Numerous renowned scientific societies, institutions or whole fields of study have their own codes of ethics.The code defines the basic principles that ought to be respected by members in the course of their work. Czech ethnology lacks this code of ethics; in spite of the fact that numerous activities carried out by Czech
ethnologists (research, publication, archiving and presentation of research outcomes) do present various ethical dilemmas. The
importance of ethics in this field of study is underlined by the fact that the creation of the code of ethics has been defined as one of the goals within the framework of the implementation of the government programme entitled Koncepce účinnější péče o
tradiční lidovou kulturu (Strategy of improved care for traditional folk culture). The issue of ethics in ethnology has been discussed (along with other, rather internal issues) in professional media with almost no real outcome, since most of the contributions to the debate were nothing but short comments and thoughts.Based upon these tips and recommendations, the members of the Czech Ethonological Society decided, in September 2011, to prepare and submit for discussion the Code of Ethics of the Czech Ethonological Society by the next session of the general assembly. This task was assigned to Petr Janeček and Jana Nosková. They presented a draft Code of Ethics in October 2013 at a workshop
Etika a etnologie 2held in Brno. The debate about the document yielded several remarks which have been addressed in the draft. That said, it is necessary that more serious debate on this important document takes place among the general professional audience prior to the adoption of the Cod od Ethics in in autumm 2014. Therefore, it was decided that the draft shall be published in the most important professional journal and representatives of this field were asked to comment and provide their feedback on the final version of the document. and Článek zahrnuje Etický kodex České národopisné společnosti (pracovní verze ze dne 15. 10. 2013)
Presented article analyzes oral narratives usually defined as contemporary (urban) legends with emphasis on their main characteristics as a folklore genre. The article focuses on definition, terminology and presentation of history of International and Czech research of contemporary legends along with examples of local contemporary narratives. Czech contemporary legends can be characterized as showing clear parallels with East European as well as global folklore repertoire. The most popular Czech cautionary legend was legendary “Black Ambulance”, narrative about mysterious black ambulance kidnapping children, current mainly in 1988 and 1989. Widespread is corpus of comical narratives (“Hilarious Accidents”), in Czech oral transmission popular at least from the 1960s. Narratives showing clear parallels with traditional Czech folklore are relatively lacking in the contemporary Czech repertoire - single exception being cycle of legends about undead Nazi soldier Hagen, popular in tramping movement since the 1980s. Czech contemporary xenophobic narratives deals mainly with Romani (Gypsy) people, “Chinese Restaurant Legends” from global repertoire and anti-Turkish legends from repertoire of German-speaking countries. Newer narratives current from the end of the 1990s show more parallels with international contemporary legends.