Children’s leisure activities organized by the Soviet State during the summer school holidays in 1953–1964 on the example of Stalingrad/Volgograd

The paper briefl y examines the current defi nitions of the term «leisure activities» and defi nes the role of the Soviet government in organizing the younger generation’s free time as for the future socialist society. The author analyzes domestic and foreign literature in order to argue the proposed topic relevance and to determine the complexity of studying the phenomenon of «leisure activities» in the context of everyday life as a branch of historical knowledge. The purpose of the research is to study the forms and means of organizing summer holidays by the Soviet state for pioneers and schoolchildren. The analysis of the organizing leisure activities for children in the Soviet state from 1953 to 1964 during the summer holidays is carried out using the example of Stalingrad (since 1961 – Volgograd). Based on the periodical (the newspaper «Stalingradskaya (Volgogradskaya) Pravda» [«Stalingrad (Volgograd) truth»]), the main organizational directions of schoolchildren and pioneers’ cultural and leisure activities for the summer holidays are determined. They include: 1) educational tourism, 2) health improvement, 3) physical education, 4) cultural and educational activities. In the framework of 1953–1964 they provide statistics on suburban and urban pioneer camps and recreation grounds in Stalingrad (Volgograd), as well as on the number of Stalingrad schoolchildren vacationing in them. It also describes the non-standard forms of pioneer camps organized by parent committees, as well as tent and “fl oating” camps. Other forms of summer leisure activities are also defi ned. They include fi lm festivals, meetings with hard workers and famous people, puppet and children’s theater performances, circus groups and excursions around the hometowns and suburbs.