Professor, Dr.Hab., editor-in-chief of SPC “Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul'tury i sporta” L.I. Lubysheva
Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sport, Youth and Tourism (SCOLIPC), Moscow

Keywords: sport periodicals, science, history, anniversary, development strategy, innovations.

The year of 2015 marks an anniversary of our sport science and the TPFK Journal that has served national sport science in faith and truth for 90 years. It was far back in 1925 that the first issues of the Journal were published. Since then the Journal has devotedly contributed on a systemic and scientifically grounded basis to the physical culture and sports development process in our country. It was then that the journal realized its key development vector – that is to disseminate knowledge and determine strategies of the sport science development process designed to encourage healthy lifestyle in the nation, improve physical fitness of young people and contribute to accomplishments of national athletes in a wide variety of sport competitions.

For the past 90 years of its service, the Journal has become known and popular publication that delivers up to 30 articles per month that are widely cited in Russia and worldwide. For the last few years the Journal has grown up in volume up to 24 pages per issue that come to 104 pages per month featuring the research and analytical materials. The Journal has provided its pages for this active service period to more than twenty thousand authors who chose it to report their findings to research communities. These service statistics are indicative on the periodical being in high demand and respect among the authors and readers.

New development avenues explored by the journal make it a special and outstanding periodical among the modern sport periodicals, whilst its regular section In search of New Breakthrough and Welcome to Discussion have evolved to highly popular arenas for discussions and trials of a wide variety of viewpoints on the top priority development problems of physical culture and sport. The never-ending improvements of the journal content have been always associated with novelties in the journal design, including color covers, inserts, photos of the authors etc.

Regional special issues of the Journal have evolved to regular publications to report progress and development challenges of the research schools that have grown up at regional universities and university physical education departments. Readers can always find on the Journal pages a wide variety of reports both by known scientists widely popular in the world of sport science and newcomer researchers and analysts making their first steps in the science. It has become a good tradition for the Journal to discover new names and research avenues in the physical culture and sport sector – with the greatest appreciation and acknowledgement of the prominent names that have largely contributed to the high academic image and popularity of the Journal by their generous “golden pages” in the Journal publications that laid fundamentals of modern sport science. We would mention first among them with our greatest respect and acknowledgement the names of N.A. Bernstein, S.P. Letunov, A.D. Novikov, V.S. Farfel, P.A. Rudik, A.T. Puni, V.M. D'yachkov, N.V. Zimkin, A.N. Krestovnikov and Ya.M. Kots. Special tribute should be paid to our late authors including G.G. Natalov, V.P. Filin, L.P. Matveev, N.I. Volkov and many others whom we always remember and appreciate their contributions to the Soviet and Russian sport science authority on the whole and TPFK Journal in particular.

The Journal has always strived to provide in its publications overviews of unique developments and innovation processes in the physical cultural and sport theory and practices. Many sport victories and records established by athletes on global arenas were largely due to the new high technologies and special contributions of sport researchers and analysts into the sport education and training process. Every innovative initiative highlighted and discussed in the Journal has provided important guidance and reference points to sport coaches and athletes, sport physicians and managers. The innovative focus of the 90-years-long history of the Journal has always been combined with and supported by special and high interest to the authors and articles of concern to fundamental issues of sport science.

It may be pertinent to mention in this context that it is never easy for a departmental periodical to give a due priority to fundamental scientific issues in its coverage, although the Editorial Board of the Journal has always strived to prudently combine theoretical publications with methodological and even purely practical ones – to cater for the needs of authors and readers of widely variable backgrounds, demands and interests. It may be due to this fact that the journal has always been in demand by prominent scientists, postgraduates, sport trainers, educators and many other people from the physical education teaching communities. We consider this editorial policy as largely mandated by the very name of the Journal that implies that one of core mission of a theoretical research is to nourish sport practices with brand new methodologies and technologies.

