Volkssport, popular sport, is neither one single sport
nor a well-defined group of sports. It is as distinct in
different countries as the words volk (Flemish, German), narod (Russian), folk (Danish), népi (Hungarian), and people (English) are in different languages.
“Popular sport” can denote traditional, ethnic, or indigenous games as well as new games; regional sports
as well as premodern folk sports; spontaneous sports
of the lower classes as well as artificial folkloristic display; sport under right-wing ideologies (völkisch) as
well as under left-wing concepts (sport popolare).
History
There was no volkssport before the establishment of
modern industrial society. In earlier times, sport denoted pastimes—hunting, falconry, and fishing—of
social classes that clearly distinguished themselves
from “folk,” mainly the nobility and gentry. The aristocratic tournaments and the later noble exercises were
exclusive, too. Meanwhile, the common people had a
game culture of their own.
In early modern Europe, peasants and city dwellers
held their own festivities, which often centered around
dances, games, and competitions of strength and
agility. These games were connected with ritual festivities—often Christianized forms of pagan celebrations—like Jul or Christmas, erecting the May tree,
Shrovetide, Midsummer dance of Valborg or St. John,
harvest festivities, marriage, or kermis or wake.
Stand wrestling—like Breton gouren and Swiss
Schwingen—was popular, with many regional variations. Races with grotesque impediments made people
stumble (children’s sack races are a descendant of this
form). Violent ball fights through the open landscape—like Irish hurling and Breton soule—pitted village against village and expressed local and social
identity. Mock tournaments made fun of aristocratic
competitions. Aim-casting games with balls (boule)
and plates (palet), sword dances and round dances,
bird shooting, acrobatic shows, and animal fights were
put together with theater display, music, masquerade,
meals, and intoxication to form a whole festival.
The ruling classes tried persistently to restrict, control, or prohibit folk-game culture. The Protestant Reformation, the Catholic Counter-Reformation, and, especially, Puritanism and Pietism banned folk games
because they were pagan.
Modern Rise and Differentiation of Volkssport
With the rise of industrial society during the 19th century, gymnastics and sport were developed and promoted by schools and the military. In the process, elements of the earlier folk culture were transformed and
integrated into the new “rational” body culture. This
led, however, in different directions.
Certain elements of folk activity—from, for example, soccer, hurling, and wrestling—were transferred to
new patterns of producing results and records and
were thus sportified. Other elements from acrobatics
and “harmless,” so-called minor games were integrated
into the systems of gymnastics (volkstümliches
Turnen) and thus institutionalized for health and education. Further elements, especially from folk dance,
but also from such athletic exercises as Bavarian Fingerhakeln and Swiss Schwingen, were discovered as displays of regionality and nationality or as touristic attractions and thus folklorized. Controversies about the
national origin of these games and dances arose, and
attempts were made to reconstruct their “authentic”
forms and to keep them “pure” in the form of invented
traditions. In this context, the modern concept of
volkssport took form.
Under the title of volkssport a quite new framework
was created for something that was valued as ancient
and traditional. Certain games were now removed from
their original context and specialized in clubs and associations, where they were subjected to special rules.
The rise of volkssport also marked a new fascination with and significance of “folk” and the “popular”
for modern culture, contrasting sharply the former
derogatory attitudes toward these activities.Volkssport
broke the patterns of distinction between high and low
in society.
The reference to “folk” was, however, more than a
shift of attitudes about how to approach physical culture. In social reality, volkssport could become subversive, a trend especially evident in regions of ethnic and
national minorities. In Ireland in 1884, for example, the
Gaelic Athletic Association first promoted hurling as a
sport of liberation from the British rule and was closely
connected with Republican nationalism. In Brittany a
committee for gouren wrestling was begun in 1928, regulating classes of weight, record listing, dress, and
ceremonies; like the later Federation for Breton Traditional Sport, it reflected aspirations to Breton autonomy and nationalism inside France.
The demarcation of class cultures in industrial society added another dimension to volkssport. In 1938,
Danish Social Democratic workers’ culture started
Fagenes Fest, a festival of popular competitions such as
witty races and tug-of-war between different professions. In Portugal, meanwhile, a communistoriented practice of “popular games” still competes
with a conservative tendency in the framework of jogos
tradicionais.
