The Soviet Sociology of Sport: Start and . . . Start Once Again (Subjective Notes with a Claim to Objectivity)

The two main stages of the formation and development of the Soviet sociology of sport, the first, covering the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, and the second covering the 1960-1980s, are considered in the paper. It is noted in the introduction that although the Soviet sociology of sport as one of the branches within sociological science of that time in general has an interesting prehistory in the early Soviet years and a rich history of development in the middle of the last century, it has not yet received adequate coverage in the works on the history of the development of this science. The reason may be that in the traditional opposition between “the high” (spiritual) and “the low” (corporeal), the body practices are classified as “second-rate”. The authors sought to eliminate the existing “lacuna” by conducting a brief analysis of the Soviet stage of the development of the sociology of sport. The features of each of the stages (the main vectors of development of the national sociology of sports, dominants, and their transformations) are considered in the context of the time. The authors based their research on sources such as the relative publications reflecting the theme characteristic for each period, as well as some “living memories”, both of their own and of some other participants in the events. These sources could give birth to a certain element of subjectivism, already reflected in the subtitle of the article.