This article examines the administration of rescue operations to save people from drowning and the distribution of rewards to rescuers in Bohemia during the 1780s and 1790s. Based on documented interrogations and official records, the article looks at the investigatory process, the conditions rescuers had to fulfil in order to apply for a reward from the Bohemian Gubernium, and the role of other actors in this process, such as witnesses and doctors. The study departs from the concept of biopolitics developed by French philosopher Michel Foucault and shows how the state authorities tried to foster mutual solidarity among town dwellers. While Enlightenment thinkers continued to stress the role of "love for human beings" (Menschenliebe), i.e. universal interpersonal solidarity, the elites held the view that the biggest motivation for anyone to save a person from drowning was monetary reward. The aim of the enlighteners, however, was to encourage people to embrace the ideal of "Menschenliebe" and to fully identify with it - hence their emphasis on cases of selfless acts, especially in newspapers and popular literature. Besides that, the article analyses the trend towards the medicalization of society in the Enlightenment period and changes in attitudes to death., Ondřej Hudeček., and Obsahuje bibliografické odkazy
The 700th birth anniversary of King of Bohemia and Holy Roman Emperor Charles IV has been designated as one of UNESCO´s important world anniversaries for 2016-2017. The Czech Academy of Sciences recreates the period of Charles IV at the exhibiton entitled Seven Towers. Charles IV through the eyes of academics (1316-2016) at the Science and Art Gallery. The visitors have an oppportunity to see the unique gold ducats with a picture of Charles IV. For this first time the most valuable archaeological discoveries of glass goblets are exhibited. Everyday items used by residents of the medieval city are also on display. The exhibition also shows a rare treasure of coins, which was hidden in the Emmaus monastery about 1370, as well as copies of the Constitutive Act of the Charles University, Charles´s Code Maiestas Carolina or late-medieval transcript of Charles´ Golden Bull. Personality of Charles IV is documented by commemorative coins, medals and seals bearing his image. Part of the exhibition is also a faithful copy of the statue of Charles IV from the Old Town Bridge Tower, the last sculptural portrait of the monarch before his death. and Marina Hužvárová.
Recenzent komplexně pojaté monografie o způsobech trávení volného času v české poststalinské společnosti, jež navazuje na dvoudílného Průvodce kulturním děním a životním stylem v českých zemích 1948-1967 svých autorů (Praha, Academia 2011), představuje a diskutuje některé obecné závěry této publikace. Rozšíření prostoru volného času v české společnosti druhé poloviny padesátých let minulého století Knapík s Francem pojímají jako výsledek dvou procesů, totiž modernizačního úsilí komunistického vedení a celoevropského modernizačního trendu. Jejich tvrzení, že tento obecnější civilizační trend přispíval k odcizování občanů od politického vedení země, je však dle recenzenta v rozporu s bohatým empirickým materiálem předloženým autory, který ukazuje spíš na to, že na ideologizaci volného času se podílely mnohé společenské organizace a kulturní či osvětové instituce. Také navazující tezi o dohlížitelském a výchovném charakteru poststalinského socialismu autoři podle něj svými konkrétními rozbory částečně zpochybňují. Nejednoznačných odpovědí se pak autoři dobírají na svou ústřední otázku, jakou účinnost měly snahy vládnoucí moci ovlivňovat privátní život občanů. Recenzent se také domnívá, že autoři měli zdůvodnit neobvyklé časové vymezení práce a geografické omezení na prostor českých zemí, respektive jeho odlišnost od Slovenska., The reviewer presents this complexly conceived monograph about the ways of spending one’s free time in post-Stalinist Czech society, which follows on from the same authors’ two-volume Průvodce kulturním děním a životním stylem v českých zemích 1948-1967 (A guide to cultural events and lifestyle in the Bohemian Lands, 1948-67; Prague: Academia, 2011), and he discusses some of the general conclusions of the publication. The growth of leisure possibilities in Czech society in the second half of the 1950s is explained by the authors, Knapík and Franc, as the result of the modernization efforts of the Communist leadership and also of the modernizing trend in Europe. According to the reviewer, however, their claim that this more or less general trend of civilization helped to alienate the public from the political leadership of the country is contradicted by the abundant empirical material they themselves present. That material, instead, provides evidence that many social organizations and institutions of the arts and education participated in the ideologization of leisure. With their analyses, the authors, according to the reviewer, also partly cast into doubt their own subsequent argument about the supervisory and educational nature of post-Stalinist Socialism. The authors then come up with ambiguous answers to their central question of the effectiveness of the rulers’ efforts to influence private life in Czechoslovakia. The reviewer also thinks that the authors should have explained the unusual time span of their work and why they have restricted themselves geographically to the Bohemian Lands; he claims that they should have stated how the Bohemian Lands were in this respect different from Slovakia., [autor recenze] Zdeněk Nebřenský., and Obsahuje bibliografii