Articles
Modest Riding Missies or Victorious Amazons? A Gender Historical Approach to the History of Women’s Equestrianism in Switzerland (1900–1940)
Noemi Steuerwald
pp. 5–27
Until the beginning of the 20th century, female riders were subject to rigid gender-specific conventions in Swiss equestrian sport. They were expected to ride in the demure yet dangerous side-saddle, to practise the sport in a moderate manner and to dress according to fashion dictates of the time. In addition, women were not allowed to participate in equestrian competitions. However, in the 1920s and 1930s, female riders started to challenge these customs by riding astride in breeches or participating in women-only competitions. From the mid-1920s onwards, they were also admitted in mixed-gender competitions, where their performance was directly comparable to that of male riders. Through their sporting successes, women riders refuted the female gender role and the prevailing gender order in a concrete, visible and measurable way. Despite these interesting insights in relation to the category of gender, women’s equestrianism in Switzerland has received little scholarly attention. This article thus provides the first account of the sport’s development in Switzerland from a cultural, gender and sport historical perspective. Furthermore, by examining how general trends for female liberation are reflected in equestrian sport, the contribution explores the interference between societal gender norms and historical sporting practice. – Keywords: Equestrian Sport; Gender History; Cultural History; Sports History; Historical Animal-Human Studies.
German-French Sports Relations 1919–1942
Hans Joachim Teichler
pp. 28–56
The article begins with Germany’s exclusion from the Olympic Games 1920 in Antwerp and 1924 in Paris. Whereas sports relations between Germany and France slowly returned to normal in bourgeois sports, French workers’ sportsmen already in 1922 visited the festival of the workers’ sport federation in Leipzig. After these preliminary remarks the article focuses on the National Socialist era. From 1933 to 1939 France was Germany’s most favoured sport partner. The German Reich used the Olympic Games of 1936 to present itself as a peace-loving country. However, as the occupation of the demilitarized Rhineland on March 7, 1936 shows – between the Winter Olympics in Garmisch-Partenkirchen (February 6–16) and the Summer Olympics in Berlin (August 1–16) – this was only camouflage. The article enlarges on the initially very positive, but in the end exceedingly critical French press coverage of the Olympic Games in Berlin. The harsh criticism of the “jeux défigurés” provoked the well-known reply by Coubertin, who expressed himself positively about the “Berlin Games illuminated by Hitlerist strength and discipline”. The German-French skiing leisure activities 1938, organized by the Hitlerjugend (HJ), were exploited by the propaganda as a symbol of common understanding. The gestures of understanding culminated in a joint cultural conference in Baden-Baden, where for the first time a bust of Coubertin was set up. In spite of the violation of the Munich Agreement and the occupation of Prague by German troops, several French sports associations came to athletic competitions to Germany in summer 1939. The article ends with the Reichssportführer’s futile attempts to continue sports relations with France during war time. – Keywords: International Sports Relations; Summer Olympics 1936; French Press Coverage; Coubertin; Hitler; National Socialism.
The Return of the “Alumni”: Charged “Ski Heroes” and the National Socialist Legacy in Austrian Skiing
Andreas Praher
pp. 57–89
Alpine skiing played a central role in the nation-building process of the Second Austrian Republic. To this day skiing in Austria is a national affair of the highest rank. In post-war-narratives, celebrated stars became untouchable. They served as national heroes and role models for the tourism industry and media. Sport officials and state politicians made it their task to present skiing as the national sport and to emphasize Austria’s hegemonic role in it. In the wake of this operetta-like depiction, myths and male-dominated heroic stories have inscribed themselves in the seemingly innocent white of the snow. In this way, the illusion of a snow-covered idyllic parallel world has been powerfully feeding the “ski nation” Austria for decades – a nation with lost memory. The analysis focuses on the National Socialist legacy in Austrian skiing in the post-war-years and describes how mostly male athletes and sport officials used the victim myth to wash themselves clean. This article shows how the National Socialist past was repressed and reinterpreted. – Keywords: Skiing; National Socialism; Austria; Sport Myths; Nation Building; Sport Heroes; Denazification.
Congregations and the Nomads: An Exploration of the Words, Deeds and Journeys of Football Fandom
Gary Armstrong and Hans Kristian Hognestad
pp. 90–120
Football support is enacted in local cultural contexts encompassed with transnational possibilities. Such support offers arenas for playing with identity and the chance to validate a host of social relations. In what follows analysis attempts to explain the journeys of two Norwegian brothers whose excursions to England to visit as many football grounds as they could require time, funding, motivation and planning. The inquisitive academics who sometimes accompanied them on such sojourns sought a rationale for such movement; what was the motivation? And what inspired the expending of such time and energies? Aware of commentators of the global game often speaking about football support as being akin to a “religion” for its devoted followers, the potential of quasi-religious analysis being applied to football support is a feasible route of inquiry. However, the two brothers that this analysis focuses on did not theorise their pursuit. They acted on their mutual enthusiasm, not without forethought and reflection, but did not feel any need to justify what they did. Their journeys carried the task of completing a collection, but one they set themselves and on a route that suited them. Such movement provoked considerations around notions of pilgrimage; but to what extent was anything sacred and to what potential revelation their journeys were carried out for was hard to realise. Essentially a study of trans-national (sporting) fascination the brothers’ journeys carried both the sense of the routine and the exceptional and were in essence a never-ending celebration of of encounters that in some ways replicated that the brothers similarly enjoyed in their domestic sphere but in some ways was very different. – Keywords: Football (Soccer); Religion; Pilgrimage; Fandom; Football Grounds; Groundhopping; England; Norway; Leasure; Rituals; Public Houses (Pubs).
