Gentlemen in competition

Athletics and Masculinities in nineteenth-century Hungary

Datos Bibliográficos

ID12220199
AutoresMiklôs Hadas (0000-0003-3143-1121, Corvinus University of Budapest, autor de correspondencia)
Año2007
Volumen24
Número4
Páginas480-500
Fecha de publicación2007-04-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessNo
TipoARTICLE
RevistaThe International Journal of the History of Sport (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0952-3367 • E-ISSN: 1743-9035
EditorialRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09523360601157198
OpenAlexW2075659078
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas1
Referencias citadas6

This article highlights how athletics emerged in Hungary in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. The research is based on empirical historical-sociological work carried out using an inductive logic. It is argued that athleticism, a manifestation of the Victorian ‘games ethic’, was the activity of free gentlemen pursuing competition at their own risk and for their own glory. The freedom of the athlete was manifest in the pursuit of his activity outdoors in free space as against the turner, confined indoors in the closed gymnasium. A gentleman undertaking to express legitimate manliness in the last quarter of the nineteenth century had to differentiate himself not only from emancipatory women but also from the rising middle classes. The main paradox of this sport was that while in terms of its organizational form it attempted to be aristocratic and exclusive, in terms of its spirit (owing to the emphasis on the importance of competitiveness) it was a par excellence product of imperialism and capitalism. This explains why the middle classes appropriated it quickly

Capitalism · Competition (biology · Excellence · Glory · Political science · Politics · Quarter (Canadian coin · Sociology · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · History · Law · Sport and Mega-Event Impacts · Sports, Gender, and Society