bluuebunny/crossref_metadata_2025 huggingface dataset:
Echoing the Beats of Turbo-folk
Authors: Slavková Markéta
Published: January 2025

This paper discusses the popular musical phenomenon in the region of former Yugoslavia known as “turbo-folk” – also referred to as “the music of the war.” In the late 1980s and early 1990s, “turbo-folk” partly emerged from a postmodern mix of more readily accessible modern technologies (turbo – techno-pop beat) and the desire for “retraditionalization” (folk). Therefore, it could be seen as part of the occurrence of “the invention of tradition” in the process of re-constructing a group’s identity. This peculiar synthesis of transformed tradition combined with modernity could also be traced back to the communist-led social engineering and rapid urbanization, which, in fact, led to mass “ruralization” of the cities in Yugoslavia at the time. Noticeably more than any other music genre, “turbo-folk” has closely been linked to the expansion of nationalism, in which it played an important role in spreading the nationalistic discourse and “satisfying” the emotions of the masses. I argue that “Turbo-folk,” as a “form of identity,” continues to be closely related to the broader socio-political trends in the former Yugoslav countries.
Jiří Večerník: Czech Society in the 2000s. A Report on Socio-Economic Policies and Structures.
Authors: Steiner Peter
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Jiří Večerník.
Michaela Ferencová - Jana Nosková: Paměť města. Obraz města, veřejné komemorace a historické zlomy v 19.-21. století. [Memory of a City. Image of a City. Public Commemoration and Historic Turn of the 21st Century.]
Authors: Soukupová Blanka
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Michaela Ferencová and Jana Nosková.
Rodina / domácnost jako náboženská skupina v procesu transformace
Authors: Nešpor Zdeněk R.
Published: January 2025

The theoretical roots and practical side of family life, or, life in a shared household, respectively, is closely associated with culture and with religious values. The mutual associations of both of these quantities are both rather presupposed than the subject of sociological studies, as the spirit of the secular point of view assumes that the significance of religiosity is on the decline and that religions chiefly support the so-called traditional model(s) of family. This presumption is not without truth, but it definitely does not explain all forms of modern religiosity and spirituality. In the article, the author on one hand summarises the basic theoretical and historical resources for examining the mutual bonds between religion and family life, and, on the other hand, presents their transformation in the Czech Republic after 1989 through an analysis of the sociological research projects ISSP 1998 and 2008. Changes in attitudes and in behaviour in family issues are connected with more general processes of political, economic and socio-cultural transformation and religious changes; they are not, however, directly derived from one another. At the same time, the determinate factor is the family, respectively, the ever-more frequent common household, which leads to a sort of de-individualisation of religion and spirituality; these socio-religious bonds also influence other spheres of economic and social behaviour.
Jak pokoušel ďábel Jana Szalatnaye
Authors: Horský Jan
Published: January 2025

The study is based on an analysis of moralist treatises of Czech Protestant pastors from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries (Lukáš Martinovský, Havel Žalanský) and on an analysis of the autobiography of a Calvinist pastor from the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries (Jan Szalatnay). First, it pays attention to methodological questions. The gist of the article is the issue of the ratio between discursive analysis on one hand and the interpretation of cultural contents on the other. Furthermore, the article pays attention to the content of the analysed texts. In this sense, it chiefly analyses the way Jan Szalatnay describes temptation by the devil. For him, it has the character of possibly yielding to superstition in the sense of a sacral ritual, and furthermore, surprisingly, rather a civil form taking on gossip, discredit or red tape. In comparison with literature from the turn of the 16th and 17th centuries, Szalatnay lacks the motive of temptation in the form of sensuality, etc. The article also pays attention to the gradual origin of an “optimistic anthropology” in the works of the generation of authors represented by Johan Valentin Andreae and Jan Amos Komenský, and which represented in this analysis by the author Martinovský. The analysed text by Lukáš Martinovský shows how gradually the inner space of the soul, where the Self can take an inward step away from outer stimulation, is constituted on the discursive level, as well as on the level of thought and cultural categories.
Dobrovolnictví v kontextu životní dráhy dobrovolníků
Authors: Pospíšilová Tereza
Published: January 2025

Volunteering is a topic that is so far neglected within the Czech academic community. The article focuses on formal volunteering. Based on a review of volunteering literature, we pose the question whether the meaning and experiences of volunteering relate to the life stages of volunteers; emphasis is placed on the relation of volunteering to employment. The research is based on interpretative paradigm and qualitative research methodology. Based on semi-structured interviews, we show that volunteering relates to the course of life and employment in a crucial way. The key category is leisure time, in which volunteering takes place and which is in interviews portrayed in tension with time devoted to necessary duties (such as work and care for small children). Voluntary activity is defined by volunteers as a leisure-time (free time) activity and as above their obligatory duties. Thus, volunteering is neither a simple outcome of specific motivations or values, nor the result of some objective state (such as a certain number of hours per week away from work or childcare). In conclusion, we present a pilot conceptual scheme for the future research of volunteering in the context of the life course of volunteers.
Několik vzpomínek na Václava Břicháčka
Authors: Kružík Josef
Published: January 2025

