Rebirth of the Journal «Teoriya i Praktika Fizicheskoy Kul'tury» (1937–1941)

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S.A. Pronin, Ph.D.
National State University of Physical Culture, Sport and Health named after P.F. Lesgaft, St. Petersburg

Keywords: formation of national system of physical education, journal "Teoriya i Praktika Fizicheskoy Kul'tury", origin of scholar schools in the field of sports research.

In the thirties, the Soviet physical culture and sports movement was growing rapidly. The introduction of the GTO (Ready for Labour and Defence) sports complex in 1931 contributed to the large-scale involvement of people into exercising. Incentives were needed for occupations to become regular. These were the standards and requirements of the Uniform All-Union Sports Classification established in 1935, which provided the leading backbone factor – the program and regulatory framework for domestic physical education.

The emerging systemic nature of physical education promoted raising a number of important problems, and its scientific justification was among the most important ones.

A special journal was needed to stimulate the activity in this direction, so in 1937 a decision was made to publish the journal "Teoriya i Praktika Fizicheskoy Kul'tury" in the publishing house "Fizkul’tura i Turizm" (since 1938 "Fizkul’tura i Sport"). Truly, that was the beginning of a new edition, not the revival of the previous one. The reasons for this have never ever been voiced. Most likely, it was due to the repression of many authors of the former journal "Teoriya i Praktika Fizicheskoy Kul'tury" (V.A. Blyakh, L.V. Gerkan, A.A. Zikmund, A.G. Ittin et al.).

Since April 1937 the journal was published as the body of the All-Union Committee for physical culture and sports affairs of the Council of People’s Commissars with the circulation of 11 000 copies (which was double the number in 1930-1931).

TPFK was headed by Divisional Commissioner Boris A. Kalpus (1895-1938). He was in the Civil War, served in the Universal Military Training, was an inspector of military training and sport of the Red Army (supervised the training of military climbers) and was Vice Chairman of the Committee for Physical Culture and Sports Affairs of the Council of People’s Commissars.

Boris Alekseevich was an active promoter of physical culture. He was the author of several books, the most famous of which being "Physical Culture for All" in three editions (1924-1927).

Unfortunately, his career of the journal head was short and his fate - tragic:

13/01/38 – He was arrested.

08/29/38 - He was sentenced to death by the Military Collegium of the Supreme Court of the USSR.

08/29/38 - He was shot.

07/28/56 - He was rehabilitated.

Naturally, that the spirit of those years left its mark on the revived edition. Actually, it was called "Nauchno-populyarny zhurnal” (English: “Popular Science Journal"). The fact is that works (even scientific-theoretical ones) were published in the journal without references, which is the common mandatory attribute of theoretical and methodological articles. The reason was that it was hard (and scary) to quote someone who may be subject to repression tomorrow...

Only in 1939, the new editor in chief, Ph.D., Associate Professor Ivan Antonovich Kryachko (1903-1977) managed to change the category of the edition to "Scientific-methodological journal". This was suggested by Professor B.A. Ivanovskiy on the 29th of May 1938 at the meeting on the activities of the journal TPFK [11], which has become a landmark in its fate. In addition to a number of technical issues, which determined the nature of TPFK for many years, it was clearly defined that:

"The journal "Teoriya i Praktika Fizicheskoy Kul'tury" is facing a big challenge – to provide scientific basis for the matters related to physical culture".

The solution to this problem was a consistent thread running throughout the history of the journal. Young men, who will be dignified Elders of Sport Science in a few decades, took the challenge.

In 1937-1941 the results of the research of the future founders of the scholar schools in the field of sports biochemistry (N.N. Yakovlev), sports biomechanics (N.A. Bernstein, D.D. Donskoy), sport psychology (A.Ts. Puni, P.A. Rudik), the theory of physical education (K.Kh. Grantyn’, A.D. Novikov), the theory of sport (N.G. Ozolin) were published in the journal.

