Hungary The Killian Movement for Physical Training

[Gordon Craig]

The ?Killian? Movement for Physical Training

At an extended meeting in June of 1960 the Hungarian Physical Training and Sports Council produced a draft document for a widespread and permanent badge winning movement. These ?draft? statutes were distributed for nation wide discussion. The Presidium of the Hungarian Physical Training and Sports Council had been created under government decree No.4 dated 12 January, 1958. On November the 10th, 1960, the Presidium of the Council authorized the implementation of the final statutes based on the material used in the discussion in June. And the ?Killian Movement For Physical Training? came into being. The Council authorized the commencement of the movement under the national guidance of the Hungarian Physical Training and Sports Council and the local guidance of the local physical training and sport councils. Not much happened within the movement until a committee for the direction of the ?Killian? movement was set up in January of 1961. In March of that year, the government passed a resolution on the tasks of the executive committees of local councils connected with the movement.

Membership in the movement was open to every Hungarian who had attained the age of six and had been admitted to the first grade of primary school. The ?Killian? movement was connected to the following organization for a trial period; KISZ, Pioneers, ?The Youth for Socialism?, the factory championships of the trade unions and the technical championships of the Hungarian Defence and Sports Association. There were strong links between the ?Killian? movement, KISZ and the Pioneers from the time of its inception until the change of regime in 1990 so I must assume that the trial period was successful.

The system for recognizing a specific achievement within the ?Killian? movement, and hence the presentation of an award, was based on a system of scores. The idea was to assure continued and active participation in sporting activities because you needed to stay actively involved to obtain the individual grades.

One of the new features of the ?Killian? movement was the introduction of ?rambling?. Rambling encompassed hiking, skiing, bicycling, motorcycling as well as car and motorboat excursions. With these new additions there were a total of 28 individual sport branches including parachute jumping and sport shooting. As a precondition for earning the first badge the statutes made it compulsory for the participant to learn one type of swimming. Where this was not possible (probably due to a lack of a place to swim) to learn to ride a bicycle.

To illustrate the link between some of the Hungarian mass organizations I will post photos of some badges which clearly show the influence of one upon the other.

First the KHT Sports badge for the military in the bronze class;

Edited April 26, 2007 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

Next the KISZ Sports badge for shooting.

[Gordon Craig]

Some of the badges it was possible for the Young Pioneers to win for participation in indivual sports. Each one bears the image of a specific sport. It is possible that there were 28 of these to coincide with the 28 sports covered by the Killian movement. I haven't been able to come up with any specific information on these badges other than that they existed. If anyone can add some info on them please do so.

Regards,

Gordon

Edited April 26, 2007 by Gordon Craig

[Gordon Craig]

Time to add some more information to this thread. On Tuesday, at the Coin and Stamp Show I was able to acquire a rare KHT badge. It was the gold badge with wreath and a hanger for winning this award five times. Before I go on I should mentione that the KHT badges came in a number of different classes. These classes were, from lowest to highest;

steel, bronze, silver, gold, gold with wreath, and for multiple awards of the same class a numbered hanger.

Here is a picture of all classes of the KHT badges.

Regards,

Gordon

[Gordon Craig]

A photo of the attachemnt prongs on the back of the award showing the early "thick" prongs on the viewers left and later "thinner" prongs on your right.