Spartak (sports society)

Spartak is the name of an international gymnastic and sporting organization in the countries of the former USSR and suffix numerous sports clubs in the states of the former Eastern Bloc.

Origin of the name

The name derives - unlike, say, at Sparta Prague - not from the Greek Sparta from, but the Roman gladiator and slave leader Spartacus from the Russian form of the name (Russian Спартак ), whose revolt against the elite of the Roman Empire, particularly in the Soviet Union as a historical precursor of the own struggle was considered against the ruling class. The use in the sporting context is also due to the attempt of the Communists, to distinguish themselves from the " bourgeois capitalist " Olympic movement and this " proletarian " with the gladiator Spartacus own sporty model from antiquity to oppose.

Sports movement Spartak

During the workers 'sports in Germany a relatively long tradition has (had ) to grassroots sport developed in the USSR after the October Revolution and goes back to Nikolai Starostin, the initiative for the development of a workers' sports movement starting from Spartak Moscow in 1935 establishing the trade union worn All Unions Sports Association Spartak led. This event, organized in 1975, 6.2 million people in about 40 different sports. The approximately 23,000 local sports groups took 238 stadiums, 89 swimming pools, gymnasiums 1,800 and 1,300 football fields of the organization. After 1991 Spartak was reorganized as an international gymnastics and sports association and currently has six national member societies ( Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Azerbaijan).

With the expansion of the Soviet sphere of influence on the countries of Eastern Europe after the Second World War there the mass sports was organized along the lines of the USSR and also established sports clubs with the addition Spartak.

Thus, the suffix Spartak in the Soviet Union and a number of its satellite states indicated the membership of the Association for unionized or operationally organized sports movement. For more organization had Dinamo / Dynamo ( as a sports association of the security forces ) and CSKA (as worn by the army sports clubs ).

Many of these associations retained after the fall of communism in Eastern Europe its name:

  • In football Spartak Moscow, Russia
  • Spartak Nalchik, Russia
  • Spartak Semey, Kazakhstan
  • Spartak Trnava, Slovakia
  • Spartak Varna, Bulgaria
  • In Hockey Hockey club Spartak Moscow,

Former clubs were, inter alia,

  • Spartak Ashgabat, Spartak Yerevan, Spartak Sverdlovsk, Spartak Ordzhonikidze, Spartak Brno
Class conflict Classical antiquity Dynamo Sports Club FC Spartak Trnava Ice hockey BC Spartak Saint Petersburg DOSAAF
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