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Dimensions of unintentionality: Jan Mukařovský — Julia Kristeva — Georges didi-Huberman. --- This article focuses on the concepts of intentionality and unintentionality introduced into the semiotics of the Prague Structural School by Jan Mukařovský. These terms are considered in the context of two other conceptual pairs: 1) the semiotic (lesémiotique) and the symbolic (le symbolique) by Julia Kristeva; and 2) the visual (le visuel) and the visible (le visible) by Georges Didi-Huberman. These concepts, created on the basis of French humanities, can be treated as a development on and complement to Mukařovský’s aesthetic theory.

The article deals with one chapter in the history of German Studies as a scholarly pursuit at the University of Prague. Specifically it attempts to describe the circumstances of the foundation of the Department of German Studies in 1874 and its development until 1882, when, after the division of the University of Prague, two autonomous Departments of German Studies, responsible for academic philological research into German, as one of the national languages and literatures in the Czech Lands, were established at the German and Czech Universities of Prague respectively. The establishment of the Department of German Studies meant the definitive institutionalization of German Studies at the University of Prague and at the same time the full integration of German Studies into the system of scholarly disciplines. Attention is also paid to the personalities of the founders — Johann Kelle and Ernst Martin — and their colleague Hans Lambel.

The report presents the national specific of the Secession style in the colourful ceramic decoration of some buildings in Sofia. The most representative between them are the church of St “Nikolay Novi Sofiiski”, buildings of the Synodal Palace, the Central Mineral Baths, and the Higher Theological School at the Holy Synod, built and decorated between 1900 and 1922. They are the works of the architects Friedrich Grünanger, Yurdan Milanov and Petko Momchilov. The accent of the research is the ceramic decoration of the facades of the Central Mineral Baths in Sofia, by the project of Haralampi Tachev. The details of the types of ornaments are presented and analysed. The graphic designs for the restoration of the missing elements were considered. The impact of colour in the design of the facades is analysed. The peculiarities in the decoration and the connection of this style with the medieval elements, were examined. The connection of the facade solutions with the Bulgarian historical traditions of the early Middle Ages and Byzantium is explained through examples from Preslav, the capital of the First Bulgarian Kingdom. This way the coloured ceramic tiles of the facades of the Central Mineral Baths are represented as an expression of the Bulgarian medieval tradition in the Secession style in Sofia. The colour facade interpretations of the buildings in Vienna, Paris and Prague of that period are presented for comparison and demonstration of the national differences, decisions and tasks of the Secession style.

Changes in the Education of Bohemian Jews during the Reign of Joseph II. The decade of Joseph II’s reign was crucial for Jewish history in the Habsburg monarchy. For the first time, in the context of the growing Enlightenment-absolutist tendencies of the state and changing attitudes towards members of non-Catholic Christian denominations, the Jewish issue became an important part of state policy, and the monarch did not hesitate to intervene in almost all spheres of Jewish life during his reign. He sought to gain greater control over this minority, distinct in both religion and language, to bring it closer to the life of the majority society and make it more useful to the state. The key area through which he intended to promote these aims was Jewish education. All of this was closely related to the Enlightenment-absolutist state’s efforts to comprehensively reform the monarchy’s educational system, the aim of which was to provide education under state supervision for broad sections of the population, thus helping to “elevate them morally” and turn them into useful citizens of the state. However, since Jewish education in its traditional form played a crucial role in the process of preserving Jewish identity, most Czech Jews viewed the changes that Joseph II brought about in this area with apprehension and distrust. The importance of education for the Jewish community was understood by all concerned – the monarch, the highest central and provincial authorities, the Jewish enlighteners who supported state policy – but resisted by their opponents within the Jewish community, that is to say ad- herents of the rabbinic tradition, which led to a number of clashes related to these developments. This article first outlines the forms of Jewish education in Bohemia in the second half of the 18th century, then discusses the efforts of the Josephine state to transform them and enforce compulsory secular education for Jews in the context of the Habsburg monarchy. Finally, it sheds light on the various Jewish reactions to these developments and reflects on the outcome of events in this field.

The article will focus on a critical re-evaluation of approaches to the city in the period of late normalization; especially on the new ethos that took place in the professional community as a result of postmodern ideas coming from Western Europe, but also thanks to the extremely negative experience of the highly modernist industrialization of architecture, abused by the socialist regime. The core of the text will compare the three areas of the normalization city – housing estates, core and historic districts. At the housing estate it is going to describe efforts to introduce city-forming features in the parameters of newly established public spaces, their equipment and requirements for public buildings. In the case of historic cores, intentions were primarily related to rehabilitation of the city’s main streets and squares or to fill inappropriate empty plots. And in connection with the historic (industrial) districts, the text will describe the program of modernization of apartment buildings from 19th and early 20th century. The text is based on a research project – Architecture of the Eighties – completed last year.

This article intends to carry out a comparative analysis between the nouvelles Nadie muere del todo en Praga (2002) by Susana Tampieri and El hijo judío (2018) by Daniel Guebel with the purpose of investigating whether their respective constructions on the Prague author and the ideas related to his work can reflect eventual changes in the reception of the figure of Franz Kafka in Argentina.

