At present, we notice an increased interest in folklore traditions and effort to put them to various spheres of everyday life. These 'revitalizing' efforts can be seen, for example, in the wedding ceremonies. The goal of this thesis is to analyze this tendency in modern weddings in Slovakia, with an emphasis on the highlight of the wedding - putting off head wreath and bonnet wedding ceremony. Nowadays it's common to commission a folk ensemble for these events. Even though the phenomena of bonnet wedding ceremony is considered to be a modern tradition that is based on certain historical bonds this revitalization process causes some semantic shifts, change of its functions that results in its different form. The focus of this thesis is aimed towards these changes - for example, the change of the function of traditional folk clothing, decontextual shift from the ritual to theatralization, the influence of shifts for participants and others involved, the commodification and the commercialization of the ceremony. The thesis also analyzes the relations between the folklore and folklorism, 'authentical' and stylized folklore and the general idea of the tradition as well as its contemporary social and cultural function. Keywords Bonnet wedding ceremony, wedding, ritual, folk ensemble, scenic folklore,...

This master's diploma thesis discusses the mechanisms by which the Slovak public television talent show Zem spieva (2017) creates the concept of folklore perfor- mance as a means of building and expressing national identity. This thesis also discusses the mechanisms by which the show creates a platform for negotiating the criteria of high standard folklore performance which should present a consistent reconstruction of tradition. These two effects of the show Zem spieva are in this thesis perceived as conceptually conflicting: on the one hand, there are essentialist ideas about the genetic predisposition of members of the Slovak nation for folklore performance; on the other hand, there are doctrines focused on the reconstruction of the tradition on the folklore stage. These doctrines are followed by an expert jury composed of prominent members of the folklore community. This thesis argues that the concept of performing folklore on stage perceived as an intellectual problem of the reconstruction of tradition is in the show subversive and therefore gradually replaced by emotionally and patriotically defined criteria of high quality folklore performance. This preferred measure preserves cultural cohesion in terms of sa- tisfying the needs of the mass audience. Following the conflict of the mentioned...