Sokol motto: ❛a healthy mind in a healthy body❜𖤗

༓ 𖥔 ༓ 𖥔 ༓ 𖥔

The blog preceding this one addressed the German-American phenomena of Turnverein (gymnastics-cum-social-cum-political associations in the US in the 19th and 20th centuries), detailing how the American Turners movement derived its inspiration from the philosophy and gymnastics theory of the Prussian educator Johann Friedrich Jahn. Jahn and the Deutsch Turnenschafts exerted a similar motivational effect on the Czech gymnastics movement’s genesis. Sokol (a Slavic word meaning “falcon”) was founded as a gymnastics, social and fraternal club by two ethnic Germans (Miroslav Tyrš and Jindřich Fügner) in Bohemia in 1862🅰. Sokol’s approach to physical education derived from Tyrš’ PE system placed an emphasis on mass calisthenics.

Just as Turnverein was transplanted into America and took root there, so did Sokol. In 1865 the first American Sokol was formed, just three years after the parent Bohemian organisation started! By 1937 there was nearly 20,000 members of Sokol societies in the US. Back in Europe Sokol became both a catalyst for Czech nationalism and patriotism and an expression of Pan-Slavism with Moravia (Slovakia), Poland, Bulgaria, Russia (including Belorussia and the Ukraine) and the southern Slav (Yugoslav) states all adopting a form of Sokol from the Czech prototype.

Sokol cf. Turnverein: the pursuit of physical fitness through the practice of gymnastics and calisthenics was the raison d’être of both Sokol and the American Turners, both movements were essentially male-focused and geared unequivocally towards the demonstration of masculinity. Underlying the physical educational aims of both were other ideals, a determination to use each’s movement to elevate a sense of group identity…in Sokol’s case, to help forge a sense of Czech nationalism (the practice of gymnastics as a national movement), and for German-Americans, to underpin and preserve the distinctive German-ness and cultural values of the immigrants in an non-German society. The question of politics was a point of departure for the two movements. The Turnverein associations were liberals/socialists by persuasion (at least up until the First World War) and actively supported progressive political causes. Sokol on the other hand in its stated principles was avowedly non-political. This in practice caused internal tensions within Sokol between older Czech members and younger ones, the latter openly advocating for the movement to embrace more direct political participation.

Slet fests: the pinnacle and showcase of the Sokol phenomena was the Slet🅱 festivals, these were mass, open-air extravaganzas for public consumption. Centrepiece of the Slet fest was thousands of athletes in a stadium exhibition of synchronised calisthenics, accompanied by stirring classical music. Complementing this were competitions in gymnastics and other sporting events, gatherings, parades and rallies, celebrations of culture and the arts. The first Slet was held in Prague in 1882, culminating in a mass calisthenics display. By the 1895 All-Sokol Slet Sokol’s growth and expansion was evident with around 5,000 men and boys performing in the stadium. The 1901 Slet was the first to include women as well as international participants from France and the US. The 1926 Slet (in an independent Czechoslovakia) was the first in the massive, purpose-built Strahov Stadium with a spectator capacity of 250,000 and 182,477 participants taking part (‘History of Prague Slets’, SOKOL Museum Library, www.sokolmuseum.org). After the Second World War the new communist regime in Czechoslovakia permitted only one more Slet to be held (1948) before the Slets and Sokol were suppressed, replaced in 1955 by the first Spartakiad, a mass exercises event and propaganda vehicle for the socialist Czechoslovakian regime, purportedly based on the Soviet Spartakiades. The reality was that the Spartakiads were adopted from the earlier Czech slets and it was only possible for the authorities to organise such a complex, large scale, mega-event with the expertise and active involvement of Sokol organisers (Petr Roubal) (‘The first ever Spartakiad mass exercise and how it was influenced by the Sokol movement’, Thomas McEnchroe, Radio Prague International, 23-Jun-2020, http://english.radio.cz). After the eclipse of communism in the Eastern Bloc, the Sokol Slet was revived in the early 1990s, albeit on a much smaller scale than hitherto.

𖤗 mirrors the Turnenfest/American Turners motto

🅰 then part of the Czech lands within the Austro-Hungarian Empire

🅱 in the Czech language meaning “a flock of birds” – to continue Sokol’s ornithological metaphor