»Pod avantgardním rudým lidstva znamením«. Czechoslovakian Spartakiads as education in masculinity through the body and language

Abstract

The mass gymnastic events, called Spartakiads, were the most important festival in Czechoslovakiaa. From 1955 till 1985 they were organised every fifth year. The practice of mass gymnastic displays abused the human body as ideological variable. But the heavy ideological load of the Spartakiad festivities did not prevent people from appropriating the ritual. Spartakiads became as education in masculinity through the body and language (commentary). This text deals with the crisis of masculinity in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s. This text deals with the crisis of masculinity in Czechoslovakia in the 1970s and 1980s. The author shows how the communist authorities solved this problem by using the army in the Spartakiada as a gymnastic formation. Soldiers became a symbol of masculinity and a carrier of true and desirable masculine qualities.