Romanian Women’s Participation in Recreation and Sporting Activities at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

Abstract

Women’s participation in recreational and sporting activities at the turn of the twentieth century in Romania is a topic that has received only minimal attention but is important in understanding trends in Romanian society and especially the increasing prominence of women in public life at that time. In the nineteenth century, aristocratic women had engaged in various social, cultural, and leisure activities; however, in the early twentieth century, together with women from the emerging middle-class elite, they also exhibited a genuine interest in sports, mainly in the capital city, Bucharest, and in Sinaia, which afforded them extended roles in Romanian society. Gentlemen’s sports clubs promoted the sports movement and a renewal of Romanian club life, allowing women the opportunity to participate in numerous activities and even to become members of some of these exclusive societies. Women’s commitment to the evolution of sporting clubs and to sports such as cycling, horse racing, tennis, ice-skating, sledding, bobsleigh, and others signified their entrance into the field of sport – and further into public life – before World War I in a society that still imposed numerous restrictions on women.