Gentrification is a complex process taking place in major cities around the world. This process varies from city to city and it is influenced by the specific conditions of each country. Both positive and negative impacts of gentrification can affect a city’s resilience. The aim of this paper is to assess and verify how residential and commercial gentrification is taking place in two selected locations of the municipal district Holešovice in the City of Prague. Both locations are attractive due to their proximity to the city centre. The paper focuses on two aspects of gentrification, i.e., the outcomes of demographic changes and its physical dimension, assessed by the visual complexity of building appearance. The results show the relationship and temporal continuity of residential and commercial gentrification. With its findings, the paper contributes to the knowledge base of urban studies following the identified growing need for commercial facilities in urban districts as a result of demographic changes.

The article undertakes a historical-linguistic analysis of 27 documents written in German that are classified as “notes of hand” and issued by the Bohemian Chamber between 1528 and 1537. After a brief introduction to the history of historical-linguistic research into documents in German issued by the offices in Prague in the Late Middle Ages and the Early Modern Period, the article analyses the initial archive material from the perspective of (historical) text linguistics. Finally, it focuses on the difference between the text structure of one original draft and its register from 21 March 1530.

The advent of the printing press proved to be a decisive factor in the cultural development of mankind as a whole. In Eastern Europe, the complex path to the new information technology had its own specific characteristics: revolutionary technology was first used for the needs of East Slavs in 1517–1519 in the Czech kingdom and from there it was transferred to Grand Duchy of Lithuania in 1521–1522. The process of developing the printed word is linked to the figure of Francis Skorina (1470–1551), who, after the Congress of Vienna, was given the opportunity to become a book publisher in Prague. The focus of the proposed study is a corpus of Cyrillic printed monuments, which together tell an entertaining story of equal cultural and technological cooperation in the first quarter of the 16th century. In the context of mastering and adapting the latest technology, it is noteworthy that the Cyrillic Prague editions are characterized by exceptionally high polygraphy quality, which exceeds the level of Czech printing of the first half of the 16th century. Therefore, they are nowadays regarded not only as valuable works of East Slavic cultural heritage but also as outstanding monuments of Czech printing (významné bohemikální památky). From the perspective of encompassing philology (celostní filologie), from a modern methodological base and a new phase in the development of Prague functional structuralism, the article raises the question of how many of these printed monuments intended for the East Slavic reader were published in Prague at that time.

The historiography of the fine arts museum in Europe is a narrative that has mostly followed the arc of the developing nation-state after the French Revolution. This approach has often focused on the emergence of the public museum as part of an ‘exhibitionary complex’ that helped to shape an ‘imagined community’ of patriotic citizens during the long nineteenth century. For the most part these nationally-based perspectives have been extremely productive, but they cannot do justice to many of the museums that emerged in the Austro-Hungarian Empire before its collapse. Indeed, the three authors of this excellent volume remind us that many of the ‘national’ fine arts museums of the former Austro-Hungarian Empire took shape well before the outbreak of war in 1914 and only took on their official status as representatives of their specific ‘nations’ in the years after 1918. Thus, the historiography of museums in central Europe needs a more nuanced approach. As the volume’s editor and contributor Matthew Rampley writes, ‘current state boundaries are not a meaningful framework for the study of museums in Habsburg Central Europe.’ This volume both suggests and models that new framework. To make their point the authors use several, more complicated (social, trans-national, and local) approaches to demonstrate how museums in the Empire’s important cities (Lemberg, Prague, Budapest, Cracow, and Zagreb) emerged from a complex set of Imperial, local and, as the century progressed, civic and nationalist ambitions. Together the authors unanimously argue in favor of viewing Austria-Hungary as a ‘shared cultural space’ with complex interactions that formed a web of relationships across the many nationalities of the Empire—a web that remains invisible to the post-1945 observer. This invitation to complexity is both convincing and compelling and it opens a broad field of new research possibilities. Well-written and exquisitely researched, the volume also inadvertently highlights one of the greatest challenges to future scholars: fluency in the local languages. We are grateful to these authors to have given us this volume in English. Insofar as it models several museological approaches, it can be useful to any scholar who is interested in the historiography of museums in Europe’s long nineteenth century.

This paper focuses on cycling transport in the capital city of the Czech Republic – Prague. Main goal of the paper is to find out whether available measures for cycling transport support are taken there. The authors focus on the infrastructure dedicated for cyclists in Prague and they primarily focus on the safety of the users. Potentially dangerous and/or not comfortable examples are included as well.

The aim of the paper is to determine how fast the HSR connection in conjunction with public transport between Brno and Prague should be in order to be time-competitive with car use. Brno and Prague are the largest agglomerations in Czechia and, according to the Czech government’s plan, the first HSR will be built between them. The competitive speed of high-speed trains is derived from mathematical accessibility models created in GIS. The route planner in Google Maps and control supplementary sources were used as a source of data on the speed of public transport connections and the travel time of cars. The effect of a possible relocation of the main Brno railway station is also considered. The derived optimal competitive speed is slightly higher than the current plans assume.

