Little Bo-Peep has lost her sheep, and doesn't know where to find them, or, In search yet again of Czechness and Czech music

Abstract

In an article in 1986, Michael Beckerman debated the meaning of "Czechness" in music; since then, it has usually been construed as a myth that has more to do with the reception of the national repertoire than with objective qualities of the music. This article proposes that the idea of "Czechness" should be reconsidered, using not only ideas developed in historical musicology since the 1980s, but also more recent developments in music analysis, in order to redirect attention to "the music itself" and to reconstrue it in new and fruitful ways.

Keywords

• cultural history
• Czechness
• Janáček
• mythology
• nationalism
• polka