Moravská národopisná škola : realita či fikce?

There are numerous branches of science in which significant personalities influenced research so much that they became founders of a "school" in which their students and followers pursued their legacy. The Czech and Slovak inter-war and post-war ethnology had its significant personality: it was Antonín Václavík (1891–1959) who habilitated himself at Masaryk University in Brno in 1933 and started to work as a guest lecturer. Considering the fact that ethnology research had had a strong position in Moravia since the times of František Bartoš (1837–1906), there were efforts to obtain accreditation for ethnology as an independent field of study at the Brno university. The idea came to fruition only after the liberation of Czechoslovakia in 1945, when Antonín Václavík was appointed professor of Czechoslovak ethnology. Before 1959 professor Václavík managed to raise the first generation of graduated ethnographers who were able to find jobs in the newly-found Institute of ethnography and folklore studies of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Moravian Museum and local museums, in the sector of landmark protection or mass media. Naturally his students and followers also taught the subject at universities and they reflected the work of their university teacher – and not just in their anniversary-edition articles. Despite the fact that we cannot talk about the Moravian ethnology school in terms of jointly declared and implemented programme, the elementary focus in research that was defined by professor Antonín Václavík, i.e. the research into traditional folk culture as a significant element of national (ethnic) culture)) was followed by the ethnology department of the Brno university throughout its existence. Considering the aforesaid, we can say that the Moravian ethnology school did indeed exist.