Frank, William D. Everyone to Skis! Skiing in Russia and the Rise of Soviet Biathlon (review)

Abstract

SEER, 92, 3, JULY 2014 576 though propaganda about labour competition and cultural enlightenment was accompanied by considerable cynicism and disorganization, nonetheless the autobiographical evidence and contemporary sociological research suggest that Nowa Huta also inspired enthusiasm and affection. This was especially true by the 1960s, when the infrastructure had finally been built, living standards had improved considerably and ‘skilled workers almost universally aspired for their children to gain a university degree’ (p. 158). On the other hand, for some groups opportunities closed in parallel with de-Stalinization. Lebow shows how both women and Roma benefited from equal opportunities campaigns during the Stalinist period but saw these gains rescinded after 1956. ‘Nowa Huta, meant to have led the way toward women’s equality at work, now exhibited the reverse trend: by the late 1950s, the district had one of the lowest rates of female employment in urban Poland. […] The shift was officially framed as a return to a traditionally Polish understanding of women’s essential role as a mother and a rejection of the “foreign” [i.e. Soviet] idea that women should perform the same work as men’ (p. 122). Although the book’s title suggests that it ends in 1956, in fact chapter six continues the story through to 1989 and beyond. Lebow suggests that ‘Nowa Huta’s embrace of Solidarity in the 1980s […] cannot simply be seen […] as a shedding or rejection of the Stalinist experience, a kind of prodigal son’s return’ (p. 154). Instead, there was always opposition, most importantly the battle over building the church, but also many smaller incidents. In 1968, ‘school dormitories in Nowa Huta has to be put under virtual lockdown to prevent secondary and technical school students from joining their protesting peers in Kraków’ (p. 170). 1970 — usually associated with the events on the Baltic coast — saw the replacement of the steelworks’ general director and first party secretary ‘“under pressure from the workforce”’ (p. 171). Overall, this is an exceptionally readable book which will be enjoyed by anyone interested in Polish history and which is also an important contribution to the literature on social dimensions of Stalinism. Department of Politics, Languages and International Studies A. White University of Bath Frank, William D. Everyone to Skis! Skiing in Russia and the Rise of Soviet Biathlon. Northern Illinois University Press, DeKalb, IL 2013. xii + 396 pp. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. $39.95. William D. Frank’s book on Soviet biathlon adds to our knowledge of Soviet sports in several ways. Recognized as a ‘serious’ field of historical study during the last decade, more recent studies and collections on Soviet sports have focused on internationally well-known spectator sports, the most prominent REVIEWS 577 being football. Ice hockey comes in a close second, due to the highly politicized atmosphere around the Cold War hockey games between the USSR and prominent Western rivals such as the USA, Canada or Finland. Biathlon, on the other hand, at first seems an odd choice for a full-blown monograph. A combination of skiing and shooting, it is usually regarded as a direct successor to military patrol events but was formally recognized as an Olympic discipline by the IOC in 1954. Frank, however, places the evolution of biathlon within the larger context of Nordic (cross-country) skiing and opens his account with a concise overview of the evolution of skiing in Russia. He also argues that both the Soviet popularity of this militarized sport and the strong official support for biathlon are closely connected to the Soviet-Finnish war of 1940 (the so-called ‘Winter War’) in which the Finnish soldiers’ proficiency on skis gave them an important and unexpected advantage over the Soviet forces. The author rightly places great emphasis on this crucial episode — both for subsequent Soviet changes in military training, technique and equipment, and as the beginning of a longstanding Finnish-Soviet rivalry in biathlon and skiing. It is tempting to see biathlon as a near-ideal Soviet sport, favoured primarily for ideological reasons — Soviet sports ideology focused on military preparedness and mass practice, and the patriotic myth of the pogranichnik (the armed guard at the country’s frontiers) was ubiquitous during the Stalin years. Indeed...