The project Christological Broadside Ballads in the Oral Tradition (GA25-15545S) is supported by the Czech Science Foundation (GAČR). It focuses on the oral tradition of Czech broadside ballads, examining their production, media and dissemination, and reception, using material from Czech folk religious songs with Christological themes—primarily from rural environments in Moravia and Silesia during the 19th and the first half of the 20th century.

This is a unique body of material preserved in the documentary collections and archives of the Institute of Ethnology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, gathered by folk song collectors from the late 19th century to the mid-20th century. An experienced interdisciplinary research team is analyzing this material in all its relevant dimensions: philological, ethnological, ethnomusicological, and hymnological.

The main outcome of the project will be a collective English-language monograph. For the first time, it will present this unique material—Christological broadside ballads—to an international scholarly audience, through representative examples accompanied by interdisciplinary commentary, musical transcriptions, and scholarly studies.

The project’s aim is to provide a comprehensive interdisciplinary analysis of this exceptional material, situated at the intersection of oral and literary traditions. It also seeks to highlight the significance of broadside ballads for the development of language, sacred music, and Christian culture and devotion. Planned outcomes include the organization of an international interdisciplinary conference, the creation of a website providing public access to these collections, the publication of academic studies, and the release of the English-language monograph.