Letters to the Heroes: Exhibition and reception of Hanzelka and Zikmund’s travelogues in Czechoslovakia of the 1950s

SKOPAL, Pavel. Letters to the Heroes: Exhibition and reception of Hanzelka and Zikmund’s travelogues in Czechoslovakia of the 1950s. Participations. Journal of Audience and Reception Studies. 2014, vol. 11, No 2, p. 58-77. ISSN 1749-8716.

Basic information

• Original name: Letters to the Heroes: Exhibition and reception of Hanzelka and Zikmund’s travelogues in Czechoslovakia of the 1950s
• Name in Czech: Dopisy hrdinům: uvádění a recepce cestopisných filmů Hanzelky a Zikmunda v 50. letech 20. století
• Authors: SKOPAL, Pavel (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Participations. Journal of Audience and Reception Studies, 2014, 1749-8716.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: Literature, mass media, audio-visual activities
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14210/14:00078844
• Organization unit: Faculty of Arts
• Keywords in English: cinema reception; socialist cinema; travelogues; cinema exhibition; popular culture in socialism
• Tags: rivok

Abstract

Drawing mainly on personal letters from cinemagoers and readers and on reports by cinema exhibitors, this essay examines the reasons for the enormous popularity of the feature-length documentary films shot by Czech travellers Hanzelka and Zikmund. The essay identifies certain modes of the movies' reception and argues that the popularity of the films was fuelled by a complex network of media products that were created around this duo (radio and newspaper reports, travel books). The example of the travelogues draws attention to the fundamental mechanisms of the distribution and reception of entertainment values in the cultural environment of the (post)Stalinist Czechoslovakia.

Abstract (in Czech)

Text prozkoumává příčiny popularity celovečerních dokumentárních snímků, které natočili Miroslav Zikmund a Jiří Hanzelka. Studie identifikuje mody recepce a dochází k závěru, že popularita byla sycena komplexní sítí mediálních produktů, vytvářených kolem cestovatelské dvojice (rozhlas, tisk, cestopisné knihy). Příklad cestopisů Hanzelky a Zikmunda ukazuje základní mechanismy distribuce a recepce zábavních hodnot v kulturním prostředí (post)stalinského Československa.

Links

• MUNI/A/0865/2013, interní kód MU: Name: Česká kinematografie v diktatuře a v demokracii

Investor: Masaryk University, Category A