Political and Rural Gyn

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Political Assertion: Rural Revolutionary

Gymnastics
a
Hans Bonde
a
Department of Exercise and Sports Sciences , University of
Copenhagen , Nørre Allé 51, DK-2200 Copenhagen
Published online: 18 Sep 2009.
To cite this article: Hans Bonde (2009) Political Assertion: Rural Revolutionary Gymnastics, The
International Journal of the History of Sport, 26:10, 1335-1356, DOI: 10.1080/09523360903057427
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The International Journal of the History of Sport
Vol. 26, No. 10, August 2009, 1335–1356
Political Assertion: Rural Revolutionary

Gymnastics
The Danish Grundtvigian spiritual and national revival in the decade around 1900
contained a high degree of enthusiasm and a strong collective feeling, which was
demonstrated not least through gymnastics displays where young farm-lads’ and girls’
Downloaded by [Northeastern University] at 21:11 22 November 2014
teams marched into and out of the arena singing patriotic anthems, led by a gymnast
carrying a huge Danish national flag. Through gymnastics rural ideas and values were
dramatized and embodied, making gymnastics a dynamic part of the overall
transformation of Danish society around 1900. This peculiar Danish bias towards the
straightened and enlightened farmer was the result of an independent tradition of a
voluntary gymnastics culture practised in the countryside, the equivalent of which cannot
be found in other European countries, where the tendency, on the contrary, was towards
an undermining of the rural population’s position.
Seen from an Anglo-Saxon athletic perspective, the twentieth century has been largely
the history of the expansion of competitive sports, especially in the Western
hemisphere. However, this view is complicated by the fact that in Scandinavian
languages the use of the term idræt is widespread and means something more than
the term ‘sport’. To Scandinavians the term ‘sport’ is mainly concerned with the
competitive sports that were imported from Britain in about 1900, such as soccer,
rowing and athletics. In this article the term ‘sport’ is to be understood in this way.
Idræt, however, also includes aesthetic ‘movement cultures’ such as gymnastics. I use
the term ‘movement culture’ as an expression that covers both dance, gymnastics and
sports. Gymnastics played an even more dominant role than competitive sports in
Denmark around the turn of the century and continued to grow alongside
competitive sports in the inter-war period. Gymnastics had, however, a quite
different sociological basis from that of sport. Whereas sport was a town
phenomenon that attracted members of the bourgeois and working classes,
gymnastics gained a foothold in the countryside among farmers. [1]
The main questions to be asked here are: can the use of semiotics illuminate the
study of ‘movement culture’; why did gymnastics become a strong force in farmers’
culture in the period between 1880 and 1920; what was it in the structure of farmers’
gymnastics that made it so suitable to rural society; what was the role of the two sexes
in gymnastics and sport; and how did gymnastics react to the growth of urban
industrial society?
ISSN 0952-3367 (print)/ISSN 1743-9035 (online) Ó 2009 Taylor & Francis

