Anthropology of East Europe Review EQUIPMENT AND CHANGING OUTDOOR CULTURE IN THE CZECH REPUBLIC Tomáš Kvasnička Lancaster University The popularity of outdoor fashion outdoor activities has certainly contributed to the Contemplating the dense jungle of Czech Czech trend. At the one end of the spectrum general outdoor pursuits, active holiday destinations (around participation is fostered by the increasing popularity the country and worldwide) and the antithetical urban of active lifestyles. At the other end - as voluntary pavement of Czech cities and towns, a well-trained risk-taking in extreme sports loses its former stigma eye can easily discern a rather strong inclination (Vanreusel & Renson 1982; Lyng 1990) and as towards outdoor fashion. Not only in the streets and vertigo imagery penetrates popular culture - the on mountains, paths, crags and river banks, but also “quest for adrenaline” is attracting more and more in transitional places – buses, trains, gas and railway people (Le Breton 2000). The popularity of outdoor stations, pubs and beer gardens –, a recognisable and is a sign that the Czech Republic is undergoing what ever-growing proportion of Czechs are wearing Henning Eichberg (1998) calls a "green wave". The fashion artefacts produced by the outdoor industry. pendulum of leisure preferences has swung towards Trekking sandals, outdoor1 shorts or pants with a nature-based activities. chequered motif on the knees, T-shirts with outdoor This article addresses the interconnections sports motifs and rucksacks give visual expression to between Czech outdoor practices, ideas and material large portions of Czech bodies in summertime. As the culture. It outlines the evolution of the field from its season moves towards autumn and winter, these really-existing-socialist4 to its postsocialist form. items are increasingly replaced by hiking boots and More specifically, I show that the core members of fleece or soft-shell2 jackets. In my experience, the Czech outdoor sphere who catered to its material outdoor fashion seems to be more popular in the culture before 1989 initiated its postsocialist centre of Prague than in the prime English outdoor metamorphosis. They have played an integral role in honeypot town of Ambleside in the Lake District. An setting the values and styles of both the really- epitomic dress code of the Czech outdoor enthusiast existing-socialist and postsocialist forms of outdoor seems to be both solidifying and diffusing into culture. The two historic forms of the outdoor sphere general dressing habits. are often viewed as a dichotomous pair. Yet in fact it Whether worn for pragmatic reasons or for was the skills generated by petty enthusiast producers the sake of "Bourdieu’s distinction" (1984) or, most of equipment during late really existing socialism that likely, a combination of both, the current scale of the made possible full expression of the postsocialist use of outdoor equipment and garments is the most characteristics of the outdoor field. Equipment – its evident expression of the ongoing transformation of production, distribution and usage – played a symptomatic role in the metamorphosis of the Czech Czech outdoor culture. This culture, nowadays 5 labelled in the Czech language by the English- culture of outdoor pursuits. sounding substantive outdoor, is not only changing I first briefly describe the evolution of the its expressive face; the position of outdoor pursuits is tradition of outdoor pursuits into outdoor with respect in fact changing within the field of sporting activities to the ideologies and values in play. I then examine as well as within society as a whole. Above all, their the relationship between outdoor pursuits and popularity is growing. Outdoor is hip nowadays.3 As equipment and discuss how this relates to a result, the ideologies, images and practices of developments that began within the Czech outdoor outdoor pursuits which became established over the sphere in the 1980s. During the late period of really last 150 years are undergoing another wave of existing socialism a specific mode of the culture of changes. outdoor pursuits appeared. It resulted in quasi- Both the change in and the growing resistant, rather egalitarian and collective qualities, popularity of outdoor in the Czech Republic could be on the one hand, and practices of closed membership, interpreted as a consequence of a number of social on the other. These qualities are explained as a processes. These range from the postsocialist consequence of a specific economic mode of the transformations of time and work-leisure relations to provision of equipment through semi-legal, small- a shift towards publicly promoted individualist and batch bricolage-like production distributed on a semi- meritocratic