Looking into the turbulent modern history of Russia through the mirror of sports

Body Culture and Sports in Soviet Russia by Professor Won-Yong Park, who has been studying social changes in Russia after the revolution, refers to many images and everyday experiences. In this book, the author uses the subject of ‘sports’ to explain the process of change in Soviet society from the 1920s, and introduces the word ‘heat war’ between the Soviet Union and the United States, which took place around the Olympic stage. The most notable point in this book is that it approaches the modern history of Russia after the revolution through the element of ‘sports’. The Soviet Union played an important role in the international order after World War II. The Stalin regime was the period that formed the basic framework of the Soviet Union. However, the existing political and social structural approaches have not aroused readers' interest in modern Russian history.

The author introduces modern Russian history through the subject of ‘soft’ sports, breaking away from the existing approach. However, this does not mean giving up the overall view of Soviet modern history and emphasizing only microscopic areas such as sports. This is because cultural domains such as sports could not exist in isolation from the general governing ideology or policy direction due to the characteristics of the Soviet social structure. The author examines the political and social changes in Russia through sports, and looks into the Russian history leading to the 1920s, Stalin era, and the Cold War era.