The total of 48 issues of the journal "Teoriya i Praktika Fizicheskoy Kul'tury" was published in 1937-1941, containing 1,034 publications, with only about half being of scientific nature. Not all of them are same significant in historical and scientific terms, but some of them were cited, are being cited and will be cited in the specialized literature for many years.

These works primarily include the one of N.A. Bernstein “Motion construction and systematization in context of neurophysiology" [1].

The role of the paper "Tachography and its role for biomechanical analysis of running" by M.Ya. Gorkin et al. [2] for the development of sports biomechanics is hard to overestimate.

The works "Combined functional test of speed and endurance of the cardiovascular system" by S.P. Letunov [8] and "Functional capabilities of woman's body with regard to physical loads" by R.E. Motylyanskaya [9] have largely predetermined the formation of the medicobiological aspect of the monitoring of sports activity.

The publications by K.Kh. Grantyn’ [3-5], D.D. Donskoy [6, 7] and A.D. Novikov [10] laid the basis of the theory of physical education and the theory of sport.

Publishing of the journal TPFK was interrupted by the Great Patriotic War. It was not published from July 1941 to May 1945.

References

  1. Bernstein, N.A. O postroenii dvizheniy i ikh sistematizatsii po nervno-fiziologicheskomu priznaku (On the construction of movements and their classification on the basis of neuro-physiological characteristics) / N.A. Bernstein // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1940. – P. VI. – № 5. – P. 50–52.
  2. Gorkin, M.Ya. Takhografiya i ee znachenie dlya biomekhanicheskogo analiza bega (Tachography and its role for biomechanical analysis of running) / M.Ya. Gorkin, V.D. Dolgopolov, N.S. Teslenko // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1938. – P. II. – № 4. – P. 35–41.
  3. Grantyn', K.Kh. Soderzhanie i obshchie osnovyi planirovaniya protsessa sportivnoy trenirovki (The content and general fundamentals of sports training process planning / K.Kh. Grantyn' // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1939. – P. V. – № 8. – P. 7–10; 1940. – P. VI. – № 2/3. – P. 54.
  4. Grantyn', K.Kh. Soderzhanie i obshchie osnovyi planirovaniya protsessa sportivnoy trenirovki (The content and general fundamentals of sports training process planning) / K.Kh. Grantyn' // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1940.
  5. Grantyn', K.Kh. K voprosu o sistematike fizicheskikh uprazhneniy (On classification of exercises) / K.Kh. Grantyn' // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1940. – P. VI. – № 9. – P. 43–51.
  6. Donskoy, D.D. K voprosu o sushchnosti sportivnoy trenirovki (On the essence of sports training / D.D. Donskoy // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1940. - P. VI. – № 2/3. – P. 64–68.
  7. Donskoy, D.D. Sportivnaya tekhnika i stil’ (Sports technique and style) / D.D. Donskoy, Yu.A. Cherkasov // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1940. – P. VI. – № 10. – P. 38–42.
  8. Letunov, S.P. Kombinirovannaya funktsional’naya proba serdechno-sosudistoy sistemy na skorost’ i na vynoslivost’ (Combined speed and endurance functional test of cardiovascular system) / S.P. Letunov // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. –1937. – P. I. – № 4. – P. 360–369.
  9. Motylyanskaya, R.E. Funktsional’nye vozmozhnosti organizma zhenshchiny k fizicheskim napryazheniyam (Functionalities of woman's body in respect to physical load / R.E. Motylyanskaya // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1939. – P. IV. – № 3. – P. 49–51.
  10. Novikov, A.D. O sistematizatsii fizicheskikh uprazhneniy (On systematization of exercises) / A.D. Novikov // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1941. – P. VII. – № 1. – P. 30–35; P. VII. – № 2. – P. 42–49.
  11. Soveshchanie o rabote zhurnala “Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury” (Meeting on the journal "Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury" // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury. – 1938. – P. 2. – № 7. – P. 88–90.

Corresponding author: pro-555@mail.ru