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.
The Czech spiritual market is today as developed as that of western European countries. De-traditionalised and individualised holistic milieu has created a demand for spiritual literature and magazines as well as other marketable goods (“magic” stones, amulets, horoscopes, natural drugs etc.). This paper attempts to analyse the character and sources of contemporary best selling spiritual literature and its readership in the Czech Republic. It also provides a case study of a Prague spiritual bookshop and its comparison with five other Czech spiritual outlets (including an Internet outlet). The results clearly show that marketing spirituality has become a mainstream phenomenon with regard to all gender, age and class categories, although there was found to be an over presence of older middle-aged women among the buyers. There is emphasized “churchless” and “nonreligious” character of the buyers and the best selling books, that include predominantly those referring to “modem” and “esoteric” western or “ethnic” spiritualities. The supply side comprises both special and general publishers, the former having been more successful in specialised bookshops and spirituál outlets and the latter in addressing the wider population (including via the Internet).
The beginnings of modern interest in folk trades and handicrafts and their improvement acquired different forms. One of them was the organization of various handicraft schools and courses, especially in Moravia, where the Moravian Central Office for Folk Industry (Moravská ústředna pro lidový průmysl) was founded in Brno. In Bohemia it was Artěl, founded in 1908, that followed in these activities, and later Jan Kotěra a Pavel Janák founded the Union of Czech Work (Svaz českého díla). The attitudes of the public and the producers after the foundation of Czechoslovakia was influenced not only by their esteem for tradition, but also by support for part of the authorities that gave preference to Czech decorativeness a an constituent of the peculiarity of the newly founded state. Already at that time it was evident that the esteem far tradition and the interest in traditional technologies is a syndrome of the industrial civilization. In this development not only the artictic but also social questions played their part. The gradual emancipation of women and their increased participation in production and social life brought about changes in family life. The expansion of tourism, sport activities, recreation in nature and other attributes of modern lifestyle was a new phenomenon related to the boost of the free time of the workers and officials. This also represented an impulse for the fabrication of items that differed from the industrial stereotype. Only the second half of the twentieth century, characterized by the rapid development of industrial production and the emergence of new technologies stimulated the documentation activities aimed to the preservation of records of the vanishing handicrafts and influenced the technological as well as the artistie aspects of their lingering existence. As a result of this endeavor the deeree of the president of the republic already on October 27, 1945 established the Headquarters of Folk Trades and Handicrafts (Ústředí lidových řemesel a lidové umělecké výroby -hereafter ÚLUV). Pieces of knowledge of natural resources and their qualities, of technological principles and artistic preconditions for their processing for the use of contemporary lifestyle moved artists, ethnographers and producers to work shoulder to shoulder in a unique way at production of new items that met with an extraordinary interest for part of the public. In the first twenty years of its existence, ÚLUV served as an example of modern management style with an ecological as well as a cultural function. However, in the whirl of the transformation processes ÚLUV was closed down and its documentation funds were handed over to the archives of ethnograp and hic museums in Prague and in Rožnov pod Radhoštěm. In accord with the UNESCO proclamation of the year 1989, entitled Recomendation to the preservation of traditional folk culture and folklore, the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic authorized the National Institute for Folk Culture (Národní ústav lidové kultury) in Strážnice to commence the project of videodocumenttion of the dying-out handicraft technologies. In the year 2001 the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic joined the new UNESCO proclamation in aid of dying-out technologies of folk handicrafts through the establishment of the title „bearer of the tradition of folk handicrafts“, a joint acknowledgement of selected producers. This acknowledgement confirms the knowledge that tradition in the first place is a bearer of technological discipline and the rules of production.