This study aims to present the physician Johann Melitsch (1763–1837) as a courageous reformer who presented a specific alternative to the étatist model of healthcare reforms implemented by the Habsburg monarchy in the 18th century. As obstetrics was the focus of Melitsch’s reform activities, the paper also contributes to the broader issue of the professionalisation of obstetrics at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. In the 1780s, Joseph II decided to use the assets of the secularised monasteries and hospitals to form a state complex of various health and social care facilities in the capitals of the Habsburg “provinces”. Where conditions and proximity to the university allowed, the first real “clinics”, i.e. hospitals linked to the teaching of medicine (and therefore science), were established: this was the case, for example, in Vienna and Prague. General hospitals formed the core of these complexes; maternity hospitals were also built, primarily for unmarried mothers, to prevent infanticide, but also as a source of female bodies for young medical students, who otherwise generally did not have the opportunity to learn about pregnancy and childbirth. At the same time, a young doctor who had just finished medical school in Prague, the twenty-fouryear-old Johann Melitsch, the son of a cabinet-maker, decided to undertake another project: a Privatentbindungsanstalt, ie. private outpatient maternity clinic. It was designed for married but poor women and also offered the opportunity of midwifery practice to medical students. Thanks to a family inheritance and his wife’s dowry, he was indeed able to found such an institution. And with donations from wealthy patrons from the nobility, he was able to provide small financial rewards or medicines to his patients. His assistants were students. Melitsch later extended his outpatient care, which was also improved by the “district doctors”, to sick women and children in general and thus offered a counterpart to the “stationary” type of state general hospital. In 1793, he was finally appointed professor at the Prague Faculty of Medicine – but only after the intervention of Emperor Francis I himself, who also granted this institution a “public right”. In 1795 Melitsch drew up a proposal – also probably the first in the Habsburg monarchy – for health insurance for low-income segments of the population. However, this system was never put into practice. In this predominantly Catholic monarchy, where hospitals had hitherto operated mainly on a church or municipal basis and where there was a clear tendency in Melitsch’s time to create a purely state-run health service, this was an exceptional case. The paper is also a contribution to the broader issue of the professionalisation of midwifery at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Besides that, Melitsch is considered to be the first doctor in the Czech lands to perform a successful caesarean section in which both mother and child survived.

Symbolism in the Side Facade of St Thomas’ Church in the Lesser Town of Prague. The main aim of this article is to present a new interpretation of the decoration of the lateral facade of the Augustinian Church of St Thomas in the Lesser Town of Prague, which was created during the reconstruction of the church by its architect Kilián Ignác Dientzenhofer in the first third of the 18th century. Drawing on recently discovered sources, it provides a new interpretation of the emblematic decoration of the portal of the lateral facade, both in the context of the painted decoration of the church interior and in relation to the social and theological conditions of the time. In particular, it proposes an interpretation of the four metopes in the entablature of the Doric order, for which the author or commissioner of the Baroque rebuilding of the church probably found inspiration in the emblematic album Devises et Emblèmes Anciennes & Modernes by the late 17th-century French writer and emblematist Daniel de La Feuille, on the basis of which the symbolism of these four metopes can be interpreted. The meaning of these four metopes is then related in the context of the entire decoration of the lateral facade of the temple also within the symbolism of the columnar orders, in this particular case the use of the Doric order. As it appears, the entire decoration of the lateral facade was systematically and purposefully chosen by the architect and contains extraordinary Christological symbolism that may be hidden to the modern observer at first glance.

In order to solve the problem of Bragg equation, a research on retrieval and feature of multimedia testing machine is proposed. Firstly, this paper investigates the various stages of multimedia retrieval system and some mainstream multimedia retrieval algorithms, in order to cover all aspects of relevant algorithms. Secondly, on the basis of investigation, eight representative algorithms are selected. These algorithms cover three stages of multimedia retrieval system, including feature extraction stage, feature matching stage and geometric verification stage. Based on the above observed characteristics, finally, some relevant suggestions on architecture design and system optimization are put forward, including the design of single node processor, the design in parallel environment and the suggestions for simulation and evaluation using this test set.

Based on all fictional texts, space takes place in different dimensions. When it comes to novels containing fantastical elements, they tend to put the perception of time and real life places into the background or completely change them. In fantastic narrative universe where dreams and reality are intertwined, the reader embarks on an unlimited journey between (real-unreal) spaces and (realunrealistic) times. Space also influences time by taking on different identities in every stage of the text. In novels with no fantastic elements, the author mostly prefers a direct narrative instead of giving the reader a surreal sense of time and place. Although these two approaches are different, space is indispensable for associating the novel’s characters with the place where the plot takes place. When space, which is a fundamental element in revealing meaning as a series of relations, is considered together with time, a variable and magical perception emerges in fantasy novels; however, in novels where reality is at the forefront, and there is an emphasis on event transfer, one does not go beyond a straight perception of time and space. In this context, the appearance of Prague in Nazlı Eray’s The City of Lost Shadows, who fictionalizes her works with fantastic elements in our literature, and the city’s identity in Philip Kerr’s detective novel Prague Fatale have been comparatively examined in terms of space. The themes of death and captivity arising from the gloomy history of the city, seen in both works, have been discussed in the context of temporal and spatial relations. Although the novels considered differ in perception and handling of the space, it has been observed that they meet in the themes of death and captivity in the axis of Prague.

