ADAM PRANDA: UNKNOWN ASPECTS OF HIS PERSONALITY AND LIFE'S WORK

• Authors: Chorvathova L.
• Languages of publication: SK

Abstracts

EN

After the years 1945-1948, the structure of scholarly life in Czechoslovakia changed dramatically. Pressure on the part of political regimes established during and immediately after the war strongly influenced the personality formation of young scholars and encouraged their conformity with official ideology. It also led to the partial loss of knowledge about previous generations of scholars. In some cases it resulted in career change, the concealment of politically incorrect personal information and contacts. The authoress traces the evolution of a former Slavic linguist, PhDr. Adam Pranda, CSc. (1924 -1984), explaining how he became the leading personality of Slovak ethnology during his lifetime. Some hitherto unknown biographical facts are disclosed which shed light on Pranda's career, thereby adding a deeper perspective to the history of postwar ethnology in Slovakia. She pays attention mainly to the education of Adam Pranda at the elite Catholic 'gymnasium' in Klástor pod Znievom (near Martin), to his literary talent and brings examples of his young and older literary pieces in poetry and prose, mainly unpublished. Further, she reveals the details of his study at the former Slovak (present Comenius) University in Bratislava and his education in linguistics and sociology and his beginnings as a Slavic linguist and sociolinguist. Under stalinist political pressure, Pranda was compelled to give up his promising career as a linguist and shortly after put into 'PTP' - corrective camp and forced to work as a builder. In 1954 only A. Pranda was allowed to start his research work in ÚLUV (Center for folk artisans) in Bratislava, where he took advantage of his linguist training and good knowledge of folk artisans and technologies of folk production. After seven years in ÚLUV, Pranda was allowed to work as a research worker in ethnology in former Národopisný ústav SAV (Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences in Bratislava) and profiled himself as a highly qualified and esteemed ethnologist in study of changes of the folk culture. The authoress discloses his early linguist and sociolinguist works and shows the wide palette of his fruitful mature scholarly life in ethnology.

Keywords

EN

HISTORY OF ETHNOLOGY; PRANDA ADAM; SLOVAK ETHNOLOGY

Discipline

• ETHNOLOGY: ETHNOLOGY

• Publisher: Institute of Ethnology, Slovak Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovenský národopis (Slovak Ethnology)
• Year: 2005
• Volume: 53
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 243-261
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Chorvathova L.

• L. Chorvathova, Muzeologický kabinet SNM, Zizkova 18, 810 06 Bratislava, Slovak Republic

Identifiers

CEJSH db identifier

06SKAAAA01062436