Habits are a peculiar component of culture, which currently have more functions in society. The function to identify is among the identification which classifies an individual as a member of “his/her” group, defines him or her and serves as an instrument for differentiation. The functions are an important element in the construction of a feeling of pride on the membership in a given group. The study submits a view of the specific realm of funeral habits and military funeral ceremonies within the military community with focus on the description of the current form of these habits in the environment of the Armed Forces of the Slovakian Republic. It introduces the basic formal means that are used in this environment in the case of a soldier´s death. The author observes how standards and rules are applied. She searches for an answer to the question whether there is a space in this strict environment hampered by norms to undertake spontaneous activities, not defined in the rules, related to funeral ceremonies and farewells, or other specific expressions that are part of life of this
socio-professional group. The study pays attention to specific types of ritual activities, such as ramp ceremony and welcome ceremony, the theme of soldiers - suicides, and the ratio of religious funeral ceremonies in the military environment.
Te study focusses on generational transformations in the perception of military service in the period from 1968 through 2004, as an important social phenomenon. Major attention is paid to oral-historical interviews with four contemporaries, or more precisely to the ways of (re)constructing their narrative reflections associated with military service in particular historical decades beginning with the 1970s with the overlap to the new millennium (meaning from the beginning of “normalization” after 1968 to the abolishment of military service in 2004). Besides the importance
of military service, the text focusses on the identification of potential topics from military everyday life and culture of military service soldiers in the context of the conversion from the socialist army to the democratic one, and at the level of constructing the individual and the group identities.
In the tradition of imagology, as it was elaborated in the works of V. Todorov and Z. Urban, the author presents an image of the Czech community living in a village of Vojvodovo in Bulgaria from the beginning of the 20th century till 1950, as it was seen through the eyes of their neighbors. As a source the author uses published texts as well as unpublished memoirs dealing with Vojvodovo, and testimonies gathered during his fieldwork in Vojvodovo in a period 1997–2009. Derived from the mentioned sources, the final image of the Czechs in Vojvodovo is very positive. It presents them as a noticeably united group of puritans, who were industrious in an exemplary manner, primarily peasants, nevertheless very good traders, neat and culturally advanced, honest and willing, which made them good neighbors, except the fact that they were not very hospital to strangers.
Podle recenzenta se volby v Československu do zastupitelských orgánů v době od potlačení pražského jara 1968 do demokratické revoluce 1989 na první pohled jeví jako formální rituál, avšak autor ve své důkladně empiricky založené práci ukázal, že plnily řadu důležitých funkcí, byť jiných než v demokratickém státě. Zachytil společné rysy i odlišnosti jednotlivých volebních aktů, odehrávajících se v pětiletých cyklech, a prozkoumal související aktivity bezpečnostních složek. V rámci výkladu o volbách přitom popsal důležité aspekty fungování komunistického režimu, všímal si různých forem odporu proti němu a vylíčil také příběhy obyčejných lidí, které se nějakým způsobem vázaly k volbám. Sedmdesátá a osmdesátá léta představil ve své knize z nového úhlu a nemálo přispěl k jejich lepšímu poznání., According to the reviewer, the elections to representative bodies in Czechoslovakia between the suppressionof the Prague Spring in 1968 and the democratic revolution in 1989 may at first sight seem to be a formal ritual. However, the author´s empirically well-founded work "All Communists to the polls!" Elections in Czechoslovakia in 1971-1989 as a phenomenon of society, politics and state security demonstrates that they had a number of important functions, albeit different from those in a democratic state. The author captured common features and differences of different election acts taking place in five-years cycles, and examined related activities of security forces and elements. In his account of the elections, he described impotant aspects of the operation of the Communist regime, noticed different forms of the opposition against it, and also mentioned stories of ordinary people which were somehow related to the elections. He presented the 1970s and 1980s from a different angle, making a substantial contribution to better knowledge of the period., [autor recenze] Petr Anev., and Obsahuje bibliografii a bibliografické odkazy