Euphoria and Exhaustion: Modern Sport in Soviet Culture and Society

Euphoria and Exhaustion: Modern Sport in Soviet Culture and Society
ISBN-10
3593392909
ISBN-13
9783593392905
Category
History
Pages
359
Language
English
Published
2010-10-04
Publisher
Campus Verlag
Authors
Nikolaus Katzer, Sandra Budy, Alexandra Köhring

Description

The architects of the Soviet Union intended not merely to remake their society—they also had an ambitious plan to remake the citizenry physically, with the goal of perfecting the socialist ideal of man. As Euphoria and Exhaustion shows, the Soviet leadership used sport as one of the primary arenas in which to deploy and test their efforts to mechanize and perfect the human body, drawing on knowledge from physiology, biology, medicine, and hygiene. At the same time, however, such efforts, like any form of social control, could easily lead to discontent—and thus, the editors show, a study of changes in public attitude towards sport can offer insight into overall levels of integration, dissatisfaction, and social exhaustion in the Soviet Union.

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