The taming and standardization of folk activities by
modern disciplinary sport had, thus, its limits. Volkssport has always had two faces: one disciplined, one
subversive. Witness the struggle to include tug-of-war
in the early modern Olympic Games; after 1920 it was
excluded again because of its persistent image as nonserious folk competition.Meanwhile, however, the modernization of tug-of-war continued with the addition of
championships, federations, and standardization.
Decolonization, Festivity, and Identity
Since the 1980s, volkssport has received new attention.
In 1985 the first “Eurolympics of the Small Peoples and
Minorities” were hosted by Friesland in the Netherlands and included competitions in Celtic wrestling,
Frisian Streifvogelen, and singing. In 1990 the first
Journée Internationale de Jeux et Sports Traditionnels
took place in Carhaix (Brittany). The festival included
Breton folk games, Basque trunk hacking, Gaelic football, Icelandic glima, Scottish backhold wrestling, children’s games, and tug-of-war. In 1992, even as it welcomed the Olympic Games, the city of Barcelona
hosted a “Festival of the Particular Sports of Spain”
with competitions of force, regional forms of wrestling,
and Catalonian pelota.
That the Council of Europe sponsors these types of
activities and that organizations of Olympic sport try
to occupy this field—as by the festival “Traditional
Sports and Games of the World” in Bonn 1992—underscores the new significance of volkssport. In 1995
representatives from 24 countries set up in Copenhagen an “International Sport and Culture Association”
with a plan to promote meetings of popular sport
(folkelig idræt) and cultural festivities as a challenge to
the standardization imposed by Olympic sport.
The new attraction of volkssport also illuminates a
change in the relation of the Western culture to the rest
of the world. During the 19th and 20th centuries, sport
history had consisted of the diffusion of Western sports
to Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the disappearance of regional popular games and activities. This
long-term colonization process has been recently
counteracted by the revival—especially since the
1970s—of volkssport. The martial art pencak silat and
the ball game sepak takraw, for example, found new
support in Indonesia and Malaysia
The break with the long-term colonization in sports
assumed dramatic forms in Eastern Europe and Middle
Asia around 1989. The Soviet state had established a
monopoly in standard sport as a way to achieve internal
uniformity and high achievement in international competition. Folk sports among the Soviet nationalities
were—with few exceptions—repressed as“nationalist,”
“separatist,” and “religious.” The resurgence of folk activities was part of the revolution that made the Soviet
empire break down. The Kasakh New Year’s festivity
nauryz reappeared with its dances and games. Mongolians return—in the sign of Jingis Khan—to ancient
festivities with nomad equestrianism, belt wrestling,
and bow and arrow. Thus have festivity and volkssport
long marked identity and revolution.
Volkssport shows premodern, modern, and transmodern traits, while contrasting with the
mainstream of sport in the following respects:
The framework of volkssport is not discipline but
festival.
Volkssport is connected with cultural activities of
different kinds—music, joint song, dance, theater—and therefore never a “pure” discipline.
Volkssport does not aim to produce results but to
foster togetherness.
Volkssport resists standardization and, instead,
celebrates difference. In contrast to the display
of sameness and hierarchy, it makes otherness
visible.
Volkssport is linked to regional, ethnic, social, or
national identities and opposes tendencies of
uniformity. It opposes a “folk” view from below
to colonization from above.
—HENNING EICHBERG
Bibliography: Burke, Peter. (1978) Popular Culture in Early
Modern Europe. London: Temple Smith. Eichberg, Henning, and Jørn Hansen, eds. (1989) Körperkulturen und
Identität. Münster: Lit. Guttmann, Allen. (1994) Games
and Empires. Modern Sports and Cultural Imperialism.
New York: Columbia University Press.Vroede, Erik de, and
Roland Renson, eds. (1991) Proceedings of the Second European Seminar on Traditional Games. Actes du Deuxième
Séminaire Européen sur les Jeux Traditionnels. Leuven:
Vlaamse Volkssport Centrale.