Tento esej je zkrácenou a mírně upravenou verzí přednášky, kterou autor přednesl 28. října 2009 v Centru pokročilých studií (Center for Advanced Studies) Univerzity Ludwiga Maximiliana v Mnichově na úvod cyklu veřejných přednášek a kolokvií Centra Rachel Carsonové pro životní prostředí a společnost (Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society) v Mnichově. Plný text přednášky vyšel pod názvem Das neue Rachel Carson Center in München oder Was heißt und zu welchem Ende betreibt man Umweltweltgeschichte? v roce 2010 jako 2. číslo internetového časopisu RCC Perspectives. Dostupné z: http://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/files/2010_2.pdf. Autor připomíná kořeny a počátky institucionalizace environmentální historie ve Spojených státech v šedesátých letech minulého století, které jsou spojeny se jménem mořské bioložky Rachel Carsonové, jež publikovala přelomovou knihu o devastujících účincích pesticidů na životní prostředí Mlčící jaro (Silent Spring, 1962). Na historických příkladech pak autor líčí, jak se od té doby proměnil environmentalismus a přemýšlení o životním prostředí: ve smyslu překračování hranic mezi vědeckými disciplínami, mezi státy i mezi přírodou a civilizací jako dvěma sférami, které už nejsou chápány jako protikladné, ale stále více jako všestranně propojené. Stejně tak se zvýšil smysl pro vnímání nezamýšlených důsledků lidského jednání pro životní prostředí a porozumění tomu, že samotný způsob lidského pojímání přírody určuje její budoucí podobu. Environmentální historie podle autora umožňuje vidět věci v novém světle a nabízí protijed vůči ignoranci ve vztahu k přírodě i vůči věštbám zániku., The essay is an abridged and slightly modifi ed version of the lecture delivered by the author on October 28, 2009, at the Center for Advanced Studies of the Munich University, which opened a series of public lectures and colloquies of the Rachel Carson Center for Environment and Society in Munich. A full text of the lecture was published under the title Das neue Rachel Carson Center in München oder Was heißt und zu welchem Ende betreibt man Umweltweltgeschichte? in 2010 as the second issue of the internet journal RCC Perspectives. Available at: http://www.environmentandsociety.org/sites/default/fi les/2010_2.pdf. The author reminds of the roots and beginnings of the institutionalization of environmental history in the United States during the 1960s, which are connected with the name of marine biologist Rachel Carson, who at that time published a revolutionary book on devastating environmental effects of pesticides titled Silent Spring (1962). The author uses historical examples to illustrate how environmentalism and environmental awareness have changed since then; in terms of crossing borders between scientifi c disciplines, between states, and also between nature and civilization as two entities which are no longer perceived as opposite, but rather complementing and interlinked with each other. The awareness of unintended environmental consequences of human actions, as well as the understanding that the very perception of nature by humans determines its future shape, have increased as well. The author believes that environmental history enables seeing things in a new light, and offers an antidote against ignorance in relation to nature and against prophecies predicting destruction., and Z němčiny přeložila Pavla Šimková
Most of the inhabitiants of Krkonoše made their living by agriculture, brought by the colonists from the Alps in the second half of the 16th century. A demanding climate and low fertility of the soils did not make possible a cultivation of many products in higher altitudes. The local inhabitants were dependent on animal husbandry, and the animals fed mostly on hay. This commodity was of crucial importance for the inhibitants of Krkonoše and influenced, among others, their economic activities, the way of management of grasslands, and also the landscape.
The text delineates and characterizes, on the basis of the study of domestic as well as foreign literature and primary sources, the groups of crafts and industries (for example, charcoal making, tar making, potash making) that are altogether called forest crafts. Forest crafts are then theoretically conceived as specialized exploitative and subsistence strategies of the Early Modern Era that within the frame of the so called traditional culture played an extraordinarily important role in local and regional contexts. Together with agriculture, hunting and gathering that in the Early Modern Era took place in woods, the forest crafts belong to the traditional systems of the exploitation of natural resources. This system of activities, through which the society of the time in an important way influenced its environment and supplemented its subsistence resources was crucial for the everyday life of the people living close to forests, but up to the beginning of modern forms of forest management constituted an inherent part of exploitation of the forests by their owners. Forest crafts bear several basic characteristics. At the first place, they are almost absolutely tied to the woods, with respect to materials as well as the workspace. The basic characteristics of forest crafts is technological (the use of chemical procedures for decomposing wood during production). The third and last basic feature of the forest crafts is tied to the craftsmen themselves, the bearers of relevant knowledge and skills, who could and did form specific social and economic structures, conditioned also by religious and linguistic divergences.
