Československé spartakiády – Roubal Petr (2016)

The book deals with the phenomenon of mass exercise at Czechoslovak Spartakiads from 1955 to 1985. The Spartakiads were personnel, organizational, and ideologically linked to the tradition of Sokol gatherings, which were inspired by the German Turner movement. Shortly after Gottwald's death, the party leadership decided to utilize this tradition for the purposes of legitimizing the new regime. The purpose of the mass and synchronized movement of exercisers at the Strahov Stadium, the largest stadium in the world, was literally the 'embodiment' of a special concept of the socialist people, who were to be the source of all power and at the same time completely malleable according to the wishes of the ruling party. The book also addresses the organization of the Spartakiads, which, alongside enormous financial resources, required the involvement of expert knowledge from hundreds of former Sokol officials, and the reaction of the wider public to them, especially the experience of the Spartakiads as a meaningful ritual by the exercisers themselves. The book received the Magnesia Litera 2017 award in the category of non-fiction literature.