Nemohu na tomto místě zhodnotit význam Václava Břicháčka pro českou psychologii, ani se nemohu rozepsat o jeho vlivu na české skautské hnutí a další organizace – to musí učinit povolanější a nespadá to ostatně do náplně časopisu Lidé města. Nerad bych také hovořil o vážných věcech týkajících se vztahu života a smrti – zdá se mi, že vše důležité k tomu ostatně řekl na pohřbu pan farář. Rád bych se však se čtenáři podělil o několik banálních osobních vzpomínek, které snad předvedou Václava Břicháčka v tom ohledu, který byl podstatný pro Fakultu humanitních studií UK, a snad též v tom ohledu, v kterém jsme ho měli rádi. Ostatně – jak dobře víme třeba od Augustina či z Eposu o Gilgamešovi – jakkoliv není jisté, zdali je smrt bolestivá pro zemřelého, je naopak jisté, že způsobuje bolest pozůstalým: z této bolesti potom povstává potřeba zemřelé si připomínat, a tak – dokud někomu stojí za to připomínat si je – jsou zde stále v určitém způsobu s námi.
Jaroslav Vaculík: České menšiny v Evropě a ve světě.
Authors: Pavlásek Michal
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Jaroslav Vaculík.
René Petráš: Menšiny v meziválečném Československu. Právní postavení národnostních menšin v první Československé republice a jejich mezinárodněprávní ochrana.
Authors: Soukupová Blanka
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by René Petráš.
Ten, co sežral medvěda.
Authors: Skripnik Ondřej
Published: January 2025

Před několika lety jsem jako nový učitel Fakulty humanitních studií „zdědil“ povinnost opravovat konspekty studentů a vést kolokvia k jedné z tzv. důležitých knih – cestopisu Lévi-Strausse Smutné tropy. Anotaci knihy jsem změnil jen nepatrně: „Jedna z nejpozoruhodnějších antropologických knih. Žánrově těžko vymezitelná; je cestopisem, který však nedrží pohromadě jen sled viděného, ale zejména autorova metoda ‚čtení‘ společnosti. Je tedy vlastně přistižením antropologovy práce (pozorování a pokusu o porozumění) při činu.“ Zdeněk Pinc má tuto knížku velmi rád, a tak se domnívám, že ji do programu DK/IB zařadil právě on a že jsou to původně jeho slova. Rád bych v tomto jubilejním medailonu podobně přistihl, alespoň v několika fragmentech, Zdeňka Pince při činu. Připomněl tak čtenáři například zkratky IZV, DK/IB, KLIKOŽIV jako symboly institucí, které Zdeněk Pinc inicioval a které se staly samozřejmou součástí našeho nejen akademického života. Pro Zdeňka Pince je typické, že jeho akademický život souvisí s osobním.
Nový grantový systém Grantové agentury ČR
Authors: Nešpor Zdeněk R.
Published: January 2025

V souvislosti s rozsáhlými změnami řízení a financování české vědy, které připravuje a provádí vládní Rada pro výzkum, vývoj a inovace, dochází k přesunu zdrojů z institucionálního financování na projektové a současně ke snížení počtu poskytovatelů, což soustřeďuje podporu základního výzkumu do kompetence Grantové agentury ČR a podporu aplikovaného výzkumu do nově založené Technologické agentury ČR. Přestože fungování GA ČR bylo vždy v centru pozornosti humanitních a sociálních vědců (i když zdaleka nejen jich), v současnosti je tomu tak tím spíše, zvlášť když došlo k výrazné proměně grantového systému, o níž uvažovalo již minulé předsednictvo, kterou nicméně v krátkém čase realizovalo předsednictvo zvolené na podzim 2008, vedené prof. Petrem Matějů. Dalekosáhlost a hloubka změn, k nimž došlo, stejně jako jejich rychlost přitom vyvolávaly obavy a celou řadu fám. Na následujících řádcích se proto pokusím provést jejich stručnou rekapitulaci.
Ke dvěma intencím procesu sekularizace v 19. a 20. století
Authors: Havelka Miloš
Published: January 2025

The study emphasises the ambiguity of the concept of “secularisation” in modern social sciences and suggests a differentiation of the processes that are described by this term, i.e. the decline of religious institutions, secularisation in the sense of impropriation, spiritual or intellectual secularisation and decline in religiosity The hitherto ambiguity is put into the context of a two-fold, more profound understanding of religion: its conception as “compensation” and as “integration”. The author shows that the concept of “secularisation” must be distinguished from the concept of “the decline of religious institutions” and of “the disenchantment of the world”, which relate to the phenomena of secularisation, but should not be confused with them. For Max Weber, the core of the “disenchantment of the world” was not in the first place the change in religiosity, in the position of churches and the relations of religion and society, but in the cultural consequences of the unique Western process of the rationalisation of human life, the ability to calculate profits and the ability to technically manipulate the world of nature and, at that, human society. In this sense, the “disenchantment of the world” should be understood as designating a post-Enlightenment, or, respectively, a post-Kant attempt of placing of faith and religion into the private sphere of life, just as the ideas of good, beauty, hope or love were; Weber believes that science cannot tackle these concepts. The result is the relativism of values, which have become a solely subjective project, hallowed by one’s own self.
Smrt jako konec, nebo začátek?
Authors: Nešporová Olga
Published: January 2025