DOI: 10.1080/09523360903057427
1336 H. Bonde
It is the main thesis of this article that farmers’ gymnastics should be understood in
the light of the social and political life of the farmers, not as a reflection of material
conditions but as a constituent of farmers’ culture. When great transitions take place
at the social, economic and political level, it seems that important processes of
transformation also happen within the realm of the culture of the body. The speed
revolution in bourgeois sporting culture during industrialization in the early
capitalist era is another example of this tendency towards corporeal transformations
as part of greater transformations in society. [2] It might be tempting to see sports
culture as only a reflection of the changing of material conditions in society.
However, with inspiration from Norbert Elias, this cause-and-effect thinking must be
avoided since it does not take account of the complex social situation where changes
in body cultures exist as an active, dynamic and integral part of the greater
configurational change. [3]
Outlook
It is important to underline the originality of the Danish development of farmers’
gymnastics by means of an international comparison with Great Britain, Germany
and the United States of America. In Britain, there existed forerunners of the modern
game of soccer in the ‘wild’ village ball games which continued to exist into the
nineteenth century. [4] However, the wildness of the game was to some extent tamed
in the British public schools in the second half of the nineteenth century. [5] The
process of bureaucratization, regulation and civilization of the game, as it was
practised by the Harrow Athletic Club from 1853, [6] was not confined to the sons of
the upper and middle classes at the public schools; at about the same time young men
of the working classes started to play football in its modernized variant. [7] The
crucial point here is that the independence of British farming communities seems to
have been so fundamentally weakened by the enclosure movement that no significant
autonomous process in the field of ‘movement culture’ has been registered. Contrary
to this, Danish farmers did succeed in keeping their land and expressing their
collective identity in gymnastic movements.
Although German farmers did not experience enclosure, they were being heavily
patronized by their landlords. Therefore they did not experience the social and
political awakening of Danish farmers. In another basic aspect there are, however,
similarities between Germany and Denmark. Both in Germany and Denmark
gymnastics played a crucial role around the turn of the twentieth century. It seems,
however, that German gymnastics, so-called Turnen, were from the beginning mainly
organized by the urban intellectuals, students, small artisans and not least by
journeymen. [8] Farmers could join the movement but did not lead it. The Turner
were liberal and national. The revolutionary aspect of Turnen was mainly confined to
the petite bourgeoisie of the cities, inspired by the ‘national revolutionary’
movement. Turnen were abolished in 1819 and the leading national founder
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778–1852) was imprisoned. However, Turnen revived in the
Rural Revolutionary Gymnastics 1337
1840s and Turner participated in the 1848 Revolution. At the end of the nineteenth
century the Turner movement increasingly became a movement for Kaiser, Volk und
Vaterland, or, frankly speaking, nationalist and chauvinist. [9]
If we turn to the American colonists of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
they do not seem to have paid any great attention to sport. However, in the
expanding cities of the late nineteenth century, men started to enjoy sport in large
numbers. Though gymnastics gained a foothold in the American school system
during the same period, it was overtaken by sport in the early twentieth century. [10]
In Denmark, on the other hand, gymnastics was only seriously challenged by sport in
the school curriculum much later.
In short, the special development of gymnastics among Danish farmers can only be
explained by their political, social and economic strength described below. The extra-
ordinary Danish history of ‘movement culture’ has meant that scholars have focused
their attention on gymnastics. Thus two of the main works in the Danish histo-
riography of ‘movement culture’ are concerned with the role of gymnastics. In 1982
Ove Korsgaard published his work Kampen om Kroppen (‘The Fight for the Body’).
One of his main arguments, which has had a lasting impact on Danish research into
sport in society, was that farmers’ gymnastics was part of their struggle for freedom in
a political and social sense. The book, however, romanticized farmers’ culture to an
unacceptable degree, Korsgaard himself being at the time of the publication the
principal of a countryside ‘folk high school’ specializing in ‘movement culture’. [11]
Else Trangbæk’s doctoral thesis ‘Mellem Leg og Disciplin’ (‘Between Play and
Discipline’), published in 1987, was to a large extent an attack on Korsgaard’s argu-
ments. In this pioneering empirical study of Danish gymnastics in the nineteenth
century, she showed that Korsgaard had treated the main opponent of farmers’
gymnastics, the so-called German gymnastics, as a negative militaristic phenomenon.
She described German gymnastics as a free, acrobatic and playful manifestation, in
contrast to the stern and rationalistic farmers’ gymnastics. Trangbæk also succeeded in
demonstrating that gymnastics was important to many social groups and both sexes n
the cities in the nineteenth century. Moreover, she argued that the main reason for the
farmers’ adoption of the farmers’ gymnastics culture was political. In their struggle for
socio-political freedom the farmers used to some extent the mixed cultures of rifle-
shooting and gymnastics as platforms for political pressure against the ruling con-
servative leaders. However, Korsgaard replied that Trangbæk to some extent under-
estimated the liberating potential of the farmers’ ‘movement culture’. [12] This was
later made explicit by Korsgaard, who argued that the linearity and straightness of
farmer’s gymnastics was part of a civilizing project that enabled them to feel confident
and modern in an early-modern period that celebrated self-control and discipline. [13]
Farmers’ Culture
The Swede P.H. Ling (1776–1839) created Ling gymnastics at the beginning of the
nineteenth century. His system, especially as interpreted by his son and successor,
1338 H. Bonde
Hjalmar Ling, was based on rational guidelines rooted in the natural sciences. [14]
For most elderly Scandinavians who remember the Ling gymnastics of their
schooldays, these exercises were boring and authoritarian. Nevertheless, this
impression must not overshadow the fact that originally Danish farmers exercised
voluntarily and to them gymnastics was a basic way of expressing their cultural
