Autoři analyzují vzájemně související, avšak – alespoň z pohledu české společnosti – ne vždy přímo na sobě závislé stránky kremačního hnutí ve 20. století: vzestup a důsledky prokremační propagandy, budování nových krematorií, rozšiřování popularity kremace jakožto způsobu pohřbívání ve společnosti a změny v obřadech, které jsou s kremací spojeny. Dlouhodobá nadvláda ideologie nad společenskými zájmy je v případě kremace jasně viditelná například na skutečnosti, že v první polovině 20. století kremační hnutí získalo výrazně více příznivců, než bylo lidí, kteří se pro tento způsob pohřbu skutečně rozhodli. Jednalo se přitom o způsob pohřbu, který byl později propagován a nakonec akceptován širokými vrstvami české společnosti v důsledku tlaku vyvíjeného komunistickým režimem. Po mnoho let navíc výstavba a výzdoba krematorií stejně jako obřady spojené s kremací odrážely ideologická východiska spíše než praktické potřeby společnosti, což autoři vysvětlují specifickým přístupem české společnosti k náboženství, ovlivněným řadou faktorů (mimo jiné, avšak nikoli výlučně, působením komunistického režimu). Následné odideologizování různých výše zmíněných jevů bylo poměrně pomalé a projevilo se pouze v omezené míře ke konci 20. století. Soudobá česká společnost vykazuje nejvyšší (či jedno z nejvyšších) procento pohřbů žehem v Evropě. Tato skutečnost souvisí se silně zakořeněným českým antiklerikalismem a zaběhnutým sledem pohřebních obřadů, jež s postupem času v komunistickém režimu pevně zakotvily jako součást společenského řádu. and In this article the authors analyse mutually related but, at least as regards Czech society, not always directly interdependent aspects of the cremation movement in the twentieth century: the growth in pro-cremation propaganda and its impact, the establishment of new crematoria, the spread of the popularity of cremation as a method of disposing of the dead throughout society and changes in the rituals associated with it. The long domination of ideology over social interests with regard to cremation is evident, for example, in the fact that in the first half of the twentieth century the cremation movement attracted substantially more followers than those who eventually chose this method of disposal for themselves, a method that was later encouraged and eventually accepted throughout Czech society as a result of pressure from the Communist régime. Furthermore, for many years, the construction and decoration of crematoria, as well as ceremonies connected with cremation, reflected ideological perspectives rather than practical social needs. The authors explain this in terms of Czech attitudes towards religion, which were influenced by a number of factors, not just the Communist regime. The subsequent de-ideologization of these various aspects was quite slow, not taking place till the late twentieth century, and then only to a limited extent. Contemporary Czech society has one of the highest cremation rates in Europe, a fact connected both with deep-rooted Czech anticlericalism and with the path dependence of funeral rituals that became firmly entrenched during the Communist era.
he paper quantitatively analyses a sample of 300 Czech prayer books and other popular religious handwritten material (not including songbooks) from the 18th and 19th centuries. The author maintains that most of the material consisted of (partial) transcriptions of popular printed books and their widespread popularity was influenced by the growth of literacy and the individualization of piety. Their use was by no means limited to the milieu of the secret non-Catholics which were proscribed until 1781; indeed the majority of Catholic writings were not fully orthodox. The character and decoration of the writings in question were not directly related to the confessional nature of their originators and/or users; in fact the general rules of early modern popular culture played a much more important role and in many cases it is difficult to determine whether the source is catholic, protestant or sectarian. Prayer books fully reflected official forms of religion relatively late i.e. from the tum of the 18th and 19th centuries as a result of church domination over popular piety. However, even at this time the process did not result in absolutes: religious writings substituted the non-existence of baroque literature the printing of which was prohibited by the enlightened censorship prevalent at the time. Only a change in religious forms and new opportunities for the printing of pre-enlightenment books in the mid-19th century led to a decline in handwritten prayer books.
