Gentlemen in competition

Athletics and Masculinities in nineteenth-century Hungary

Dados Bibliográficos

ID12220199
AutoresMiklôs Hadas (0000-0003-3143-1121, Corvinus University of Budapest, autor correspondente)
Ano2007
Volume24
Fascículo4
Páginas480-500
Data de publicação2007-04-01
Peer ReviewedSim
Open AccessNão
TipoARTICLE
PeriódicoThe International Journal of the History of Sport (JOURNAL)
Identificadores do periódicoISSN: 0952-3367 • E-ISSN: 1743-9035
EditoraRoutledge (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/09523360601157198
OpenAlexW2075659078
IdiomaEN
Citações recebidas1
Referências 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