identity. After the turn of the century Ling gymnastics had a great impact on the
established military and pedagogical systems of Europe. However, only in Denmark
did this scheme of gymnastics become a broad popular movement. [15]
Unlike the English enclosure system, Danish farmers succeeded in keeping their
land freehold. During the closing decades of the nineteenth century, however, Danish
agriculture ran into a severe crisis that called for extraordinary measures. The answer
to this threat was the internationally unique Cooperative Movement, which enabled
Danish farmers to market their products. The farms were still individually owned,
but the sales and manufacturing organizations were the property of a community of
farmers. To an extent, this helped the farmers out of their economic crisis, but there
was another problem: the rural population in 1901 still comprised well over half of
the total population. [16] This, however, did not automatically secure political
dominance in the Danish parliament. On the contrary, the right-wing leaders of the
Højre (the Conservatives) ruled according to provisional laws which excluded
the political majority of the Venstre (the farmers’ party) from political influence. The
farmers, however, were struggling for real cabinet responsibility and in 1901 in the
Systemskiftet (change of system) they established democratic political practices and
became the leading party.
Two of the main pillars behind the cultural advance of Danish farmers were the
folkehøjskole (folk high school) and the forsamlingshus (community hall) In the
community hall farmers could gather to listen to lectures which thematically could
range from ‘technological innovations in agriculture’ to ‘the importance of the
religious spirit in the age of materialism’. The common denominator and main
source of inspiration was the Danish poet and minister, J.F.S. Grundtvig (1783–
1872), who argued against the outmoded Danish school system and in his writings
tried to revive the mythological heritage of Scandinavia. The folk high schools, [17]
which still constitute a vital force in Danish society today, rebelled against the
examination process of Danish pedagogical systems. Instead of learning for specific
purposes, the folk high schools aimed at learning for life. There were no grades and
the aim was that pupils would develop their personality through contact with the
great questions in life. At the same time they could learn the basic technical skills that
would help them in practical life.
Gymnastics played a part both in the community centre and the folk high school.
[18] For the farmers, Ling gymnastics was a ritual of cultural expression. When the
young sons and daughters of farmers went into the gymnastics hall, they sang songs
that expressed the spiritual ideas of their rural culture. Often the religious,
nationalistic and historical associations were dominant. For instance, it was a
common mode of expression to say that the gymnastic teacher ‘should be able to see
the image of God in each human being’. [19] The main logo of the journal of the
Danish Association of Rifle-Shooting, Youth and Body Culture, depicted two strong,
upright young men situated in a typically Danish rural landscape carrying a flag, and
there was a church in the foreground. The songs that were sung at both the beginning
and end of gymnastic lessons often had religious associations [20] In Youth and Body
Culture some of the expressions used are ‘energy’, ‘fire’ and ‘light’. These words
express a need to talk about experiences that are hard to define. One of the central
pioneers of Swedish gymnastics, N.H. Rasmussen, tried to verbalize this search, for
example when he stressed that in a gymnastic teacher there should ‘burn an
inextinguishable fire’ and that it was important that during education ‘the light can be
switched on in them’. All in all, there was a need for ‘persons who could revive the
Danish people’. [21] Symbols of nationalism in the form of the Danish flag could
often be found at one end of the gymnastics hall or in the hands of the leading
gymnast at the many public displays. Gymnastics can thus be seen as an important
element in the Danish farmers’ national and religious revival.
Women of the farming community also took part in gymnastics. In 1907 about
8,000 women did gymnastic exercises in the Danish Association of Rifle-Shooting
and about 3,500 female pupils were trained at folk high schools. This, however,
cannot disguise the fact that farmers’ gymnastics to a large extent expressed
masculine values, [22] especially in the nationalistic association. Many of the poems
and songs of gymnastics were manifestations of masculinity. A typical gymnastics
song would begin thus: ‘Upright men! That’s our goal! / Men with an iron will’. [23]
With almost mythological power, the words of the founder of Swedish gymnastics
P.H. Ling, whose aim was ‘to recreate the men of the North’, were repeated. As
already stated, the only two persons on the logo of the Danish Association of Rifle-
Shooting were males with very masculine physiques. In the sports literature of the
cities a ‘fear of the amazons’ can be traced to about the turn of the century. There was
a feeling among many men and women that it would be a threat to the notion of
femininity if women exercised too vigorously, developing big muscles all over the
body. [24] This fear was rooted in the bourgeois notion of the female as a fragile
flower prone to illness and as having to exercise none too energetically, especially
during pregnancy and menstruation. This was also propagated by medical doctors to
a great degree. [25]
However, in the countryside such notions of feminine behaviour did not exist. In
the cities a married bourgeois woman was expected not to go out to work and to be
helped by servants even in her own home. In the emerging scientific literature of the
influential Danish physiologist of physical culture, Johannes Lindhard, later to be
internationally renowned, women were described as physiologically and anatomically
very different from men. Lindhard therefore sharply criticized farmers’ gymnastics
for its ‘masculinization’ of women. [26]
However, in rural society women had to work alongside their husbands, although
their duties were chiefly domestic while their husbands worked in the fields. The
notion of the strong rural woman who was able to work hard also existed in farmers’
1340 H. Bonde
gymnastics. The women performed the same movements as men, though they
exercised less intensively. In his book on anatomy from 1922, Niels Bukh, the rural
Danish gymnastics pedagogue who was later to gain international recognition,
described the two sexes as basically identical with regard to the movements of the
body. [27] At the entrance to the garden in front of his folk high school, Ollerup
Gymnastikhøjskole, Niels Bukh raised a statue of a Greek ‘Riding Amazon’. [28]
The Semiotics of ‘Movement Culture’

