Spartak Moscow

Robert Edelman

Description

In the informative, entertaining, and generously illustrated Spartak Moscow, a book that will be cheered by soccer fans worldwide, Robert Edelman finds in the stands and on the pitch keys to understanding everyday life under Stalin, Khrushchev, and their successors. Millions attended matches and obsessed about their favorite club, and their rowdiness on game day stood out as a moment of relative freedom in a society that championed conformity. This was particularly the case for the supporters of Spartak, which emerged from the rough proletarian Presnia district of Moscow and spent much of its history in fierce rivalry with Dinamo, the team of the secret police. To cheer for Spartak, Edelman shows, was a small and safe way of saying "no" to the fears and absurdities of high Stalinism; to understand Spartak is to understand how soccer explains Soviet life.Champions of the Soviet Elite League twelve times and eleven-time winner of the USSR Cup, Spartak was founded and led for seven decades by the four Starostin brothers, the most visible of whom were Nikolai and Andrei. Brilliant players turned skilled entrepreneurs, they were flexible enough to constantly change their business model to accommodate the dramatic shifts in Soviet policy. Whether because of their own financial wheeling and dealing or Spartak's too frequent success against state-sponsored teams, they were arrested in 1942 and spent twelve years in the gulag. Instead of facing hard labor and likely death, they were spared the harshness of their places of exile when they were asked by local camp commandants to coach the prisoners' football teams. Returning from the camps after Stalin's death, they took back the reins of a club whose mystique as the "people's team" was only enhanced by its status as a victim of Stalinist tyranny. Edelman covers the team from its days on the wild fields of prerevolutionary Russia through the post-Soviet period. Given its history, it was hardly surprising that Spartak adjusted quickly to the new, capitalist world of postsocialist Russia, going on to win the championship of the Russian Premier League nine times, the Russian Cup three times, and the CIS Commonwealth of Independent States Cup six times.In addition to providing a fresh and authoritative history of Soviet society as seen through its obsession with the world's most popular sport, Edelman, a well-known sports commentator, also provides biographies of Spartak's leading players over the course of a century and riveting play-by-play accounts of Spartak's most important matches-including such highlights as the day in 1989 when Spartak last won the Soviet Elite League on a Valery Shmarov free kick at the ninety-second minute. Throughout, he palpably evokes what it was like to cheer for the "Red and White." For historic film of Spartak Moscow playing against the Wolverhampton Wanderers (the "Wolves") in 1954 and 1955, click here:https://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=38828and here:https://www.britishpathe.com/record.php?id=39604

Sujets

• Former Soviet Union
• USSR
• Post-Soviet states
• History of sport
• 20th century
• Soviet Union
• Russia
• History of Europe
• Union des républiques socialistes soviétiques
• Russie

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 novembre 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9780801466168
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 3 Mo

Extrait

SPARTAK MOSCOW

Nikola Starostin in the 1930s

SPARTAK MOSCOW

A History of the People’s Team in the Workers’ State

R O B E RT E D E L M A N

Cornell University Press

Ithaca & London

Frontispiece: Spartak Moskva: Offitsialnaia istoriia.

Copyright © 2009 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850.

First published 2009 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Edelman, Robert, 1945– Spartak Moscow : a history of the people’s team in the workers’ state / Robert Edelman. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 9780801447426 (cloth : alk. paper) 1. Spartak (Soccer team)—History. 2. Soccer—Soviet Union—History. 3. Soccer—Social aspects—Soviet Union. I. Title.

GV943.6.S64E34 2009 796.334094731—dc22

2009019268

Cornell University Press strives to use environmentally responsible suppliers and materials to the fullest extent possible in the publish ing of its books. Such materials include vegetablebased, lowVOC inks and acidfree papers that are recycled, totally chlorinefree, or partly composed of nonwood fibers. For further information, visit our website at www.cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Cloth printing 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

For Louis, Nicholas,

and Elizabeth Edelman

Contents

1 2 3 4 5

6 7 8 9

Preface Some Words on Usage

Introduction Spartak’s Roots:Futbolin the ’Hood, 1900–1917 Before There Was Spartak, 1917–1935 The Battle Is Joined, 1936–1937

On Top and Bottom, 1937–1944

The Golden Age of Soviet Soccer: Spartak in Eclipse, 1945–1948

Spartak Resurgent, 1949–1952

Thaw, Change, and Resurrection, 1953–1956

Goodbye, Golden Age, 1957–1964 Uncertainly Ever After, 1964–1991 Conclusion

Appendixes 1. Team Records, 1922–1991307 2. Annual Results308 3. Edelman’s Spartak Hall of Fame310 Abbreviations Notes Index

ix xv

1 10 42 78 114

136 163 195 231 257 303

311 313 337

Preface

S itting her e more than forty years after the fact, I have come to realize I have been studying Spartak since 1965. That summer, I went to the USSR for the first time to learn Russian at Moscow State University. The Vietnam War was just heating up, and like many undergraduates of that era, I was less than en amored of the United States and its imperialist ways. As many had done be fore me, I had come to Moscow to see how the “future” worked. Though I had studied Russian history for the previous three years and knew the USSR had its problems, I had hoped to find something positive about the place. After about a month, our group was taken to nearby Lenin Stadium to see that year’s cup final between Spartak and Dinamo Minsk. I cannot say my initial expo sure to Spartak was a case of love at first sight. The entire experience turned out to be chaotic and frightening, with overzealous police beating drunk and disorderly fans. A halftime visit to the restroom is best left undescribed. By the time the night was over, I was well convinced the Bolshevik Revolution had been a big mistake. Soviet soccer fans were not a good advertisement for what many of us later came to call “presently existing socialism.” I returned in 1970 as a graduate student to spend the academic year at Moscow State while researching my dissertation on prerevolutionary gentry politics. Living and working in the Soviet Union was far from an easy expe rience. Eventually I came to understand that I might hang on to a bit of sanity by engaging in the same kinds of activities—in this case sport—that had helped me deal with stress in America. I made friends with male Soviet stu dents who were glad to take me to football matches. After about ten such games, I began to wonder why one of the teams we went to see was always Spartak. I also wondered why the only sport they cared about was soccer. “Couldn’t we just once take in some gymnastics?” They sat me down and ex plained. Football was the “people’s game,” and Spartak was “the people’s