Global InformationKocourkov information
In Czech culture, Kocourkov is a fictional place, whose inhabitants are attributed with doing various stupid things, similar to stories about other towns of fools: (how they sowed salt, how they dragged a bull to the church roof to graze the grass, etc.)[1][2]
The name of the town derives from the word "Kocour", "tomcat" in Czech, so it literally means "Tomcat's. Ethnographer Cecílie Havlíková terms the "town of fools" stories as "Kocourkov stories" and classifies them into three categories. Some of them are "classic" stories present in nearly the same form in nearly every European culture. Others are adapted to the realities of a particular culture and thus may change quite considerably. The third category are tales peculiar only to a certain country and often only to a certain locality. She lists several other Czech and Slovak locations of similar glory: Přelouč in Czech Republic, Šimperk in northern Moravia, Lhotky in Horňácko region, in western Slovakia it is Skalica and the fictional location of this type is known as Čudákova ("Oddball's"). [2]
Czech poet and journalist Josef Jaroslav Langer in his 1832 satirical allegory "A Day in Kocourkove" mentions that a Schwank (satirical verse) "Die Fünsinger Bauern" by German poet Hans Sachs was translated as "Kocourkovští sedláci",[3] which dates the glory of Kocourkov to the 16th century at the latest.
- ^ Otto's Encyclopedia, Kocourkov
- ^ a b Cecílie Havlíková, "O lidových humorkách zvláště kocourkovských", In:KRAJSKÉ STŘEDISKO LIDOVÉHO UMĚNÍ VE STRÁŽNICI 1970 - ČÍSLO 3-4
- ^ HANS SACHS: KOCOURKOVŠTÍ SEDLÁCI