The present social and cultural situation with its challenges for the modern society urges the Editorial Board to make resort to new financial policies and sources and new development policies giving the top priority to the Journal being self-reliant and independent. As a result, subscription for the Journal is on the rise, and new authors’ engagement policies provide good means for the Journal being developed. It was three years ago that a new online English version of the Journal was launched and soon helped the Journal enter Scopus and EBSCO, the largest international abstract and citation databases. This fact provides an extra motivation for the national and foreign authors who appreciate the opportunity to have improved their research citation ratings through publications in our Journal. We are proud to mention in this context that some 30% of the Journal publications by Russian authors are now available in English translations and this is the reason for the core citation index of the Journal being on the rise as additionally verified by the impact-factor and current rating under the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI). It may be stated with confidence that the TPFK Journal remains the leader of national sport science periodicals as confirmed by the set of the RSCI success rating criteria.

On the way to its centenary, the Journal will face a few new problems and challenges. Mentioned first and foremost in this context should be the reader retention challenges, in view of the Journal circulation being on the fall that is the modern trend for any publishing activity. There is no way for the Journal to totally convert to the electronic format since it may result in the senior groups of readers being lost for the Journal. Knowing that, the Editorial Board came up with a new version of teoriya.ru website that offers most of the Journal content online. The same website gives free access to the full English version of the Journal. Electronic versions of the Journal are offered for subscription, and a digital archive of publications is available on the websites of Russian State University of Physical Culture, Sport, Youth and Tourism (RSUPCSYT) and Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI). In the nearest future, the teoriya.ru website is expected to offer an electronic version of all issues of the Journal starting from the year of 1925.

Our authors come up with new interesting and promising research concepts and thrusts that help build up the modern history of the Journal. We would like to mention in this context winners of the 2014 Contest for the Best Article, namely: Dr.Hab., Professor I.V. Manzheley (TumSU); research team headed by PhD, Associate Professor V.V. Apokin (SurSU); research team under leadership of Dr.Hab., Professor V.I. Mikhaylov (SibSUPC). We are proud with our authors known as founders of research schools: Professors S.I. Loginov (SurSU), L.D. Nazarenko (UlSU), G.A. Makarova (KubSUPC), V.I. Stolyarov (RSUPCSYT), A.A. Peredel'skiy (RSUPCSYT) and V.P. Guba (SSU).

It was for many years that the TPFK Journal has published a journal-in-journal Trainer where research-and-methodological publications for the Russian national team coaches can be published. It is now traditional that articles for this section are ordered or selected so as to give the readers special updates on the modern sport technologies applied by the coaches.

A matter of special pride for the Journal is its Prospects section. It offers the readers a choice of articles designed to shape up the Russian sport science development strategies. Every issue of Prospects is always subject to critical analyses of the articles with an emphasis on potential ways and solutions for the top priority problems of sport science.

It was for the last twenty years that the TPFK Scientific Publishing Centre has issued Fizicheskaya kul'tura: Vospitanie, Obrazovanie, Trenirovka scientific-methodological journal with a supplement Children’s Coach that is designed to cover the children’s and adolescent sport problems and challenges that we consider a top priority area for modern sport science.

The Editorial Board takes persistent efforts to strengthen its connections with the Supreme Attestation Commission of Russia, the Olympic Committee, Sport Federations, National Teams Training Centre of Russia, international sport organizations, foreign sport science journals and leading Russian universities.

The editorial board is still active it its contacts and joint activities with the relevant regional institutions. We would mention as a case in point our highly effective long-time cooperation with Surgut State University that resulted in a special section Yugra Science and Sports being established by the Journal. In these anniversary days, the Editorial Board is delighted to acknowledge valuable contribution by Dr. Hab., Professor and Principal of the SurSU V.M. Kosenok, Chief Editor of this Section, for his efforts to establish this highly productive cooperation and his kind support provided to the Journal.