To understand the ‘language of gymnastics’, it is not sufficient to interpret the rituals
and the self-concept of the people involved and their ideologists. A more
fundamental interpretation must be introduced. This could be called the semiotics
of ‘movement culture’. During the last decades scholars of semiotics have approached
the borders of physical culture. In the 1970s and 1980s already, semiotic scholars such
as A.J. Greimas, Umberto Eco and Carlo Ginsburg made it clear that a notion such as
‘the semiotics of gesture’ was beginning to emerge as a form of analysis. [29] In recent
years students of physical culture have been attracted to a general theory of the
meaning of signs in culture including ‘somatic signs’. [30] Other fundamental codes
of farmers’ gymnastics were medical [31] and nationalistic in origin.
In my view, semiotics is not a fixed scheme of analysis but a general way of
interpreting cultural phenomena as signs. Only in concrete analysis does semiotic
thinking show its potential. The language of ‘movement culture’ is so different from
other semiotic systems that a new vocabulary and new notions must be developed. In
this respect this article should only be seen as a heuristic attempt to open up the field.
The following approach to the semiotics of ‘movement culture’ is very direct, since I
do not want to push the application of the established terminology of verbal
semiotics to the language of gesture too far. Instead, I wish to reveal the more or less
secret meaning of the language of gesture. In plain English, this means attempting to
find out what symbolic meaning the straightened back held for the farmers, for
instance. This, however, is a difficult task since the meaning of bodily communication
varies from one period to another. We cannot assume that the symbolic value of, for
example, the indrawn abdomen is the same for farmers at the turn of the century as it
is for modern men. What is needed is a hermeneutic identification with a given
culture to understand the gestures ‘from inside’. This means that gymnastic
exercises must be seen in their cultural context and in the mental horizons of their
historical agents.
Another analytical method that will be tried here is semantic. Many words have a
bodily metaphoric basis which we normally do not register: words like ‘pull oneself
together’, ‘tension’, ‘feeling low or high’ and ‘spineless’ all contain a hidden message
of the deep connection between body and soul. This part of my analysis is inspired by
George Lakoff and Mark Johnson, two of the leading figures in American ‘cognitive
semantics’. Lakoff and Johnson have shown how our language and more generally
our understanding of the world is constructed by the use of metaphors which always
express that we live in, and as, bodies. Whereas in the tradition of logical semantics
the signs were very abstract and empty, Johnson and Lakoff have grounded the
symbols in the body and more broadly in the physical aspects of human life. One of
their main examples is the word ‘balance’, which originates from a physical
experience but also is widely used in many other spheres. For instance, a scholarly
study can be more or less well balanced. [32]
A theory of the semiotics of ‘movement culture’ might help us to understand better
the uniqueness of ‘movement culture’ as a social phenomenon. All too often
‘movement culture’ is treated like any other subject, the specific nature of organized
movements being neglected. This means that visual source material such as
photographs and videotapes still tends to be disregarded in research on ‘movement
culture’. This negligence is academically unjustified but might originate from a
traditional scholarly mistrust of anything ‘sensual’ and non-verbal. However, the

