This article deals with the representation of literary culture in the Bohemian lands in late 18th and early 19th century travelogues as an influential literary genre of the late Enlightenment period. Against the background of their authors’ (mostly North and Central German travellers’) views on the Habsburg monarchy, the Bohemian lands and Prague in particular, as well as their education and art, the article seeks to analyse the variety of perspectives and the clash of external and domestic perspectives, as well as their description strategies. It draws attention both to the ideologisation and interconnection of the travelogue discourse and to the reactions of domestic authors to the travellers’ generalizing criticisms and their forms. To summarize, the article argues that the traditional classification of travelogues as predominantly pro- or anti-Slavic does not exactly hit the mark in this period, for travelogues do reflect the discussion on Czech literary culture in the Bohemian lands in statu(re-)nascendi in the context of local history and the enlightenment of the common folk., Dalibor Dobiáš., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The paper deals with powerlessness as one of the possible meanings of alienation, and presents Neal’s Powerlessness Scale as a means for measuring this concept. The aim of this research is to find out if it is possible to adopt the Neal’s research technique, developed in the context of the American culture in the late 1950s, to empirical sociological research in the Czech Republic. This issue is important because there is at present no standard attitudinal instrument for measuring a persons’ perception of their power to exert influence over socio-political events. An initial test of the reliability and internal and external validity of Neal’s scale is undertaken using a non-representative sample of the Czech population. Results of this quantitative analysis suggest that a subset of nine items from the original twelve item scale is the most reliable and valid measure of a person’s sense of control over the socio-political events within the Czech cultural milieu. Importantly, the process of data collection reveals several problematic features of Neal’s powerlessness scale, and it is recommended that certain alterations before its further use in the Czech context., Marie Traxlerová, Ladislav Rabušic., 4 tabulky, Obsahuje bibliografii, and Anglické resumé
The article focuses on the development of the labour market in the Czech Republic from the perspective of employment and unemployment between 1998 and 2004. Using data from the Czech Statistical Office, and within a reference framework of EU countries, the authors discuss and analyse the factors that determine unemployment and employment in Czech society. The authors use latent logistic regression to verify the assumption that the odds of unemployment are not evenly distributed across the entire Czech population and to identify three segments of the labour market in the Czech Republic. In each of these three segments the employment and unemployment odds differ, and the factors that determine these odds function differently in each segment.