Issue 3, Vol. 101 (2014)

This text analyzes the issue of the Karaim emigrants in Czechoslovakia,
which has thus far been unknown in Czech scholarly circles. The Karaims arrived
here in the context of the extensive Russian emigration at the beginning of the
1920s. The study shows, above all based on the examples of four striking persona-
lities from the Czechoslovak Karaims (Michail Ajvaz, Sinan Borju, Savelij Chadži
and Andrej Karakoz), how the emigrants reached Czechoslovakia and how they
managed to establish themselves as individuals in various (above all technical)
fields. In the case of two of them (M. Ajvaz and S. Borju) the fates of their bro-
thers who settled in Czechoslovakia are also described.The text points to specific
characteristics of the Czechoslovak Karaims and to important milestones in their
life: the Russian Civil War, which drove them out of their home, and the Second
World War, during which they had to prove their Karaim (non-Jewish) origin.

The article proposes some possible localizations of the extinct village
Elizabeta in Romanian Banat. This village was founded as the first of the relati-
vely large Czech colonization wave at the beginning of the 1820s that led to the
mountainous area of Banat by the river Donau. The newly founded settlement was
rather unstable and Elizabeta had fought for survival for about twenty years, before
coming to an end. The remaining inhabitants resettled to the neighboring village
Svatá Helena. After being abandoned, the village decayed rapidly, even though the
agricultural activities on its fields have continued and to a certain extent continue
until today. On the basis of analogies with other villages in the Banat the text pro-
poses the possible architectural appearance of the houses in Elizabeta. Until today
the inhabitants of Svatá Helena have preserved the memory of the place where Eli-
zabeta was placed, but not its exact locality.

In this paper I would like to present some problem of tradition in the context of globalization and politics. In the vocabulary of studies on the society and culture, the words ‘tradition’ and ‘traditional’ belong to the most commonly used terms. Today, the current globalization processes have significantly transformed its meaning. On one hand, the tradition ceased to be a way of life or a system of social values, an issue generally failed to be brought to attention, but rather became a became specific field of symbolic battles, an object of pride and adoration, an element national and ethnic politics, interesting economic strategies and the part of popular culture. On the other hand, phenomena and processes such as "invented tradition", "conscious culture" and "heritage work" become more and more evident. The article not only discusses the debate around the evolving understanding of the tradition, but also provides some an examples of its new functioning: New Guinean kela memb ritual, laced g-string from southern Poland, London's royal wedding and dance houses movement from Hungary and Poland.

Author of the study presents, on the basis of the analysis of the modifi-
cations of the story on the origins of the Přemyslid dynasty in medieval narrative
sources (Legend of Kristián, Chronicle of Kosmas, Old Czech Chronicle of the
so called Dalimil, Chronicle of Jan Marignola, Chronicle of Přibík Pulkava of
Radenín and Neplach Chronicle), as well as their comparison. Accentuates the
role of the chronicler Kosmas, who stabilized the mythical story of the begin-
nings of the Czechs, and demonstrates how precisely the chronicle of Kosmas
constituted the basis of all further medieval elaborations of the myth.
The analysis also showed that the legend of Kristián was not the principal source
for Kosmas, but rather the oral tradition as bearer of collective memory. With
this, however, Kosmas dealt in an original way and transformed it into the commonly known myth.

Zpráva o 35. ročníku American Indian Workshopu, největší evropské konference týkající se severoamerických indiánů. Proběhla ve dnech 21. – 25. 5. 2014 v Leidenu, pod záštitou Universiteit Leiden (Leiden University Centre for Linguistics - LUCL) a Rijksmuseum Volkenkunde (Národního muzea etnologie). Tématem konference byla komunikace.