Ph.D., Associate Professor S.A. Pronin¹                  
National State University of Physical Culture, Sport and Health named after P.F. Lesgaft, St. Petersburg

Keywords: journal "Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury", organizational issues of sports science.

In June 2005 M.E. Fradkov, the Chairman of the RF Government, signed the order on the liquidation of the Federal State Enterprise “Editorial Board of the Journal "Teoriya i Praktika Fizicheskoy Kultury".

It was absolutely incomprehensible why an edition which had gone a difficult and long way of development (its 80s anniversary was celebrated in 2005) and which, due to the efforts of thousands of scientists, decently represented Russian sport science throughout the world and had turned into an objective indicator of development of that science, and, moreover, which had grown into the national cultural asset, should become useless?!

Could it be that due to the renewed publishing of the “Uchetnye zapiski universiteta im. P.F. Lesgafta” (“P.F. Lesgaft University's Records”) edition, or “Vestnik sportivnoi nauki” (“Sport Science Herald”) (2003), “Sport: ekonomika, pravo, upravlenie” (“Sport: Economy, Law, Management”) (2003), “Kul'tura fizicheskaya i zdorov'e” (“Physical Culture and Health”) (2004), “Sportivny psikholog” (“Sports Psychologist”) (2004) that started to be published, the Rossport’s administration had the impression that the information space of physical culture and sport was oversaturated with periodicals?

The editorial board was not frightened by what happened. The autonomous non-commercial organization “Nauchno-izdatel'skiy tsentr “Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul'tury i sporta” (“Scientific Publishing Center “Theory and Practice of Physical Culture and Sport”) was established. The issues of the TPFK continued to be published on a regular basis.

In January 2006 the Federal Special-Purpose Program “Development of Physical Culture and Sports in the Russian Federation for 2006—2015” was approved. All subsections of its section named “Scientific Research and Development in Elite Sport Sector” addressed mainly two problems of vital importance for the national sports. Firstly, to revive the activities aimed at systematic control of picked teams’ preparedness with the application of the methods employed in scientific researches and, secondly, to enhance the doping control efficiency. Alas, the document did not tackle the predominant issue of scientific research works. A quarter-of-a-century absence of the justified and recorded purpose eventually resulted in an inconsistent bulk of researches logically not related with each other, and which, in certain cases, could be hardly considered scientific.

Because of such a situation, the journal TPFK in 2006—2015, without any orders from the “authorities” at that time, seeking to concentrate its efforts more effectively on the targeted national scientific research in the field of physical education and sport, curtailed twice the number of scientific columns. Besides, in an attempt to update the priority trends of the research activities the Section “In Search for New Breakthrough” was created in 2011.

Such steps made no difference on a global scale; rather, they determined, with a sufficient degree of precision, the priorities of the editorial board to raise the international prestige of the Journal and the national sport science. This required original intellectual creations which should be competitive at the international market of scientific and pedagogical services, because there is hardly anyone on earth who would pay anything for a ‘déjà-vu’ when they are in need of a ‘know-how’.

The Journal, on its part, took every effort to ensure that the materials supplied by the authors could receive excellent coverage in the global information media. Since 1996 all electronic copies of the Journal issues have been posted in the Internet (in 2010 a digitized version of all issues of the TPFK from as early as 1925 was created in P.F. Lesgaft NSU); the Journal was included into the Russian database for scientific references E-library and the international system for science citations Web of Science; an English version of the Journal has been published since 2013.

In May 2008 Vitaliy Leontievich Mutko was entrusted with the helm of the Ministry for Sports, Tourism and Youth Policy. This was predetermined not so much by the change of the country’s leader (in March 2008 D.A. Medvedev was elected President of the RF), as by the necessity to enhance the efficiency of the preparation for the XXII Winter Olympic Games of the year of 2014 in Sochi.

The victory we secured at the Olympics we held as a host country, the one which highly raised the profile of not only Russia’s sport, but of the entire country, unfortunately had shown convincingly enough that unless one decently ‘feeds’ their science and culture, they will have to feed somebody else’s ones (and a vast number of invitations for foreign trainers to lead picked teams serves as an incontrovertible proof of that). Strictly speaking, based on the results of what empirical basis systematization could the top trainers be taught if, starting from 1992, no data about the preparedness indices of the national sports teams have been actually available? Sparse publications in the TPFK are an exception, which, in fact, determines that this cultural layer of priceless information has been irrevocably lost. What kind of a system of athletic training could exist if its foundation — the framework for sports programs and qualifying standards - has not undergone serious scientific justification for almost half-century?

It is symptomatic that on 2 June 2015 at a meeting of the Presidential Council for the development of physical culture and sport which was dedicated to elite sports, RF President V.V. Putin alone talked constructively about the problems of sport science. No doubt, the legal issues related to sports, the construction of sports facilities and the creation of a new sports TV channel are all significant problems. However, the driving force of Russian sport science has not been identified so far and has no support whatsoever. And that is why it is most unlikely that the ‘birthmarks’ of our sports will ever be removed. In fact, the notorious problem of doping is a consequence of a trainer and/or an athlete recognizing their inability to efficiently manage the training process.

However, it would be unfair to put the blame on the governmental officials alone. Over the past quarter of the century the average ‘age’ of bibliographical references in the TPFK and theses has smoothly doubled from the former level of 10-12 years [1]. This statistics demonstrates that the authors of the publications have been citing the same documentary sources from year to year, which may be explained by at least three unpalatable reasons. Firstly, the authors do not read the primary sources but, instead, simply copy the bibliographical references; secondly, the works (including theses) have been written by the same people; and, thirdly, the lack of new publications which would contain original ideas fundamentally different from those which have been formulated earlier.

Such issues would do no credit to any scientific community. The complaints that the complex social settings relegate the status of a scientist to the level of an unskilled worker, that in today’s Russian science the arithmetic of artefacts is substituted for the algebra of reasoned thinking, that the scientific activities are becoming completely devoid of the romanticism akin to the investigative approach — might all be acceptable for each of the men of science taken separately, but are absolutely unconvincing in constructing an overall trend.

…

Scholars, educators, doctors, government officials and businessmen - all of us - we are our Motherland - Russia. It demands from us to make it prosperous: to ensure due physical development of our children, to improve health of our people, it demands our sport achievements to strengthen the authority of our country. And science is the determining driving force for implementation of these goals.

The Journal “Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kultury” has been one of the major development factors of the national physical culture and sport science for as long as 90 years. It is crucially important.

It is our journal!

References

1. Pronin, S.A. Analiz dokumental'nogo potoka dissertatsiy po problemam fizicheskoy kul'tury i sporta (Analysis of documentary flow of theses on the issues of physical culture and sport) / S.A. Pronin // Teoriya i praktika fizicheskoy kul'tury. – 2007. – № 6. – P. 60–62.

Corresponding author: pro-555@mail.ru