PhD, Associate Professor V.P. Barakhsanov¹
Dr.Hab., Professor E.A. Barakhsanova¹
PhD, Associate Professor V.S. Golokova¹
N.D. Kronnikov^1
1Ammosov North-Eastern Federal University, Yakutsk

Keywords: national sports, intellectual games, ethnic-educational approach, ethnic sport.

Background. Presently the national government gives a high priority to the physical culture and sports sector development and healthy lifestyle promotion initiatives within its general policy to secure human development with an emphasis on the physical, intellectual, ethical and spiritual potential building and facilitating provisioning initiatives to activate the creative potential in the sports sector, including national sports.

National sports, traditional physical practices and ethnic games have been formed and perfected for a few millennia being inherited by one generation from the other and applied as the key tools to satisfy the natural human need for movement, harmonious physical development and progress in the relevant physical and intellectual skills and abilities. Modern ethnic education in national sports is designed to form and support, first and foremost, peoples’ cultural traditions. It should be noted that the Northern nations have developed their own folk education systems with their specific traditional content, forms and tools that have always provided for the ethnic communities being well-protected and viable in the extreme historic periods and conditions [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8].

It should be mentioned that Yakutia is presently ranked high among the checkers favouring and promoting regions of Russia, with the Republican colours being defended by at least ten grandmasters raised in Yakutia. It is not unusual since the popularity of checkers in the Republic is second only to ethnic wrestling and a few other national sports. The multinational Sakha Republic (Yakutia) initiates and hosts many top-ranking international and national competitions and is proud of its great experience and accomplishments in the national tradition promotion and improvement process. National sports and games are considered an integral part of the Sakha people’s cultural heritage including the versatile and rich cultures of the local Northern ethnic minorities.

In the context of the ongoing socio-cultural transformations, the local cultural and educational establishments give a special role to the ethnic education promotion initiatives. The ethnic education traditions and cultural experience are increasingly appreciated as one of the key tools in the young peoples’ physical education process – since the national education system offers highly effective upbringing and culturing tools that are unlikely to ever lose their importance for the culture, education and health systems on the whole and for the ethnic-cultural progress of the indigenous ethnic minorities facing modern challenges in particular [3, 4].

Objective of the study was to analyse the ethnic-educational aspects and implications of the intellectual sports popular in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia).

Study results and discussion. Historical overviews of folk games on the whole and the Yakut (Sakha) ones in particular were provided by V.F. Afansyev-Aldanskiy in his monograph “Ethnic education systems of the non-Russian people of Siberia and Russian Far East” printed in 1979. He mentioned in this study, among other things, that the Yakut games have always been applied for cultural purposes since the earliest social progress stages and made a special emphasis on the labour- and economy-specific training and socialising goals in the context of the ethnic culture and traditions [1].

Many researchers who analysed the ethnic-educational aspects of the national physical culture and sports sector for the last few decades (Y.A. Barakhsanova, V.P. Barakhsanov, M.I. Baisheva, I.G. Portnyagin, A.I. Golikov, I.I. Gotovtsev, M.D. Gulyaev, V.P. Kochnev, I.A. Cherkashin et al) have mentioned the role of the national intellectual sports and games in flexibility, thinking ability, creative initiative, activity, mobility and other socially-important qualities shaping and developing process geared to secure a high competitiveness and viability of an individual in the rapidly changing world with its new technologies and industries (4, 5, 6, 8]. We would highlight the following two dominant approaches to the intellectual sport analyses in the ethnic-educational context.

Historical-cultural approach

The historical progress of intellectual games may be described as clearly regional, with the local ethnic cultures and traditions marked by their specific vectors or styles in the logical gaming heritage development process [5]. It may be pertinent to mention that most of the historical process analysts tend to agree that the modern and most popular intellectual games originated and were shaped up in the Asian East on both of the sides of India i.e. in China and Persia. The European West got the intellectual gaming culture from the Persian and Arabian travellers and since then the games remained virtually unchanged. Thus, the gaming culture research paradigms mostly favour the culture-specific approaches in analysing the intercultural similarities and differences in the communication and game culture sharing processes to find out how the genuine ideas and values of the intellectual games were inherited and developed by different nations in the modern history [2].

Ethnic-education approach

It was A.V. Kylasov who introduced and substantiated (in 2011) an ethnic sport theory in the national sport science. He noted in his primary work that the new ethnic sport paradigm that implies equality of cultures of all the people who accept and develop physical activity traditions of different nations was offered by Franz Boas in his ethnocentrism-rejecting theoretical concept of cultural value for ethnography [7]. Furthermore, A.V. Kylasov developed a basic glossary with clarifications and extensions of the existing notions. It should be mentioned in this context that the term ethnic sport in application to the traditional national games was in use since 1990 in studies by V.P. Kochnev and V.P. Prokopenko who used it as an umbrella notion for national sports. It was the doctoral thesis by V.P. Kochnev (founder of the Sports Museum in Yakutia, Professor of Physical Culture and Sports Institute under Ammosov ’s North-Eastern Federal University) who analysed in detail the importance, cultural values and benefits of ethnic education for athletic training systems [6].

