Origins Between 1949 and 1951, the authorities of Soviet-occupied Poland dissolved the Polish Scouting Association (
ZHP). In 1956, after
Stalin's and
Bierut's death, the communist party youth movement ZMP OH was transformed and renamed to
ZHP, the same name the Polish Scouting association had before
World War II. After a brief period of easing of repressions, in 1958 many pre-war instructors were removed from the new ZHP or marginalized, and the original oath, law, educational content and methods were changed. After
Pope John Paul II's first pilgrimage to Poland in August 1980, some "non-conforming" instructors inside the ZHP created the
Andrzej Małkowski Circle of Scout Instructors (), with the objective of restoring the original Scout ideals. The culminating moment of KIHAM's overt activity was the Jubilee Rally of the 70th Anniversary of Polish Scouting in Krakow (September 1981), which attracted about 6,000 participants and was the first mass scouting event in years that was not imposed from above. After the 7th Congress of ZHP at the beginning of 1981 rejected all their motions and the
martial law was imposed in December 1981, they went underground. The underground movement came to light in the fall of 1988. After they were unsuccessful in reforming the ZHP their way, the ZHR was founded.
Establishment The process was initiated by a meeting of 51 instructors from the illegal Scouting Movement of the Republic of Poland (RHR) and other alternative groups in the basement of St. Andrew's Church in Warsaw on February 12, 1989. The name for the organization was lent by the Pomeranian “
Mały ZHR” (Small regional organisation). An Organizing Committee was then appointed, which began work on the statutes and registration of the association. The Organizing Committee consisted of: Monika Figiel,
Marek Frąckowiak, Marek Gajdziński, Jarosław Janas,
Grzegorz Nowik,
Krzysztof Stanowski, Andrzej Suchocki,
Kazimierz Wiatr,
Wojciech Wróblewski, and Jacek Zaucha. During this meeting, two representatives of the opposition participating in
the Round Table talks (Marek Frąckowiak and Wojciech Wróblewski) were authorized to represent the ZHR there. The next meeting of instructors took place on February 25 at St. Sigismund's Church in Warsaw, where a binding resolution was passed to establish the Scouting Association of the Polish Republic as an ideological and educational youth organization. The resolution was signed by 116 scouting instructors, with more people adding their signatures after the meeting. On April 1–2, 1989, the First General Assembly of the ZHR was held in
Sopot, attended by 424 delegates from across the country. The Congress elected
Tomasz Strzembosz as the first Chairman of the ZHR and Krzysztof Stanowski as its Chief Scout, adopted the ZHR Statute, and declared that the ZHR was the heir to the traditions of the ZHP (Polish Scouting Association) from before 1949 and the successor to the achievements of independent groups operating after the war.
Further development Mateusz Morawiecki among the participants of the Jubilee Rally of the 30th Anniversary of the Association (2019). Following its 1992 unification with another independent scouting association named ZHP-1918, ZHR consolidated its nationwide structures and entered a period of institutional stabilization. A joint Unification Congress in Warsaw confirmed the merger under the ZHR name, after which unified national authorities were elected in 1993. During the 1990s the organization clarified its
Christian (non-denominational) identity, strengthened its statutory foundations, and absorbed several smaller scouting groups. Large national rallies (most notably the 1999 jubilee gathering at
Lednica) symbolized its growing public visibility. By the end of the decade, ZHR had approximately 15,000 members. Throughout its history association combined internal development with visible public service, including nationwide engagement during periods of
national mourning,
papal visits, and major commemorations. Since 2020, ZHR has focused strongly on crisis response and institutional resilience: it organized nationwide volunteer structures during the
COVID-19 pandemic, provided humanitarian assistance following
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and participated in flood relief efforts. Marking its 35th anniversary in 2024, ZHR entered the mid-2020s as nationwide youth organization rooted in Christian values and oriented toward civic service and character formation. ==Organization==