This article discusses the topic of national identification. The author's aim is to define the appropriate conceptual framework for describing nationality, while taking into account the pluralistic character of the nation and the related contextual and multi-levelled nature of national identification. In the author's view, the concept of 'identification' more accurately applies to individual nationality than the category of identity does, owing to the latter's undesirable subjectivism, methodological individualism, and its occasional references to an over-intellectualised concept of the individual. Scientists who use the second of these two terms tend, moreover, to conflate descriptions of individual and collective phenomena. In an effort to substantiate and elaborate his arguments the author draws on the Good Soldier Švejk by Jaroslav Hašek and presents an analysis of the national identification of the novel's multi-national protagonists. He demonstrates that national identification is multi-levelled and variable, depending on particular situations and institutional frameworks. The author's description shows that the best method of analysing individual nationality may be by examining the individual's set of social roles and institutions rather than describing individual identifications.
During the last couple of decades, paid childcare has become one of the central issues of feminist research. Agencies mediating childcare are a relatively new actor in childcare arrangements in the Czech Republic. This article argues that these agencies do not fill a gap in the market by offering childcare. Far from providing simple supply that reacts to a market demand, the agencies create the demand for specific care. Drawing upon qualitative research conducted with owners of these agencies, the text looks into the ways in which childcare is constructed. The issues of qualified, specialized, and professionalized care are discussed. The article aims to show that childcare in the agencies is deconstructed as a natural female activity and is reconstructed as a gendered activity requiring particular skills that are subjected to professional screening., Adéla Souralová., and Obsahuje bibliografii
The official Burgundian historiographer Georges Chastellain (perhaps 1415-1475) left an extensive work of various genres behind. We also find in the Chronicle noteworthy Bohemicalia and Luxemburg passages, concerning particularly the origin of Hussitism. Chastellain saw the roots of this revolution in the lascivious alliance of Prague girls and the monks of one monastery there. To be able to sleep with their lovers, the girls cut their hair and wore monk´s cowls. It was the beginning of absolute chaos and reversal of the established hierarchies in Bohemia. We do not know the direct source of the author´s inspiration, but ideologically the story is close to a number of works of anti-Hussite propaganda, emphasising the destructive role of women in the revolution. It is also not an accident that Chastellain included the chapter on the Prague girls just before the narrative on Joan of Arc, for whom as an author from Burgundy he did not sympathize. Also she changed into men´s clothing and her behaviour led to wars and chaos according to the author. The parallel was to be obvious. At the time when he wrote the passage on Hussitism, Georges Chastellain also considered the mission of historians and their place in the period society. He ascribed a place to them almost on the same level as aristocrats. It was a parallel: like aristocrats use the sword, the tongue must serve men of the quill for the elimination of the injustice of this world. and Martin Nejedlý.
This article examines the administration of rescue operations to save people from drowning and the distribution of rewards to rescuers in Bohemia during the 1780s and 1790s. Based on documented interrogations and official records, the article looks at the investigatory process, the conditions rescuers had to fulfil in order to apply for a reward from the Bohemian Gubernium, and the role of other actors in this process, such as witnesses and doctors. The study departs from the concept of biopolitics developed by French philosopher Michel Foucault and shows how the state authorities tried to foster mutual solidarity among town dwellers. While Enlightenment thinkers continued to stress the role of "love for human beings" (Menschenliebe), i.e. universal interpersonal solidarity, the elites held the view that the biggest motivation for anyone to save a person from drowning was monetary reward. The aim of the enlighteners, however, was to encourage people to embrace the ideal of "Menschenliebe" and to fully identify with it - hence their emphasis on cases of selfless acts, especially in newspapers and popular literature. Besides that, the article analyses the trend towards the medicalization of society in the Enlightenment period and changes in attitudes to death., Ondřej Hudeček., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy