| Abstrakt: |
Abstract: Based on identifi ed contacts and crises in rural Moravia, and using the explicitly obvious symbolism of traditional rural culture, this paper presents folklorism as a symbolic system, utilized in late 19th-century rural Moravia within three often overlapping ideological discourses: Czech nationalism and conservatism (often founded in religion), as well as emancipation tendencies of the countryside, even if in reality, the ideologies had often overlapped. The paper concludes that in our attempt to understand the shared folklorism in late 19th-century rural Moravia, we need to take into consideration the as yet overlooked crisis of the countryside, caused by emerging industrialization and urbanization. One of its symptoms was the depopulation of the countryside, which had either outright destroyed some parts of rural Moravia, and created a pressure in others. In relatively wellpreserved, suffi ciently populated rural communities, this could have created conditions suitable for utilizing the symbolic potential of folklorism to emphasize the merits and virtues of rural life and present the countryside as a suitably cultured space for living. |
