Popular Ethnographic Imagery
‘Is it necessary to widen the horizons of Czechs? Now more than ever!’ With these words the first volume of the journal Širým světem (Across the wide world) announced its intentions in 1924 of opening up global vistas to the Czechoslovak public. A popular journal, it featured illustrated articles about cultures, peoples and landscapes around the world. It was not the first such publication; similar magazines such were already being published at the beginning of the twentieth century, and they have continued to the present.
Cover page of the magazine Lidé a země, Issue No. 4, Volume No. 2 (1953). (c) National Digital Library
Cover page of the book V cizině. Kulturní obrázky pro mládež by Josef Kořenský (1889). (c) Matthew Rampley's personal achive
Cover page of the magazine Domov a svět, Issue No. 42, Volume No. 3 (1929). (c) Matthew Rampley's personal achive
The project thus studies of the imagery and texts in popular illustrated magazines that sought to convey to the Czech / Czechoslovak public an understanding of ‘exotic’ and peoples and landscapes. The project examines broader pictorial strategies of specific magazines, such as Lidé a země (Peoples and lands), Zeměpisný magazin (The Geographical Magazine) and Širým světem, as well as the work, where possible, of identified of individual photographers and artists.