Honored Worker of Higher Education of the Russian Federation, Professor B.A. Mikhaylov
Associate professor I.A. Lomova
St. Petersburg State University, St. Petersburg

Keywords: physical culture, university sport, Great Patriotic War.

Introduction. In the days when our country proudly celebrates the 70^th anniversary of our Victory in the Great Patriotic War, it might be the right time to remember once again those humble patriots who were far from the battlefields but devotedly served the Motherland and largely contributed to the Victory nearing it by the exhausting heroic labour on the home fronts. Many popular athletes and active physical culture practitioners of those days were among those patriots.

It was in April 1942 that the municipal government decided to launch football competitions in the besieged Leningrad city. The memorable football matches of the 1942 season on the Dinamo Arena will always stay high in the historic records. Later on, in May 1942, the inspired citizens welcomed Track and Field Championship in the still besieged city [5]. These and other athletic events encouraged the brave city defenders by their sports spirit as the nation firmly demonstrated that it stands unbent and the life goes on in its regular tracks.

The other cities supported the initiative, and the events were followed by the Ski Championship of the USSR in Sverdlovsk town in March 1943; Gymnastics Championship in Moscow in August 1943; National Football Cup competitions in summer 1944; and the National Ski Finals in Sverdlovsk town in March 1944. Overall, the year of 1944 was marked by the National Finals in as many as 14 sport disciplines. It was in 1945 that the nation proudly resumed the Physical Culture Parades on the Red Square in Moscow. The national-level sport events that were organized in those war times have been thoroughly studied by many authors [2].

In this article we present the analysis of the Leningrad University students’ physical culture and sports history in the period of 1940-45 and use it as a base case to explore the general development trends in the university physical culture and sport in the few years prior to and after the war. We were governed by the principle “Nobody and nothing is forgotten” in our work.

The purpose of the study is to give a historic overview of the university physical culture and sport activities in the period of 1940-45 taking the Leningrad University sport history as a base case.

Results and discussion. It was on June 22, 1941 that the Great Patriotic War burst into to the country. In the first few days of the war the University students leaded by patriots with different athletic backgrounds formed a Field Engineers’ Battalion which was immediately forwarded to the Karelian Isthmus and further from the Beloostrov Island into the former Finnish territory with the special mission to deploy there and build up antitank fortifications [1]. In August the University students formed up their guerrilla detachment.

On September 1, 1941, only 2000 students entered the University lecture rooms for studies. In the same September days, the University formed a special labour detachment under commandment of a few university athletes with the mission to secure and defend the University assets and area.

In the period of July to August 1941, Joint Guerrilla Battalion #70 was formed by the Vasilyevsky Ostrov District government and the Leningrad University students joined it with their Guerrilla Detachment under commandment of S.I. Maximov, student of the Philological Faculty, and Commissar M.D. Smolkin, post-graduate of the same Philological Faculty.

It was in February 1942 that the University was evacuated to the eastern cities of Saratov and Yelabuga. In April the Leningrad University students hosted by the Saratov University community resumed their studies. We have some fragmented information on the students’ sports training being continued during and after the evacuation: we know that the university gymnastics group never stopped its activity since 1942; and the military skiing group was trained there in the period of 1942-43. In March 1944, the Saratov University athletes participated in the Ski Cross-country Race in Honour of the 26^th Anniversary of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Red Army [3].

The Leningrad University students and academic staff members were re-evacuated back home from Saratov in May 1944, and the University curricula were re-launched in the home walls on October 2 including the physical culture programs; and it was in December that the students’ track and field athletic group resumed its training process under leadership of Second Lieutenant I.M. Lokshin who came back home straight from the battlefront.

It was in the period of February 13 to 23 in 1945 that Leningrad welcomed the traditional National Young Communist League & Trade-Union Ski Cross-country Race in Honour of the 27^th Anniversary of the Red Army.

In March the Ozerky District government hosted the University Students’ Ski Finals that welcomed the best ski teams defending the colours of many higher education establishments of Leningrad city. The women’s ski team of the Leningrad University received the first award of the individual championship and finished the second in the team competitions of the 19 best university ski teams of the city that came to the Finals.

On April 1945, the Gymnastics Hall of the Historic Faculty welcomed the First Inter-Faculty Gymnastic Championship where as many as 129 athletes representing 11 faculty teams competed for the prizes.

The university records report that 89 people joined the event to win the prize for the Best Performance of Education Standards; and it was the Historic Faculty team that won the first prize, while the Law Faculty team was the second.

The war was still going on when the university sports activities started coming back on track. It may be pertinent to give in this context a few abstracts from the Official Sports Curriculum Performance Report of the Winter Season of 1945 by B.A. Orlov, LSU Physical Culture Department Head:

“We launched the skiing practices only in January when the long-awaited snow mantle was finally formed. The 1^st and 2^nd year students (1177 people in total) successfully completed the 3-hour regular training curriculum; and 640 selected athletes performed the special 20-hour training program.

The university sports community received a great positive impetus from the popular Young Communist League & Trade-Union Ski Cross-country Race joined by as many as 2242 students that makes up 93% of the total number of the University student community at present.

On February 22, 1945, we organized the Inter-faculty Ski Competitions with participation of 8 ski teams defending the colours of 12 Faculties. Individual prize winners and their results were the following:

5km Women’s Ski Race 1^st prize winner/ time: Migacheva/ 28 min;

3km Women’s Ski Race 1^st prize winner: Sigova, Chemical Faculty;

10km Men’s Ski Race 1^st prize winner: Khramov, Mathematical Engineering Faculty;

On March 11, the Ski Cross-country Finals of the Leningrad University Teams were completed. The University won the 1^st prize in the women’s team competitions and the 2^nd prize in joint team competitions (the 1^st prize was won by the joint team of Polytechnic University). The best ski athletes, education groups and Faculties of the University were congratulated and honoured by the special University Order.

