The Czech year in this atlas is a village year, not Prague's. Masked men go from door to door in the Highlands in the weeks before Lent, willow whips are braided for Easter Monday, and at the end of May a boy with a rose in his mouth rides through Vlčnov so that he cannot speak.
Photo: Filipzverina, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
Two of the three festivals in this atlas are on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity: the Shrovetide door-to-door processions of the Hlinecko area, inscribed in 2010, and the Ride of the Kings of south-east Moravia, inscribed in 2011. Both are village rites that outsiders may watch, and neither has been rewritten for them.
The third is the one kept in almost every Czech house. On Easter Monday morning, men and boys braid whips of fresh willow, go from door to door and tap the women with them for health and youth in the year to come, and are given decorated eggs in return. It is old, it is still widely kept, and it is now argued about at length in the country itself — which is part of why it is here.
Prague has its own calendar of markets and concerts. This page begins where the practices are still made by the people who keep them.
Masopustní obchůzky na Hlinecku
In the weeks before Lent, the men and boys of a handful of villages in the Bohemian-Moravian Highlands put on masks and walk their village from house to house with a brass band, dancing a ritual round in each yard for a good harvest. The day ends with the mare condemned, executed and brought back to life.
February 7 – 9, 2027Calculated
Velikonoce
The Czech Easter is not mainly a church festival. Its centre is Easter Monday morning, when men and boys braid whips of fresh willow, go from house to house tapping the women for health and youth in the coming year, and are given painted eggs, sweets and a drink in return.
March 25 – 29, 2027Calculated
Jízda králů
A boy of ten or twelve rides through a Moravian village dressed in a woman's ceremonial costume, his face half covered, a rose held in his teeth so that he cannot speak. Riders with drawn sabres guard him, chanters stop at each house and rhyme about the people standing there, and the horses are buried in paper flowers.
May 29 – 30, 2027Calculated