Road Cycling Racing in Poland of the Communist Regime Era: An Exercise in Oral History Method

Abstract

Does oral history as a research method bring a new epistemological quality to the history of sports? A focus on the history of the road cycling races in communist Poland (1944–1989), particularly ‘The Peace Race’, reveals the potential of oral history methodology. In the article, we confront our method with the research and interpretation matrix that has been dominating the history of sports in Poland for the last 30 years. In our research we did not break up with the archive, as it is often the case in oral history projects. Instead, we changed the direction and organisation of the research. The master category was an experience – both individual and collective. In the course of the fieldwork, more categories were found and new social actors appeared, as well as new spatial dimensions in sports history.