Spojité nádoby: Etnologie, pražský strukturalismus a česká divadelní avantgarda

The study explores the exchange of impulses and ideas between the three fields indicated in the title, presenting Petr Bogatyrev as their mediator. It is concerned, among other things, with Bogatyrev connecting the findings of French sociologically-oriented ethnologists, such as Emil Durkheim and Luciene Lévy-Bruhl, and German ethnologists (Hans Neumann) to the theories of the Prague Linguistic Circle and their influence of Jan Mukařovský’ sociology of art. The author focuses on the way in which Bogatyrev combines the formal and sociological perspectives, and applies them on different cultural phenomena (folk beliefs, folk art, high art) as they move between different cultural strata. Another point of inquiry is the collaboration of Bogatyrev and theatre director E. F. Burian, whose montage of folk poetry is presented in the paper as a theatrical enactment of Bogatyrev’s structural-functional method, i.e. the transformation of function, structure, and meaning in transition between folk and high art.