The article overviews the spreading of faith in the afterlife in contemporary Czech society while using data from the international ISSP research focused on religion (1998 and 2008), complemented by qualitative research results on the character of ideas of the afterlife. In the European context, faith in the afterlife is not so common in the Czech Republic; more than half of the Czech population today sees death as the definitive end of life. This is not caused only by the small amount of believers, but also by a great divergence from believing in the afterlife in the last decade (mostly in younger age categories). Contemporary notions of the afterlife are also very vague, and besides the abstractly conceived ideas of Heaven and Hell, new conceptions have arisen, of which the most widespread is the belief in reincarnation of souls. The article describes specific ideas of middle-aged Czechs (30–50 years old), not only non-believers, but practicing Roman Catholics, as well.
Příšeří aneb antropologická věda v Německu 20. a 30. let
Authors: Hampl Petr , Stella Marco
Published: January 2025

The article presents the complicateted world of German anthropology in the twenties and the thirties of the 20 th century. The Denkwelt of anthropology in this period is shown as ambiguous, without a unifying idea where more approaches to the study of race and its political application were involved. German anthropology during the Third Reich era is as a whole often considered to be an exemplary case of ideologically contaminated and politically exploited science. Even common textbooks dealing with the history of anthropology support such viewpoints by bonding together racial ideologies and racial anthropology. Such oversimplifying attitudes suffer from several inaccuracies. First, the development of anthropological concepts in this period is to be interpreted rather in the context of the history of scientific (in particular biological) theories than of the history of ideologies. To achieve this, we prefer the contextual rather than the more common diachronic approach for treating this matter. Second, German anthropology did not consist solely of blumenbachian physical anthropology – other branches of anthropology bordering on eugenics, genetics and genealogy have to be taken into account. Third, the „race concept” of the Weimar and Third Reich anthropological science was an extremely complicated issue, which cannot be reduced to the level of mere continuity of blumenbachian anthropology or even chamberlainian / lapougian /gobineauian racial ideologies. Fourth, physical “racial anthropology” (not to be misconstrued for racial ideologies) as such was of minor importance for the practical social arrangements of the Third Reich, and its direct impact on ideology was even on decline during the third decade of the 20 th century. These four problems are illustrated on the historical background of the theories and careers of two important anthropologists of this period, Eugen Fischer and Walter Scheidt.
Jan Luffer: Strašidelný chrám v horách. Japonské lidové pohádky a pověsti.
Authors: Janeček Petr
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Jan Luffer.
Myth of Romani Music in Prague
Authors: Jurková Zuzana
Published: January 2025

In today’s Prague one can find a great variety of musical events and recordings labeled as Romani/Gypsy music – from classical music with “Gypsy” themes to romano hip hop. For meaningful understanding and organization of it, the article uses both the basic ethnomusicological model of Alan P. Merriam (1964) and Kay Kaufman Shelemay’s (2006) concept of soundscapes. With their help, four “musical worlds” – soundscapes – are presented: the romantic image that non-Roma have of Roma; Romani coffee house bands; traditional Romani bašaviben, that is, playing for their own entertainment, influenced by popular music; and emerging Romani hip hop. Each of these worlds – however they influence each other – is at the same time internally coherent and thus it is easy to follow the connections among the original purpose of this type of music, the behavior of the musicians and the public, and musical sound.
Voices of the Weak: Music and Minorities. Zuzana Jurková & Lee Bidgood (eds.)
Authors: Seidlová Veronika
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Zuzana Jurková and Lee Bidgood.
Daniela Stavělová: Červená růžičko, proč se nerozvíjíš. Doudlebská masopustní koleda: tanec, identita, status a integrace. [Red Rose, Why Don’t You Thrive. A Carnival Carol from Doudleby: Dance, Identity, Status and Integration]
Authors: Jurková Zuzana
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Daniela Stavělová.
The Conference “Urban Memory. The City and Its Inhabitants in the 20th Century”.
Authors: Bitušíková Alexandra
Published: January 2025

The team of researchers from the Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic based in Brno together with their colleagues from the Moravian Museum, Archives of the City of Brno and the Institute of History of the Faculty of Arts at the Masaryk University in Brno organized a conference “Urban Memory: The City and Its Inhabitants in the 20th century.” The event took place on the 6th–7th of November 2008 in the heart of Moravia, Brno, in the wonderful Dietrichstein Palace, one of the seats of the Moravian Museum.
Seminar of the Jewish Community and Communist Society (Attempt at Analysis of the Years 1948–1968) [Seminář židovská komunita a komunistická spoločnosť (pokus o analýzu rokov 1948–1968)].
Authors: Soukupová Blanka
Published: January 2025

