In the course of more than one hundred years of its existence, the sound recording became not only an important tool of ethnomusicological research, but also the factor of influence for the folk music. Forms of this relationship change together with the changes of the technical form of recording and reproduction and also with the changes of the attitude of society to these technologies. Roughly stated, there are three basic forms of relationship of folk music and sound recording. In the initial phase the sound recording - first on wax rolls - had been used for archivation of acoustic manifestations of folk music. Relatively early, however, folk music had been also spread and popularized by this means. This brought about also the influence of sound recording on mutual influencing of specific cultures and regions. The more and more accessible technologies of sound recording causes changes of the processes by which music is being passed down and taught. In the last decades, the sound recording had become also the means of music creation, a fact that manifests itself especially in various genres of contemporary electronic dance music.
This paper summarizes the discussion of ethnology in Slovenia between ‘narodopisje’ and anthropology from the point of view of its theoretical and methodological issues. At the same time it delineates some characteristics of ethnology and folklore studies in Slovenia in the 20th century, whereby the discussion on the wider social implications is omitted. Considerations put forward here are limited to those disciplinary issues which are the fruit of self-reflexive and critical insights in ethnology, which enable to highlight the origins, the formation and changes of research patterns from predominant philological and cultural-historical roots of ‘narodopisje’ to anthropologically oriented contemporary research. Some general observations, a retrospective view of the status of theory and methodology, the tradition of ‘narodopisje’, the ‘farewell to folk life’, the new methodological horizons, the predicament of the ‘two-headed ethnology’ and recent anthropologization are considered. and Článek shrnuje debaty o etnologii ve Slovinsku, její vývoj od „národopisu“ {narodopisje) k antropologii, se zvláštním zřetelem k teoretickým a metodologickým problémům. Nastiňuje některé charakteristiky etnologie a folkloristiky ve Slovinsku ve 20. století, vyhýbá se ale diskusi o širších sociálních souvislostech. Omezuje se pouze na ty problémy disciplíny, které jsou produktem sebereflexe a kritického přístupu k etnologii, což umožňuje zdůraznit její počátky, formování a změny stylu výzkum, od převážně filologických a kulturně-historických kořenů „národopisu“ k antropologický orientovanému výzkumu v současnosti. Připojeny jsouněkteré obecné postřehy, a také retrospektivní pohled na status teorie a metodologie, úvahy o tradici „národopisu“, „rozloučení s lidovým životem“, o nových metodologických horizontech, dilematu „dvouhlavé etnologie" a aktuální antropologizaci.
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.