tenet of ‘movement culture’ is not written words but the fascination with
movements, especially from the spectator’s point of view. [33] Thus the language
of gestures ought to play a prominent role in sports research, sport being the largest
movement of non-verbal communication in our society. [34]
The analysis of farmers’ gymnastics is based on the following model of the
semiotics of ‘movement culture’, which can be used both for the analysis of still
pictures such as photographs and paintings, of moving pictures such as film or video,
and for direct observation of a sports event. [35]
Semiotic Model of ‘Movement Culture’

(A) LEVEL OF EXPRESSION. This is the descriptive, denotative level, semiotically
speaking the ‘signifiant’ [36] (expression not content) side of ‘movement
culture’.
1. Bodily expression. Analysis of the static body. (At this level the movement
direction is neglected, the focus is on the structure of the body from a static
point of view.)
(a) Bending. Basically, the body can be bent in eight directions: forwards
and backwards; opening and closing (including the use of the limbs);
bending sideways; and turning the body.
(b) Tension/relaxation (some parts may be tense, others relaxed).
(c) Strength/weakness of muscles and bones.
(d) Fatness/slimness.
(e) Proportions of the body (and body parts).
(f) Other factors (hair style, tooth structure, direction of gaze, clothes
etc.).
2. Movement expression. Analysis of the dynamics of the body.
(a) Spatial direction of the body. Basically, the body can move in six
directions: up and down (e.g. jumping); forwards and backwards;
and sideways (these directions can be combined in many ways).
1342 H. Bonde
(b) Proxemics. The arrangement of and distances between the bodies
involved in the event according to Hall’s basic classification: [37]
intimate distance (0–18 inches); personal distance (4 feet); social
distance (4–12 feet); public distance (12–25 feet).
(c) Temporal analysis. Speed and rhythm of the movement(s).
3. The body and environs. The relationship between the body/bodies and the
environment, e. g. exercises in a gym or outside, the use of the
environment for play, e.g. trees, the lawn etc., the use and shape of
technology.
(B) SOCIOLOGICAL PARAMETERS such as class, sex, national identity/ethnicity
and age.
(C) LEVEL OF CONTENT. This is the interpretative, connotative level,
semiotically speaking the signifié or content side of ‘movement culture’.

1. Genre. Gymnastics, competitive sport and dance are all examples of the
genres of ‘movement culture’. They each mix the codes in different ways.
2. Codes. Many codes can be distinguished – for instance national, medical,
religious, sexual, aesthetic or ethical.
3. Connotations. Here the level of expression and the level of content are
connected.
The model pays great attention to the distinction between signifiant (expression) and
signifié (content) of the language of ‘movement culture’. The reason for this
dichotomy is that identical movement patterns (signifiant) can have quite different
meanings if their content (signifié) is altered. For example, large parts of the
movements in farmers’ gymnastics are similar to those of the attitude of attention
and marching of many military systems [38] and even to the body language of Nazi
organizations. Therefore one cannot judge meaning from the appearance (signifiant)
of the movement patterns, though at the everyday level it is normal and
unproblematic to do so because everybody thinks within the same mental horizon.
From our modern point of view farmers’ gymnastics seems military, authoritarian
and perhaps even somewhat fascist. But this view was, as shall be shown, not shared
by the performers. Our interpretation is coloured by the experience of the Third
Reich and of modern anti-authoritarian traditions, not least provoked by the youth
revolt of the l960s. [39] It should, however, be noted that the model has been
developed in relation to the study of sports and gymnastics and therefore might not
be applicable to pre-modern or non-Western societies.
The Straightened Back

What were the basic signs of gymnastic expression? In farmers’ gymnastics everybody
did the same movements at the same time. The movements were all controlled, stiff
and synchronized. A leader secured the simultaneity of movement. If one stretched
the right arm, it was for medical reasons obligatory also to stretch the left arm.
The central position of the body was the grundstilling (basic position), which was
defined thus: straightened back and straightened arms held along the body, feet and
legs close to each other, protruding chest and indrawn abdomen. [40]
The straightened back was fundamental in farmers’ gymnastics. The French scholar
George Vigarello has shown that the straightened back played a significant role in the
development of European aristocratic culture. [41] He argued that to straighten one’s
back became a central sign of the degree of civilization among the nobility. It was a
class distinction that showed the cultural superiority of the ruling class. In a semiotic
context it seems appropriate to stress the basic meaning of this bodily posture. In our
language the words for high and low have for centuries had hierarchical implications
The word ‘high’ implies superiority, which is seen in expressions like ‘esteem highly’,
‘high-born’, ‘high-ranking’, ‘highness’, ‘to raise’, ‘highly paid’ and so forth. The word
‘low’, however, almost always connotes negative and inferior values: ‘the lower races’,
‘she felt low’, ‘of low birth’, ‘to sink low’ and so on. A nobleman would normally
meet a peasant on horseback. His ‘elevation’ therefore was double, through his
straightened back and his riding position. The farmer, on the other hand, was often
stooping owing to hard work, and some of the people of the lower strata of the
countryside even suffered from a disease that inhibited their normal growing
potential (the so-called kummer-former). Through posture-developing exercises such
as fencing, riding and vaulting, the nobleman could stress his superiority in
appearance and gesture. The peasantry literally and metaphorically had to ‘look up to
him’. This is the main reason why the straightened back gained such popularity in
farmers’ culture. It now became possible for a farmer to look the nobleman ‘straight
in the eye’ and not feel ‘suppressed’. At exactly the same time as they ‘rose’ as a social
class, fighting for political leadership and economic independence from their
landlords, they also developed bodily manifestations of their equality with other
social classes. Gymnastics thus became an expression of the sovereignty and socio-
political independence of the farmers. As a direct example of the subconscious, but
therefore even more important, class connotations of their gymnastic universe, they
often expressed that the aim of gymnastics was to get rid of ‘the feudal stamp’ on
their bodies: bent backs and shuffling gaits.
The connotations of the straightened back were essentially moral. To straighten
one’s back meant to become a higher being, improving one’s psychological habitus.
Thus one of the pioneers of farmers’ gymnastics, N.H. Rasmussen, had the following
words written over the entrance portal of his gymnasium in Copenhagen: Straighten
your Back and Speak the Truth. To be straight meant to be ‘magnanimous’ and
‘faithful’, whereas to be bent meant to be ‘cowardly’, ‘base’ and ‘treacherous’. [42]
These connotations still exist in everyday language since ‘straightness’ means ‘pride’,
‘fearlessness’, ‘independence’ and ‘uprightness’. [43] The celebration of the straight
back later on went so far that K.A. Knudsen, the former principal of the Statens
Gymnastikinstitut (National Institute of Gymnastics), travelled all over the country in
the 1930s to propagate it. [44] As a matter of fact, in one of his books Knudsen used
X-ray pictures to show what a straightened backbone really looked like. The X-ray
1344 H. Bonde
picture, however, was painted over to show a surprisingly straight but anatomically
improbable spinal column. [45]
The Community Spirit