European agriculture has recently undergone important changes connected with the reorientation of EU policy towards regional, recreational, and land-use subsidies, and owing to the internal divergence in agriculture itself, which has led to large 'industrial' farming companies on the one hand and small, ecological farms on the other. During the period of transformation, the Czech agricultural sector has been forced to confront these changes and full stability remains a long way in the future. Transformation has thus brought both advantages and disadvantages to all the players involved. The former include the existence of large-scale farms, relatively highly skilled workers, and a cheap labour force, which make Czech agriculture competitive on a European scale. On the other hand, Czech attitudes towards work and respect for the property of others are inadequate; production efficiency and quality are low, whereas the expectations of farmers are high. Czech entrepreneurs have opted for relatively strict, unsocial, win-win strategies and understand their business simply in terms of material profit. Conversely, Western businessmen active in the Czech Republic more highly value the long-term profit, social ties and the symbolic functions of agriculture, though that does not mean they would not prefer 'industrial' forms of farming. The main problem of Czech agriculture is thus the absence of family-type farms rooted in their local, social environment, and there is only limited potential for this to develop. Unfortunately, this fact creates the threat of a 'two-speed' European agriculture: the Western model, combining both small and 'industrial' farms, and the Eastern model, focusing solely on extensive large-scale farming.
Recenzent hodnotí celkovou koncepci a hlavní výklady Václavíkovy knihy, pojednávající o vývoji religiozity české společnosti od 19. století, jako nepochybně správné a výstižné, shledává však řadu drobnějších nedostatků faktografického, interpretačního i kontextuálního rázu. Podle jeho názoru kniha sice odborníkům mnoho nového neřekne, ale pro laickou veřejnost má i tak zásadní význam. and This is a review of a book on the development of religious feeling in Czech society from the nineteenth century onwards. Though reviewer considers its overall conception and main interpretations to be correct and apposite, he has found a number of small shortcomings with regard to facts, interpretations, and context. According to him, though the work offers little new to the specialist, it will be of fundamental interest to the general reader.
The article examines the theoretical development of Czech sociology of religion during the period of communist rule, which widely affected the social sciences in general and research on religion in particular. The author divides the period into three different stages. First, from the very end of the 1940s to the beginning of the 1960s sociology as a whole was abolished as a 'bourgeois pseudo-science', and any discourse on religion was possible only in purely negativistic, anti-religious terms. However, some scholars (most notably A. Kolman, E. Kadlecová and I. Sviták) established less ideological attitudes and called for deeper sociological analyses of religion at the end of the 1950s and the start of the 1960s. Their 'revisionism' eventually won out in the 1960s, in the second stage, when Czech sociology of religion achieved international acceptance and Kadlecová became (for a short time) the author of the state's new religious policy. Although these scholars (V. Gardavský and M. Machovec) accepted a wider definition of religiosity and debated with Christian scholars, they remained Marxists. They were convinced religion is doomed to extinction. The last stage began after the violent termination of the Prague Spring in 1968 and lasted throughout the era of the so-called normalisation in the 1970-80s. Progressive scholars were removed from their posts. The official sociology of religion changed its name to 'scientific atheism', but the outcomes of its work were far from any standard of excellence, both in the theoretical and empirical fields. Research from the era of official neo-Stalinism was very poor in quality, but during that time very important unofficial scientific contributions did emerge, written by banned sociologists (E. Kadlecová, J. Šiklová), social theologians (B. Komárková), and Czechs in exile. Unfortunately, since 1989 the reception of these works has been narrow. With the abolition of official Marxist scientific atheism there is an opportunity for the spread of truly modern sociological approaches to religion - if only there were enough students.
