The Dialectics of Everyday Life in Pioneer Camps: Romanticism and Regimen

ABSTRACT The article analyzes accounts of the regimented aspects of life at summer pioneer camps (daily routine, lining up, and marching in formation) as well as the informal aspects of children’s subculture. Our main source of information were publications in the Soviet children’s press and specialized periodicals in education from between the late 1950s and early 1980s. At that time, articles were regularly published on this topic, and magazine editors devoted special issues to how leisure activities should be organized at summer recreational camps. Our analysis of the periodical literature helps better understand the everyday life of Soviet children during the late 1950s to the early 1980s.