iNation of Bookworms?/i takes an in-depth look at the reading culture of the Czech Republic-the country with the highest number of libraries per capita worldwide. Drawing on studies and oral ...interviews of Czech readers conducted by the National Library of the Czech Republic and the Institute of Czech Literature between 2007 and 2018, the book presents intriguing new research on Czech readership and society. Jiří Trávníček deftly sifts through hard data and first-person reportage, illuminating the myriad components that make up reading culture, such as print-reading, screen-reading, libraries, book sales, the social lives of readers, time spent reading, and reading preferences. Trávníček also takes a global look at literary love, exploring the parallels between the reading cultures of other countries and the Czechs’ unique fervor for the written word.
To ensure the quality of social work performance, governments or national professional associations usually employ binding quality standards, codes of ethics, or laws on social work. In Czechia, all ...previous attempts to establish comprehensive institutional and formal pillars for developing the quality of social work performance have long been in a deadlock, due to their being diluted by lobby groups, opposing interests, or political pressure. This text aims to show the potential of social work research for developing social work profession pillars under such circumstances. The basis of our 'research-led approach' to establishing national-wide quality criteria for social work performance was a well-chosen participatory research methodology fine-tuned to facilitate discussions among various stakeholders, leading to the reconciliation of their positions and interests. During the research project, we managed not only to reach agreement on the formulation of the Set of Social Work Quality Criteria and Indicators, valid across all areas of social work practice in Czechia, but also on the desirability to implement it. We believe that the proposed research-led approach for developing social policy instruments is transferable to other national or local contexts, perhaps even as an initial solution, not only as a means of overcoming deadlock.
The departure point of the study is the project “The Economic Hinterland of a Centre, or Mere Settlements in the Vicinity of a Centre’s Hinterland?” supported by the Grant Agency of the CR that ...explored the immediate surroundings and hinterland of the Great Moravian fortified centre of Pohansko, near Břeclav. The settlement structure in the vicinity of a densely populated centre and its development from the Early Hillfort period until the Late Hillfort period (8th – 12th centuries) were investigated by means of surface prospection, microprobes and archaeological research. Apart from defining the settlement structure, the number of inhabitants of the early medieval centre was estimated and the subsistence strategy of the population was examined. Earlier conceptions about a network of farming communities supplying the inhabitants of Great Moravian Pohansko were revised and a new model was introduced, based on the absence of chronologically parallel settlement (if this is at all possible to identify in the archaeological material), the revision of the construction elements of the traditional model and new or hitherto marginalized evidence of the active involvement of the centre’s inhabitants in farming.
Publikace zobrazuje široké spektrum vlivu hudebního folkloru na ceskou klasickou hudbu 19. a 20. století. Zabývá se sberatelstvím lidových písní a ruznými formami tzv. druhotné existence lidové písne ...v mestském prostredí. V druhé cásti prináší analýzy sborových úprav lidových písní a sborových skladeb na lidové texty. Jejich bohatá typologie je demonstrována na ukázkách z tvorby deseti predních ceských skladatelu (A. Tucapský, O. Mácha, J. Málek, J. Feld, P. Eben, J. Kricka, Z. Lukáš, J. Laburda, Z. Šesták, C. Kohoutek).
Traversing is about our ways of seeing, experiencing, and moving through the world and how they shape the kinds of people we become. Drawing from concepts developed by two phenomenological ...philosophers, Martin Heidegger and Jan Pato?ka, and putting them in conversation with ethnographic analysis of the lives of contemporary Czechs, Susanna Trnka examines how embodiment is crucial for understanding our being-in-the-world. In particular, Traversing scrutinizes three kinds of movements we make as embodied actors in the world: how we move through time and space, be it by walking along city streets, gliding across the dance floor, or clicking our way through digital landscapes; how we move toward and away from one another, as erotic partners, family members, or fearful, ethnic "others"; and how we move toward ourselves and the earth we live on. Above all, Traversing focuses on tracing the ways in which the body and motion are fundamental to our lived experience of the world, so we can develop a better understanding of the empirical details of Czech society and what they can reveal to us about the human condition.
The aim of this paper is to explore and define the boundary of the zone of inland, mainly agricultural settlement in southern and western Bohemia, Czech Republic in the later prehistory, and to try ...to determine why such settlement appears not to have spread further into the Šumava foothills and mountains. With the help of predictive MaxEnt modelling – used in ecology to determine the degree of uncertainty in the geographic distribution of species – and using a comparison with data on soil productivity, we explore whether in later prehistory the agricultural settlement was limited by unsuitable natural conditions or by other factors. The boundaries of the territory suitable for agropastoral farming most probably moved in time with technological advances, increases in population density, and the changing preferences of inhabitants of the Bronze and Iron Ages. The margin of agricultural settlement in the foothills describes a line beyond which agriculture had become unprofitable; a similar boundary existed throughout the Early Middle Ages. At the same time, there was a good deal of contact across the mountains with Bavaria and Upper Austria, as is shown by archaeology both in the form of similarities between the prehistoric typo-chronological complexes and by finds of bronze and iron items along presumed routes of access. There were also montane sites (whose function is still unknown) situated beyond the margin of the agricultural zone, such as the recently discovered settlements on the Křemelná river. Apart from prospection, a wide range of other activities could have taken place, including those connected with communication and routes of access to Bavaria and Upper Austria, with which Šumava formed a common typo-chronological group.
The legal system of the present-day Czech Republic would not be understood properly without sufficient knowledge of its historical roots and evolution.This book deals with the development of Czech ...law from its initial origins as a form of Slavic law to its current position, reflecting the influence of the legal systems of neighbouring countries and that of Roman law. The reader can see how a legal system originally based on custom developed into written and codified law. Czech law was fully dependent upon developments within the Luxemburg, Jagiellonian and, primarily, Habsburg monarchies, although some features remained autonomous.The 20th century is particularly important in the development of the Czech state and law of today, namely due to the establishment of an independent Czechoslovakia in 1918 and its split in 1992 giving rise to the independent identities of the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic. It was a century encompassing periods of democratic as well as totalitarian regimes; political, ideological, economic and social changes stemming from such transformations were projected into, and reflected in, the system of Czechoslovak and Czech law. It can therefore serve as a "case study" for researchers interested in the transition of democratic legal systems into totalitarian regimes, and vice versa.
