Visual Representation of Body, Sport and Physical Culture, and the Process of Nationalization in Interwar Czechoslovakia
Abstract
The article introduces the concept of the doctoral thesis, whose central subject is the exploration of the visual representation of the body and physical culture in the socio-cultural context in interwar Czechoslovakia. Theme of the body associated with hygiene, discipline, education, with an emphasis on health, strength and beauty pervades intensely within Czech culture and is strongly present in society in the 1920s and 1930s.
Dissertation project is based (and focused) on iconic figures of Czechoslovak interwar Sports and Physical Culture (e.g. The Sokol movement, wrestler Gustav Frištenský, athlete and record woman Zdena Koubková, dancer and choreographer Milča Mayerová) that are in contemporary visual production exposed as different body types that exceed set out its scope towards a more general phenomenon of social affiliation and national identity.
These figures represent specific physical constructs and they work as both effective tools of figuration, and popularization of Czech national identity.