After the First Partition of Poland, another crown land - Galicia (German: Galizien, Polish: Galicja, Ukrainian: Halychyna) was incorporated into the Austrian Empire; it covered current south-Polish and western-Ukrainian territories north of the Carpathians in the basin of the Vistula to Upper Dniester and Prut. Galicia featured not only a variety of ethnic groups living in it (Polish, Ukrainians, Jews, Germans, Armenians, etc.), but also a diversity in religions. The above-mentioned ethnic and religious differences were reflected in the cultural sphere whose richness of expressions drew attention of the first collectors of folk traditions among domestic authors and foreign researchers, whereby Balthasar Hacquet (1739–1815) can be mentioned as the first of them. The interest of researchers whose attention was directed rather to the National Revival and who saw in the folk culture the roots of national self-identity was based on different ideological premises. It was Pavel Josef Šafařík (1795–1861) who became the representative of Slavic ethnography and who - in cooperation with the Ukrainian (Malorossian) scholars Ivan D. Vahylevych and Jakov Holovacki - offered knowledge about Ukrainian (Ruthenian) culture in eastern Galicia. Karel František Vladislav Zap (1812–1871) was among significant Czech experts in Galicia; as a public servant he lived in Lviv at the turn of the 1830s and 1840s. His work features an effort for a critical but unbiased attitude to ethnical and economic problems of the country. The freer social life in Austria after the fall of Bach’s absolutism lead to the development of journalism. The ethnographic work of František Řehoř (1857–1899), who spent several years in the region, is of essential importance for Galicia. He published his essays, mostly of a popularizing nature, in Prague social and professional journals. His strengths included gathering of source material through field research, and collecting activities. The last important chapter of contact between Ukrainians from Galicia and the Czech lands dates back to the 1890s; it is connected with large exhibitions held in Prague and Lviv. However, the political situation in the Austro-Hungarian Empire caused their reception to be diametrically opposed. World War I, the dissolution of Austria-Hungary and the formation of the successor states ended the flow of ethnographic journalism on Galicia for the Czech reader; the Czech-Ukrainian contacts continued, however, on a different basis.
The 1150th anniversary of arrival of Constantine and Methodius, brothers of Thessaloniki, to Great Moravia (in 863) was an opportunity to reassess the historic role of their mission both from the religious and ecclesiastical and from the political, cultural and historic points of view. The cult of Constantine and Methodius was
obviously reflected not only in the high art but also in folk culture. Velehrad, which has become one of the leading Moravian sites of pilgrimage, was connected with production of objects of devotion, which the pilgrims brought back to their homes to use in their prayers or as souvenirs of the place. The earliest group of these objects of devotion is represented by documents of folk art and works with features of folk art but the most popular objects include pieces of devotional graphic art, “holy” pictures commercially produced and sold at pilgrimage destinations since the latter half
of the the 19th century. For the purpose of the contribution a
couple of interesting artefacts (prints) of 19th century related to the Constantine and Methodius tradition were acquired. The different approaches to the composition of the scenes from the life of the two saints and different attributes of their appearance shown in the pictures demonstrate transformations of their cult, which was mainly developed in the Moravian environment, but also as regional patron saints in the Czech lands and as Slavonic faith promoters in other European nations.
The article deals with the circumstances of founding, subsequent development and the most important characteristics of the Národopisný věstník českoslovanský (founded in 1906). It also describes and analyses thi institutional and social-political context of the important milestones in the history of this periodical that belongs to the oldest scientific journals in Central Europe.