This paper analyses the figural stucco in the Villa Hvězda (1555–1563) in Prague, depicting Aeneas with his father Anchises on his back and accompanied by his son Ascanius and his wife, Creusa. In numerous 16th century representations, Creusa always walks behind Aeneas, and Ascanius is always accompanying Ae neas. In the Villa Hvězda, the protagonists of the Flight from Troy are Aeneas and his wife, Creusa. Aeneas carries Anchises on his back, and in front of him, Creusa leads their son Ascanius. This anomaly calls for an explanation, and it may be this, that Creusa allegorically stands for Queen Anne as a model of a pious matriarch of the Habsburgs.

Fin-de-Siècle Europe appears in the prose of the Czech poet and writer Jiři Karasek from Lvovice (1871–1951) as a mystical space full of nostalgia and claustrophobia, which force the characters to experience the hereditary involvement of history. This is, for example, how the hero of the novel “Gothic Soul” (Czech: Gotická Duše) feels. The novel shows Prague at the turn of the century as a place where the past is more real than the present. The trilogy “Novels of the Three Magicians” (Czech: Romány tří mágů), inspired by the legends about European “sorcerers”, uses Vienna, Venice, and Prague as magic or decadent territories that affect the characters’ behaviour. Karasek creates urban images with decadent aesthetics by applying special features and techniques. Among them we can highlight the night atmosphere, intentional emphasis on the artificiality of the reality, and the description of the scene with the symbols of decline or decay. Such a subjective view from the eyes of a decadent character can open up a city from a unique perspective, making it possible to distinguish previously unseen details. The image of Prague in Karasek’s works is dual and ambivalent. On the one hand, it is an aesthetically artifi cial decadent Prague and on the other, a mystical, magical Prague. Venice by Karasek is also a decadent city where only the past is alive. With help of Karasek’s prose one can obtain the prism of decadent and “gothic” novels — rather rare and original for Czech literature genres. His works also give us the opportunity to experience the lost atmosphere of pre-war Europe.

Drawing on private and public sources surrounding Countess Elise von Schlik (1792–1855) and František Palacký (1798–1876), this article explores music-cultural connections between the nobility and intellectually engaged middle class in Prague during the 1830s and 1840s. A consideration of them both together in one study sheds light on cross-societal links in the private sphere that helped to link two seemingly separate parts of the population in ways that might not be quite so visible in other areas of everyday life during that time. Furthermore, an exploration of Palacký’s and Schlik’s encounters (and non-encounters) through the lens of music brings to light new facets of Prague’s (private) cultural life. A reconsideration of analytical binarities often found in historiographical writing—for instance, aristocratic/noble vs. middle-class circles, private vs. public musical life, amateurism vs. professionalism, and male vs. female cultural agency—can lead to a more nuanced understanding of musical history both in the Czech lands and further afield.

ABSTRACTStone is one of the most common materials used as a building material in central Europe for centuries. Historical objects are endangered by degradation procedures coming from physical, chemical and biological weathering agents.The weathering process itself should be analysed in detail in order to prevent historical objects by application of proper restoration cleaning techniques. Within our research, a historical sandstone block was analysed during time to monitor biological changes on the surface. The object of interest is situated in the immediate vicinity of Charles Bridge in Prague, which is protected as a UNESCO heritage site. This site was chosen due to high overall humidity all year long. For investigation of the year- round process of biodegradation hyperspectral sensor was used. In the first place, data were processed using four vegetation indices (NDVI, RGRI, CRI1 and VREI1). All vegetation indices indicate that vegetation is thriving and subject to normal seasonal change. The second chosen method of data processing is to use spectral reflectance curves and their subsequence processing by Spectral Angle Mapper (SAM) classification algorithms. A decline in vegetation with the onset of autumn and during the winter months was detected.

Anyone who traces their Jewish ancestors back to the 18th century and even further back in history encounters the challenge of looking for ancestry without the clue that a fixed family name provides. Before the end of the 18th and beginning of the 19th century, when Jews were forced by law to adopt a fixed family name, Ashkenazim Jewish families used patronymic names as last names. A patronymic name changes every generation. Sometimes, in larger cities, various types of nicknames were used as last names. Such a nickname could change within a generation and often indicated the place a person came from, his occupation, or personal characteristics. In this article, I will show, using three case studies, how I have faced the challenge of determining which patronymic names and nicknames my ancestors used as last names before they were forced to adopt a fixed family name. The three case studies are the ancestors of Josef Stern, who lived in the late 18th and early 19th century in Neu Bistritz in southern Bohemia, today Nova Bystrice in Czechia; Julius Strauss, 1883–1939, who lived in the late 18th, 19th, and early 20th century in Frücht and Giessen in Nassau/Hesse, today in southern Germany; and Simon Reiniger, who lived in Prague in the 18th and early 19th century.

