The paper aims to understand the process of constituting and consolidating Japanese Studies in the Czech lands, i.e., the Western parts of Czechoslovakia consisting of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, in the period between 1918 and 1968. It was this historical period that overlapped with the life and professional activity of the founding generation of local Japanese Studies (Gerolf Coudenhove-Kalergi, Otto Wierer, Jaroslav Průsek, Vlasta Hilska). What were the foundations from which this discipline emerged in the Czech lands and how did social transformations affect its development? To what extent was it influenced by the survival, adaptation, and negotiation strategies of the members of the founding generation of this discipline? The analysis of the behavior of social agents (the microlevel) within the context of paradigmatic and ideological changes in the social structure (the macro-level) using the sociological methodology of Pierre Bourdieu enriched by the generational theory of Karl Mannheim makes it possible to particularize the Sonderweg of Japanese Studies in the Czech lands in comparison with academic institutions further to the west and in the USA, and thus to enrich the social science discourse of East Asia within Western civilization.

A Northwest Iranian dialect, Aftari, is grouped both diachronically and typologically together with the other dialects spoken around the town of Semnān, east of Tehran. For this group the designation Komisenian, after the old name of the province, is proposed in the article. As is the case with the neighboring Caspian dialects to the north, Aftari is the language of postpositions, and it has a relatively elaborate system of personal and demonstrative pronouns. Aftari shares with Tabari the element -enn- in the present indicative, a remnant of the Old Iranian present participle *-ant-. In terms of ergativity, Aftari holds a position somewhere between Tabari, which has none, and the Central Plateau Dialects which have preserved the system. Remnants of the Middle Iranian ergativity remain in Aftari as a distinct set of personal endings for the past transitive; in the past, these acted as agents of transitive verbs. Thus, transitivity still plays a role in the past conjugation, but there are indications that the difference is fading away, most notably in 3 rd person singular forms. The intransitive past tenses are marked by -st- preceding the personal endings, except for the 3 rd person singular, which has neither. The perfect tense has various constructions, often merging with the preterit, and thus may not be authentic to Aftari.

The article deals with the problem of boats and boat pits of royal and non-royal provenance. Starting from the observation that in the Old Kingdom most of the boats from boat graves come in pairs or in a doubling of a pair the boats of the royal domain are compared with the pictorial representations of the private tombs of the Old Kingdom where the boats appear likewise in pairs and in ship convoys. The analysis of the ship scenes of the non-royal tomb complexes of the Old Kingdom leads to the result that the boats represented in the tomb decoration of the Old Kingdom are used during the night and day voyage of the tomb owner. Accordingly the ships in the royal boat graves are considered to be boats used by the king during his day and night journey.

Publication des 19 tablettes en cuneiforme de Ur III qui se trouvent dans la collection des tablettes assyriennnes de l'Universite de Prague