Jaroslav Foglar (6 July 1907 – 23 January 1999) was a Czechoslovak writer who wrote many novels about youths (partly also about the Boy Scouts movement) and their adventures in nature and dark city streets.

[citation needed] During the 1930s and 1940s, Foglar worked as a magazine editor in one of the largest Prague publishing houses, Melantrich.

After the Communist coup in 1948 Foglar was kicked out of the publishing house, his magazines were liquidated and his books prohibited, as was the Scout movement and independent youth clubs.

Foglar's idea of independent boy clubs is basically derived from the German Wandervogel movement.

As editor of Mladý Hlasatel, Foglar systematically built clubbist ideology (based on friendship, good deeds, personal sacrifice, love of the nature, etc.)

One of the key themes of Foglar's novels is the tension between the loneliness and close friendship between young male heroes.

Foglar was strongly influenced by German Wandervogel romanticism more than the ideas of British scout movement (which emerged in Czech Lands during the WWI).

Foglar's novels are set in a prevalently male world, where women are often irrelevant (old grannies or small girls, often without names).