History of sport

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Sport is an umbrella term that leads to gymnastics, competitions or exercises such as running or throwing. The origins of sport go back to ancient times.

Modern athletic thinking began with the rational thinking of the Renaissance . There have now been physical exercises as before in the ancient practice in overall width and explored. Modern thinking was evident in the formulation of a set of rules, in the application of natural sciences and mathematics (especially geometry) to sport. The physical exercises were carried out for the purpose of health, the craft of war, self-defense or simply as a competitive sport. The changing understanding of the human body was also evident in dance and other body practices.

term

The term sport originated in the 18th century and originally referred to the specific form of physical exercise in England at that time . In the 20th century, the term was increasingly used for all forms of movement and competition. Today, forms of physical exercise that arose before the 18th century are retrospectively referred to as "sports", although the contemporary of that time used a different term for them (e.g. gymnastics, physical fitness).

The emergence and expansion of modern sport in the 18th and 19th centuries

Sport was used in the 18th and 19th centuries as a term for a specific form of physical exercise that came to Europe from England. The sport in its original form was characterized by the performance, competition and record principles. Thereby he clearly distinguished himself from the nationally oriented gymnastics and other forms of physical exercise such as Swedish gymnastics that existed at the time , as the overarching regulations and performance measurement were alien to them.

The modern term sport is borrowed from the late Latin word disportare, which means "to disperse". The word found its way into English (to disport) and German via the French language (se de (s) porter) . Originally, unlike gymnastics, sport had no political education to serve, but was purely a leisure activity. In the early days, sport was able to institutionalize itself in public schools and in the clubs that were established in the 17th century. As a result, sport was characterized by exclusivity and reserved for an elite class of citizens and nobility. At the beginning of the 20th century, the Austrian sports writer Michelangelo von Zois pointed out that until the 1870s, unlike in England , on the European continent sport was only understood as horse racing , hunting and rowing :

“[…] Men who came from England knew how to tell their amazed friends that the people across the canal, however sensible they might otherwise be, indulge in childish amusements. Young people talk about pushing a leather ball around in a meadow, others hit the ball over a net with a kind of praker, etc., and this madness attracts crowds of spectators. Among them there are people in office and dignity - who sometimes do not even disdain to participate themselves. "

- Michelangelo von Zois : The training of the racing driver. Berlin approx. 1908, p. 7

In the literature, the close connection between industrialization and sports was repeatedly pointed out. Both started in England, spread more or less in parallel, and sport, with its record, performance and competition principle, was based on the same values ​​as the world of work. In addition, there was a trend towards rationalization, specialization and mechanization in both industry and sport. The Marxist historical research emphasizes this close relationship, being the exclusive sports clubs as a symbol of power and the workers or the proletariat sport as a disciplinary measure, the bourgeoisie considered.

As for the industrial revolution, a cultural change was required to establish sport. The expectation of salvation propagated in Calvinism and Puritanism promoted the idea of ​​economic achievement, capitalism and the establishment of sports. In addition, the English's passion for betting resulted in an increase in sporting competitions, with aristocratic gentlemen taking over the patronage for such occasions ( patronized sport ).

With increasing leisure time for workers towards the end of the 19th century, sport increasingly became a leisure activity for a broad section of the population. Employers in particular were interested in disciplining their workers, which is why they often set up company sports clubs.

In the course of the 19th century, various sports were regulated and an international competition with world championships was established. In 1896 the first modern Olympic Games were held. In addition, new inventions such as bicycles , automobiles and airplanes were "sported" by their pioneers and new sports games such as basketball (1891) and volleyball (1895) were invented. Even traditional physical activity such as swimming and mountaineering became popular with the sport, which now spread beyond England to the world. This also led to heightened tensions between gymnasts and athletes, which continued into the second half of the 20th century. The sports clubs rose to become the gymnasts' greatest competitor on the continent.

However, as the sport grew in popularity in the second half of the 19th century, it also lost its political indifference. The industrial society was characterized by social misery and the associated danger of physical and mental illness. In the course of the evolution theory founded by Charles Darwin , social Darwinism and the associated fear of a degeneration of the “people's body” emerged. As a result, a number of research groups on "popular and racial hygiene" were founded (see eugenics ), which propagated physical fitness under the motto "mens sana in corpore sano" as a preventive measure against the decline of the people's genetic material.

