Presentations by Streams

Entangled histories of the Cold War have shown that multilevel interactions took place across the Iron Curtain. Different types of actors (peoples, states, and institutions) cooperated and developed transnational connections, from the macro-level, to the regional- and micro-levels. Ideas, techniques, objects, and individuals circulated throughout the blocs, and between them. In sports, the Cold War period coincided with an era of growing internationalisation, catalysed by improving transportation and international connections, enhanced standards of living and a growth in leisure time, as well as by decolonisation and the adoption by newly independent countries of sports as a means of affirming independence, or to symbolise modernity.
In terms of sports historiography, the focus on these phenomena is relatively new. Histories of sport in Eastern Europe continue to be divided into a collection of national studies, with relatively frequent state-centric biases. This panel intends to examine how athletes, referees, and sports administrators, along with the techniques and methods that they employed, circulated through Europe and crossed the Iron Curtain on a regular basis. It will examine the dynamics of sports interactions during the Cold War, between the Western and the Eastern blocs, to analyse the actors engaged in them and to shed light on the impacts which such encounters had upon their socio-economic positions, achievements, and careers.