Politics of Plastic Nationhood
Sokol Mass Gymnastics and Eugenics Between Empire and Nation-States
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 6185887 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lucija Balikić (0000-0002-7613-0747, Central European University, corresponding author), Vojtěch Pojar (0000-0002-4544-062X, Central European University) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 50 |
| Issue | 2-3 |
| Pages | 155-179 |
| Publication date | 2023-10-09 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | East Central Europe (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0094-3037 • E-ISSN: 1876-3308 |
| Publisher | Walter de Gruyter GmbH (PUBLISHER • DE) |
| DOI | 10.30965/18763308-50020002 |
| OpenAlex | W4387730945 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 17 |
This article examines how mass gymnastics in East Central Europe became increasingly entangled with eugenics. It traces the proliferation of eugenic discourses alongside the medicalization of gymnastics within Sokol, a mass nationalist voluntary association. In this context, the bodies of gymnasts became crucial sites of knowledge production and ideological projection. The article introduces the “politics of plastic nationhood,” a concept that foregrounds the fierce debates within Sokol over strategies to shape the imagined body of the nation though physical exercise. It also highlights key actors in these discussions, including medical doctors, physical anthropologists, and gymnastics trainers. The article shows that four major themes shaped these biopolitical disputes: health, diversity, gender, and ability. Focusing specifically on Sokol associations in interwar Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia and their prewar predecessors, the article outlines a chronology of the politics of plastic nationhood, which emerged in the Habsburg Empire and reached their zenith in the successor states. After imperial collapse, in particular, Sokol eugenicists sought to merge the diverse Slavic populations of the new states into a single “national body.” Owing to their perceived failure to achieve national unity, starting in the mid-1930s onward, eugenicists turned to rigid racial hierarchies, statism, and authoritarian politics
Empire · Eugenics · Ideology · Nationalism · Political science · Politics · Sociology · European history and politics · French Historical and Cultural Studies · Gender Studies · Historical Gender and Feminism Studies · Law
Political Biology
Elusive Compromise
The History of East-Central European Eugenics, 1900–1945
Geography and Nationalist Visions of Interwar Yugoslavia
Seeing Like a State
Race science in Czechoslovakia
Rationed life
Interwar Yugoslav state-building and the changing social position of the Sokol gymnastics movement
Shifting Boundaries of Public Health
Germany turns eastwards
The Sokol Movement from Yugoslav Origins to King Aleksandar’s 1930 All-Sokol Rally in Belgrade
National Liberals and their Progeny. Approaching the Peculiar Developments in Central European Liberal Party Traditions, 1867–1918
Struggling with Yugoslavism in the First Yugoslavia
Acta Poloniae Historica
Security, Territory, Population
Seeing Like a State
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 1 |
| Citation span | 2026 - 2026 (1) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 1 |