Karel Horálek – folklorista
Karel Horálek – The Folklorist

Summary/Abstract: Horálek’s position as a leading folklorist resulted from the situation after WW2. The pre-war tradition of Folklore Studies (represented by Polívka, Tille, Horák, Murko) came to an end when the Slavonic Institute was closed and the grand editorial project Slavonic Folklore never got off the ground. In the late 19th century and the early 20th century, Prague was a world-known centre of Folklore Studies, especially Fairy-Tale Studies, thanks to its original geographical-historical research method. The Prague folklorists resisted the structuralist theoretising schemata and Russian formalism. Although Horálek, who attempted to fill the gap, called for a structuralist approach to folklore, he had no contacts with folklore structuralists, never wrote any major work on structuralism in folklore and confined himself to writing textbooks for students.

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