The first day of the spring Bratislava seminar took place in the framework of the solution to the problem Reflections of totalitarian systems – relation of the Jewish community and state power after 1945 (head of project, Peter Salner, assistant head, Blanka Soukupová), which is one of the main goals of the Ethnological Institute of the Slovak Academy of Sciences. In his introduction, Peter Salner summarized the consequences of the Shoah for the Jewish community in Czechoslovakia (lessening of their number, unfortunate changes of its demographic structure generally, change of its value orientations, necessity and for the first time in history also the possibility [!] of choosing further strategies of the future).
Je náboženství důležité pro ekonomický rozvoj?
Authors: Hamplová Dana
Published: January 2025

This article deals with the issue of the connection of religion and economics. The first part summarises the basic elements of sociological debates on this theme with an emphasis on Max Weber. First, we briefly mention Weber’s theory on the meaning of Protestantism for the rise of capitalism and then we summarise the critical reactions to this hypothesis. The author shows that criticism of Weber’s works focuses on both the question of causality and historical inaccuracies, and on the question of the mechanisms that could play a role in connection with Protestantism on the one hand and with capitalism and industrialism on the other. Furthermore, the text presents post-Weber research on the issue of religion and economic attitudes and conduct. The final part of the article analyses data from two Czech empiric studies and shows that religion (measured by confession and attendance of divine services) influences economic attitudes even in the Czech Republic.
Situace v zemědělství a postavení rolnictva na území západního Běloruska během 20. let 20. století
Authors: Marková Alena
Published: January 2025

The given paper addresses to study the phenomena of the fruitful connection between the political movement and the economic situation of peasants in Western Belarus during the 1920s, when agitation of the radical left achieved major success. In this study, we follow the discursive background of the key factors in the growth of the national movement during this short time period. The article aims at providing an explanation of the specific circumstances and at presenting that in the case of Western Belarus, the main role in the mass mobilization of the local population was played by socio-economic factors. National oppression (denial of Belarusian schools, forced polonisation, assimilation efforts from the Polish side) linked with social and economic oppression, led to the unusually accelerated progress of the Belarusian national movement.
Hugh McLeod: Sekularizace v západní Evropě (1848–1914).
Authors: Nešpor Zdeněk R.
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Hugh McLeod.
Koniáš a Langhans(en)
Authors: Šindelářová Martina
Published: January 2025

Reflecting the religious and political situation of Bohemia in the first half of the 18th century, this contribution attempts to deliver a comparative analysis of two religious texts. The first is a Catholic postil by one of the most influential Czech-writing Jesuits, Antonín Koniáš, and the second its Protestant counterpart, written by a German Lutheran preacher Christian Langhans, which was translated into Czech, published (and distributed) by religious emigrants. The author considers these two postils to be a convenient source of information on the two church-enforced life (and beyond) ideals. On one side, there is the Catholic, official, state-promoted set of beliefs, on the other side, the concealed, differentiated and persecuted non-Catholic one. The first part of this paper informs the reader about the political situation and matters of popular reading in the period in question. Furthermore, it presents a hypothesis of the French researcher Marie-Élizabeth Ducreux concerning a possible link between non-Catholic identity and reading activity. The second part of the text is a segment of the author’s text analysis concentrated on the preachers’ dealing with issues of reading itself, and various aspects of their religious beliefs. Within the dogmas analysed, the issues raised are the sacraments and their treatment, afterlife, God’s grace (especially the matters of faith vs. deeds, spiritual rebirth, saints and chosen ones), religious behaviour (sacred persons, time, objects and deeds) and the Church as an institution.
Místo osobností z protestantského prostředí v české kultuře po roce 1918
Authors: Putna Martin C.
Published: January 2025

The Czech National Revival heavily exploited the rhetoric of the Czech Reformation, yet the real Protestant Churches remained in the position of a small isolated „milieu“, in numbers as well in intellectual creativity. Since 1918, the independent Czechoslovak Republic created a more supportive background for the growth of Czech Protestantism. The article presents the three main areas of its intellectual and cultural creativity. First, the development of Czech Protestant theology. The liberal theology represented is the major theological stream. The liberal theologians (J. B. Kozák, F. Linhart and others) considered T. G. Masaryk to be the central religious thinker of the time. To them, following Masaryk meant the reinterpreting of Christianity according to modern science (Jesus as a mere teacher of ethics et cetera). Against this tendency, the young theologian J. L. Hromádka introduced a renewed Protestant Orthodoxy in the steps of Swiss theologian Karl Barth. For this purpose, Hromádka used his journal Křesťanská revue (Christian revue). The younger generation of Czech Protestants mostly followed Hromádka, and not the liberals. Secondly, the development of Czech Protestant historiography. The most vociferous representative of Protestant historical studies, F. M. Bartoš, presented the history of Czech reformation in a highly polemical way, mixing historical science with a journalistic anti-Catholic agitation. Other historians of Protestant background (K. Krofta, O. Odložilík) were capable to put together their engagement in the Protestant Church with scientific objectivity, and thus to present their subjects, taken from the history of Czech Reformation, in a non-polemical and non-anti-Catholic way. Thirdly, the relation of the Protestant milieu to the literary criticism and to the literary creativity. Literary historian J. B. Čapek was the only member of Protestant circles with a lasting interest for the Protestant tradition in Czech literature. His main work, Československá literatura toleranční 1781-1861, offered a new approach to the history of Czech literature, based on the continuity of writing in Czech language both in the Czech lands and in Slovakia. However, his effort to initiate a new artistic creativity in Czech Protestant circles was not successful. Instead, the debate in the journal Křesťanská revue (between Čapek himself, Hromádka, E. Rádl and others as participants) demonstrated that only few representatives of the Protestant milieu were ready to concede the autonomy of modern literature and arts. The article concludes that the Protestant milieu was in all discussed areas deeply divided in its relation to the modern world, always wavering between „internal“ and „external“ values.
Svět přeživších Židů
Authors: Sedlák Petr
Published: January 2025

