Review of Eva Vičarová: Rakouská vojenská hudba 19. století a Olomouc, Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, Olomouc 2002, 179 s., 19 vyobrazení, příloha, stručné anglické a německé résumé.
The agricultural area of South Bohemia belongs to the regions where the steady advancement of industrialization created conditions for survival of continuous phenomenons of traditional culture, survival incomparably longer then in other regions. Up to the 197 Os, in the region of Blata (Moorland) in South Bohemia had been kept a traditionalfuneral rite that in a great part contained ofsongs above the open coffin of the deceased. This rite takes place in the house of the deceased and ali of the relatives and also the best friend from the village participate in it. Beside prayers they sing also the folk spriritual songs that are kept by the almost eighty-year old František Peterka from the village Borkovice. This singer was at the time of the research the only one able to lead this traditional farewell. Hefinds support in the manuscript recording taken from an original song collection of the teacher Kukla, also from Borkovoce in the region of Blata. This hymn book written in German cursive hand dates back to the first half of the nineteenth century and the comparison of its entries with the contemporary recording used by the singer Peterka reveals a direct continuity and many times a word-for-word taking over of those songs from the hymn-book that became the most popular in the span of 150 years. Not all the villages in the region had their own church and pastor. Because of this, it was indispensable the role of a specialized singer respected by the community that substituted the priest and the farewell in the church. The singer usually inherited his function from his father. The death songs recorded during the research in one of the villages of the region of Blata (Mažice) make part of the whole system of partial funeral rites. One of these is represented by a funeral procession through the whole village till its end, during which the same singer that is also organizer of the rite asks forgiveness from ali the participants in case the deceased did some wrong to them during his or her life. The rite is being accompanied also by other phonic manifestations: for example, the music performed by a small brass band, the sound of a passing-bell, cries and lamentations of the relatives, sounds of the poultry in the courtyard from which the procession starts, the songs of the singer in the procession. The ceremony led by the priest today takes part according to the standard Roman Catholic rite in the church of the neighouring village only after this traditional ceremony.