Welcome to the website dedicated to the long-term research of broadside ballads, a significant phenomenon of Czech popular culture from the early modern period and later folk tradition.

This research is based on collections held by memory institutions in Brno and places them in a broader national and international context. The project is a collaboration between the Faculty of Arts at Masaryk University, the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, the Moravian Library, and the Moravian Museum.

Our work builds on the project Broadside Ballads in the Historical Collections of Brno (NAKI II, 2018–2022), which focused on the cataloguing, editing, and analysis of printed Czech songs preserved in libraries and archives. We are now continuing with the project Christological Broadside Ballads in the Oral Tradition (GA ČR 2025–2027), which examines how these songs were transformed within the oral tradition in Moravia and Silesia.

Our goal is to trace both the historical continuity and transformation of this important element of Czech song culture, while integrating philological, ethnological, ethnomusicological, and hymnological approaches. We aim to contribute to a deeper understanding of the development of Czech popular culture at the intersection of the early modern and modern eras. A strong emphasis is also placed on examining the songs in a global context, comparing them with their counterparts not only from Europe but beyond.

In our research, we collaborate with experts from many international institutions (e.g., University of California, Oxford University, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, among others).

On this website, you will find information about both research projects, programs and abstracts of academic meetings, research findings, and opportunities for collaboration.