The perspective of interpreting the past with the help of the subjective reflection of people of the past presents itself to be a possible key for understanding the given epoch, the historical processes and the background in their real form. This perspective seems to be able to answer what could be considered to be Anti-Semitism, and lends an approach to Jewish survivors after World War II generally as the impact felt by these survivors themselves. However, this anthropological perspective carries with it numerous and various tasks for the scholars involved. Firstly, the sources of information to be interpreted in this way are memories, diaries, letters or interviews, which are enormously subjective, since their authors created the very record about the past that we are interested. Moreover, these records are created under various conditions and in different time periods. Secondary influences of composing memory are so strong that there are several ways of its interpretation, not to mention the effort to use it for the actual graphical reconstruction itself. Subjective information about the past still remains to be very important, and, when isolated, could be used for the interpretation of how people of the past viewed the world around them, and especially how they reacted to the social processes in their everyday life, to the decisions they had made and also how they identified themselves with the social milieu in the long term (group identity, political orientation, values and norms preference). However, such an interpretation also carries risks. The present interpretations of the subjective reaction of Jewish survivors in the first years after the end of the War in the Czech lands are based on the chronological or thematic perspective. Such an approach proves to be problematic at least in two ways: first, the records are taken out of context and their meaning is simplified. Authors of such types of interpretations can easily forget the diverse and complicated secondary forms of subjective information, and also tend to narrate them very subjectively according to their personal point of view or to the dominant historical interpretation of the past. This article focuses on the condition of information resources that are available, and on the possibilities and the risks of their interpretation when it comes to getting to know the world of Jewish survivors in the post-war Czech lands, concretely.
Měrćin Nowak-Njechorński a časopis Sokołske listy
Authors: Kijová Kinga
Published: January 2025

Měrćin Nowak–Njechorński was with no doubt one of the most important authors publishing in the Sokołske listy magazine. In fact, in some periods, he was the author of almost the entire content of this monthly. The activity of Měrćin -Njechorński as editor of this magazine in the years 1928 – 1933 isNowak covered in this article. In his writings, the Sorbian activist tackled a variety of issues: social, political and national. He actively promoted the ideas of Sokol and considerably contributed to the formation of patriotic feelings in the generation of Młodoserbs, the “young Sorbians”. His work strongly influenced the shape of the Sorbian nation in the period between the wars as well as in the post-war era.
Odpověď Markovi Řezankovi
Authors: Moravcová Mirjam
Published: January 2025

A reaction on the review of the book by Dana Bittnerová and Mirjam Moravcová.
Anton Markoš – László Hajnal: Staré pověsti (po)zemské aneb Malá historie planety a života.
Authors: Sokol Jan
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Anton Markoš and László Hajnal.
Grace Davie: The Sociology of Religion.
Authors: Nešpor Zdeněk R.
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Grace Davie.
I oni byli proti.
Authors: Vondra Roman
Published: January 2025

A review of the book.
Melanie Morisse-Schilbach: Diplomatie und Europäische Aussenpolitik, Europäisierungseffekte im Kontext von Intergouvernementalismus am Beispiel von Frankreich und Grossbritannien.
Authors: Řezanka Marek
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Melanie Morisse-Schilbach.
Margarita Karamichova (ed.): Gradivo za etnologojata na migraciite. Sbornik studii.
Authors: Jakoubek Marek
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Margarita Karamichova.
Introduction to the Thematic Issue The City – Identity – Memory – Minorities
Authors: Soukupová Blanka
Published: January 2025

Every city derives its character from its own history. This history finds its roots in the layout of the city, its monuments and memorials, its symbols, but also in the structured memory of its inhabitants. Some places in a city absorb several temporal layers of memory and the oldest can, with time, slip away in temporary or permanent forgetting. It is not always a question of natural processes; memory can be replaced in a violent or controlled manner: urban renewals, forced expulsion of a population, etc. However, a city also has the ability to flash back to its past: a walk through historic streets and quiet corners can bring back to the receptive walker what that space was like in the past. Often connected to the invocation of memories is nostalgia: valid and invalid phenomena. The preservation of a significant point on the timeline of a city requires a combination of the past with the present and the future: history loses its importance if it cannot be used for updating. People search in a city’s history so that, with its support, they can master the present or, more precisely, project their interests into the past. That is, each of us has only those eyes granted to him by his time. In a city there are, to be sure, areas filled with meaning and also areas that, at least for the moment, are meaningless. However, one cannot exclude the idea that even, for example, uniform hypermarket chains, sweeping away differences among European cities that are historically founded or constructing their identity on history, are still waiting for their history.
Collective Memory and Urban Identities
Authors: Vrzgulová Monika
Published: January 2025

