Organizing physical education and sporting activities in Karelia during the Great Patriotic War

The novelty of the study is determined by introducing some previously unpublished sources to academic community. The author uses legislative acts and archival documents for the first-of-its-kind analysis of the activities of the Council of People’s Commissars of the Karelo-Finnish Soviet Socialist Republic (KFSSR) and the Republican Committee on Physical Culture and Sports aimed at providing assistance to the army, creating training courses for ski instructors, hand-to-hand and bayonet combat training, and reconstructing basic sports facilities. During the war, the Committee organized sports competitions among military personnel, members of partisan detachments, and local population. The study focuses on the problems and difficulties of organizing physical education, and shows the results of the sporting activities. The author’s conclusions were drawn on the analysis of the government’s orders issued during the Great Patriotic War, as well as the materials of the KFSSR’s Council of Ministers (f. R-1394) and the State Committee on Physical Culture, Sports and Tourism (f. R-860), which are stored in the National Archive of the Republic of Karelia. The restoration of the historical details of physical culture and sports development between 1941 and 1944 (establishing city district committees on physical culture and sports, funding issues, interaction between the KFSSR government, executive committees of the district councils and the local population) will help to fill in the gaps in the history of the Great Patriotic War in Karelia.