From Scout Boy to Pioneer. An Example of Political Misuse of the Concept of a Youth Organization of Scout Boys in Slovakia

Abstract

The Scout Boys, which had the original name Junák in Czechoslovakia, began official activity on our territory in 1914. Their promisingly developing membership base and attractive activity were disrupted by the events of World War II. Even before the coup in 1948, the Communists began massively building their party structures. One of the goals was to build a single and unified youth organization under the control of the Communist Party. Between 1945 and 1949, they gradually “united” all children’s and youth organizations that resumed their activities after World War II. One of them was Junák, which before the war had the largest membership base in Czechoslovakia and a welldeveloped system of working with children. The goal of our research was to find out how the children’s organization Junák was incorporated into the Czechoslovak Youth Union after the communist coup in 1948 and how its gradual transformation into the children’s Pioneer organization. In our research, we used periodical professional literature and periodical press, archival sources in the Slovak National Archives and the archive of the Slovak Youth Institute (IUVENTA) in Bratislava, as well as unpublished memories of Mr. Jozef Mikloš, chairman of the Historical Commission of Slovak Scouting.