Worker Sport and Art for Proletarian Masses: Constructivist Avant-Gardes, Spartakiads, and Red Sport International, 1921–1928

Strożek, Przemysław

doi:10.1080/09523367.2019.1584187

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Regarding the sport under the IOC's auspices as a "reactionary" bourgeois phenomenon, these two "sovereigns" promoted an alternative view of sports from the "left". Moreover, they held their own international Olympics and Spartakiads (Krüger, 2014;Physick, 2017;Strożek, 2018). Left-wing sports ideologues criticized the IOC for promoting nationalism and an addiction for records, and, as a result, effectively turning sports into an elite engagement (in terms of athletic performance), which slides into professionalism.…”

Section: The Olympic Order and Its Alternatives From The "Left" In Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating a Hero . . . Laughing at Clowns? Representations of Sports and Fitness in Soviet Fiction Films after the Olympic U-Turn in Politics

Adelfinsky¹

2020

RSR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

In the 1940s–1960s, the USSR made an ideological turn from leftist sports politics to the struggle for Olympic achievements. How has this U-turn affected the social order in Soviet sport and its artistic repre-sentation? The article offers a systematic review of Soviet sport fiction films. The study of sport and fit-ness imagination is conducted through a correlation between artistic performance and social context. Fo-cusing on the 1950s–1980s, we found three different types of representation: № 1 is the creating of a hero (for an elite athlete). This is the lion’s share of all sport movies where the “Myth of a Hero” in Olympic sport was constructed. In praising elite sport, modern Russian movies continue the well-known Soviet tradition; № 2 is the laughing at clowns (for mass sportsmen). These are mostly episodes in feature films on themes, where mass sport (i.e., non-elite, grassroots, recreational, fitness, and ordinary) is mentioned. Surprisingly, this sport is presented in a comic sense (except hiking and mountaineering); №3 is sport reality. This type comprises the tiniest selection of movies where art reflects the real situation inside the Soviet sport industry. Elite athletes are presented here as antiheroes with social adaptation problems; ad-ditionally, such issues as shamateurism are severely criticized. The conclusions are following: since the 1970s, sport films ceased to function as propaganda of fitness and recreational sport. On the contrary, elite sport (as an art branch), its representations in official arts and media jointly constructed the great “evan-gelical myth” about itself, which became the part of public consciousness. However, this myth had little to do with a new reality. Elite sport’s positive representation acted only as a propagandist tool that created a fictional social world. The existing social order’s irrationality was critically reflected only by the comedy genre.

show abstract

Section: The Olympic Order and Its Alternatives From The "Left" In Thmentioning

confidence: 99%

Creating a Hero . . . Laughing at Clowns? Representations of Sports and Fitness in Soviet Fiction Films after the Olympic U-Turn in Politics

Adelfinsky¹

2020

RSR

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

Worker Sport and Art for Proletarian Masses: Constructivist Avant-Gardes, Spartakiads, and Red Sport International, 1921–1928

Cited by 1 publication

References 0 publications

Creating a Hero . . . Laughing at Clowns? Representations of Sports and Fitness in Soviet Fiction Films after the Olympic U-Turn in Politics

Creating a Hero . . . Laughing at Clowns? Representations of Sports and Fitness in Soviet Fiction Films after the Olympic U-Turn in Politics

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About