Principalele distincţii oferite de Organizaţia Pionierilor din Republica Socialistă România
The Main Awards of the Pioneer’s Organization of Socialist Romania

Summary/Abstract: The Romanian Pioneers’ Organisation was a youth movement created in 1949 in order to reunite all the children aged between 7 and 14. When it was established, the Organization followed closely its sister organization from the Soviet Union in all aspects. The Soviet influence decreased significantly after 1966, when the Communist Party of Romania assumed direct control over the Pioneers’ Organisation, and transformed it into a national movement. Like all mass organizations, the Pioneers’ Organisation of Romania developed its own decoration system in order to reward its members, but this was not part of the national decoration system of Romania. In the beginning the pioneer’s system of decorations was relatively poor and the distinctions were produced in small numbers. After 1966, this system was gradually developed and improved in several stages, reaching its peak in the middle of the ‘80s. These distinctions were also produced in greater numbers. However, the expansion of the decoration system was not carried out according to a plan, nor was it given much attention, because the result was that in the end several distinctions of different ranks had the same title of “medals”, and many others had the shape of a medal, although they were just insignias. The pioneer’s system of decoration consisted of: medals (awarded for outstanding deeds, social merits, fulfilment with good results of ones duty for several consecutive years); titles (awarded for outstanding deeds or good results at school); branch medals (awarded to those who achieved the first place in the various contests organised for the pioneers); branch insignia (for those with good results in certain areas of activity); membership insignia (for the pioneers that were members of certain circles) and anniversary insignias and medals (issued in order to celebrate some important moments from the history and activity of the organization. The present study deals only with the first two types of awards, the medals and the titles, of each there were two. The medals were “The Pioneers’ Merit” and “Distinguished with the Honorary Diploma of the National Council of the Pioneers’ Organisation”, and the titles “The Dearer” and “Leading Pioneer”. Consideraţii introductive Organizaţia Pionierilor din România a rep

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