The story
Founded by Jindřich Fügner and Miroslav Tyrš on Feb 16, 1862.1
Early history
The idea for physical training centers was not a new one. The Sokol movement consciously traced its roots in physical education to the athletes and warriors of Ancient Greece. More directly, the nature of Sokol was influenced by the German Turnverein, mass-based, nationalist-minded gymnastics societies founded by Friedrich Ludwig Jahn in 1811.
Miroslav Tyrš, the founder of the first Sokol in Prague in 1862, was the most influential figure in the movement until his death in 1884. Born Friedrich Emanuel Tirsch into a German-speaking family in 1834, Tyrš grew up under the influence of the Romantic nationalism that gave rise to the uprisings that swept across Europe in 1848. He received a thorough education at the University of Prague, where he majored in philosophy. It was not until the early 1860s that he became involved in the Czech nationalist cause and changed his name to the Slavic form. After he failed to find a position in academia, Tyrš combined his experience working as a therapeutic gymnastics trainer with the nationalist ideologies he had been exposed to in Prague: Sokol meaning "falcon", was born.
The first Sokol club worked to develop new Czech terminology for the training exercises, which centred on marching drills, fencing, and weightlifting. They designed a uniform that was a mix of Slavic and revolutionary influences: brown Russian trousers, a Polish revolutionary jacket, a Montenegrin cap, and a Garibaldi red shirt. A Sokol flag, red with a white falcon, was designed by the writer Karolína Světlá and painted by the artist Josef Mánes.
The Prague Sokol initially drew its leaders from the ranks of politicians and its members from the petite bourgeoisie and working classes. The first president was Jindřich Fügner, an ethnic German who was a member of the Czech cause. Most founders were also members of the Young Czechs party, the most influential including Prince Rudolf von Thurn-Taxis, Josef Barák, and Julius and Eduard Grégr. The authorities of Austria-Hungary kept a close eye on the movement, but Sokol's reputation and prestige continued to grow. Soon, its members were known as the "Czech national army".
1860s and 1870s: Initial growth, militarization, and internal problems
Within the first year, Sokols expanded beyond Prague, first into the Moravian and the Slovenian regions of the Habsburg empire. Initially, the majority of members were students and professionals, but over time, there was a trend towards increasingly working-class members.
Sokol training became increasingly militarized during the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, when members were hired as guards for public events. This militaristic side of the movement continued to resurface throughout its history.
The internal issues that were to plague the Sokol movement over the years emerged almost immediately. They reached fruition during the 1870s, with a leadership power struggle between the Old Czechs and Young Czechs. Theoretically, Sokol was a society "above politics". Openly nationalistic, the more conservative members of the movement argued that the organization should maintain its distance from politics, while the Young Czechs advocated more direct political participation. Theoretically, Sokol was also open equally to members of all classes. The informal "thou" (ty) was used by all members, but there were constant arguments over whether this was necessary or not. Some leaders believed that Sokol was a mass-based institution defined by its working-class members, while others viewed it more as a middle-class apparatus by which to educate and raise the national consciousness of the working classes.
1880s: Slets and Sokol union
In 1882, the first slet was held. Slet came from the Czech word for "a flocking of birds" (Czech plural: slety), since the organization's name referred to a falcon. The same word, "slet", exists or can be synthesized from common Slavic roots in other Slavic languages. The event became a grand tradition within the Sokol movement that spread across Central Europe, together with other Slavic movements, such as the political Pan-Slavism. The events included an elaborate opening ceremony, mass demonstrations, gymnastics competitions, speeches, and theatrical events, open to members of all Sokols.
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In 1887, the Habsburg authorities finally allowed, after over twenty years worth of proposals, the formation of a union of Sokol clubs—Česká obec sokolská (Czech Sokol community), or ČOS. This centralized all the Sokols in the Czech lands and sent Sokol trainers to the rest of the Slavic world to found similar institutions in Kraków, Ljubljana, Zagreb, Sarajevo, and even the Russian Empire (FC Spartak Moscow).