In contrast to the often individualistic sports of the cities, farmers always performed
gymnastics as a team act and aimed at synchronizing movements. This equal and
collaborative spirit was characteristic of the whole of their culture. The central idea of
the Cooperative Movement was ‘one man one vote’. One did not gain more influence
according to the size of one’s livestock. Everybody had to deliver their goods to the
same manufacturing and sales organizations. These corporations were owned by a
community of farmers. N.H. Rasmussen stated that through gymnastic training one
developed ‘one’s awareness of being a social being’, not least through the experience
of disturbing the total impression of the team ‘by not being attentive and controlled’.
[46] However, this community spirit should not be romanticized, since it did not
allow individual manifestations and because it was organized in an authoritarian way
with the leaders as the head and the rest as obeying limbs. This was a general trait of
farmers’ culture, being organized in a patriarchal way with the male farmer as the
undisputed head of the family, ruling over wives, children and servants. Competition
was a very important part of farmers’ gymnastics at least after the turn of the century.
It was also one of the main topics in the journal Youth and Body Culture from 1910 to
1920. It was a widespread opinion that the main drive of the gymnastic teachers was
the ambition to defeat other teams. Quarrels over how to judge the aesthetics of
gymnastics were numerous. The main objection was that gymnastics no longer had as
its goal the health of the many but had degenerated into what was called ‘glittering
gymnastics’. [47] It seems that the aesthetic dimension of gymnastics was becoming
as important as the health aspect.
Farmers’ gymnastics had not only social and economic but also, to some degree,
political and even military implications The farmers often trained in organizations in
which both gymnastic exercises and rifle-shooting took place. Twenty thousand men
were members of De danske skytte foreninger (the Danish Association of Rifle-
Shooting). [48] Basically, these organizations were formed to defend Denmark
against German aggression or even to fight for the reunion of the lost parts of
Denmark. However, they also could be seen as a potential opposition to the
undemocratic Conservative Party, which ruled Denmark and excluded the farmers’
party (Venstre) from political influence. The more or less conscious threat of farmers’
gymnastics was based on the fact that the fundamental gymnastic position of
attention was very similar to its military counterpart and that the gymnastic exercises
were always performed as teamwork.
Farmers’ culture was mainly based on the solidarity of the well-to-do independent
producers of an agricultural economy. The central tenet of this culture was
folkelighed, meaning something like ‘popular’, implying that nobody was excluded
from this culture because of class. The concept of folkelighed, translated here as
‘democratic national sentiment’, is central to an understanding of the thinking of the

