Fictional King of Morocco is mythical figure of Biblical proportions, herald of Apocalypse, usually associated with prophetical songs of Tolerance Sectarians from eastern Bohemia. Presented article deals with the motif of King of Morocco in these songs and tries to analyze its origin. Various sources of this oral tradition are discussed, like great influence of Protestant political prophecies, heterodox prophecies and folklore narratives of the period. The character of King of Morocco represents an affiliated motif to a specific corpus of oral traditions, consisting of apocalyptical narrative pattern about the Judgment Day. Origin of the motif of King of Morocco remains obscure; however, the popular reception of diplomatic visit of envoy of Sultan of Morocco to Vienna in 1783, combined with misinterpreted news about Tolerance Decree, seems to be the most probable source. Although associated with oral culture of Tolerance Sectarians, the whole narrative pattern was disseminated more widely and lived on in Czech oral tradition at least until 1848.
One part of the theme ”ethics and folklorism” concerns the ethnologist and his/her research, the other one folklorism itself.
Ethics is not a frequented word in the other part, although this
phenomenon - because of its importance it has in the society -
would deserve it. In the dominating part of the entire phase of
folklorism, there is no extensive awareness of ethical effect of several activities. Today, it is very difficult to differ in particular regions or locations, what has survived as a relic of older
traditions, what has been included in them for various reasons, how the first arrangers, choreographers, whose results were often passed off as transmissions of original materials, proceeded at their flights of imaginations. The phenomenon that we could call as “folk culture free for use” remains big problem as well. Here we are also missing an ethica codex that, however, does not concern just ethnology. The general need for ethics in relation to cultural tradition is not deep-rooted at all by us. It is a widely social matter and it should concern cultural tradition in the legal sense of the word - not to exploit it, not to misuse it commercially, to understand it as a part of national culture. In addition to the research principles, it is thus necessary to promote generally the fact that nobody may behave destructively or unethically to cultural heritage of any nature.
The issue of ethics is reflected in all UNESCO conventions.
For ethnology, Convention on Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, Convention on the Protection and Promotion of
the Diversity Cultural Expressions, Convention on the Protection of World Cultural and Natural Heritage are the most important ones. UNESCO is based on faith in universal values on which it also builds itsattitude to ethical aspects of the research. It tries to establish common values and criteria for all countries, taking into a
special account the development countries. It is the World
Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) that deals with the issue
of ethics in relation to traditional knowledge, traditional cultural
expressions, and folklore. The most important aspects for the
protection of cultural heritage include the respect for cultural
diversity among nations, and the protection from the misuse of
traditional knowledge and awareness including their
commercialization.
The present study aims to analyse one of the most complex Ancient sources that enable us to study not only history and geography, but – as will be explained – also the ethnology of the life in ancient Greece and Rome, not only in the second century A.D., but in the older periods as well. The great quantity of folklore data is compartmentalized according to the types of literary folklore forms. This system is introduced by the researcher, as the Antiquity did not use such categorizations. The source contains a great number of tales and legends, fewer small folklore forms and also many topics known from later fairy tales. The concluding part of the article focuses on the importance of Pausanias’ work for the culture of the Antiquity in general and to the parallels with similar works produced in the Czech milieu in the nineteenth century.
The article focuses on the analysis of collections of fairy tales and legends of the Czech revivalist Božena Němcová, especially those in the Czech language. The specific clusters of tales are being analyzed one by one, as for the frequency of textual emendations made by B. Němcová. The most modified were the magical tales, less modified the anecdotic and humoristic ones, only slight changes were applied to animal, legendary and cumulative tales. All the changes correspond to the „mythological school“ of her time, but unlike Erben Němcová did not sought for the mythological origins of the texts, but rather aimed at expanding them and adapting them in accord with the conviction of the Czech National Movement on the crucial importance of the popular culture
Political folklore can be regarded through processes of construction of paradigms, and the production of festivals. There is no doubt that folklore, as a national concept and a commercial product, has become a means in the creation of various strategies of power on its path to becoming the national identifier as well as the commercial product in the everlasting confrontation between cultural forms and the ideological formations. The folklore construction in the conventional zones, along with its regulation role in the intangible heritage, as well as during the performing of the folklore performances, establish one complex system of controls, interests and commodities. The most exclusive examples of the folklore traditions production are, in effect, various events - festive events that become a significant domestic and tourist phenomena based on their ritual and seasonal journeys. A case study of a Dragačevski sabor trubača (The Trumpet Festival of Dragačevo) is analysed through the zone of national and commercial supervision and representation, leaving behind a deep trace of folklore’s politicising
The presented article is focused on the history of Russian and Czech folklore studies. It is based on the archive materials about N. E. Onchukov´s and J. Polívka´s plans to publish a collection of folklore texts and folklore research in Prague that were not realised.