Tramping

The book focuses on the presuppositions, origins, and development of Czech interwar tramping. Czechoslovakia was a new, geographically, nationally, and also socially varied state and shortly after its formation a new phenomenon emerged - it was tramping. It was not a temporary and socially limited leisure activity for a small group of boys and girls. Quite on the contrary - despite the original displeasure shared by the state institutions as well as representatives of youth organizations and other leisure time and educational organization, tramping rooted deeply in Czechoslovakia and left a strong imprint in Czech landscape and popular culture. Romanticism, resistance, and refusal of unhealthy urban civilization with all its social, political, and moral shortcomings became its characteristics. Towards the end of the First Czechoslovak Republic, tramping had definitely become a mass leisure activity, which was generally accepted and which had also become an independent stream of mass culture.

The team of the Department of Archaeology at the University of West Bohemia focused on material traces of the tramping movement within the Pilsen Region (Czech Republic) in the 1920s-1990s. Places used by individual tramp settlements as long-term campsites, visited on a regular basis, were identified. Apart from the localisation itself, spatial characteristics of tramp campsites were assessed as well as their chronological scope, preferences of particular landscape context etc.

(an English annotation follows below)
Ostouzený i oslavovaný, popularizovaný i potlačovaný, především ale více než sto let přítomný. Tramping, ryze český fenomén, jenž se zrodil ve stínu povltavských lesů na úsvitu československé samostatnosti. Třebaže se jeho počátky skrývají v mlze času, jeho osud představuje pozoruhodný příběh touhy po svobodě, volnosti a opravdovosti, a to napříč generacemi a v různých politických režimech. Trampové se ocitali v hledáčku prvorepublikových mravokárců i státních orgánu, byli sledováni úřady v době protektorátu, komunistický režim je považoval za problémové pásky a chuligány. Dějiny trampingu však nejsou jen historií pronásledování a represí, ale také životní radosti, nezaměnitelného humoru a hledání romantiky i čistých mezilidských vztahů v záři táborových ohňů nebo jen tak pod hvězdnou oblohou. Kniha Putování za obzor ukazuje cestu českého trampování od prvopočátků až do sklonku komunistické diktatury.

Soon after the founding of Czechoslovakia in October 1918, tramps started to roam the countryside of the young republic. These were not the unemployed vagrants or seasonal workers mostly known as the tramps in the early 1870s USA. In the newly formed Central European state, “tramp” became the term used for the young men and later also women who spent their short weekends out in the countryside, recharging after the working week in the city, camping, playfully pretending to be characters out of adventure novels, playing sports. Simply having fun and living their own way in the nature. The word “tramp” was adopted into the Czech language under a different meaning from its English original, although its inspiration came from the romantic depictions of North America in contemporary literature for Czech youths.
The path beyond the city limits for the first Czech tramps had already opened before the First World War: the Czech public first started to read about camping (tenting, bivouacking) in the periodicals at the turn of the 20th century, where camping was described as a leisure time activity beneficial to body and mind. Following the contemporary opinions and hygienic recommendations regarding the public health across national and state boundaries, the first Czech Scout groups recognized the healing power of nature and integrated camping into its outdoor activities. Organized hikers and canoe campers would also camp out during their overnight expeditions.
Czech tramping was born spontaneously after the WWI among young people camping under the forest canopy and on the riverbanks. The most obvious inspiration came from the romanticized idea of the Wild West – tramping drew on its depictions in the popular adventure novels and American Westerns. Many tramps admired the works of Jack London. In the afterwar years, a lot of tramps kept on roving the Czech countryside in regular clothes, however, others put on Western-like outfits and for the weekend’s short duration even transformed themselves into gold-diggers, trappers or sailors. They often adopted nicknames that sounded exotic to the Czech ear (John, Bill, Jerry) and ventured out of the city into the countryside, seeing the nature as a reflection of faraway lands, renaming it and giving it a thrill of adventure. The birth of the tramping movement is inextricably bound to the contemporary popular culture.