My paper focuses on the construction of the collective memory of certain social groups in an urban space. I studied issues related to re/construction of the collective memory and related group identities in two separate but interrelated research probes. In the first case, I looked at the way in which the picture of a city was constructed in biographic narratives of the members of a group of small business owners and tradespeople as part of the urban middle class who lived in the studied city between 1918 and 1948. I studied this heterogeneous group (members of the Slovak majority as well as the Jewish minority) in the years from 1987 to 1997 and, through an analysis of their biographic narratives and oral histories I strove to reconstruct their way of life and their place in city life in the first half of the 20 th century through their values system and everyday active participation in urban life and culture. In the second field research I focused on efforts and concrete steps of present-day urban elites and political representatives (members of the municipal council, local government and employees of the City Hall) in the creation of the image of the city. Both pieces of field research were carried out in the same city and they encompass a broad spectrum of issues related to social and collective memory, identity of the individual, as well as reflection on the urban space in the memory of certain social groups, and also the presence or absence of this specific group in the public space of the city and in the collective memory of its inhabitants.In my paper I use the concepts of collective memory, identity, identification which have been at the center of interest of social scientists in Central Europe since the mid-1980s. In Slovakia, more attention has been paid to the concepts since the late 1980s and also in relation to political and social changes after 1989.
Industrial and Commercial Districts of a Town
Authors: Darulová Jolana
Published: January 2025

Social and professional groups create a significant part of an urban community. It can be proved that business activities have existed ever since the Middle Ages in the town of Banská Bystrica: there were activities connected with mining and metallurgy (mines, smiths, etc.) and there were sawmills, textile factories, mills, and distilleries in the period of the establishment of manufactories and factories. Powerful local business families were formed in this context. The period between the two world wars was especially prosperous. A number of trades and shops were reconstructed. Later, during the socialist period, the tradition was interupted and, after 1989, business activities did not continue in the tradition of family business. Commercial activities in the town have now been influenced and homogenized by the establishment of famous-brand retail chains and restaurants offering foreign cuisine. A professional group of miners in Banská Štiavnica had helped to create mining traditions. These traditions have been reproduced today – even after mine closings. Social activities of the town also reflect tradition.
Jaroslav Miller: Uzavřená společnost a její nepřátelé. Město středovýchodní Evropy (1500–1700).
Authors: Klusáková Luďa
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Jaroslav Miller.
5th Meeting of the “Music and Minorities” Study Group
Authors: Jurková Zuzana
Published: January 2025

The International Council for Traditional Music (ICTM, originally the International Folk Music Council) was founded in 1947 as the first major international ethnomusicological organization. In contrast to the Society for Ethnomusicology, which was founded eight years later and combines mainly American ethnomusicology with relatively closely-related scientific paradigms, ICTM is extremely diversified not only regarding scientific paradigms, but also in other directions. Its biennial world conferences are comprised of hundreds of participants who present in many parallel sessions (e.g., last year in Vienna there were usually six). They represent an exemplary fair of field resources rather than what the word itself refers to, i.e., discussions or exchange of knowledge of scholars in the same field.
Conference: The City – A Changeable (Un)certainty
Authors: Bitušíková Alexandra
Published: January 2025

The Faculty of Social Sciences of Masaryk University in Brno organized a multidisciplinary conference, The City – a Changeable (Un)Certainty (Nov. 30 – Dec. 1, 2007). The goal of the conference was to open a forum for discussion on the meaning of the contemporary city and its various definitions. What is the city? How is it reflected by various disciplines? What impact does the (post-socialist, post-modernist) transformation of the city have on (in)equality, solidarity, social cohesion, inclusion/exclusion, and local/urban identities? How are the boundaries, public and private spaces, physical and social structure of the city created? These questions were in the core of the conference discussions.
Perspectives on Contemporary Legend.
Authors: Janeček Petr
Published: January 2025

Contemporary legends, rumors, gossip and other ephemeral forms of folk narratives typical for postmodern society represent one of the most interesting issues of contemporary social sciences. Since the 1980s, when these fictional narratives told as true were “discovered” by U.S. folklorists, their study attracted not only specialists in folk narratives, but also cultural anthropologists, sociologists, literary historians, media researchers and scholars from other disciplines. The vanguard of the study of these narratives has always been represented by the International Society for Contemporary Legend Research (ISCLR).
Znovuzaložení Společnosti pro sociální bádání
Authors: Nešpor Zdeněk R.
Published: January 2025