Understanding the complex contributions of several factors to an urban heat island is crucial for assessing the impacts of planning on the thermal conditions within cities. It is relatively well-known how the different factors work separately, but how they work together, especially near water bodies, is still unclear. This paper investigates the effects of blue bodies (rivers or large lakes), the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI), building coverage (BC), and building height (BH) on the land surface temperature (LST), comparing the situation around lakes and a river. Their inter-relationships are explored in a square grid of 30 × 30 m using Landsat-8 data on LST measurements in Prague, Czech Republic, in summer 2022. Multiple regression models are used for the analysis. The results imply that the NDVI significantly reduces LSTs, followed rivers if within 200 m of one, while the effect of lakes is negligible. The effect of BH is low. BC is a predominant factor in the city, generating a warming effect, which increases with the city’s compactness. The main planning implications are to base urban heat island mitigation strategies on compensating for building coverage with live and dense green bodies, promoting vertical development.

By the middle of 1930s, largely due to the efforts of Russian emigrant scholars, Prague became a major center of the studies in Slavic history, in particular in the history of Czech cultural ties with other major centers of Slavic culture in the East. Russian historian A. V. Florovsky in the mid – second half of the 1930s worked on a number of studies on the history of Slavic culture. To a large extent, his research efforts were aimed at reconstructing the biography of the Belarusian enlightener F. Skoryna. There are some important materials in the Archive of the Russian Academy of Sciences that allow reconstructing the course of A. V. Florovsky’s research on the history of cultural contacts of several centers of Slavic culture – Vilna, Prague, Moscow – letters to him from Belarusian Slavists A. I. Lutskevich, V. I. Samoilo, F. Ilyashevich and V. Tolochko. The corpus of these sources on the history of Belarusian Slavic studies was supplemented by attribution of a previously unknown letter by A. I. Lutskevich. The complex of these materials made it possible to clarify the date of compilation and identify the manuscript of one of the articles by A. V. Florovsky «Initial stages of the development of printing among the Eastern Slavs». Letters from Belarusian Slavists to A. V. Florovsky show the mechanism of work of historians in conditions of strict political separation of Europe, separation from libraries and archival collections, discussion of important scientific hypothesis. The end of these contacts was put by a sharp change in the political situation in Eastern Europe in 1939–1940.

Overtourism is a current phenomenon which also includes crowds of people in a tourist destination. This research analyzes overtourism to a much visited tourist objective through Tripadvisor reviews, by highlighting the key concepts which are suggesting the existence of the overtourism phenomenon. The method consisted to examine the reviews posted on Tripadvisor by the tourists who visited one of the most important tourist attractions in Prague, namely Charles Bridge. The tool used for this purpose was Leximancer program. Using an analysis from multiple perspectives (during the 2019 low and peak tourist season, and during the Covid-19 pandemic), the results of the concept maps captured the intensity of the phenomenon of overtourism in all three contexts. Thus, specific themes and concepts generated by the program suggest that Carles Bridge suffers from overtourism regardless of the tourist season.

This article shows how the topic of exile and exile literature was presented in the Prague magazine Die Wahrheit after Adolf Hitler came to power. Although Die Wahrheit was an expressly proCzechoslovak magazine, it focused on problematic aspects of the situation of German émigrés in the country, especially writers and other cultural actors. The article follows three interpretive models (Heinrich Heine, the ‘best Germany’, and ‘positive nomadism’), belonging to discursive formations in which the debate on the situation of exiles took place, shaping their self-understanding and ideas about possible solutions. The magazine’s critical attitudes towards the relationship between artistic exile and the Czechoslovak state are revealed on the example of debates about the (non) performance of Ferdinand Bruckner’s drama Die Rassen in Prague.

The article deals with several statues of St. John of Nepomuk, which were created on the territory of the former Prague cities between the erection of the statue of a saint on Charles Bridge in 1683 and his beatification in 1721. Based on a deeper analysis of available data found both in the existing literature and on these statues themselves, and evaluation of their former urban context, the author points out an interesting phenomenon that is associated with these statues.

Lazzaro Tavarone is considered one of the most important exponents of Genoese painting between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. He was a very prolific draftsman and drawing played a very important role in his work. One of his hitherto unknown drawings is kept in the Drawings and Prints Cabinet of the National Gallery in Prague. It is a preparatory study for the fresco in the choir of the Genoa cathedral. The drawing depicts the Martyrdom of San Lorenzo. The article introduces the reader to the examination of the design and the culture in which the work is placed.