The spread of sport in the 20th century

With the invention of the radio and increasing commercialization (the emergence of professional sport), sport became more and more popular in the media, so that it also found its way into school "gymnastics", not least because politicians began to contribute to the To consider sports for military training as equivalent to gymnastics. As early as 1914, the German Reichstag decided that not only the implementation of the 1916 Olympic Games in Berlin was a central task of the Reich, but also the preparation of top athletes, the salaries of the national coaches, and support for the Olympic sports associations. The discussion in the Reichstag was no longer about the question of whether top-class sport should be financially supported, but only about the question of whether this was really a task of the central state or rather, as a cultural promotion, a task of the member states. Theodor Lewald convinced the Reichstag with the analogy that the Olympic Games are the same as the world exhibition and should be treated in the same way . Top sport had been integrated into the Reich Office of the Interior since that time .

During the time of National Socialism , sport was abused for “racial hygiene” and state political purposes (cf. Leni Riefenstahl's propaganda films on the occasion of the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin). When the National Socialists came to power, they did not have their own program for sport; Since there were National Socialists in all organizations, no one could claim a dominant position as Reich Sports Commissioner or Leader. In this situation it was decided to follow the Italian fascist model. With regard to the role of women, the National Socialists were not uniform in their sports policy: On the one hand, in international comparative competitions and the Olympic Games, women's medals were worth just as much as men's, and should therefore be maximized in the interests of the Propaganda Ministry. On the other hand, biological thinking left women with race care and reproduction. Here the old arguments between sport (= performance and specialization) and gymnastics (= fitness in the interest of better reproductive ability) became clear again.

After the Second World War , the conflicts of the Cold War (1945–1989) also took place in the context of sport and international sporting relations. Particularly for the GDR which offered sports an arena in which they compared the sole representative of the Federal Republic of Germany claim and was able to demonstrate a superiority despite economic weakness.

The post-war period was also characterized by shorter working hours, an increase in consumption and a change in values ​​(individualization). As a result, the boundaries between the social classes (i.e. between workers and bourgeoisie ) softened (see social structure ), which is why the former ideological rifts between bourgeois gymnasts, athletes and workers' athletes also disappeared.

Due to the growing demands in competitive sport, the tendency towards professionalization in amateur sport increased , which was also accompanied by the development of systematic doping . The use of doping became publicly known in particular through deaths such as that of the West German athlete Birgit Dressel , through positive doping controls such as in the case of Ben Johnson, and through the opening of files after the fall of the Wall and the peaceful revolution in the GDR , in which a system of state-controlled doping became visible has been.

In addition, a commercialized leisure and sports market has emerged, especially since the 1990s, in which the traditional gymnastics and sports clubs had to find their way with new and sometimes identical offers, which has led to an identity problem for the clubs. The commercialization of trend sports by sporting goods manufacturers and sponsors (e.g. beach soccer - Puma and GE Money ) also led to a partial replacement of the lifelong club member by the "club shopper" (ie people who frequently change clubs) and the individual athletes from the fitness center or the street.

Another phenomenon is the increased violence of fans, which has always been present in sport, but only became a problem for sports clubs and politics with the rise of " hooliganism ".

The division of sport according to Markus Lamprecht and Hanspeter Stamm.

Through consumption and changing values, not only did gymnastics become one sport among many, but a multitude of sports and forms emerged, so that today almost everyone has a connection to sport. Pedagogues and sociologists therefore speak of the fact that the “sporting-up” of society has an effect on sport, which is then “deprived” itself. Where sport begins today (physiotherapy?, Boccia?, Inline skating?) Or ends (sauna?) Can no longer be determined. Markus Lamprecht and Hanspeter Stamm therefore propose that the former “pyramid model” of sport, which still differentiated between grassroots and top-class sport and required clubs as institutions, be replaced by a more differentiated model (media, competitive, alternative and recreational sport as well as instrumental sports).