The Society for Social Research was a scientific society that contributed significantly towards the development of Czech sociology in the pre-Marxist era. Its members cultivated modern empirical methods and rejected the “priest-like” approach of the majority of contemporary sociologists. However, unlike the latter, this somewhat exclusivist society was, paradoxically, not dissolved after the Communist takeover even though many of its members were opponents of the regime (some of whom fled to safety abroad). The society was closed down only in 1980 after the death of its two chairmen; it was subsequently re-established by surviving members after the fall of communism in 1989/90. The Society for Social Research considered itself a non-Marxist alternative to the leading sociological organizations of the time which it condemned for their communist roots. However, the Society struggled for significant scientific or social success. It completed only one piece of empirical research and promoted a certain amount of popular education; its membership was small and the Society became practically a “one man show” dominated by its chairman, the late Bohumil Geist. The Society fell into decline and finally closed down when Geist became ill in 2003.
Krzysztof Michalski (ed.): Conditions of European Solidarity. Vol. 1. What Holds Europe Together? Vol. 2. Religion in the New Europe.
Authors: Nešpor Zdeněk R.
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Krzysztof Michalski.
Petr Pokorný a kol.: Hermeneutika jako teorie porozumění.
Authors: Sokol Jan
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Petr Pokorný.
Albert-László Barabási: V pavučině sítí.
Authors: Sokol Jan
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Albert-László Barabási.
Gary Alan Fine – Véronique Campion-Vincent – Chip Heath (eds.): Rumor Mills. The Social Impact of Rumor and Legend.
Authors: Janeček Petr
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Gary Alan Fine, Véronique Campion-Vincent and Chip Heath.
Mark Juergensmeyer: Teror v mysli Boží. Globální vzestup náboženského násilí.
Authors: Nešpor Zdeněk R.
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Marek Juergensmeyer.
Naděžda Špatenková: Poradenství pro pozůstalé.
Authors: Kotrlý Tomáš
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Naděžda Špatenková.
Welt, Umwelt, Lebensraum
Authors: Stella Marco , Kleisner Karel
Published: January 2025

Today, we often encounter attempts to overcome the hiatus between natural sciences and humanities. Many speak of a principal impossibility of such a step and point at (maybe even rightly) to the dilettante manner of such attempts. When Charles Percy Snow (1905-1980) in the 1950s took note of the existence of “two cultures”, humanities and natural sciences, he noticed their mutual grudge and unwillingness to communicate that he explained by lack of common language. Since when is this gap evident in western intellectual history? Was Snow’s, almost anthropological, discovery of two science cultures a new reflection of existing phenomenon or was is a brand new condition? We shall show, using a historical example of relationship between three personalities in history of science and philosophy, namely biologist Jakob von Uexküll, philosopher and anthropologist Arnold Gehlen, and etologist Konrad Lorenz, that the first half of the 20th century was a period of agile “inter-cultural” contact in the above mentioned sense. In conclusion of this article, we shall evaluate contributions and negative impacts of this actual contact. One of the topics and at the same time means of this inter-cultural contact was the so called theory of “umwelt” (Umweltlehre) that we shall attempt to examine here as a theme. Additional goal of this article is also to outline attitudes of intellectuals in the first decades of the 20th century regarding the relationship and differences between “humanities” and “natural sciences” of nature and society, human matters on one hand and natural laws on the other. In order to depict the situation of the theory of “umwelt” that in the first decades of the 20th century existed as an autonomous biological-social intellectual tradition, we must at least briefly mention the strong trend in history of European thinking that is, as we shall show, closely related with this topic. This trend is Darwinism, one of the most influential intellectual fashions of the end of 19th and beginning of 20th centuries.
Architektura je umění vytvářet místo
Authors: Cílek Václav
Published: January 2025

To our ancestors landscape was not only subject of special respect but also of ongoing struggle. Construction of localities, kind of focal points or bases for other incursions, was inherent in the inner or even spiritual colonization of nature. They include cloisters, chapels, Stations of the Cross, important crossroads, and "open spaces" located in front of a bridge or a footbridge. Today, at a time when we have seemingly conquered the nature, we rather perceive nature's nostalgic charge of the past than its distressful or tragic dimension. However, there are some places that are dehumanized, for various reasons - decaying industrial zones, Sudetenland or in modern times hypermarkets, places where we strongly feel need of some reconciliation, fulfillment or neutralization of its genius loci. I am convinced that it is important to realize not only the power and coherence of tradition, but also its troublesome restrain given primarily by everyday petty struggle for bread. That is exactly the kind of struggle that would get down a modern creative person completely.
Dvojí svět Puzova Kmotra
Authors: Marek Jakub
Published: January 2025

