The upbringing of the younger generation as one of the urgent socio-cultural problems of mankind described in the works of thinkers of Antiquity, the Renaissance and Enlightenment by foreign and domestic authors of the 19th-20th centuries. In the paradigm of the upbringing of the younger generation the emphasis is on a comprehensively developed personality that embodies the unity of the spiritual, intellectual and physical principles. The subject of research is the ideas of physical education of the younger generation, reflected in the storylines of the works of art of the Russian literature classics. The purpose of the study is to actualize the ideas of physical education reflected in the works of Russian classics of the 19th - early 20th centuries, in the context of the problem of harmonious personal development. The used methodology of the interdisciplinary approach determines the inclusion in the study of an analysis of examples from the works of L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, I. A. Bunin, A. I. Kuprin, G. I. Uspensky, V. V. Nabokov, etc. illustrating the reflection of the phenomenon of physical culture and sports in Russian literature. The author concludes that the texts of works of art reflect an understanding of the positive impact of physical education and sports on the comprehensive harmonious development of the individual, and therefore the experience of the past can be considered as positive. In educational institutions of prerevolutionary Russia, as well as in noble families, the issues of physical education and the development of the younger generation were of great importance in the formation of the need for a healthy lifestyle, active leisure, and health promotion.