As things now stand, there are 58 athletes in the University ski group.

The University Basketball Joint Team successfully reached the Finals of the University Competitions. It is O. Ravdonikas, female student of the Geology/ Soil Science Faculty that strongly leads the Team and coaches the University Basketball Group.

We have just opened a Chess Club at the University. The newly formed Track and Field Athletic Group has started working on its training program. A few other sports groups including Tennis, Alpinism, Yachting and Shooting Groups are being actively formed. In winter season, the Speed Skating Group of 68 athletes was formed.

On March 19, the University opened two brand-new sport venues: the Gymnastics Hall and Sport Games Hall. Furthermore, the University launched the construction works to rehabilitate the sports arena and its running track, the tennis courts, volleyball and basketball playgrounds and the combat training ground” [6].

In May 1945, the University students’ teams joined the traditional Track and Field Relay Race across the city and won the 1^st prize in the women’s competitions, the 2^nd prize in the joint university teams competitions and the 2^nd prize in the joint local city teams competitions.

In 1945, for the first time after the war, the University resumed the traditional Track and Field Cup Competitions to nominate the best Faculty Team.

It was on June 24, 1945, that the Lenin’s Stadium hosted, for the first time after the war, the University Track and Field Championship with participation of the best joint teams of the high educational establishments based in Leningrad city. The track and field athletes of Leningrad State University won the first team prize and the honoured pendant having scored 7974 points in total; the Leningrad High-precision Mechanics and Optics Institute team won the 2^nd prize with the total score of 7747 points; and the 3^rd prize honoured the success of the Transport Engineers’ Institute team that scored 7214 points.

An article in the “Leningrad University” Newspaper (Issue #29 (515) of 1945) by the Second Lieutenant I.M. Lokshin, LSU Physical Culture Department Instructor, focused on necessary reforms of the Department curriculum and widely acknowledged now as a milestone in the University physical culture and sports reform and development, reads among other things:

“Very soon we will have to face in competitions sport teams of the foreign universities that we are just establishing cultural contacts with. These expectations comprise an issue that need to be well thought through right now. We need to take persistent efforts to improve health and facilitate sport successes of our university students. With this objective in mind, we must take actions to benefit from the best sports experiences of the foreign universities and, if necessary, upgrade our physical culture and sports curricula on the modern sports-focused basis. Top priority must be given to the efforts to cultivate good taste and demand for physical culture among the students. Right from the start of every academic year, we must form athletic groups specialized in different sports through open voluntary recruitment of newcomers. Training programs of these groups shall be made an integral part of the University curriculum. Major attention and efforts shall be given to formation, in the first place, of the university track and field, skiing, gymnastics, rowing, swimming and sport game groups”.

The University Rector’s Office and the Physical Culture and Sports Department management supported the above initiative, and it was as soon as on September 1, 1945 that they launched the project to implement the reform and put the new curriculum into practice. The University had very soon formed a separate Physical Culture and Sport Department (by its separation from the Military Instruction Department – they existed jointly since 1944) and approved special curricula for the University gymnastics, sport games and ski groups, with the intent to introduce in the nearest future therapeutic gymnastics curriculum and, since March, yachting sport curriculum.

It was later on in 1945 that the Secretariat of the National Central Council of Trade Unions approved a Regulation on Students’ Sport Club that was enthusiastically welcomed by the academic community as an important initiative to support the university sport development process. First sport clubs in the country were established by Leningrad Polytechnic Institute and Leningrad State University [4].

In October 1945, the first founding session of the University Sport Club chaired by the Physiology Professor M.I. Vinogradov was summoned and it approved the Club statute, budget and action plan.

Conclusion. The University succeeded in establishing its Sports Club, one of the first in the country, and in promptly reforming its curriculum and education process to adjust to the requirements of the new University sport structure; and these reforms largely facilitated the success of the University athletes in the first post-war years all the more that the University physical culture and sports promotion activities were enthusiastically supported and never stopped even in the most painful years of the war period.

References

1. Voronkov, M.G. Kover i dorozhka: etapy bol'shogo puti (1938–1949) (Carpet and path: Milestones (1938-1949) / M.G. Voronkov / Sb. «Voprosy fizicheskogo vospitaniya studentov». (Coll. "Issues of physical education of students" Iss. 25. – St. Petersburg, 1996. – P. 107–117.

2. Demeter, G.S. Ocherki po istorii otechestvennoy fizicheskoy kul'tury i olimpiyskogo dvizheniya (Essays on history of physical culture and Olympic Movement) / G.S. Demeter. – Moscow: Sovetskiy sport, 2005, – P. 195–240.

3. Materialy po istorii Sankt-Peterburgskogo universiteta 1917–1965 gg. (Materials on history of St. Petersburg State University 1917-1965). – St. Petersburg, 1999. – P. 135.

4. Napreenkov, A.A. Studencheskie sportivnye kluby v Sankt-Peterburge: istoricheskiy aspekt (Student sports clubs in St. Petersburg: historical aspect) / A.A. Napreenkov //Uch. zapiski un-ta im. P.F. Lesgafta, 2013. – № 5 (99). – P. 98–103

5. Taratynov, S.I. Legendarnye futbol'nye matchi v osazhdennom Leningrade (Legendary football matches in the besieged city of Leningrad) / S.I. Taratynov / Universitet olimpiyskiy. – 2013. – P. 84.

6. CGA SPB. F 7240,o.14, d.935 (Central state archive of St. Petersburg. F 7240, o.14, d.935).

Corresponding author: mb43@mail.ru