As far as the new development outlooks for TPFK Journal are concerned, we cannot but remember in these anniversary days everybody who personally contributed to the Journal foundation and development initiatives, including, first of all, its Editors N.A. Semashko, E.Ya. Sizyi, V.M. Kas'yanov, A.O. Romanov, A.V. Sedov, V.K. Bal'sevich; Editorial staff members M.A. Kuznetsova, S.K. Eliseeva, V.N. Savitskaya, S.A. Severina; our regular authors N.I. Ponomarev, I.P. Ratov, V.M. Zatskorkiy, L.P. Matveev, V.P. Filin, Yu.V. Verkhoshanskiy, M.A. Godik, D.A. Tyshler, V.V. Kuzin, A.N. Vorobiev, N.Z. Bulgakova, S.D. Neverkovich, Y.I. Nikolaev and many, many others.

It has become traditional for the last five years for the Editorial Board to summon Round Table Sessions to discuss new development opportunities for sport science. TPFK Journal, for instance, helped consolidate the team of like-minded people to design and implement an innovative General School Education Sportization Project. Effective cooperation under the Project has already resulted in a few theses being put together and defended and a few sportizated physical education systems being designed and implemented in some regions of Russia. Furthermore, the Journal has promoted many other innovative projects on its pages, such as “SPART”, “Drozd” and “Olympic Education” Projects etc. that were first presented in the Journal and then implemented in practice by the national physical culture and sport professionals.

The Editorial Board plans to offer new sections to the readers to keep the research communities duly informed on the promising strategic development avenues for sport science and the best internationally accepted elite athletic training systems and practical experiences. The Editorial Board will keep up and improve the technical performance and printing quality of the Journal.

We believe that the success of the Journal is largely based on the close ties with and feedbacks from its authors and reading communities and this is the reason why the Editorial staff is going to give even higher priority to these ties in future.

We in the Editorial Board are very optimistic celebrating the 90-year anniversary of the Journal. We see that so much has been done when we look back, and realize how much needs to be done when we look forward. How should we keep up the best traditions of our long-serving Journal and effectively respond to the modern trends at the same time? But we are still optimistic knowing how high the creative potential of Russian sport science is and how great the professionalism of the Editorial staff bearing responsibility for Russian sport science being duly supported by our research information service is.

References

1. Bal’sevich, V.K. Razvitie rossiyskoy sportivnoy nauki: problemy i puti resheniya (Development of Russian sports science: problems and solutions) / V.K. Bal’sevich // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury. – 2012. – № 6. – P. 9–12.
2. Lubysheva, L.I. «Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury»: novye vektory razvitiya («Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury»: new vectors of development) / L.I. Lubysheva // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury. – 2010. – № 9 – P. 3–5.
3. Pronin, S.A. Zarozhdenie zhurnala «Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul'tury» (1925–1931 gg.) (The origin of the journal «Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury» (1925–1931) / S.A. Pronin // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury. –2015. – № 1. – P. 12–13.
4. Pronin, S.A. Evolyutsiya tematiki publikatsiy zhurnala «Teoriya ipraktika fizicheskoy kul’tury» (1925–2009 gg.) (Evolution of publication topics of the journal «Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury» (1925–2009) / S.A. Pronin //Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury. – 2010. – № 9. – P. 6–9.
5. Pronin, S.A. Avtonomny reyd zhurnala «Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul’tury» (2005–2015 gg.) (Independent raid of the journal « Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury» (2005­2015) / S.A. Pronin // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury. – 2015. – № 10. – P. 14–15.

Corresponding author: fizkult@teoriya.ru

Abstract

The main stages of development of the journal «Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury” (TPFK) since 1925 to the present day were allocated in the paper. It has been shown that the target orientation of the journal and readers have been preserved over 90 years, making it the leading journal in the world of sports science periodicals for many years. The importance of the journal in the development of modern sports science is highlighted.

The section «Prospects» is a special pride of the journal. Here, readers can always find articles that form the strategy of development of Russian sports science. Each issue of «Prospects» is