The presented text focuses on the particular artistic practice employed during the realisation of the project Prague is not Czech, which was established as a collective exhibition within the Prague Quadrennial of Performance Design and Space 2019 (henceforth PQ). The authors of this project, who are gathered within the team Intelektrurálně, decided to carry on with the Prague is not Czech travel agency and to transform it into a systematic socioartistic research, which uses selected strategies of non-Prague reality as a ready-made and fills them with its own content. Since its very beginning, the project has been based on a concept of radical cooperation. Therefore, a collaborative approach towards creation represents the primary subject that is being reflected within this text (and which is itself a product of the cooperation of several people). Thus, the gist of the presented paper is to introduce initial artistic approaches and fundamental strategies of the project. The following text, therefore, consists of a manifesto written by the initiators of the project and broader theoretical reflection. In the first section, entitled What we do, the authors describe the various forms of the presented project, conditions of its creation and its development. The text is then divided into four parts – according to the project’s essential aspects: Czechness, Participation, Scenography and Experience.

The paper aims to compare three accommodation services markets using empirical data from more than 250 accommodation facilities in specific destinations (Vienna, Bratislava, Prague). The data are available on a daily basis, but the resulting comparison is then performed on a monthly basis within 2018. The comparison is performer based on three basic criteria – occupancy, average daily rate and an indicator of price elasticity of demand. Price elasticity is measured using a log‑log regression analysis. The key findings of the comparison are as follows: (1) The Vienna and Prague markets are similar in terms of occupancy and coefficient of price elasticity. In contrast, the Bratislava market showed statistically significant differences from the other two markets in all the criteria under review. (2) The Bratislava market operates at a significantly lower price range compared to the other markets analysed. In the long term, this market has also been lower in the field of occupancy. (3) The markets in Vienna and Prague respond more dynamically to changes in consumer behaviour by changing prices. (4) The so‑called “November Phenomenon” has been identified, where all indicators in all markets behave unconventionally. (5) All markets have in common the fact that they have shown price‑inelastic demand over the long term, and at the turn of the year, they all face Giffen’s paradox.

The study presents the first two generations of professors at the University of Kraków in the fifteenth century. The first generation was made up of Polish, Czech, and German professors from the University of Prague, who in the year 1400 organized the university in Kraków. The second generation of professors in Kraków formed thanks to years of work on the part of masters who came to Kraków from Prague and other European universities. Both generations had a decisive influence on the development of the University of Kraków in the fifteenth century.

The study contemplates possibilities for a closer understanding of the society of university masters and seeks to approach them through inventories of their libraries. As an example, it gives the inventory of the estate of Master Jakub Codicillus († 1576), which provides a record of some 216 handwritten and printed books. The study presents the contents of this library.

The paper presents a terminological analysis of one of the key terms in university life – the title of ʻprofessorʼ – for the medieval Prague setting, and does so based on an excerpt of material collected for a dictionary of medieval Latin.

This article employs the quantitative research of residential satisfaction in two localities in Prague with different civic amenities. The results show that the presence of civic amenities in the neighbourhood has a significant effect on residential satisfaction, which is comparable to the importance of the quality of housing and the perceived quality of the neighbourhood. The relationship between the presence of civic amenities and residential satisfaction is affected by differences in the perceived importance of amenities between the residents of housing estates and suburbs, and by the position of households in the household life cycle.

In the decades after 1680, barter trade led to the creation of major publishing companies in commercial hubs such as Leipzig, Nuremberg or Augsburg. Due to the increasing competition in those cities, many booksellers invested in long-distance trading. Especially book traders from Nuremberg managed to build long-term business relationships in the Austrian and Bohemian territories. Their catalogues illustrate the logistic challenges of long-distance trade. Major booksellers compiled special editions for their different markets: Nuremberg booksellers advertised their entire stock in catalogues containing up to 10,000 entries. This contribution asks questions about the categories of such catalogues: which labelling practises did booksellers use to advertise their products, and which conclusions may be drawn from this about their selection of books? Inventories and catalogues are key sources for analysing the history of the early modern book trade. In my paper, I do not intend to use inventories to reconstruct books as individual objects, for example as components of a private library. Instead, I will evaluate catalogues from the book trade in order to draw conclusions on the practices of major booksellers around 1700.

In 1583 the Habsburg emperor Rudolf II established Prague as his Residenzstadt and thus shifted the political center of gravity within Central Europe to his Bohemian capital. As a result, the city emerged as the focus of Europe’s intellectual and creative universe. Rudolf, whose curiosity was legendary, amassed a celebrated cabinet of curiosities with objects from afar afield as India. His imperial court attracted the Renaissance’s best artists and architects, while also cultivating an esoteric enclave in which alchemists vied for the sovereign’s patronage. Indeed, Rudolf sponsored the fervent exploration of alchemy in an attempt to create harmony within his discordant world. This article further demonstrates the ubiquity of alchemical intrigue within Prague, revealing a lexicon which served numerous interests both within and without the royal court. Alchemy, Hermetic philosophy, and mystical theosophy were indelibly inscribed onto the urban canvas by Rudolf II but were also pursued by various actors throughout the Holy Roman Empire and beyond. Whether as a pathway to apotheosis sought by European rulers or as route to fame and favor for interlopers of the state, alchemy was a mutable concept that spawned expansive connections throughout Central Europe.