Danish rural population. Folkelighed has a range of meanings (the democratic spirit,
the common touch, broad popular appeal) that contrast with ‘elitist’, and the concept
involves a vision that all citizens of a society can come together in a national
community. In this vision the farmers are the backbone of the nation since they feed
the rest of the population, and in Denmark they played a central role in the
realization of democracy.
The Danish agricultural labourer’s most important political party was named
Venstre (literally ‘left’). This party had grown up as the party of agricultural interests
against Højre (meaning ‘right’), or in other words the Conservatives. A smaller party
from the rural districts was the social liberal party Det Radikale Venstre, which relied
on collaboration between critical progressive figures from the urban intelligentsia and
representatives of the ‘lower’ sections of the rural population. The smallholders and
agricultural labourers, however, were not as integral a part of this countryside culture
as the farmers, but they occasionally joined it. This also seems to have been true of
their involvement with the folk high schools, including gymnastics. [49] In the 1930s
and 1940s it was still very expensive to attend a folk high school. This financial barrier
was a heavy burden for these groups, although they could be supported by the state.
This meant that these people of lower status did not fully take part in the symbolic
movements of common enterprise and dynamism of the farmer class.
The Individualistic Body

Another central feature of farmers’ gymnastics was the desirability of the tense body,
the vaulted chest and the indrawn abdomen. From a socio-geometrical point of
view, farmers’ gymnastics can be described as a culture of linearity and symmetrical
order. Not only was the perfect body as straight as possible (and the movements also
never curved); the gymnasts were arranged in straight lines and the activity took
place in square gymnastic halls. To the modern eye it is a mystery how such a tense
position of the body could be celebrated and even seen as liberating. It is, however,
necessary to try to free ourselves from the prejudices of our own age. In our modern
culture relaxation is perceived as emancipative, whereas tension and stress bear
negative connotations. Nevertheless, today we face a situation of economic wealth
and relative social security. We feel that we can lessen the ties of self-control. The
farmers’ circumstances, on the other hand, were quite different. In the 1880s they
faced a severe crisis which could have resulted in total social ruin. If they had failed
to ‘pull themselves together’ the consequences could have been disastrous. Ove
Korsgaard has shown how the generation of the Cooperative Movement turned
against their fathers’ alleged habits of drinking, fighting and dancing. [50] The new
generation of farmers tried to fight against these ‘feudal’ traditions in order to secure
stable productivity. They were the first generation to become totally dependent on
the market, and on steady, hard work to cope with all the ups and downs of the
market economy.
1346 H. Bonde
Liberating themselves from the ‘burdens’ of uncontrolled desire – whether it be
expressed in sexuality, aggression or drinking – became a fascinating goal for a
generation of farmers who aimed at becoming the backbone of the Danish economy.
They succeeded to a high degree, since agricultural exports surpassed industrial
exports in Denmark until as late as about 1960.
The Dynamic Body

The movements of farmers’ gymnastics were very limited spatially, and this scheme of
gymnastics was therefore described as ‘position gymnastics’. This was the main
feature that set it apart from the sports emerging in Danish cities at the time, which
emphasized speed and forward momentum, whether it was rowing, running, skating
or football The dynamics of modern city life were thus embodied in these sports. [51]
As a single semantic expression of the relationship between sport and the wider
society the word ‘career’ can be usefully analysed. This word originally meant ‘the
fastest way a horse could move’. In the noble art of horse-riding it was only one of
various movements performed by the ‘ballet horse’ of the eighteenth century.
However, in modern horse racing the varied movement patterns of the ballet horse
have been limited to one, the ‘career’. [52] Today a ‘career’ usually means the
continual advancement of a young businessman (or -woman). However, in past
farming communities the term ‘career’ was meaningless. The ultimate goal for a
young man of an agricultural society was to take over the farm from his father (if he
didn’t emigrate to the USA). It should, however, be pointed out that there were some
dynamic traits in the ‘movement culture’ of the farmers. Most notably they vaulted
over the buck and did backward flip-flops and somersaults. However, these traits
were not dominant. Essentially, it was not a culture of mobility, and gymnastics
therefore did not symbolize speed or progress to the same extent as the sport
movement of the urban community, but rather stability and conservatism.
The farmers’ culture, however, incorporated substantial dynamic traits. The
farmers’ political culture embodied ‘the spirit of the future’. This major social force
aimed at improving the conditions of its social base of support and saw itself as the
creators of a new and better society. [53] This progressive spirit was embodied in
farmers’ gymnastics, especially in the gaze and the songs. In connection with the
straightened back, the gaze of the exercising farmers was always straight ahead,
looking to the horizon for a promising future. To look down was regarded as
unfaithful and lazy. However, to look ahead was to be sincere and energetic. In the
many poems and songs of the practitioners of gymnastics the longing for the
beckoning land of tomorrow was praised. [54]
N.H. Rasmussen, one of the central pioneers of Swedish gymnastics in
Copenhagen, recorded some of the numerous songs of the folk high school which
had forward dynamism as their main theme. In a review of Orison Swett Marden’s
[55] American bestseller, Jeg Vil Fremad (‘Pushing to the Front’), Rasmussen,
however, claimed that Denmark in general and Danish rural culture in particular
could not and should not celebrate the one-dimensional message of forward
dynamism. According to him, the American slogan ‘pushing to the front’ was
acceptable to the Danes but had to be supplemented with other terms; his motto was
‘Forwards, homewards, upwards’. Homewards and upwards symbolized the religious
dimension of farmers’ gymnastics: home to your own soul and up towards God. [56]
Semiotics of Gymnastics
If we now apply the semiotic model described above to farmers’ gymnastics, we arrive
at the following result:
(A) LEVEL OF EXPRESSION

