The Spartakiad (or Spartakiade) was an international sports event that was sponsored by the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. Five international Spartakiades were held from 1928 to 1937. Later Spartakiads were organized as national sport events of the

Eastern Bloc The Eastern Bloc, also known as the Communist Bloc (Combloc), the Socialist Bloc, the Workers Bloc, and the Soviet Bloc, was an unofficial coalition of communist states of Central and Eastern Europe, Asia, Africa, and Latin America that were a ...

countries. The games were organised by Red Sport International.

Background

The

attempted to use Spartakiads to both oppose and supplement the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...

. In Russian, there is a certain parallelism in the names: "Spartakiada" and "Olimpiada". The name, derived from the name of the

slave Slavery is the ownership of a person as property, especially in regards to their labour. Slavery typically involves compulsory work, with the slave's location of work and residence dictated by the party that holds them in bondage. Enslavemen ...

rebel leader,

Spartacus Spartacus (; ) was a Thracians, Thracian gladiator (Thraex) who was one of the Slavery in ancient Rome, escaped slave leaders in the Third Servile War, a major Slave rebellion, slave uprising against the Roman Republic. Historical accounts o ...

Great Soviet Encyclopedia The ''Great Soviet Encyclopedia'' (GSE; , ''BSE'') is one of the largest Russian-language encyclopedias, published in the Soviet Union from 1926 to 1990. After 2002, the encyclopedia's data was partially included into the later ''Great Russian Enc ...

, 3rd edition, volume 24 (part 1), p. 286, Moscow, Sovetskaya Entsiklopediya publisher, 1976 was intended to symbolize

proletarian internationalism Proletarian internationalism, sometimes referred to as international socialism, is the perception of all proletarian revolutions as being part of a single global class struggle rather than separate localized events. It is based on the theory th ...

. As a classical figure, Spartacus also stood directly in contrast to the

aristocratic Aristocracy (; ) is a form of government that places power in the hands of a small, privileged ruling class, the aristocrats. Across Europe, the aristocracy exercised immense economic, political, and social influence. In Western Christian co ...

nature of the

Ancient Olympic Games The ancient Olympic Games (, ''ta Olympia''.), or the ancient Olympics, were a series of Athletics (sport), athletic competitions among representatives of polis, city-states and one of the Panhellenic Games of ancient Greece. They were held at ...

on which the modern "capitalist" Olympics were based. The first Winter Spartakiad was held in February 1928 in

Oslo Oslo ( or ; ) is the capital and most populous city of Norway. It constitutes both a county and a municipality. The municipality of Oslo had a population of in 2022, while the city's greater urban area had a population of 1,064,235 in 2022 ...

, and the first Summer Spartakiad was held in August 1928 in

Moscow Moscow is the Capital city, capital and List of cities and towns in Russia by population, largest city of Russia, standing on the Moskva (river), Moskva River in Central Russia. It has a population estimated at over 13 million residents with ...

. The first Spartakiads in the USSR took place in 1923 within formations of the

Red Army The Workers' and Peasants' Red Army, often shortened to the Red Army, was the army and air force of the Russian Soviet Republic and, from 1922, the Soviet Union. The army was established in January 1918 by a decree of the Council of People ...

and the Spartak Physical Culture organization in

Petrograd Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea. The city had a population of 5,601, ...

.Spartakiad
at

The Moscow Spartakiad in 1928 was also known as the All-Union Spartakiad. From the start of the 1930s in the Soviet Union, spartakiads of trade unions and the

Dynamo "Dynamo Electric Machine" (end view, partly section, ) A dynamo is an electrical generator that creates direct current using a commutator. Dynamos employed electromagnets for self-starting by using residual magnetic field left in the iron cores ...

physical culture sports society took place. In the 1950s, spartakiads of the Peoples of the USSR,

DOSAAF DOSAAF (), full name ''Volunteer Society for the Assistance to the Army, Aviation, and Navy'' (), was a paramilitary sport organization in the Soviet Union that was concerned mainly with weapons, automobiles and aviation. The society was establ ...

of the USSR, all-Union Spartakiads of students, international Spartakiads of "friendly armies of socialist and developing countries", and others were introduced.

List of Spartakiads

;Summer * 1928 –

* 1931 –

Berlin Berlin ( ; ) is the Capital of Germany, capital and largest city of Germany, by both area and List of cities in Germany by population, population. With 3.7 million inhabitants, it has the List of cities in the European Union by population withi ...

;Winter * 1928 –

* 1936 – Oslo

After World War II

Soviet Union

In 1952, the Soviet Union decided to join the Olympic movement, and international Spartakiads ceased, but the term continued to exist for internal sports events in the Soviet Union of different levels, from local up to the Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR (). The latter event was held twice in four years: Winter Spartakiad and Summer Spartakiad. The first Soviet Spartakiad was held in 1956. According to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, the number of participants in the 6th Summer Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR was 90 million people (twice the number of athletes in the USSR in that time), including 8,300 Masters of Sports of the USSR, and 20 million in the 3rd Winter Spartakiad of the Peoples of the USSR, including some 1,000 Masters of Sports of the USSR. These numbers however have been frequently called into question due to the low reliability and ideological bias of the Great Soviet Encyclopedia. The Winter and Summer Spartakiads of the Peoples of the USSR were each commemorated on a series of

postage stamp A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail). Then the stamp is affixed to the f ...

s, released in millions of copies. Until 1975, all summer finals were held in Moscow, later in other cities throughout the Soviet Union (though most events were still held in Moscow). The winter editions' finals were often held in Sverdlovsk.

Czechoslovakia

The name Spartakiáda was also used for a mass gymnastics display, which was held every five years at the Strahov Stadium in

Prague Prague ( ; ) is the capital and List of cities and towns in the Czech Republic, largest city of the Czech Republic and the historical capital of Bohemia. Prague, located on the Vltava River, has a population of about 1.4 million, while its P ...

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

. The first event of this name was held, however, already in 1921, and its initiator Jiří František Chaloupecký is credited as the inventor of the name.

Albania

Six similar events were held in

Albania Albania ( ; or ), officially the Republic of Albania (), is a country in Southeast Europe. It is located in the Balkans, on the Adriatic Sea, Adriatic and Ionian Seas within the Mediterranean Sea, and shares land borders with Montenegro to ...

during communist rule as well (in 1959, 1969, 1974, 1979, 1984, and 1989).

Other

In 1984, the Soviet Union organised the

Friendship Games The 1984 Friendship Games, or Friendship-84 (, ''Druzhba-84''), was an international multi-sport event held between 2 July and 16 September 1984 in the Soviet Union and eight other Eastern Bloc states which boycotted the 1984 Summer Olympics in ...

, aimed at countries which boycotted the

1984 Summer Olympics The 1984 Summer Olympics (officially the Games of the XXIII Olympiad and commonly known as Los Angeles 1984) were an international multi-sport event held from July 28 to August 12, 1984, in Los Angeles, California, United States. It marked the ...

References

External links

KÙPELE CENTRAL
avant-garde film by Sabine Maier (MACHFELD) dealing on the Spartakiad. {{Multi-sport events Recurring sporting events established in 1928 Recurring sporting events disestablished in 1937 Politics and sports Workers' sport Multi-sport events in the Soviet Union