Current issue

The study focuses on the development of the discourse about housing estates in Pardubice during the socialist era. The primary materials are textual and visual messages in the local press, selected literary works, and especially contemporary tourist guides. The author examines how the ruling circles shaped the image of Pardubice as an urban landscape, where the housing estates embodied the care of the ruling regime for the needs of the inhabitants. A key element is the construction of the Dukla housing estate on the site of the former Karanténa, whose reconstruction served as a tool of propaganda. The study also follows the propagandistic efforts in literary and cultural activities, exhibitions, excursions, and positive responses from foreign visitors. The conclusion of the research reveals the topos of housing estate construction as a means of dialogue with the past, expressing the superiority of the socialist present.

The study deals with the collection of chapbooks of Ignác Tabarka from Rymice based on the collector’s correspondence and additional museum books that contain chapbooks from his collection. Attention is mainly dedicated to the quantity, formation, thematic profiling and organization of the collection, Ignác Tabarka’s contacts with other collectors and the fate of the collection up to the present day. The author investigates what are the possibilities of learning about collections of chapbooks that have not been preserved together, and at the same time how private collections of chapbooks influence the constitution of museum collections in the Czech Republic.

The text deals with the institutional history of the Centre of Folk Art Production (ÚLUV) in the first years of its existence, i.e. between 1945-1948. First, attention is paid to the ideological and organisational preconditions for its establishment, especially the long-term efforts of the Ministerial Council Theodor Pistorius to organise folk production. Next, attention is paid to the structure and activities of the Centre and the problems it had to face in this complicated period. It turns out that the Centre was primarily a business and commercial project at this time. The study was based primarily on the well-preserved company archives, where this first period is well documented.

The paper is devoted to the issue of folklore celebrations and festivals in Slovakia, as a phenomenon of scenic folklorism. The author focuses on the beginnings of this phenomenon, with an emphasis on the role of Karel Plicka (1894–1987) – one of the pioneering creative personalities in this field. It is based on the study of archival materials, contemporary press and professional literature on this topic. It points to the contemporary historical-political contexts and functions of these „folklore holidays“.

This article described the life, duties and benefits of an employee of the aristocratic estate in Czechoslovakia during the First Republic (1918-1938). This description is based on the professional norms issued by the owner of the estate in the 1923 and their differences form the older norms issued in 1897. First, the Collalto Estates are described together with their system or organisation. Then, the benefits of employees of the estate are discussed, which contains wages, natural benefits and security offered and consumed. Their duties, working hours, vacations and the disciplinary sanctions in case of violating the expected duties and confidence are then described. In the conclusion the comparison of the Collalto employee’s salary with the average salary in Czechoslovakia of the 1920s is made.