Current issue

In May 1909, Ferdinand Krackowizer (1844–1933), an archival councillor from Linz, took a trip to the spa in Karlovy Vary. He kept a travel diary as well as a memory album where he stored all sorts of documents: postcards, concert programmes, tickets, menus, a report from his attending physician, etc. By analysing these documents we are able to reconstruct in detail Krackowizer’s stay at the spa and gain deeper knowledge of the everyday spa culture in Karlovy Vary at the turn of the century. In addition, the analysis takes into account the opinions and assessments provided by the traveller himself in his travel diary. The diary further facilitates reconstructing Krackowizer’s networks and understanding different aspects of cultural practices connected to spa travel. Finally, these primary sources show the importance which Krackowizer attributed to his spa trip as a form of external representation.

The study focuses on a specific type of tourism (the so-called Heimattourismus) whose main aim is to visit countries, or better said, localities, which expelled and displaced Germans had to abandon after the end of World War II due to forced migration and which they consider(ed) as one of their ‘homes’. After the first unofficial trips, it is possible to observe a gradual increase in organised and individual tourism of displaced Germans to Czechoslovakia since the second half of the 1950s. In this article, we focus on one of the many topics related to Heimattourism, namely reflections of the local population in the former homeland and the stereotypes constructed about locals by Sudeten German tourists. We examine the topic by analysing ‘travel reports’ published by displaced persons and expellees in their journals since these trips had begun until mid-1960s.

"Spomenik" is the Serbo-Croatian word for monument. Internationally, the term has become established for the numerous partisan monuments that have been erected throughout the entire area of the former Yugoslavia that commemorate events of the Second World War. With the Yugoslav disintegration war in the 1990s many of these objects became detached from their original function and dissonant heritage. With their modernist architecture, the Spomeniks became popular internet motifs since about 2010 and are now experiencing a growing interest in tourism again which recently became institutionalised in the foundation of a touristic cultural route. In this process of valorisation, picturing the condition of the monuments, their decay and the characterization as a "lost place", which has become a decisive aesthetic in their circulation online, apparently plays a superior role over the actual „lieux de mémoire“. This image practice will be exemplified by the "Tjentište Monument" in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

The Austrian Alpine Association created the brand Mountaineering Villages to protect and promote a sustainable development of the entire mountain range on a tourist level. The idea of the mountaineering villages originates from a cooperation of the alpine associations with local tourist organisations and communities, with hoteliers and committed members of the population. In its policy, the initiative Mountaineering Villages outlines ideas about the ideal guest. It connects the tourists through publications, forms, structures and everyday practices to the villages. The article asks how this relationship develops and what ideas about the guests are created.

An indigenous Shuar community in Ecuador have been hosting tourists seeking retreats that feature traditional medicinal plants such as ayahuasca and tobacco. The community has provided individual ceremonies with the plants, or more complex rites such as Natemamu. Natemamu is a rite that is comprised of repetitive ceremonies lasting ten to twelve days, which involves drinking large quantities of Ayahuasca.
The author primarily focuses on: 1) the commodification of the Shuar Natemamu rite as a product that is offered on the global market; and 2) the impacts of this commercial trade on the hosts and visitors. This article is based on data collected by means of participant observation, interviews, and audio-visual documentations.
The findings imply that the introduction of western tourists to the Shuar community and its rites has contributed to processual changes to the rite and to ideational and material changes on both sides. Furthermore, the findings suggest that while the tourists experienced more ideational changes, the impact on Shuars was more material. This seems to be in accordance with the respective expectations of the encounter of both groups.

Conference report.

Recenze knihy Předkřesťanské náboženství severních Indoevropanů.