Issue 4, Vol. 99 (2012)

Acculturation of expatriate executive managers was examined in the sample of 16 sojourners transferring managerial know-how to companies in Czechia, using a structured longitudinal interview survey including in depth personal interviews. The interviews were conducted six and eighteen months after the arrival of respondents in Czechia. The respondents were contacted as they became available during the period 2006 to 2010. The results indicate that acculturation of sojourners in Czechia proceeded, as expected according to the international literature, broadly in line with the Hofstede’s acculturation “U“ curve (Hofstede 1997). The qualitative analysis points to a number of problems, the sojourners had to deal with during their acculturation including: dependence on communication in English, while recognising potential advantages associated with the knowledge of Czech language, cultural distance – particularly the uncertainty arising from the inability to correctly predict Czech behaviour, lack of openness limiting the Czech ability to form a broader world view, lack of mutual respect between the Czech co-workers, a degree of Czech xenophobia and nderestimation of certain predictors of successful acculturation such as social engagement with the Czech hosts. Research also points to a number of helpful coping strategies.

This article deals with naming practices among the Czechs who lived in the fi rst half of 20th century in two Bulgarian villages – Vojvodovo and Belinci. It is based on fi eldwork carried out among the people who migrated in 1950 from Bulgaria and settled in several towns and villages in South Moravia (region of Mikulov and Valtice), and their descendants. Naming practices of the Bulgarian Czechs are analyzed in relation to naming strategies of the Bulgarians in the given period, and it is argued that the role that was fulfi lled by surnames among the Czechs was fulfi lled by fi rst names among the Bulgarians. Relationship between the naming strategies and ideas about kinship and gender are discussed further

The Patent of Toleration of the year 1781 cleared the way for activities of two Protestant churches in the Habsburg Monarchy. In the two borderland regions chosen for analysis – the regions of Děčín and Šluknov – the Protestant inhabitants were affected by the religious infl uences from Saxony that acquired various forms. From the period before the year 1620 there was, exceptionally, preserved the Lutheran religion, whose followers visited churches on the Saxon side of the border. Also the regions were continuously settled by Saxon immigrants who were not organized within the structures of the Augsburg confession. Only after the commencement of industrialization and the subsequent wave of Saxon immigration was made possible the establishment of independent Protestant choirs. Absolutely exceptional was the Lutheran choir of Saxon offi cials in Podmokly that was founded after railroad had been fi nished in 1851. Already before the year 1850 the mission of the renewed Unity of Brethren from Herrnhut instigated the popular religious movement. At the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth century, religious propaganda of the movement „Away from Rome“ (Los von Rom), in many cases supported from Saxony, found response in these regions. The typology of religious infl uences from Saxony and their manifestations on the Bohemian side of the border, established on the basis of the examples of Děčín and Šluknov regions, could be used for the nineteenth century also for other borderland regions inhabited predominantly by German-speaking population

The present article aims to answer the research question: How did the nuns perceive death, the dying and the deceased? The author presents partial results of her qualitative research realized among the nuns employed in one of the nursing homes as nurses. The article presents the perception of the dying persons from part of the nuns, as well as their professional approach to these persons Further, the author presents the perception of the dead persons from part of the nuns, and records their specifi c ways of dealing with the bodies of the deceased. As for the results of the research, it can be stated that the nuns perceive dead as a mysterious event that constitutes part of their and our lives and represents a return to God; however, in spite of these mostly positive connotations dead is for them a disquieting event

The present study focuses on the intertextual relations between fairytale patterns and their artistic adaptations that are in contemporary literary communication and meta-communication denominated apocrypha. The study analyzes and compares the short story anthologies of Přemysl Rut V mámově postýlce (In Mummy’s Bed, 2000) and Květa Legátová Mušle a jiné odposlechy (Shell and Other Eavesdroppings, 2007). Both authors in some of their stories reproduce in specifi c way the classical adaptations of folklore tales, or better to say components of their typical plotlines. The study shows how the intertextual relations between apocrypha and its fairy-tale prototexts are established and aims to identify the nature of intertextual transformations of the original tale plots, motives and characters. The basic procedure of apocrypha writing is the motivic amplifi cation of the fairy-tale that enters the text either through the quotation or through the basic plotline that is then rewritten anew. The fairy-tale prototext or the general acquaintance with it constitutes the indispensable perceptual background of the apocrypha and upon this background the ironic intertextual game with allegorical or variously actualized meanings is being played. This game “it happened some other way” is focused on adult recipients, something that sets the fairy-tale apocrypha apart from the range of post-modern variants of authorial tales.