Tramping (in Czech and Slovak language) is a movement in the Czech Republic and Slovakia that incorporates woodcraft, hiking/backpacking/camping and scouting, styled on the culture of the United States, especially the Wild West. Tramping is also associated with a distinctive style of clothing, hiking culture, slang, and music known as Czech tramping music. [1]
Czech interest in the culture of the United States was strong after the founding of Czechoslovakia in October 1918, which was supported by President Woodrow Wilson. Charlotte Garrigue, wife of Czech president Tomáš Masaryk, was an American citizen. Westerns were very popular in the country. In the 1880s, outdoor sports became popular in Czech society. World War I led to an increase in the desire for personal freedom and to be outdoors. [2]
The origin of Czech tramping is linked to the tramp settlement Lost Hope near Svatojánske proudy on the Vltava River in 1918. [3] Czech tramping was influenced by the scouting movement. [4] Having been an original Czech movement, tramping became popular in Slovakia in 1925-1928.
Tramping became even more popular during the Great Depression, when many people sought entertainment on a low budget. [2]
While tramping was generally apolitical, there was a strong leftwing, or even pro-communist faction in tramping; some people who dressed themselves in the style of the "Soviet Union", using Red Army equipment and Communist badges. [2]
In 1931, provincial president Hugo Kubát introduced a decree known as "Kubát’s Law", which forbade unmarried couples from camping together or swimming in many places, as well as singing "indecent" songs. In 1935, the Supreme Court ruled the decree to be unconstitutional, after which tramping became even more popular. [2]
Tramping gained importance during World War II, when the Nazis made forays into the woods illegal, though many people found them culturally and socially important. [2] American musical expressions such as those that had enlivened interwar tramps' campfire gatherings became more politically potent as well as more uniquely Czech.
After the 1948 Czechoslovak coup d'état, several tramping organizations were dissolved by the communists. Much of the clothing used in tramping became rare due to supply chain issues. [2]
By the 1960s, as liberalization intensified, culminating in the Prague Spring in January 1968 and leading to the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in August 1968, tramping was more homogenous; it was no longer predominantly for the lower classes. [2] Under the rule of the communists, Czech tramping music was considered less objectionable than rock and roll and jazz and therefore it was more tolerated. [5] [2]
After the Velvet Revolution and the fall of communism, interest in tramping waned as international travel became easier, capitalism resulted in less free time and a wider variety of recreational activities, and scouting became more popular. [2] Tramping has since become more relevant for its nostalgia. [6]
Camping and making bonfires in many areas in the Czech Republic is illegal and as a result, tramping is illegal in many areas. [2]
Czechoslovakia was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland became part of Nazi Germany, while the country lost further territories to Hungary and Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, the state ceased to exist, as Slovakia proclaimed its independence and Carpathian Ruthenia became part of Hungary, while the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia was proclaimed in the remainder of the Czech Lands. In 1939, after the outbreak of World War II, former Czechoslovak President Edvard Beneš formed a government-in-exile and sought recognition from the Allies.
The Prague Spring was a period of political liberalization and mass protest in the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic. It began on 5 January 1968, when reformist Alexander Dubček was elected First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), and continued until 21 August 1968, when the Soviet Union and most Warsaw Pact members invaded the country to suppress the reforms.
Alexander Dubček was a Slovak statesman who served as the First Secretary of the Presidium of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ) from January 1968 to April 1969 and as Chairman of the Federal Assembly from 1989 to 1992 following the Velvet Revolution. He oversaw significant reforms to the communist system during a period that became known as the Prague Spring, but his reforms were reversed and he was eventually sidelined following the Warsaw Pact invasion in August 1968.
The history of the Czech lands – an area roughly corresponding to the present-day Czech Republic – starts approximately 800 years BCE. A simple chopper from that age was discovered at the Red Hill archeological site in Brno. Many different primitive cultures left their traces throughout the Stone Age, which lasted approximately until 2000 BCE. The most widely known culture present in the Czech lands during the pre-historical era is the Únětice Culture, leaving traces for about five centuries from the end of the Stone Age to the start of the Bronze Age. Celts – who came during the 5th century BCE – are the first people known by name. One of the Celtic tribes were the Boii (plural), who gave the Czech lands their first name Boiohaemum – Latin for the Land of Boii. Before the beginning of the Common Era the Celts were mostly pushed out by Germanic tribes. The most notable of those tribes were the Marcomanni and traces of their wars with the Roman Empire were left in south Moravia.