The text delineates and characterizes, on the basis of the study of domestic as well as foreign literature and primary sources, the groups of crafts and industries (for example, charcoal making, tar making, potash making) that are altogether called forest crafts. Forest crafts are then theoretically conceived as specialized exploitative and subsistence strategies of the Early Modern Era that within the frame of the so called traditional culture played an extraordinarily important role in local and regional contexts. Together with agriculture, hunting and gathering that in the Early Modern Era took place in woods, the forest crafts belong to the traditional systems of the exploitation of natural resources. This system of activities, through which the society of the time in an important way influenced its environment and supplemented its subsistence resources was crucial for the everyday life of the people living close to forests, but up to the beginning of modern forms of forest management constituted an inherent part of exploitation of the forests by their owners. Forest crafts bear several basic characteristics. At the first place, they are almost absolutely tied to the woods, with respect to materials as well as the workspace. The basic characteristics of forest crafts is technological (the use of chemical procedures for decomposing wood during production). The third and last basic feature of the forest crafts is tied to the craftsmen themselves, the bearers of relevant knowledge and skills, who could and did form specific social and economic structures, conditioned also by religious and linguistic divergences.
Bílé Karpaty Mts harbour some of the most species-rich managed grasslands in Europe, which contain a number of rare and disjunctly distributed species. Besides specific local environmental factors, the long Holocene history may explain the uniqueness of these grasslands. However, historical interpretations of the palaeoecological evidence from the region are far from unequivocal. While palaeomalacological data indicate persistence of open habitats throughout the entire Holocene, fragmentary pollen data support the hypothesis of a medieval origin of the grasslands. This paper reviews the available phytogeographical, archaeological and palaeoecological knowledge that provides indirect evidence for a prehistoric origin of the grasslands in the Bílé Karpaty Mts. High concentration of rare heliophilous species with a disjunct distribution in the south-western part of the Bílé Karpaty Mts suggest their long-term persistence. The archaeological findings provide evidence for the existence of prehistoric human settlement in this region since the Neolithic (Middle Holocene). Direct evidence for the existence of open human-influenced habitats before medieval times, based on the results of a multi-proxy analysis (macrofossils, molluscs and pollen) of an organic sediment dated back to Roman Age, is also provided. The results indicate the existence of an ancient cultural landscape with a mosaic of open grasslands, natural forests and fields. It is concluded that the evidence presented in this paper supports the hypothesis of prehistoric, rather than a medieval origin of the species-rich grasslands in the Bílé Karpaty Mts.
Účastníci semináře „Zelené dějiny aneb Proč je u nás v environmentálních dějinách tak málo historie“, který se konal 28. března 2014 na Fakultě sociálních studií Masarykovy univerzity v Brně a o němž referuje tato zpráva, se zamýšleli nad tím, proč environmentální dějiny, které jsou na Západě už čtvrtstoletí považovány za jeden z nejslibnějších nových historických oborů, se dosud netěší většímu zájmu českých historiků a jak tento stav změnit. Napomoci by k tomu měl přednáškový cyklus o možnostech využití environmentálních přístupů v soudobých dějinách, který bude v Praze pokračovat i v akademickém roce 2014/2015., On 28 March 2014, a workshop entitled ‘Green History? Why Is There So Little History in Environmental History’ was held at the Faculty of Social Studies, Masaryk University, Brno. Its participants discussed why environmental history, which in the West for a quarter of a century has been considered one of the most promising new branches of history, still enjoys such little interest from Czech historians, and how to change this state of affairs. A lecture series about the possibilities of using environmentalist approaches in contemporary history, which will continue in the 2014/15 academic year, should help to rectify that., Pavla Šimková., and Obsahuje bibliografii