Antonín Václavík and his role in the presentation of folk culture in museums

Antonín Václavík's professional and scientific work in the area of folk culture was tied to collecting and museum activities from the very beginning. In 1918 he sorted out and installed ethnographic collections of a regional museum in Luhačovice. In the same year he started to work at the Ministry of Education in Bratislava (1918–1939). He studied geography, ethnography and art history at Comenius University in Bratislava (1922–1926). He worked as a ministerial clerk for folk art, in which capacity he worked with ethnographic collections in Rimavská Sobota, Skalica, Martin, Bratislava, Piešťany, Trnava and Ružomberok. He played a significant role in the installation of ethnographic collections, most of which he obtained while working in the field, in the Slovak Homeland Museum in Bratislava and the Slovak National Museum in Martin. He habilitated himself at Masaryk University in Brno in 1933. Following his involuntary departure from Slovakia in 1939, he worked as a specialist in the Museum of Moravian Slovakia in Uherské Hradiště, where he was in charge of the programme related to administrative, protective and scientific activities of museums (1940). He was also involved, in terms of consulting and professional activities, with ethnographic collections in Valašské Meziříčí, Vizovice, Luhačovice, Holešov, Valašské Klobouky and Vsetín. Shortly after he was awarded the title of Professor (1946) he founded the ethnography department at Masaryk University in Brno. As a university educator he placed an emphasis on practical field experience. The list of seminars taught by him includes those in museology, as well as field practice and museum collection studies