Abstract
This article focuses on transformation of Czech festivity, called “Majáles“, well known traditional celebration of students taking place in spring (April and May) almost in all Czech university towns as well as in many smaller towns with the secondary schools. The article reveals, that the modern form of “Majáles” was ”invented“ in the second half of the 19th century as a good opportunity to confirm the Czech half of student tradition after the division of Prague university into its Czech and German parts.
Its historical progress was described in the novel of the Czech historical novels writer Alois Jirásek. Following his model the festivity spread into Czech milieu as a feast that connected younger educated generations of students with the older representation of Czech national movement.
Later it transformed dependening on technical, political and economical progress. “Majáles” was used by media as cinematography, later there was an attempt to transfer it to a new sense by socialist regime and later it was used as a form of opposing social movement. After the “Velvet revolution” “Majáles” has developed into a commodity of the liberal market in order to connect students with the products targetting them and to build the identity among the regional universities, their towns and students.