Századok – 2023

2023 / 4. szám - FUTBALLPÁLYÁK, KÉNYSZERPÁLYÁK - Kiss László – Mitrovits Miklós: A sport és a szakszervezetek – a sportegyesületi struktúra átalakítása Kelet-Közép-Európában

KISS LÁSZLÓ - MITROVITS MIKLÓS

SPORTS AND

TRADE UNIONS

-THE TRANSFORMATION

OF

THE

NETWORK OF

SPORTS ASSOCIATIONS IN EAST-CENTRAL EUROPE

By László

Kiss

— Miklós

Mitrovits

SUMMARY

Amid the radically altered political and economic conditions that prevailed after 1945 the transformation of sport presented itself as one of the major symbolic goals, and its direction immediately generated political action. After 1948, the will of the Communist Party became dominant in the sports as well, and the total reshaping of the direction and framework of sports life began. Bourgeois clubs were suppressed, sports life was attached to the trade unions, and the representative clubs of the power-enforcement agencies were established. The Hungarian process was far from unique: in 1948-1949 the sports associations in Czechoslovakia and Poland were likewise taken over to state control, and, alongside the formation of a unitary state sports-policy the administrative transformation joined to mass sport, and the related connection of trade unions and sports associations, was launched. Identifying the common elements of the Hungarian, Polish and Czechoslovak systems, the paper presents the general features of the sovietization process of sport on the basis of contemporary documents, archival and published sources, statistical data and oral recollections.

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