values. The international success of barter basis, for the most part among acquaintances. Volume 25, No. 1 Page 53 Anthropology of East Europe Review The Czech tradition of outdoor pursuits KČT and sports organisations extended their Romanticism and patriotism activities and expanded in size. After all, during the inter-war years the “great outdoors” was so popular The tradition of outdoor pursuits in the throughout Europe that the term “outdoor craze” Czech Lands6 was conceived under the influence of became common currency elsewhere (Walker 1985). Romantism (Sýkora 1986, Novotný 1989) and the The system of outdoor activities (Waic’s & Kössl’s patriotic values of the nineteenth-century national term, 1996) founded in the Romantic tradition of awakening, which interpreted the Czech landscape appreciation of nature and patriotism was already and countryside together with their inhabitants as an established. Most outdoor pursuits, and first and authentic source for the reestablishment of national foremost turistika, were delimited by this framework. values (Cílek et. al. 2004). Hence, the patriotic inclination towards outdoors developed relatively Collectivism and performance early on. It was originally enacted in the activities of After the 1948 communist putsch and again the Sokol movement. Sokol, founded by Czech in 1957 the socialist regime made attempts to patriots along the lines of the German Turnverein, dissolve and reorganise the structure of official concentrated mainly on gymnastic exercises that bodies responsible for outdoor pursuits. The system aimed to strengthen the awakening Czech Nation. of outdoor activities, while it survived, was not only Soon, however, Sokol introduced marches, trips and reshaped organisationally but also reframed outings to the countryside and places of historic or ideologically. To a certain extent, the content of the geographic importance as part of its programme activities was altered as well. (Waic & Kössl 1996; Nolte 2003). During the 1950s and 1960s socialist Simultaneously, inspired by the German turistika came to be defined as the most versatile and Romantic movement, a novel understanding of nature universal of the dimensions of the socialist system of connected with direct sensual experience (Erlebnis) physical exercise/education. Partly as a concession to started to spread through the Czech Lands. Apart the regime, it was depicted as contributing greatly to from fostering patriotism, it created an ideological the rearing of socialist man (Khandl 1978:101-104) basis for the emerging rambling and hiking by ”focusing on the education process, enforcement movement - termed turistika7 in the Czech language. of the rules of a united (physical) education system Turistika was therefore conceived as physical and a communist ideology” (Král 1988: 37). In fact, locomotion which combined kinaesthetic enjoyment turistika was the only socialist physical activity that with cognitive cultural (e.g. patriotic) activities. developed a theory about its content (Khandl 1985). Czech-ness was expressed through “knowing your It was defined as a combination of physical country” - being in the landscape suffused with locomotion with a cultural educative component patriotic values. Strengthened by direct competition supposedly infused with socialist ideology. with the hiking movement in neighbouring German- Turistika was supposed to further socialist speaking regions on the fringes of the Czech Lands political ideology. Yet this was decreasingly the case. (Judson 2002), such a concept of outdoor pursuits Especially after the defeat of the Prague Spring in gained dominance. 1968, the majority of Czechs and Slovaks stopped It proved to be so influential that the taking much interest in the political process. During emerging outdoor sports movement developed in the normalisation period the regime did indeed tandem with it. On the one hand, although cleverly exploit the growing political apathy. All that competitive and performance-based forms of cycle- was required of citizens were modest expressions of touring, kayak/whitewater touring, ski-touring and loyalty accompanied by small concessions to the mountaineering8 emerged within the sporting clubs, truth (Havel 1985; Šiklová 1990). Most people unions and associations, these bodies organised the played the game to the extent demanded by the “softer” turistika version of outdoor pursuits regime; yet at the same they withdrew into their collaterally with KČT 9 (Sýkora 1986: 33-36). On the private lives (Možný 1991). The popularity of Czech other hand, regardless of its doubts about the utility second housing (chataření), a highly cherished of sports for turistika (Boháček 1938), the KČT leisure of the normalisation period and the pure organised