This paper examines the variation in personal values and attitudes towards family and marriage in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Czech and Slovak societies have been characterized by an intensive transformation process since 1989. The political and economic transformation was followed by intensive demographic changes (some even talk about a second demographic transition) that was similar in both societies. Here it is assumed that values are independent variables that have an impact on behaviour, and it is argued that demographic changes have been brought about by changes in values and attitudes concerning the family, marriage and children. Therefore, this article examines if the trends in value observed between 1991 and 2008 were accompanied by similar demographic changes. Data from three waves of the European Value Study (EVS) are used together with official vital demographic statistics., Ladislav Rabušic, Beatrice Chromková Manea., and Obsahuje bibliografii
Bohemka and Veselinovka in Ukraine were founded at the beginning of the twentieth century by descendants of Czech religious emigrants of the eighteenth century. Nowadays, both villages are inhabited predominantly by Protestant Czechs who still constitute a majority, as well as by Ukraininas of Orthodox denomination and, partly, by individuals of other nationalities. In the article the ethnical and confessional identity of inhabitants of both villages is being presented through the analysis of funeral and postfuneral rites and their material manifestatíons. In both communities funerals and funeral feasts are celebrated; besides, rites commemorating the deceased are observed; „pominky", that is, remembrances of the dead that také place in precisely determinated intervals, „provody“ or collective visits of cemeteries accompanied by feasting on the graves, and also remembrances of deceased soldiers at memorials. Most of these rituals stem from Orthodox tradition, but nowadays also Czech inhabitants of the communities participate in them. They struggle to belittle them, because they are not compatible wiťh their tradition as well as with their religious ideology. Dissimilarities, but also coming together of both groups manifested itself on both cemeteries. Coming together had been realized thanks to more intense social bonds among members of both groups. The (post)funeral rites contain in themselves expressions of ethnic and confessional identity through symbols, such as cross and chalice. Such rituals not only make reference to tradition, but they introduce the participants into the system of reciprocal relations and corroborate the existing social bonds.