The paper is focused on the ethnographic and Slavonic works of Karel Vladislav Zap, Czech geographer, historian and topographer (1812-1872), and his wife, Polish noblewoman Honorata of Wiśniowski-Zap (1825—1856). К. V. Zap, who worked as a state officer in Polish Galicia in 1830s and 1840s, used his stay for collecting ethnographic facts, published in 1844 in the trilogy „The Mirror of Life in Eastern Europe“. His work was extremely critical towards the Polish society, especially nobility; in a part of Czech patriotic society it provoked a negative response and it aroused a discussion, from which Zap came out as a moral winner. After his return to his homeland, Zap founded the magazine Poutník (“Pilgrim”), in which he continued, for a short time, to publish popular texts with ethnographic and Slavistic topics. After that, his interests were driven to topography and archaeology. His wife published, besides some translations from Polish, several ethnographic studies from the region of Polish Galicia; most of them were accepted positively, but her last but one study Pictures from the Life of Huculs, in which she tried to compare folk Galician and Czech cultures, provoked a negative response, though the discussion was rather emotional. In the last years of her life, the author was interested especially in the education of girls.
Among the varied folk lore images the image of personified death assumes an important position at West as well as at the East Slavs. The Slavic region shows as very rich in the varied personalities symbolizing death. In the various folk lore genres we encounter persons like Death, Gore , Kostej , Licho, Morena etc. The dominant role is played by the Death. Both territories under consideration closely resemble each other in depicting this personality in folklore. Death often acquires the likeness of a woman clothed in white, sometimes with the indispensable scythe, but also with other atributes. Not exceptional is a naturalis tie deseription of her palaee and the manner of her destroying the men. The character of Death is marked by cruelty, treacherousness, unyieldingness, but also fairness. Precisely the fact of the fairness of the Death appears very often in the folksongs and fairy tales and sometimes even culminates in the repudiation of God as an unfair personality. One ofthe most frequent fairytale themes are the many variants of the Story about Godmother Death. But these fairytales contain another topic - a friendship between Death and the men. Considering the inescapability of the Death, the majority of the fairytales and songs are tinged by lamentation or acquiescently state the fact. Sometimes the protagonists of the fairytales (the songs lack this moment) don't content with the necessity of the Death and try to outwit her through cunningness and tricks. The fairytales in which the heroes are successful end up humor ously, and are seemingly based upon the vie tory of the good over the evil. If the heroes don't succeed, the inevitability of the Death is conformed. In comparison with the East Slavic folklore is the West Slavic more specific in depicting the outer appearance of Death and contains uncomparably more songs about her. However, considering the themes both areas are very similar. People talked and sang about Death, tried to win over her at least in the narratives, and in especial the songs helped them to express their fear, lamentation and pain caused by Death. All this bears witness of the fact that in spite of the stigma of cruelty by which Death had been marked the very fact of the Death was firmly rooted within the human world view.