The Fourth World Festival of Youth and Students (WFYS) was held in 1953, in Bucharest, the capital of Romania.
The World Federation of Democratic Youth organized this festival against a background of what it described as persecution of communists, such as in West Germany, where Philipp Müller, a delegate to the 3rd WFYS had been killed during a demonstration, and in the United States, where Julius and Ethel Rosenberg had been convicted of espionage on behalf of the Soviet Union, and executed. Other stated goals of the festival were to protest against the Korean War and to support the anti-colonial movements in the French colonies of Algeria and Vietnam. With this background, the festival and its preparation became anti-war demonstrations.
It was held 2–14 August 1953, at the newly-built 23 August Stadium (now called the Lia Manoliu Stadium). More than 30,000 young people from 111 countries participated in the Festival.
The motto of the festival was No! Our generation will not serve death and destruction!.
Famous quotes containing the words world, festival, youth and/or students:
“The change of Philomel, by the barbarous king
So rudely forced; yet there the nightingale
Filled all the desert with inviolable voice
And still she cried, and still the world pursues,
“Jug Jug” to dirty ears.”
—T.S. (Thomas Stearns)
“Don’t you know there are 200 temperance women in this county who control 200 votes. Why does a woman work for temperance? Because she’s tired of liftin’ that besotted mate of hers off the floor every Saturday night and puttin’ him on the sofa so he won’t catch cold. Tonight we’re for temperance. Help yourself to them cloves and chew them, chew them hard. We’re goin’ to that festival tonight smelling like a hot mince pie.”
—Laurence Stallings (1894–1968)
“my youth i shall never forget
but there s nothing i really regret
wotthehell wotthehell
there s a dance in the old dame yet
toujours gai toujours gai”
—Don Marquis (1878–1937)
“The fetish of the great university, of expensive colleges for young women, is too often simply a fetish. It is not based on a genuine desire for learning. Education today need not be sought at any great distance. It is largely compounded of two things, of a certain snobbishness on the part of parents, and of escape from home on the part of youth. And to those who must earn quickly it is often sheer waste of time. Very few colleges prepare their students for any special work.”
—Mary Roberts Rinehart (1876–1958)