critical analysis of contemporary acceptance of the intangible cultural heritage concept in field of European ethnology. European ethnology has strong historic experience with making the key analytical terms of its study (“folk”, “traditional folk culture”, “folklore”, “tradition”) problematical. In its long history, these terms were more times redefined, deconstructed or even fully abandoned. In the last years, external as well as internal criticism of this traditional ethnological terminology led to a quick acceptance of an applied and originally political term “intangible cultural heritage” that was primarily created for the UNESCO international agenda. Unlike the above mentioned traditional ethnological terms, this concept features a lot of undoubted advantages (modern understanding of culture as a process and practice, not only as a product; social construction of its meaning; taking into consideration the community´s and society´s decision about its passing down from generation to generation; international consensus about its meaning). On the other hand, however, it brings about a lot of problematical facts (derivation from an unclearly defined applied concept of “heritage”; nature of a mere enumeration of designates; weak theoretical reflexion of the concept in the contrast with its strong political and ideological background). On a ground of the concise overview Begriffgeschichte, i.e. a brief history of the European ethnology´s terminology, the essay tries to find a corresponding position for this concept and to contemplate its role for this unusual discipline that is located at the boundary line between historiography, social sciences and humanities.

"Depictions of the devil in broadside ballads" deals with demonic figures, their depiction and function in broadside ballads. The chapter further draws our attention to the absence of visual representations of the devil in broadside ballads in contrast to numerous depictions of angels.

Publikace Vesnická stavební kultura sleduje problematiku tradičního vesnického domu z hlediska stavebního materiálu, domové dispozice, slohových ohlasů a roubených sakrálních objektů. Jejím charakteristickým rysem je interdisciplinární přístup zahrnující metodické postupy uplatňované architekty, pracovníky památkové péče, historiky a etnology. / The publication Traditional housing culture focused on the matter of traditional village house in terms of building material, layout of house, influence of historical style and wooden sacral buildings. Its characteristic feature is the interdisciplinary approach involving methodological procedures applied by architects, conservationists, historians and ethnologists.

This 2007 article maps the perception in Czech society of the ongoing violent conflict in Chechnya. It shows that while world opinion has seen Chechnya as a case of Islamic terrorism, Czech elites, reflecting to considerable extent upon the country's own past as part of the Eastern Bloc, have persistently condemned Russia’s human rights violations there.

The article briefly describes the history and main features of Czech popular print production. So-called "kramářské tisky": cheap leaflets containing religious songs, news ballads and rhymes, were one of the most common forms of printed material available to the Czech-speaking public in the eighteenth and nineteenth century. As such they contain data valuable for social anthropologists, literary scholars and linguists.

Článek pojednává o obrazu světa obsaženém v textech českých kramářských písni. Na základě výzkumu provedeného v Muzeu Komenského v Přerově a ostatních moravských sbírkách je popsána vertikální hierarchie světa (Nebe, Země a Podsvětí), jeho základní mechanismy a některé představy týkající se popisu veškerých regionů a zemí. Lidský svět je rozdělen do tří okruhů vzdálenosti, ve kterých se odehrávají různorodé příběhy. Text doplňuje seznam zeměpisných názvů nalezených ve zkoumaném korpusu.

Review of an interdisciplinary prepared edition of a Czech printed Baroque Christmas hymnbook Jesličky, Staré nové písničky published by Czech Baroque poet, grammatographer, missionary and Jesuit Fridrich Bridelius. The edition was prepared and accompanied with extensive introductory essays by Pavel Kosek (linguistics), Marie Škarpová (literary history) and Tomáš Slavický (musicology).

Reference: "Obraz Balkánu v českých internetových cestopisech", In: Lidé města (revue pro antropologii, etnologii a etologii komunikace), vol. 16, nr. 2/2005, pp. 43-61.

SUMMARY:

Internet travelogues are very popular with Czech users of the World Wide Web and their number is constantly growing. Czech internet travelogues dedicated to the Balkans constitute an interesting and yet unexplored sources of images of the other, stereotypes and mental maps. The form of these travelogues varies from short descriptions of the trip accompanied by several pictures to extensive accounts of the journey, often based on personal diaries. The identity of the authors and participants is sometimes impossible to establish since they frequently use only their nicknames and do not provide sufficient personal information. However, it is more or less evident that most authors are young people aged 20-29, often college students or just out of school. Most internet travelogues analyzed for this survey identify Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania and Serbia as countries that constitute the region of the Balkans. Greece and Croatia are not regarded as Balkan countries. Instead, they are viewed as typical destinations of Mediterranean summer tourism. The Balkans means much more than a simple geographic term. The terms Balkans (Balkán) and Balkanic (balkánský) as found throughout the analyzed travelogues signify something dangerous, wild, unpredictable, chaotic, absurd, and disorderly. These meanings are not necessarily negative - for many young Czech authors of the travelogues, the characterization of the Balkans as a wild and unpredictable place is in fact quite attractive. The Balkans is also associated with images of poverty, negligence, and visible reminders of the Yugoslav wars in the western part of the peninsula. However, signs of modernization and development can be described as Balkanic, too. The encounter with modernization in the supposedly wild and backward region is often regarded as something absurd - and absurdity is another notion strongly associated with the Balkans by many Czechs. Most travelogues are dedicated to Romania, Bulgaria and Montenegro. Visitors of these lands are attracted by a combination of wild and relatively unspoiled mountains, historical sights (monasteries, old towns...) and the Black Sea or the Adriatic beaches. Serbia, Bosnia and Macedonia have received a more limited attention. These landlocked countries are often closely associated with the images of recent military conflicts. Until recently, the visa regime also made these countries less attractive than the first three for Czech tourists. Albania is definitely viewed as a symbolic heart of the Balkans, a little-known, exotic and dangerous land. For many visitors, however, a trip to Albania was a disappointment in the end  - the country failed to match their highly romantic or negative expectations and turned out to be "too normal" in their eyes.

The review introduces the monumental work of Czech scholarship, the two-volume collective monograph In the Public Interest: Censorship and the Social Regulation of Literature in Modern Czech Culture, published by a group of scholars based mostly (but not exclusively) at the Institute of Czech Literature, Czech Academy of Sciences, and specializing (also not exclusively) in the history of Czech literature and history of the book. It describes its approach to censorship and its scope and structure and assesses it simportance in the European context.