In 2006 and 2007, the Philosophy Module of the Faculty of Humanities at the Charles University organized two literary-philosophical symposia in Lipnice nad Sázavou. Topic of the first symposium (June 21, 2006) was Jaroslav Hašek’s novel “Good Soldier Švejk”; the central topic was war as a certain important form of existential condition of human beings in the world. The symposium has resulted in an anthology containing contributions “Hašek and War. War as epochal human openness towards the world” (published in 2007, 105 pages). The anthology contains contributions by Ladislav Benyovszky, Jakub Češka, Richard Hašek, Josef Kružík, Jakub Marek, Aleš Novák, Jaroslav Novotný, and Richard Zika. The topic of the second symposium (June 26, 2007) was the novel “The Godfather” by Mario Puzo and its film trilogy adaptation directed by F. Coppola. The core of the symposium was five contributions by Peter Brezina, Jakub Češka, Jakub Marek, Jaroslav Novotný, and Stanislav Synek. To sum up, we might say that the contributions and subsequent discussions showed that, at the first sight the deliberately antimodernistic and to certain extent utopian Puzo’s novel presents inner perversity of the depicted alternative world of a “family”. Apart from these contributions, I consider the short but dense comment by Ladislav Benyovszky to be important. It refers to a uniform context (“die Sache selbst” as cosa nostra) of disclosed types of human activities used to depict the world of “The Godfather” novel. Number of contributions of the second symposium was too small to publish a separate anthology. For that reason we present the texts of the second symposium in the magazine Urban People. In addition, there are three other articles: Taťána Ospálkova’s “The Godfather – Genre rules: Gangster movie or family saga?”, Jakub Marek’s “Double world of Puzo’s The Godfather”, and Jaroslav Novotný’s “Nostalgia, method and tragedy. Back to Mario Puzo’s novel The Godfather”. It is supplemented with a short reflection of these symposia the “Events at Lipnice that are hidden”, by the Jaroslav Novotný and published in Lipnice Panorama in summer of 2007.
Akce na Lipnici, které není slyšet
Authors: Novotný Jaroslav
Published: January 2025

Lipnice nad Sázavou je pozoruhodné místo a město. Tím, že se vypíná nad krajinou, strhává k sobě pozornost pohledů těch, kteří procházejí či projíždějí okolním krajem. Na druhou stranu těm, kteří se na Lipnici právě ocitají, skýtá její vyvýšená a z okolní krajiny vytržená poloha přehled po kraji a mnohým i okamžitý či déletrvající nadhled, a to nejen na krajinu, ale snad i vůči přízemnosti každodenních strastí, které člověka povětšinu jeho života pohlcují. Není pak divu, že Lipnice mj. pro tuto výjimečnou atmosféru místa přitahuje, a to nejen individuální návštěvníky, ale také různé zájmové skupiny, které v tomto prostředí tyto své společné zájmy realizují rozmanitými společenskými či kulturními akcemi. Dovoluji si tvrdit, že Lipinice se stala svý, způsobem kulturním centrem, což dosvědčují právě mnohé a přitom svým charakterem disparátní akce, jež se odehrávají na různých jejich více či méně exponovaných místech. Mnoho z těchto akcí nelze přehlédnout ani přeslechnout. To platí jak doslova v případě hudebních, divadelních a jiných veřejných produkcí, tak i obrazně např. u různých konferencí, o kterých se pak lze "doslechnout" z periodik, publikací či internetu. Probíhají zde však i akce, o nichž není téměř vůbec slyšet, resp. ví o nich jen malý okruh lidí, a přesto i tyto akce přispívají k celkové geokulturní výjimečnosti místa.
Hus v Oděse
Authors: Vágner Petr
Published: January 2025

České krajanské spolky na Ukrajině většinu aktivit tak trochu konzervativně zaměřují na rozvíjení folklóru a českého jazyka. Bylo proto příjemným překvapením, když oděský krajanský spolek Česká rodina požádal o udělení dotace na uspořádání vědecké konference o Mistru Janu Husovi.
Witold Gombrowicz: Kosmos
Authors: Češka Jakub
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Witold Gombrowicz.
Geert Hofstede, Gert Jan Hofstede: Kultury a organizace...
Authors: Čábelková Inna
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Geert Hofstede and Gert Jan Hofstede.
Burt Feintuch (ed.): Eight Words for the Study of expressive Culture
Authors: Janeček Petr
Published: January 2025

A review of the book by Burt Feintuch.
“Beautiful Prague”
Authors: Soukupová Soukupová
Published: January 2025

This study analyzes the relation of the capital of the Czech lands to monuments, which are characterized as the tangibility of memories. The institutionalization of monument preservation founded on a scientific basis was simultaneous with the inception of modern Czech society. Until that time, sites of historical interest participated in the construction of national history. From the turn of the 20th century guardians of memory attempted to take into account the artistic-historical value of monuments. During the First Republic, preservationists tried to cultivate the relation of society to the tangible heritage of the past. That was the time of the “discovery” of natural monuments, while, on the other hand, there were endangered monuments which, in the Czech consciousness, symbolized the supposedly hostile Austro-Hungarian monarchy. Monuments that became symbols of Czechoslovakness drew greater interest. The First Republic brought the first great conflict between preservationists and so-called modern architects. After the Second World War, the relationship to memorials in Prague, which was practically undamaged, was protected by conservationists loyal to the new regime. While, in the first postwar years, they presented the memorials as a source of national self-confidence and as a magnet for tourism, after the February Revolution (1946) they operated with the concept of the socialist city as a city with a generational memory. Criticism of the regime appeared first in a veiled form in the mid-1970s (volunteers in Olsansky Cemetery trimmed the graves of representatives of the Czech National Uprising in an atmosphere of depreciation of Czech national identity). From 1988 this was already openly articulated. The target of criticism became the arrogance of the powerful elite leading to unnecessary demolition and inappropriate interference in Prague architecture. Despite virtually no financial resources, the Club for Ancient Prague managed, in the postwar era, to save a great number of valuable memorials in the center and on the oustskirts of Prague.