The Slovak Tourist Club is considered to be a successor organisation that carries on the legacy of the pioneers of hiking – the Hungarian Carpathian Association (UKS). It was the first hiking organisation established in, what is today, Slovakia and was founded in Kežmarok on 8th August 1873. The establishment of the UKS reflected the trends of the time in the development of hiking in Western Europe. It laid the foundations for the club’s activities as well as a philosophy that combined sporting activities in the mountains with getting to know nature and history, the education of young hikers and alpinists by volunteers, the publication of hiking maps and guides, and the construction of hiking trails and huts.
After the First World War, the collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the creation of the Czechoslovak Republic, the imaginary baton was briefly taken over by the Tatra Tourist Association (TST), which soon merged with the larger, nationwide organisation, the Czechoslovak Tourist Club (KČST). The hiking movement came to have a patriotic dimension in the interwar period, the magazine, Beauties of Slovakia, has been in continuous publication since 1921. Hiking was no longer the privilege of a sparse upper class and it was joined by other, new forms of life in natural areas – woodcraft (the forest wisdom movement), scouting and tramping, which were especially attractive to urban youths. This expanded the membership base and the hiking infrastructure was considerably improved. After the break-up of Czechoslovakia and the creation of the Slovak State, the Slovak Tourist and Skiers Club (KSTL) took charge, but the events of World War II led to the decimation of the network of hiking hostels. In the new social conditions after the restoration of Czechoslovakia and nationalisation, the hiking organisation lost its legal independence and became part of a unified physical education organisation. This was a period when military activities and mass hiking were preferred. It was only after 1989 that the conditions changed in a way that might allow the re-establishment of the KČST, but as the dissolution of Czechoslovakia was also approaching, two separate organisations were established in 1990 – the Czech Tourist Club (KČT) and the Slovak Tourist Club (KST), who maintained close working and social contacts at all levels of the two organisations.
To sum up, over the past 150 years, the hiking organisation has gone through several significant metamorphoses caused by the political turbulence of the 20th century, its name and organisational structure changed, but efforts were still made to preserve the original mission – to represent the interests of hikers in front of state organisations, both administrative and legislative, to seek support for its activities in business circles, at city councils and municipalities, to educate hiking instructors, to carry out voluntary work to improve the system of marked hiking trails and thus make the country accessible to the general hiking public in a nature-friendly way. Today, the Slovak Tourist Club is a well respected organisation, it is a national sporting umbrella organisation with more than 400 local clubs and 22,000 registered members. It is the largest sports for all civil association in the Slovak Republic. Last year, the organised tourists received well deserved recognition for their activities that have provided a long term public benefit, when the Hiking Trail Marking was acknowledged as part of the intangible cultural heritage of Slovakia.
František Šiller
