Cultural content of olympism: from antiquity to the present

The author of the article makes an attempt to reveal and conceptualise the little-investigated aspect of Olympism as a cultural-historical phenomenon. The article analyses the major provisions of the doctrine of Pierre de Coubertin, the founder of modern olympism. He was guided by the idea that every person has the right to free development of the abilities and he believed this idea to correspond with the agonal spirit of olympism. Pierre de Coubertin considered olympism as a specific way of humankind's modernization via education. Pierre de Coubertin attributed the ideal of olympism to the ancient Greek concept calokagatia, which meant a perfect person, characterized by the combination of external physical merits and internal moral virtues. The article advances the idea of socio-cultural nature of olympism. Cultural and philosophical analysis is concentrated on the characteristic of antique olympism as harmony of the body and the spirit. The historical conditionality of determinants by which the Greeks were guided in competitions is specially emphasized. These determinants meant deep respect for gods, patrons of athletes. Victory is not just a result of personal efforts, but also the god's choice of the best Greek, a citizen of the city. The author exposes the specific content of askesis, as it was understood during the epoch of Greek classics: the strengthening of self-discipline and overcoming of difficulties aimed at the development of courage, determination and moral perfection. Further, the article reveals the role of a sport competition as a method of a harmonious person formation. Pierre de Coubertin considered the features of an Olympic competition (pleasure from efforts, unconditional equality of opportunities and exception of any discrimination of competitors according to their social status) to comply with the spirit of his time. Modern olympism has not justified all Coubertin's hopes. Dehumanisation, technocratisation and commercialisation of sports in the second half of the 20th century showed the utopianism of the attempts to transfer the ideals of antique olympism into the modern practice of the Olympic movement.

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