Jirásek Scout Area regional congress

A green label for the oblastní sjezd — the regional congress — of the East Bohemian Jirásek Scout Area, held at Králíky pod Sněžníkem from 15 to 17 May 1948. The Junák fleur-de-lis with the Bohemian lion stands at the centre; the place and dates run above it and the occasion is set out in a framed panel at the foot. It carries no face value: a cinderella, sold at the congress.

The date is what makes the piece worth keeping. The communist coup had taken place in February 1948, and armed men had occupied the Scout headquarters that same month. The second national congress of Junák, planned for Zlín on 28 February, never took place. By March the movement had been folded into the Svaz české mládeže by decision of the Central Action Committee of the National Front, and within a month that body became the ČSM, the Czechoslovak Youth Union. Junák kept a nominal autonomy inside it while the action committee dismantled that autonomy piece by piece; the organisation was dissolved outright on 13 September 1950 and its place given to the Pioneers.

So this label belongs to the last months in which Czech Scouts could still hold a congress under their own name and their own fleur-de-lis. Regional gatherings went ahead in the spring of 1948 because the national one had been prevented.

The area took its name from Alois Jirásek, the novelist of Czech national history, born in Hronov in the region the area covered. Králíky pod Sněžníkem lies in the Orlické mountains near the Polish border. No printer is named on the label, and it carries no catalogue number.