literature

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Arnd Krüger , John McClelland (ed.): The beginnings of modern sports in the Renaissance . (= Articles and sources on sport and society, Vol. 2). Arena, London 1984. See, for example, Rudolf W. Keck (ed.): "Homo ludens" or "Homo militans". On the history of medieval and early modern sports. In: Max Liedtke (Ed.): Sport and School. Past and present (= series of publications on the Bavarian School Museum Ichenhausen. Vol. 17). Klinkhardt, Bad Heilbrunn 1998, ISBN 3-7815-0936-2 , pp. 55-88.
  2. ↑ Werner Körbs : From the meaning of physical exercises at the time of the Italian Renaissance. 2nd Edition. Ed .: Wolfgang Decker . [Repr. der Ausg.] Berlin 1938. Weidmann, Hildesheim 1988, ISBN 3-615-00037-4 .
  3. ↑ Arnd Krüger , John McClelland (ed.): The beginnings of modern sports in the Renaissance. Arena, London 1984
    John McClelland: Body and Mind: Sport in Europe from the Roman Empire to the Renaissance (Sport in the Global Society). Routledge, London 2007. The most extensive bibliography still with Arnd Krüger, John McClelland: Selected bibliography on physical exercise and sport in the Renaissance. In: A. Krüger, J. McClelland (eds.): The beginnings of modern sport in the Renaissance. Arena, London 1984, pp. 132-180.
  4. ^ Jean-Claude Margolin, Jean Ceard, Marie-Madeleine Fontaine (eds.): Le Corps à la Renaissance: actes du XXXe colloque de Tours 1987. Aux amateurs de livres, Paris 1990, ISBN 2-87841-022-X ; John McClelland, Brian Merrilees (Eds.): Sport and culture in early modern Europe. Le sport et la civilization de l'Europe pré-Moderne . Center for Reformation and Renaissance Studies, Toronto 2009, ISBN 978-0-7727-2052-8 .
  5. ^ Julius Bohus: Sports history. 1986, p. 126.
  6. ^ Fritz Pieth: Sport in Switzerland. 1979, p. 80.
  7. ↑ Allen Guttmann: From ritual to record. 1979; see. Koller: Sport as an end in itself is one of the saddest chapters in bourgeois sport history. Change and constants in the self-image of Swiss workers' sport (1922–1940).
  8. ↑ cf. Jere Cohen: Protestantism and capitalism . 2002.
  9. ↑ Christian Koller: From the English elite schools to the global popular sport: The emergence and spread of football up to the First World War. 2006, p. 19f.
  10. ^ Julius Bohus: Sports history. 1986, p. 130.
  11. ↑ Stefan Kern: Gymnastics for the Fatherland and Health. 2009, pp. 41-50.
  12. ↑ Stefan Kern: Gymnastics for the Fatherland and Health . 2009.
  13. ^ Arnd Krüger : The Olympic Spirit of the Modern World has given us a Symbol of World War. Sport and National Representation at the Eve of World War I. In: P. Arnaud, A. Wahl (Ed.): Sport et rélations internationales. (⇐ Center de Recherche Histoire et Civilization de l'Université de Metz, Vol. 19). Metz 1994, pp. 47-64; Arnd Krüger: On the origin of the notion that sports serves as a means of national representation. In: History of European Ideas. 16: 4-6 (1993), pp. 863-869.
  14. ↑ Arnd Krüger : Today Germany belongs to us and tomorrow ..? The struggle for the sense of conformity in sport in the first half of 1933. In: Wolfgang Buss, Arnd Krüger (Hrsg.): Sport history: maintaining tradition and changing values. Festschrift for the 75th birthday of Prof. Dr. W. Henze . (= Series of publications by the Lower Saxony Institute for Sports History , Vol. 2). Mecke, Duderstadt 1985, pp. 175-196.
  15. ↑ Michaela Czech: Women and Sport in National Socialist Germany: an investigation into the reality of female sport in a patriarchal system of rule. (= Articles and sources on sport and society, Vol. 7). Tischler, Berlin 1994, ISBN 3-922654-37-1 .
  16. ^ Kaelble: Social history of Europe . 2007.
  17. ^ A b c Markus Lamprecht, Hanspeter Stamm: Sport between culture, cult and commerce. Seismo, Zurich 2002, ISBN 3-908239-80-X .
  18. ↑ Norbert Elias, Eric Dunning: Sport in the civilization process . 1984.
  19. ↑ Knut Dietrich, Klaus Heinemann (ed.): The non-sporting sport. Contributions to change in sport. 1989.