Ethnic education is commonly accepted today as the key ethnic sport development tool. As provided by G.N. Volkov, ethnic education is the science focused on the traditional educational and cultural practices traditionally developed by different ethnic groups. The modern ethnic sport theory further clarifies this definition with relation to traditional physical activities, with the ethnic education defined as a cultural heritage of an ethnic-cultural community manifested in local language, traditions and rituals forming a basis for traditional national sports, games and competitions [3].

Based on the above definition, we would note that the modern ethnic education theory prioritises and analyses forms of physical activity that expressly manifest the local bodily and spiritual adaptations to the natural and cultural environments associated with specific physical practices – designed, among other things, to reproduce the identities of the relevant ethnic-cultural communities.

Conclusion. Presently Yakutia gives a high priority to the institutional building for the intellectual games and sports, with chess, checkers and other intellectual games ranked high on the list of the sports and physical culture forms most popular in the Republic. The increasing priority given to the ethnic education is due to the sports being considered one of the key cultural self-identification sectors pivotal for the national and state image.

It should be mentioned, therefore, that the increased interest in different intellectual sports and games is a global trend since they provide an indispensable toolkit for the individual creative and intellectual development.

Ethnic-educational components of the intellectual sports advancement process are designed in line with the core ideologies of the national republics and states proud of their athletes’ accomplishments on the global arenas viewing them as ambassadors for the national image. Sports have evolved to one of the national culture expression, identity and progress vehicles, and the high public interest in them encourages new competitive forms being designed in the intellectual sporting domain. The popular intellectual sports show an active progress, and their role in unification of different ethnic and social groups is indispensable.

References

1. Afanasyev V.F. Etnopedagogika nerusskikh narodov Sibiri i Dalnego Vostoka [Ethnopedagogics of non-Russian peoples of Siberia and the Far East]. Yakutsk: Yakutskoe knizhnoe izdatelstvo publ., 1979, 182 p.
2. Vinokurova U.A., Yakovets J.V. Arkticheskaya tsirkumpolyarnaya tsivilizatsiya. Ucheb. izdanie [Arctic Circumpolar Civilization. Teaching aid]. 2nd ed., sup. Novosibirsk: Nauka publ., 2016, 320 p.
3. Volkov G.N. Etnopedagogika. Uchebnik dlya stud. sred. i vyssh. ped. ucheb. zavedeniy [Ethnopedagogics. Textbook for stud. of sec. and higher ped. ed. institutions]. Moscow: Academia publ., 1999, 168 p.
4. Gotovtsev I.I. Etnopedagogicheskie aspekty fizicheskogo vospitaniya shkolnikov: Na opyte detsko-yunosheskoy sportivnoy shkoly Respubliki Sakha (Yakutiya). Dis kand. ped. nauk [Ethno-pedagogical aspects of school physical education: based on experience of the children's and youth sports school of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). PhD Diss.]. Cheboksary, 2003, 150 p.
5. Barakhsanova E.A., Barakhsanov V.P., Gulyaeva E.P., Savvinova R.V. Intellektualno-lichnostnoe razvitie uchashchikhsya v sisteme dopolnitelnogo obrazovaniya posredstvom pozitsionnykh igr [Positional games for intellectual-personal development of students in the system of additional education]. Moscow: MSRU publ., 2012, 160 p.
6. Kochnev V.P. Traditsionnye igry i natsionalnye vidy sporta korennykh narodov Yakutii v sovremennoy sisteme fizicheskogo vospitaniya. Dis. dokt. ped. nauk [Traditional games and national sports of indigenous peoples of Yakutia in modern physical education system. Doctoral diss. (Hab.)]. Yakutsk, 1998, 92 p.
7. Kylasov A.V. Etnosport. Konets epokhi vyrozhdeniya [Ethnosport. End of the degeneration era]. Moscow: Territoriya buduschego publ., 2013, 144 p.
8. Cherkashin I.A., Kornilova, A.G. Sotsialnaya adaptatsiya molodykh lyudey v sportivnom klube [Social adaptation of young people in sports club]. Yakutsk: MO RS (Ya) publ., 2001, 96 p.

corresponding author: v.baraxsanov@yandex.ru

Abstract

The article considers the intellectual gaming community establishment problems – with their solutions depending on how the governments and non-governmental organizations are committed for the idea of intellectual sports being promoted and integrated in their regions. Some solutions may be offered based on the practical experience of the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) enthusiasts of intellectual games who promote them with the other national sports. It should be emphasized that the intellectual sports in Yakutia were formalized when the relevant Sport (chess and checkers) Federations were established with the relevant rules of competitions and nominations of the winners plus the qualification criteria and qualifying regulations for different sport events. The modern history of intellectual games in Yakutia including the chess and checkers game promotion efforts have always been governed by the national priorities of the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic government striving to support the sport leaders on the global arenas viewing them as ambassadors for the national image. The study data and analyses gave the means to outline approaches to the intellectual sports promotion in the ethnic-educational context and overview the progress of the intellectual sports in the Sakha Republic (Yakutia) based on the ethnic education concepts. The study methodology was designed based on the modern ethnic sport theory and the relevant historical and cultural values. A special emphasis was made on the fact that the intellectual games were ranked as sport disciplines in Yakutia largely as a result of the governmental support for the high-ranking international competitions.