Polka and polkomanie in the Bohemia of the 1830' and 1840' was first a manifestation of the energy of the young dynamic bourgeoisie profiting from all features, which could help to build the national identity and finally result in the creation of the national state. The proofs of the Czech and popular origin of the polka came out at the same time. Many of them were soon considered just a speculation while others played an important role. The aim of the study is to investigate what was the particular reason why polka has always been considered a Czech national dance and what features were picked up from music and dance for building the identity or the national look. This approach involves principal questions such as: when did polka become the national symbol in Bohemia, how, for whom and why and what the concept of polka in Bohemia was when it started to be meaningful in the national movement? To answer these questions we have to look at some crucial facts which enable us to follow polka as a cultural text in different strata of the 19th century society in Bohemia and to identify its power. Polka considered as a myth has to be seen in the socio-cultural context and in ideological and political discourse. Its look of the Czech national symbol was created in symbolic level as a mental representation of the national circle of intellectuels and artists.
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.