This article deals with empirical research on poverty in Czechoslovakia from the interwar period to the present in terms of three distinct phases. First, between 1918 and 1948, considerable attention was devoted to poverty, but research possibilities modest, so that a complex mapping of the problem was not feasible. Second, during the 1948 to 1989 period, the communist regime allowed “examinations” of poverty for the purpose of depicting pre-war capitalist Czechoslovakia as an impoverished, class-divided society. A similar approach was applied to studies of Western countries during the Cold War period. Research on poverty within the socialist regime was not allowed, even after the rehabilitation of sociology as a social science. Detailed analysis of household surveys was either forbidden or the results were embargoed; only simple cross-tabulations were ever published. Third, after 1989, the opportunities for undertaking research on poverty increased dramatically due to stimulus in both the national and international arenas. Important projects were fielded leading to many studies and published articles. Statistical surveys were used to map poverty primarily in terms of income; while sociological, ethnographic and anthropological approaches were used to examine key groups affected by poverty in Czech society. Within the literature there has been to date no synthesis of the study of the nature and origins of poverty in the Czech Republic.
This paper deals with the reconstruction of the now longer preserved gallery of coats of arms at Roupov Castle (District of Klatovy, Western Bohemia) based on manuscripts XVII.A.8 and XVII. E. 28 a from the Czech National Library. Information from individual manuscripts was combined to form an image of probably the largest Czech family coat of arms gallery at the end of the 16th century containing a collection of coats of arms from 270 noblemen and noblewomen. The gallery probands are Jan Nezdický of Roupov († before 1607) and his two wives – Dorota Bezdružická of Kolovraty and Benigna of Švamberk. The paper draws attention to the utilization of hitherto neglected manuscript sources for research into displays of self-awareness among the privileged classes and it attempts to show the way in which the nobility used genealogical and heraldic means for representative purposes. Not least, these manuscripts are often the only source of information on genealogical and heraldic artefacts which are no longer in existence.
The European Union Statistics on Income and Living Conditions (EU-SILC) set of surveys are an important source of comparative statistical data. EU-SILC provides data on income, living conditions, poverty and social exclusion, material deprivation: topics of growing interest to scholars in Europe and elsewhere. EU-SILC surveys are fielded in 29 European countries and coordinated by Eurostat. Although the survey is harmonised, the individual level microdata consists of many dissimilarities across participating countries because of different national conditions, methods of data collection and/or data processing. The aim of this article is to discuss the opportunities and limitations of EU-SILC datasets. In addition to discussing the development, methodology and basic pitfalls of EU-SILC, this article focuses on (a) income variables, (b) differences in income among countries and (c) impact of income differentials on data comparability. The main problems of income data may be summarised as follows. 1) Some countries use registers to report income variables while others obtain this information from interviews, and this difference lowers their comparability. 2) The incidence of negative or zero values makes the construction of poverty and inequality measures difficult. 3) There are national differences in the net-to-gross income conversion procedure. This study shows using a four country analysis that the net-to-gross conversion procedure overestimates gross wages in two countries and underestimates it in two others. Notwithstanding these methodological issues, EU-SILC is an important resource for the comparative study of income.
Review of Eva Vičarová: Rakouská vojenská hudba 19. století a Olomouc, Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, Olomouc 2002, 179 s., 19 vyobrazení, příloha, stručné anglické a německé résumé.
Archivy sociálních dat mají specifický význam jako infrastruktura pro mezinárodní komparativní výzkum. V této oblasti slouží nejen jako zdroj dat, ale podílejí se i na organizaci mezinárodních šetření a zapojují se do výzkumu v oblasti harmonizace dat a vývoje standardizovaných indikátorů. Od počátku archivace dat v Evropě se proto uvažuje o budování společného evropského systému datových služeb. Řada stávajících národních archivů je sdružena v organizaci CESSDA. Jejich spolupráce zahrnuje dohodu o mezinárodní výměně dat, k reálnému propojení datových služeb ale dosud nedošlo. Problémem je vzájemná nekompatibilita stávajících systémů datových služeb, informací o datech i obecná nekompatibilita produkce v sociálněvědním výzkumu. Dosud bylo dosaženo dílčích úspěchů v překonání bariér, zejm. bylo vyvinuto uspokojivé softwarové a hardwarové řešení pro propojení datových služeb (NESSTAR), dochází k standardizaci metadat (DDI), vyvíjen je multilinguální thesaurus ELSST a došlo k částečnému propojení několika datových knihoven ve společném katalogu C-CAT. Vytvoření evropského systému datových služeb je připravováno v projektu CESSDA-PPP. Není však jisté, zda budou získány prostředky na jeho realizaci.