Israel’s idea of its sovereignty over Jewish cultural production has been essential in defining national mythology and self-consciousness ever since its founding as a state in 1948. But by what right does Israel make such claims? This article examines that question through exploring three legal cases: Franz Kafka’s manuscripts, the historical records of Jewish Vienna, and the literary estate of Lithuanian-born Chaim Grade. All three cases reveal a common jurisprudential and cultural logic, a rescue narrative that is central to the State of Israel itself. To this day, Israel maintains an idea of its sovereignty over Jewish cultural production, and a study of these cases demonstrates how the Holocaust plays as decisive a role in the creation and implementation of Israeli policy and jurisprudential practice as it has in its national identity more broadly.

The article deals with complex and controversial issues related to the uprising and liberation of Prague in May 1945. Interpretation of the events became acute and caused lively discussions in connection with the demolition of the monument to Marshal I. V. Konev on April 3, 2020 by the order of the local municipality. The Czech Republic is also discussing the idea of «perpetuating the role of other liberators» of the capital – soldiers of the ROA division, which for two days (May 6-7) provided assistance to the rebels. Using new documents from the Central archive of the Ministry of defense of the Russian Federation, the author draws a conclusion about the limited influence of the Vlasov units. They, indeed, brought confusion to the German ranks, but early in the morning of May 8, they themselves left Prague on a rapid march. After that, fighting and negotiations between the rebels and the German command continued. The article emphasizes that the main goal of the Soviet military operation from 6 to 11 May 1945 was the defeat of the German Army Group Center. The liberation of Prague was only part of a powerful offensive by three Soviet fronts. Heavy battles for Prague did not happen, but the entry of Soviet tanks into the Czech capital and the subsequent jubilation of local residents became a symbol of the end of the war in Europe. The author concludes that the demolition of monuments to Soviet soldiers and commanders is a manifestation of internal political struggle in the countries where it occurs, and the Czech Republic is only one of these examples.

Abstract A series of scientific methods (X-ray analyses, optical and electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy and thermal analyses) was used to research the ceramic bodies and glazes of forty vessels from Renaissance Prague. The set of Early Modern Age archaeological glazed ceramics contained tableware, kitchenware and technical ceramics. The main aim was to characterise ceramic materials and glazes used over two centuries. Attention was also paid to the identification of defects and corrosion products of the glazes. The research was conducted with an emphasis on the context of the original use of the ceramic artefacts and the environment of the waste pits from which they were excavated. The archaeological finds include three technical ceramic vessels (a rectifier, a bowl and a jar), which together could have formed a distillation apparatus. Since these vessels represent a rare finding, they were subjected to a detailed investigation. Based on the similarity of ceramic bodies and glazes, it was proved that the three technical ceramic vessels were made in the same workshop and were parts of one distillation apparatus. The results of the performed analyses determined that the studied vessels were manufactured from raw materials with a high content of a plastic component and that the raw materials did not change significantly during the period from the 15th to 18th centuries. The firing temperature of most of the vessels did not exceed 1000 °C. It was proved that all the glazes were medium- or high-lead content glazes and were coloured with ionic pigments.

The article is devoted to the historical and cultural aspects of the development of Czech art in the late Middle Ages on the example of an exhibition held from August 16 to November 3 at Prague Castle, which was dedicated to the 600th anniversary of the death of the Czech and Roman King Wenceslas IV. The author of the article considers the significance of the Czech culture and sacred art in the context of the political and historical specifics of the development of medieval Bohemia and the features of the reign of Vaclav IV, who wasthe son of the Holy Roman Emperor and the Czech King Charles IV . Wenceslas IV is a complex and controversial figure in Czech history, who stood at the «crossroads» of epochs and cultures, around him various disputes persist in historiography up to our time. This article provides an overview of the nature of the sacred artifacts of culture and art presented at the exhibition «Czech and Roman King Wenceslas IV: «beautiful style» of Gothic art», as well as the characteristics of the artistic style , defined in terms of historical and cultural, internal and external political development of the Czech Republic, crosscultural dialogue of the Czech Republic with European countries on the background of the emerging religious controversy in the country. The work takes into account the features of the Late Gothic style in the Central Europe. On the example of the remarkable works of painting, sculpture, fragments of architectural monuments, decorative and applied art and manuscripts, first of all the monumental Wenceslas Bible, many of which were brought to Prague from various European Galleries and Castles of Poland, Germany, France, New York, as well as from private collections, can demonstrate the rise of Czech culture and art in the late XIV-early XV centuries, which was presented the process of cultural accumulation of the European style of the late Gothic, received Czech national artificial identity.

Technological progress also affects the development of marketing, currently known as Marketing 4.0, which is characterized by digitization and indicates a connection with Industry 4.0. With digitization, companies can use a variety of tools and methods to collect useful customer data and then use it. Marketing 4.0 is mainly characterized by the fact that the customer wants to be part of the product development and wants to share her information and opinions on the product. Thanks to the Internet, customers can get all the information from other customers. The aim of this analysis was to verify that microbreweries in Prague use Marketing 4.0, use digitization and adapt to the latest trends in marketing and define what methods they use to manage customer relations. Corresponding conclusions and recommendations for the future were drawn from the research findings.

