Kořeny a proměny kultu svatých Cyrila a Metoděje v 19. století dokumentují texty tří kněží různých generací zasazené do dobového kontextu. Je zdůrazněno rostoucí úsilí církve o zvěstování Ježíše Krista v češtině a vlastenecká výchova v brněnském kněžském semináři. Je postihnuta cesta od jednoty národního hnutí přes boj církve proti liberalismu až k postupnému zpolitizování křesťanství. and In the article the roots and changes of the cult of Saints Cyril and Methodius are documented in texts of tree priests coming from different generations, the texts are set in the historical context. The growing effort of the church in the field of proclaiming Christ in the national language and patriotic education in the Brno priest seminary is pointed out. The way from unity of the national movement to the fight of the church against liberalism and to the politicisation of Christian religion is outlined.
This text considers the early creative output of Ignác Cornova, in particular his lesserknown odes and his war poetry. It draws on contemporary research of the latter third of the 18th century focussing on the dynamic social change of the period, the transformation of the media, the emergence of a modern ‘public’, and changing perceptions of artistic as opposed to educational output. One of the difficulties of conceptualizing this period is the existence of two opposing trends – the older ‘Baroque’ tradition and the more ‘modern’ currents of the future national movement. Our text largely obviates this dichotomy by proposing a framework in which Cornova’s oeuvre is seen as evidence of an idiosyncratic cultural situation with its own features and markers. The aim of our study is to place Cornova’s early works within the literary context of his time – a context hard to appreciate today. We are not looking for the ‘future’ Cornova in those beginnings, nor the ‘embryos’ of his later development. Rather, we hope to rehabilitate the literary context in the Czech lands in the 1770s and 1780s as it veered between late Baroque odes, war reportage, and enlightenment patriotism. Alongside Cornova we consider now forgotten figures such as Vojtěch Koťara, Michael Denis, Johann Joseph Eberle and Václav Thám. The result is not a group biography, but rather a problem analysis of one segment of a period that defies unequivocal definition.
This essay was inspired by the thoughts of Daniela Tinková on the role of the Czech Enlightenment. We begin by acknowledging its importance for a deeper understanding of Czech history, before going on to address four problem areas. The first is the significance of Enlightenment efforts in the field of popular education (Volksaufklärung), which in the Czech context necessarily introduced the need for vernacularization. These efforts thus have an important, hitherto undervalued place among the factors that strengthened the impetus of national agitation (the second phase of the Czech national movement). We also consider the role played in the national movement of a clergy trained under the Josephenist system, and the defining characteristics of that clergy.
Even a cursory reading of the fiction work of Božena Němcová reveals frequent mentions of dance. The scenes often take place during dancing. The dancing assumes the role of the image in which the important moments of the plot structure are integrated. The patterns of behavior emerge during the dance that turn into testimonies of collectively shared reality. Therefore, the question arises on the sense of these reflections of the dance. Can they serve as a source of information on the dance practices of the time dance, or are they only a product of a literary fiction? This also provokes considerations as for the motivations for depicting the folk dance tradition and what else it reveals about the mutual relations in a given socio-cultural milieu. The article will consider if the dance situation can be considered as a literary device and if the description of the manifestations of folk dance culture could be understood as responding to the contemporaneous interest in traditional village culture as embodiment of positive values, as it reflected in the works of the so called village realists of the second half of the nineteenth century.