Autor ve svém příspěvku upozorňuje na nedostatečnost dosavadního studia českých migrací 20. století, patrnou zejména ve srovnání se zahraničními výzkumy. Zdůrazňuje přitom výraznou disproporčnost výzkumu jednotlivých emigrací a imigrací z/na území současné České republiky, stejně jako jejich systematickou ovlivněnost partikulárními badatelskými přístupy, respektive jejich teoretickými a metodickými východisky. V této souvislosti autor vymezil jednadvacet strukturně odlišných migračních pohybů od konce 18. století, které ve svých důsledcích ovlivňovaly a ovlivňují populační i sociokulturní vývoj českých zemí ve 20. století. Podal jejich stručnou charakteristiku, zaměřenou zejména na otázky jejich rozsahu, směřování a dalšího vývoje ve vztahu k hostitelským zemím i k území a společnosti dnešní České republiky. Bez nároku na úplnost, avšak se zřetelem k relativnímu zastoupení, shrnul dosavadní studium těchto e/imigrací. Vedle zřejmé disproporcionality a v řadě případů nulové vzájemné souvztažnosti dosavadních akademických výstupů vyzdvihl a analyzoval také jejich systematickou rozdílnost vyplývající z odlišných východisek a výzkumných záměrů jednotlivých humanitních a společenských věd v období vlády komunistického režimu, která však namnoze přetrvává i v současnosti. Rozlišil přitom studium historické a etnografické, přičemž jako další typ reflexe migrační problematiky identifikoval autobiografický přístup jejích účastníků, kladoucí si někdy (obvykle neúspěšně) nárok na vědeckou objektivitu. Tyto tři cesty k českým migračním studiím (kromě blíže nediskutovaného deskriptivního a povýtce kvantitativního přístupu demografického), teprve nedávno a jen částečně doplněné o hledisko sociálně antropologické a sociologické, si přitom „rozdělily“ výzkumné pole, aniž mezi nimi docházelo k většímu vzájemnému ovlivnění a komparaci. V návaznosti na deskriptivní i analytickou část studie autor českým kolegům navrhuje větší zájem o sociologické a sociálněantropologické hledisko, reorientaci historických výzkumů migračních pohybů, a především širší interdisciplinární i mezinárodní spolupráci badatelů v této oblasti. Upozorňuje také na ty migrační pohyby, jejichž výzkum dosud nebyl proveden, nebo je teprve v počátcích. and In this article the author points out the shortcomings in existing Czech research into twentieth-century Czech migration. These shortcomings, he argues, are particularly evident in comparison with research conducted abroad. The author points to the striking disproportion in research into the individual waves of emigration from, and immigration to, the Bohemian Lands, as well as the continuous influence of particular approaches to the research itself or theoretical and methodological starting points. In this connection he sets out 21 structurally different waves of migration from the late eighteenth century onwards, which have ultimately influenced the demographic and socio-cultural development of the Bohemian Lands in the twentieth century. He provides a brief description of them, considering questions of their size, direction, and other development in relation to the host countries and the land and society of what is now the Czech Republic. Without aiming to present a comprehensive picture, but with regard to relative representation, the author summarizes the existing research into this migration. Apart from the clear disproportion and, in a number of cases, lack of correlation of the existing academic research results, the article highlights and analyzes their systematic variance based on the different starting points and aims of the individual branches of the humanities and social sciences during Communist rule. This, however, has frequently persisted to the present day. The author, however, distinguishes between historical and ethnographic research, and also identifies another type of research – namely, the autobiographical approach, which sometimes claims (usually without success) to be scholarly objective. These three approaches to the study of Czech migration (apart from the descriptive and mostly quantitative demographic approach, which is not discussed here in any detail), which were only recently, and only in part, supplemented with the socio-anthropological and sociological approaches, “divided up” the field amongst themselves, without any real mutual influence or comparison taking place. In connection with the descriptive and analytic parts of the article, the author urges his Czech colleagues to pay closer attention to the sociological and socio-anthropological points of view, to reorient historical research of migratory movement, and, mainly, to work together with other disciplines and researchers in other countries. He also points to these migratory movements, whose research has yet to be done or is only in the early stages.