Discussions on the 'Physical Degeneration of the Proletariat' and the Soviet Eugenics Project of the 1920s
| Autor: | Ilya Victorovich Sidorchuk |
|---|---|
| Jazyk: | ruština |
| Rok vydání: | 2018 |
| Předmět: | |
| Zdroj: | Известия Уральского федерального университета. Серия 2: Гуманитарные науки, Vol 20, Iss 3(178), Pp 71-84 (2018) |
| Druh dokumentu: | article |
| ISSN: | 2227-2283 2587-6929 |
| DOI: | 10.15826/izv2.2018.20.3.046 |
| Popis: | This article considers the background and features of the formation of the Soviet model of mass sports and physical culture development in connection with the theory and practice of Soviet eugenicists of the 1920s. Eugenics was regarded as a promising science by some representatives of the political and scientific elite of Soviet Russia as a means of avoiding the threat of degeneration of the working class, caused by the consequences of exploitation, wars, and epidemics. The author focuses on the origins of Soviet eugenics which predetermined the main features of its development, analyses the views of its proponents from the government and academia as regarded turning to it in the struggle against the degeneration of the proletariat by means of sports and physical education. The main difference of Soviet eugenics was its class character, which was the most important reason for its opposition to fascist and bourgeois eugenics, and its main task was the cultivation of a “new Soviet man”. The author concludes that some Soviet eugenicists considered the science of human improvement not only in connection with the study of heredity, but also physical culture. These aspirations led the Soviet eugenicists of the 1920s to support the utopia of a healthy body, to appeal to physical culture and sports as an important component of struggle against the degeneration of the Soviet man. Soon, physical culture and sport became elements of the Soviet ideological system. Concepts of eugenics in the late 1920s were sharply criticised, but this did not affect the development of sports and physical culture, which remained an important part of the Soviet sociocultural project, keeping the legacy of Soviet positive eugenics. |
| Databáze: | Directory of Open Access Journals |
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