In 1889, though officially forbidden by the authorities, members of the Prague Sokol went to the World's Fair in Paris. There, they won several medals and established strong connections with French gymnasts.
1890s: progressive era
The 1890s were a progressive era for the Sokols. In order to encourage wider participation, the clubs reformed their programs, offering training sessions of varying intensities, extending their libraries, emphasizing the educational aspect of training, and starting programs for adolescents, youth, and women. There was an increasing focus on mass-based ideology and working-class egalitarianism under the leadership of the Young Czechs, namely Jan Podlipný, who was also the mayor of Prague from 1897 until 1900.
The second slet was held in 1891, and the third one in 1895. At this juncture, the congress of the Sokol union laid out its new, progressive trajectory, electing to continue to provide accessible forms of training, with less focus on competition and more on an egalitarian idea of people's gymnastics, balancing mental as well as physical education.
1900–1914: competitors and neo-Slavism
The rise of the Czech Social Democratic Party and agrarian parties in the political arena played out in Sokol politics as well as national ones. The Social Democrats formed a rival gymnastics society, the Workers' Gymnastic Union (Dělnická tělovýchovná jednota, DTJ). Václav Kukař, a powerful ČOS figure, developed the policy of "cleansing" (očištění) and sought to limit membership to those who he believed demonstrated commitment to purely Czech causes. Most of the progressive members of the Sokols were purged or left voluntarily to join the DTJ. Another rival gymnast society was founded by the Christian Social Party under the name Orel ("eagle"). In the face of such competition, the Sokols set about reaffirming their traditional mission under the leadership of Josef Scheiner.
The fourth slet, held in 1901, boasted a large international participation, including Galician Poles, Ukrainians, Slovenes, Croats, Russians, Bulgarians, Serbs, as well as Frenchmen and Americans. This slet also marked the first participation of women.
The fifth slet, held in 1907, had an increasingly Slavic focus and moved away from the more egalitarian idea of people's gymnastics, with increased competition aspects. It marked the creation of the Federation of Slavic Sokols under the neo-Slavic idea of the Czechs as the strongest Slavic nation, second only to Russia.
At the 1910 meeting of the ČOS congress, the Sokols reaffirmed their intentions to remain "above politics" and loosened their strict membership rules to admit Social Democrats.
In 1912, the first "All-Slavic Slet" (Všeslovanský slet) was held, with a largely military atmosphere, causing Augustin Očenášek (a Sokol member) to remark, "When the thunder comes and the nations rise up to defend their existence, let it be the Sokol clubs from which the cry to battle will sound...".
World War I–World War II
With the onset of World War I, in 1915, the Sokols were officially disbanded. Many members were active in persuading Czechs to defect from the Austro-Hungarian army to the Russian side. Sokol members also helped create the Czechoslovak Legions and local patrols that kept order after the disintegration of Habsburg authority, and during the creation of Czechoslovakia in October 1918. They also fulfilled their title as the "Czech national army", helping to defend Slovakia against the invasion of Béla Kun and the Hungarians.
Sokol flourished in the early interwar period, and by 1930, it had 630,000 members. The organization held one last slet on the eve of the Munich Agreement of 1938 and were later brutally suppressed and banned during the Nazi occupation of Bohemia and Moravia.
World War II–present
After World War II, Sokols held one more slet, in 1948, before they were once again suppressed, this time by the Communists, who tried to replace slets with mass exercises, called Spartakiads (spartakiády), for propaganda purposes. Many Sokol members were imprisoned or exiled.
The Sokols reappeared briefly during the Prague Spring of 1968. After years of hibernation, the movement was revived for the fourth time, in 1990; A slet was held in 1994, after the fall of Communism. A slet was held in 2000, and another in 2006. In 2012, a celebration of 150 years of the Sokol movement took place, and in 2018, for the 100th anniversary of the creation of Czechoslovakia, 13,000 Sokol members gathered in Prague for the 116th slet.
From Wikipedia’s article on Sokol movement, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.4