Obnova tradic a jejich proměna na příkladu svatodušních obřadů na Moravě a ve Slezsku

Abstract

The ceremonial chase after the king and the processions of young girls called Little Queens began to disappear from the customary year in Moravia and Silesia in the mid-nineteenth century. Yet these rituals attracted the interest of the prominent ethnographers of the late nineteenth century – František Bartoš, Čeněk Zíbrt and Lucie Bakešová, and in the twentieth century, of e.g. Václav Frolec who studied the Ride of the Kings, and Zdenka Jelínková who was interested in dance suites of the Little Queens. The first documented transformation of these rituals dates back to the period of official bans on skirmishes between Rides of Bachelors (during Pentecost) or carolling, the second one to the 1880s when the rituals began to be performed as part of the folklore movement. They are continuously revived as annual traditions (inspired by ethno-cultural customs). The present study deals with the disappearance and renewal and especially the transformation of boys’ ceremonial horseback processions and girls’ door-to-door processions in the historical territory of Moravia (and in one locality in Opava Silesia), based on participant observation, interviews with informants, and study of literature and sources.