The development of popular music investigation

The development of popular music investigation in the Czech Lands in the context of Central European culture and politics since 1945

Provider.:  Czech Science Foundation No: 21-16304S
Time: 2021–2024
Principal recipient: Faculty of Arts, Palacký University Olomouc
Recipient: Institute of Art History, CAS
Principal investigator: Jan Blüml
Investigator of IAH CAS: Aleš Opekar

The project is focused on the examination of academic and, to a relevant extent, also nonacademic
research of popular music in the Czech Lands in the international context and in the
historical periods defined by the milestones of 1948, 1968 and 1989. The prerequisites of the
early establishment of Czech musicology of popular music in 1962 and its results in terms of
scholarly knowledge as well as the development of musical culture itself will be examined in the
context of left-wing folkloristics, Marxist musicology, communist and post-communist cultural
policy, and in the context of long-term discussions on national music identity as well as the
influence of new media. The main output of the interdisciplinary team of musicologists,
ethnologists, sociologists, and historians will be an English-language monograph of ca 250
pages, which will be not only the first comprehensive elaboration of the Czech case, but also
one of the first ever contributions to the history of popular music research in communist (postcommunist)
Europe.