Jiří Klaban

* 1930

  • "At first I made up something of a fairy tale for the Old Scouts in Pařezská Lhota, where we go camping, the Happy Planet. The inspiration for that was that there are lots of beautiful videos and pictures on the Internet, of nature, but also of human civilisation, and that it's exceptional. They say that life on the Blue Planet is a miracle, because the configuration of physical conditions is so unique, that they haven't found anything like it, although it could be possible. So a number of people say it's a miracle that life exists here. And I say that it'd be a second miracle if humanity managed to create a Happy Planet from the Blue Planet. When you say happiness, that's a rather broad term, but there's a psychologist, Mr Maslow, who defined human needs, and I think that the attainability of fulfilling these human needs for every inhabitant of the planet is the basis for a Happy Planet. So to fight for the availability of these needs for all the people on the planet would mean to come close to the ideal of the Happy Planet, which is of course a long journey. And I find it natural, because I've been doing Scouting my whole life, that Scouting with its ideals comes the closest to the ideal of the Happy Planet."

  • "In 1973 we were camped under the Teplice Rocks. That was during totality, and we decided we should make a camp in (Red) Indian spirit, because every generation should experience the Indians. And we didn't want our members to miss out on that. But as soon as someone said 'Indians', that was a sign for the SSM (Socialist Youth Union) bosses that there'd be Scouts in and about that - so it was always risky. For instance the 6th Troop was disbanded for the sole reason that they had a totem in construction when the inspectors came upon them, and on the basis of that they accused them of doing Scouting, and they disbanded the troop. So it was something of a gambling game, whether we'd see it through all right. At the time I came up with such an idea, that if Engels wrote the book 'The Origin of the Family and Private Property', which discussed the primitive communal society as introduced on the Iroquois society. And I said to myself that it wouldn't have to be too bad, because if they started criticising us, then we'd say we were practising the primitive communal society. So we had it prepared like that in theory, but we were lucky, because the same year the Indians in America revolted because of the reserves, and so suddenly all the newspapers here were full of Indians, as they had revolted against the capitalists, and that was popular. So Indians were popular - we had a noticeboard in the camp, and when they published a long report about them in Mladý svět (Young World, a popular magazine - transl.), we cut it out and pinned it up on the noticeboard - so we were prepared, and when the inspectors came along, we talked our way through it."

  • "In '98, which was 600 years after Charles IV (Czech king and Roman Emperor, founder of Charles University - transl.), we founded the Scout University of Pardubice. In ten years, we had five lectures every year - one lecture every two months. We invited Scout personalities, and the purpose of the university was the search for a Scout programme for the next century - we had Břicháček, Šolc, Illnerová, Lemberk - he was here twice, Pilka was here to talk about music, we even had such an attraction here, that I got in touch with Tomáš Maršík, he lives in Alasca now."

  • Full recordings
  • 1

    Pardubice, Nábřeží Závodu míru 1822, 17.12.2010

    (audio)
    duration: 02:12:59
    media recorded in project A Century of Boy Scouts
Full recordings are available only for logged users.

To educate happy and content people.

Kyb_dobova.jpg (historic)
Jiří Klaban
photo: dobová i současná: archiv pamětníka

Jiří Klaban was born on the 9th of July 1930 in Hradec Králové, but he spent his whole life in Pardubice. His parents were small traders. After the end of the war in 1945, inspired by the books of Jaroslav Foglar, he was with some 150 other enthusiasts at the renewal of the Pardubice Scout troops. \he graduated from forestry school in Štiřín in 1948 and began making mountain expeditions with his friend Miloš Potěšil. Jiří completed secondary school in 1948, but his parents’ origins caused him to be refused from the University of Chemistry and Technology (VŠCHT) in Prague, a year later (with work experience from the chemical plant in Semtín) he was accepted to the newly created VŠCHT in Pardubice, where he gained an Engineer’s degree (Master’s level - transl.) in 1954. While at university, he met his future wife, whom he married in 1956. They are still together. In 1968 he was at the the renewal of the Pardubice Scout troops, after a further ban, his troop began to function under the Pioneers, though he still tried to keep up the Scout traditions and values. After 1989, the troop smoothly moved back under the auspices of the Scout Movement; Jiří Klaban was at the founding of the Pardubice Rovers clan PARS, with which he organised expeditions at home and abroad, and also activities for the public. Jiří Klaban left PARS in 1994, in 1998 he and some friends founded the Scout University of Pardubice, which organised lectures and debates on the topic of the future direction of the Scout Movement. Since 2008 he devotes himself mostly to Old-scout camps.