The Velvet Revolution or Gentle Revolution was a non-violent transition of power in what was then Czechoslovakia, occurring from 17 November to 28 November 1989. Popular demonstrations against the one-party government of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia included students and older dissidents. The result was the end of 41 years of one-party rule in Czechoslovakia, and the subsequent dismantling of the command economy and conversion to a parliamentary republic.
From the Communist coup d'état in February 1948 to the Velvet Revolution in 1989, Czechoslovakia was ruled by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. The country belonged to the Eastern Bloc and was a member of the Warsaw Pact and of Comecon. During the era of Communist Party rule, thousands of Czechoslovaks faced political persecution for various offences, such as trying to emigrate across the Iron Curtain.
The last period in Czechoslovak history began with the Velvet Revolution from 17 to 28 November 1989 that overthrew the communist government, and ended with the dissolution of Czechoslovakia on 1 January 1993.
The National Front, also known as the National Front of Czechs and Slovaks was a political coalition created in 1943 serving as united front of political parties for liberation of Czechoslovakia, after 1948 organized solely by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia. It was the vehicle for control of all political and social activity by the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ).
Although political control of Communist Czechoslovakia was largely monopolized by the authoritarian Communist Party of Czechoslovakia (KSČ), the party technically shared political power with other parties of the National Front. The leader of the KSČ was de facto the most powerful person in the country during this period. Czechoslovakia's foreign policy was openly influenced by the foreign policy of the Soviet Union.
With the collapse of the Austria-Hungary at the end of World War I, the independent country of Czechoslovakia was formed as a result of the critical intervention of U.S. President Woodrow Wilson, among others.
Gustáv Husák was a Czechoslovak politician who served as the long-time First Secretary of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia from 1969 to 1987 and the President of Czechoslovakia from 1975 to 1989.
Ludvík Svoboda was a Czech general and politician. He fought in both World Wars, for which he was regarded as a national hero, and he later served as the president of Czechoslovakia from 1968 to 1975.
Junák – český skaut, is the internationally recognized organization of Scouts and Guides of the Czech Republic. Founded in 1911, Junák – český skaut is the largest organisation of children and youth in the nation, with a membership of 73,315.
The Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, known from 1948 to 1960 as the Czechoslovak Republic, Fourth Czechoslovak Republic, or simply Czechoslovakia, was the Czechoslovak state from 1948 until 1989, when the country was under communist rule, and was regarded as a satellite state in the Soviet sphere of interest.
Capital punishment is forbidden by the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms of the Czech Republic and is simultaneously prohibited by international legal obligations arising from the Czech Republic's membership of both the Council of Europe and the European Union.
The First Czechoslovak Republic, often colloquially referred to as the First Republic, was the first Czechoslovak state that existed from 1918 to 1938, a union of ethnic Czechs and Slovaks. The country was commonly called Czechoslovakia, a compound of Czech and Slovak; which gradually became the most widely used name for its successor states. It was composed of former territories of Austria-Hungary, inheriting different systems of administration from the formerly Austrian and Hungarian territories.
The expulsion of Germans from Czechoslovakia after World War II was part of a series of evacuations and deportations of Germans from Central and Eastern Europe during and after World War II.
The history of Czechoslovak nationality involves the rise and fall of national feeling among Czechs and Slovaks. Once forming a rather unified group, they were historically separated, unified under a democratic system, separated during threat of war, and reunified under a socialist authoritarian regime. However, a democratization process has led to a definition of separate statehood for the majority of Czechs and Slovaks.
Czechoslovakism is a concept which underlines reciprocity of the Czechs and the Slovaks. It is best known as an ideology which holds that there is one Czechoslovak nation, though it might also appear as a political program of two nations living in one common state. The climax of Czechoslovakism fell on 1918-1938, when as a one-nation-theory it became the official political doctrine of Czechoslovakia; its best known representative was Tomáš Masaryk. Today Czechoslovakism as political concept or ideology is almost defunct; its remnant is a general sentiment of cultural affinity, present among many Czechs and Slovaks.
This article describes ethnic minorities in Czechoslovakia from 1918 until 1992.
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