The article contains the results of a research aimed at mapping the social and geographical origin of officials working at the Prague police headquarters in 1851, 1871 and 1891 based on the study of archival sources. The collected data provide information on the personnel structure of the police headquarters in the given years. Comparison of the composition of officials in twenty-year intervals allows tracking of a long-term changes in the monitored parameters. The article contains an introductory chapter describing a brief history of the Prague police headquarters. The article also includes a description of the standard course of service of a Prague police official and the awards that such official could have received for his services.

During the course of the 19th century, Czech society underwent an intensive process of national revival and emancipation from Vienna. This, of course, was also projected onto the field of visual arts: For a long time, under the influence of Czech nationalists, surveys of developments in the arts field did not include German-speaking artists from the Czech lands, such as the brothers Max and Franz Metzner or Hugo Lederer. Contacts between both individuals and institutions and Vienna thus became extremely complicated, and after 1900 they were generally considered undesirable by Czech nationalists. In 1902, the Mánes Fine Arts Association, which can take much of the credit for promoting modern art in the Czech milieu at that time, organized an exhibition in Prague of the works of Auguste Rodin, whose artistic style fundamentally influenced Czech sculpture in the first decade of the 20th century and disrupted the monopoly enjoyed until then by Josef Václav Myslbek. In contrast to Myslbek’s conventional equestrian monument to St Wenceslas, two other national monuments in Prague, the statues of Jan Hus (by Ladislav Šaloun) and of František Palacký (by Stanislav Sucharda) reflect the fascination with Rodinesque pathos at that time. The politically motivated suppression of contacts between the Czech milieu and Vienna and German-speaking countries on the one hand, and the support for intensive communication with Paris on the other, contributed to the progressive tendencies in Czech art before the First World War and to its exceptional plurality of styles.

The author examines an articles written by the Italian Bohemist Angelo Maria Ripellino during the period from 1963 to 1973 for the Italian magazine L’Espresso, in which he reported on Prague cultural and political events, and asks to what extent his renowned essay Praga magica is conditioned by the trauma of “1968”.

The text presents a book that collects the views of nine experts on the historical center of Prague. At the same time, it analyses their attitudes in the context of the contemporary relations within Czech society.

The Romanian Legion from Prague, founded on the 30th of October, 1918, on the background of the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian army and monarchy, was an organism that brought its contribution to supporting the actions coordinated by the Czech national-political militants, as well as to organizing the Romanian soldiers and officers of the Second Regiment Braşov, the 51st Cluj and the 37th Oradea, quartered in the Bohemian capital. Through the present study with the aim of providing the academic comunity with research material and not only with a series of fragments scored in the autumn and winter of the year 1918, especially in Prague, where a legion consisting of the former Romanian soldiers and officers of the Austro-Hungarian army was born, we analyze and restore three annotations of memoirs written by Gavril Câmpeanu, Gheorghe Repede and Horia-Petra Petrescu (members of the Romanian Legion from Prague), less known authors of memoirs. From our point of view, the three fragments of memoirs represent essential texts for studying the activity of the Romanian Legion from Prague which outline the contribution of this national organism to the proclamation and defence of the Czechoslovak state, founded in the autumn of the year 1918, and also the action of concentrating, organizing and sending to Transylvania the Romanian soldiers and officers of the former Austro-Hungarian army.

This paper presents a selection of yet unpublished ‘Gnathia Pottery’ from the collection of the National Museum in Prague. The assemblage is confronted with other similar vases finds, and, if possible, attributed to groups or painters of Gnathia vases.

This paper deals with the socio-spatial relations of changes in the concept of place. Since the 1970s, place has been one of the key terms of humanistic geography. Therefore, this paper reflects how the concept of place, its functions and meanings could be applied in the changing space-time and social contexts. The ‘exotic’ phenomenon of the American Bar which had penetrated into Europe in the first half of the 20th century can be regarded as a representative of place when it had emerged during Americanisation as a new cultural element. This article compares the interwar development of this phenomenon in two European capitals (Berlin, Prague) and analyses both differences and the common attributes of the process of forming place. Emphasis is placed not only on the localisation of the American Bar, but also on more complex historical and geographical analysis of its development and perception that were characteristic exclusively for the Central European region. Using the archive materials, the contemporary press, legislative measures and professional and memoir literature, the study confirms that the American Bar phenomenon had acquired different meanings within different contexts which had changed over time and which can be documented through the “spreading” of this phenomenon in space.

The theme of the EAC Symposium was 'Public Benefit from development-led archaeology: moving the debate forward' and the papers here reflect the challenges and opportunities this presents. As outlined in the Valletta Convention (Article 9) the public must be the key beneficiaries of archaeological work and the theoretical concept of public benefit has become well recognised across our profession but there is still some way to go to fully understand and maximise its potential. The concept note for the 21st Symposium asked attendees to reflect upon the challenge of positively shaping the future and embedding the concept of public benefit into our practice; from project inception through design and implementation to dissemination. The papers are a fascinating illustration of how public benefit is viewed across the member states, incorporating honest acknowledgements of some of the entrenched challenges involved with creating a new way of working.