Czech and Slovak sword dances
Czech Republic
Sword dances were found in former German-speaking areas of Bohemia and Moravia such as around Kaplice (Kaplitz), along with the ancient mining areas around Strání on the border between the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Czech sword dances were performed for the Prussian king Frederick I when he entered Prague. A dance from the 15th century called the Fašancaré – probably derived from the German ‘Fasching’ meaning ‘carnival’ – was preserved at the St. Koruna monastery in Moravia. Indeed, most Czech and Slovak sword dances were traditionally only performed at Shrovetide, the same time as the pre-Lent German Fasching. Many of these dances were performed by those about to start military service, and in some village traditions the dancers are called ‘Recruits’.
The Strání sword dance
Strání is a village close to the Slovak border some 20km from the town of Uhersky Brod and its sword dance is part of a longer ritual performance starting with singing followed by a linked sword dance of five dancers performing relatively simple figures such as clashes of swords and passing under or over a single sword. There is then further singing, the dancers break out and dance with female partners from the choir, and on special occasions one of the dancers is symbolically beaten with the others swords. The swords were traditionally made from wood.
Unlike in rapper, longsword or the sword dances from the German-speaking and Low Countries, the Stání sword dance does not include sword locks and is not accompanied by any characters or fools, although there is film footage showing that characters were used in the recent past. There is a non-dancing team leader called the Gazda, who traditionally sought permission to visit from the various householders on the team's tour, and who collected gifts of food from the audience, which were skewered onto his sword.
Some other villages around Strání have similar sword dances, although with variations in the exact form and music. In the village of Stary Hrozenkov, they used a straw man as a character, looking rather like the Whittlesey Straw Bear!
The Komna sword dance
The Komna dance is similar to the Strání dance, except that the swords are made from metal rather than wood. Four dancers are used in Komna, with a non-dancing leader as in Strání to collect from visited householders. The dancers dress in black military style uniforms, black riding boots and artificial flowers on their black hats. Characters are sometimes used, including a man dressed as a woman, a Lord and Lady, and three sweeps. Two real women traditionally accompany the dance with tambourines. As in Strání there may also be couples dancing.
The Komna tradition is still performed locally, and dancers from Komna have appeared at the Sword Spectacular events held in Scarborough and Whitby from 1996 to 2004.
The Kaplice sword dance
The Kaplice sword dance was traditionally performed at Shrovetide by ethnic German carollers, but died out locally when the ethnic German population was expelled from Czechoslovakia after the Second World War. It was fortunately filmed by František Pospíšil before the war (see below). They used sabres made from iron plate and wore an elaborate costume of black uniform with coloured sashes and black hats decorated with flowers while performing a relatively simple sword dance to a small band playing brass and accordions. Pospíšil's footage shows eight dancers and two fools.
František Pospíšil
Appointed as curator to the Moravian Regional Museum in Brno in 1920, František Pospíšil was an ethnographer with special interest in sword dancing, who was also a keen photographer an enthusiast for the new medium of 35mm movie film and dedicated much time and expense to travelling throughout Europe to record sword dances for posterity. He started documenting sword dances in 1907, and filming them from 1922. He started travelling to present his collections to international ethnography conferences from 1924.
Sadly, after the war Pospíšil was falsely accused of collaboration with the Nazis, fell into disgrace with the new communist authorities in Czechoslovakia and died in a mental hospital in 1958. His archive was forgotten and only came to light recently when someone found a compilation of films he had intended to present in London in 1927 in a storeroom in the Brno museum. His archive is the major source on Czech sword dances, but includes footage from all over Europe, including the Goathland Plough Stots in Yorkshire as well as Basque and Croatian sword dances. His story was presented in a EBU documentary shown on BBC4 in October 2007.
Slovakia
The majority of sword dance traditions in Slovakia come from villages close to the Czech border, and were therefore probably similar to the Strání dance. Another linked sword dance preceded by a play was formerly performed in Banská Bystrica.