1. Bodily expression
(a) Bending. The straightened body is crucial.
(b) Tension/relaxation. All-over tension.
(c) Strength/weakness. All-over strength, most markedly in the back
region (but not as much strength as in the follower in the gymnastic
field: Niels Bukh’s gymnastics of the 1920s and onwards).
(d) Fatness/slimness. Relatively slim (but not as much as in the fitness
culture of today).
(e) Proportions of the body. Vaulted chest and indrawn abdomen is a
‘must’.
(f) Other factors. Short hair, serious facial expression, forward-looking
gaze.
2. Movement expression
(a) Spatial direction of the body. Stationary movements. The body almost
never moves from one place to another; movements of arms and
bending of knees are obligatory.
(b) Proxemics. Athletes directed towards their leader, not towards each
other. Personal distance (athletes acting as one body).
(c) Temporal analysis. Low speed level and no soft rhythm, more like the
stiff steps of marching. Synchronized movements.
3. The body and environs. Exercises performed in a hall, not outside. Almost
no use of technology.
(B) SOCIOLOGICAL PARAMETERS
1. Class. Mostly farmers but also agricultural labourers.
2. Sex. Mostly men but also females from the farming community.
3. Age. Youth movement.
(C) LEVEL OF CONTENT
1. Genre. Gymnastics can be characterized as a choreographically organized
aesthetic display of movements. In sport the aesthetic is only a (hoped-for)
by-product of the search for measurable results; however, it is the direct
goal of gymnastics.
1348 H. Bonde
2. Codes. In these types of gymnastics (farmers’ gymnastics) there seems to be
a shift in orientation. From 1884 to about 1900 the nationalistic code was
dominant. Hereafter until about 1920 the medical code was favoured (in
this period also the competitive code was involved). Finally, from about
1920 to about 1945 the aesthetic code was in vogue. [57]
3. Connotations. The physical expressions connote the collectivism,
dynamism and civilizing aspects of the expanding farmers’ culture.
In order to show the potential of this semiotic model, it is useful to make a

comparison with single scull rowing, one of the popular sports in Danish cities at
about the turn of the century: [58]
(A) LEVEL OF EXPRESSION

1. Bodily Expression
(a) Bending. To bend is crucial for maximum speed, constant shift
between bending and straightening.
(b) Tension/relaxation. Constant shift between tension and relaxation.
(c) Strength/weakness. All-over strength, most markedly in the arms, the
legs and the back regions.
(d) Fatness/slimness. Very slim (too much weight reduces speed).
(e) Proportions of the body. Strong legs, backs and arms.
(f) Other factors. Serious facial expression, forward-looking gaze.
2. Movement expression
(a) Spatial direction of the body. Dynamic, linear, forwardly directed
movements.
(b) Proxemics. Mostly ‘public distance’ but the distance varies. Athletes
competing individually against each other. No body contact or direct
eye contact.
(c) Temporal analysis. To ‘defeat time’ is vital. High speed level and
constant, monotone rhythm.
3. The body and environs
4. Exercises performed outside
Extensive use of technology. Boats shaped aerodynamically, sharp and long.
(B) SOCIOLOGICAL PARAMETERS
1. Class. Mostly middle-class urban.
2. Sex. Mostly men.
3. Age. Young people (but also some older people, no children).
(C) LEVEL OF CONTENT
1. Genre. Rowing can be characterized as a competitive sport. Aesthetic
expression is only a possible by-product of the search for measurable
achievements (records).
2. Codes. From 1880 to 1920 there was a fierce debate about whether rowing
should be performed for aesthetic or record purposes. During this period
the efficient American way of rowing by bending one’s back became

dominant, whereas the English ‘stylish’ way of rowing with straightened
back was increasingly performed by women (who were measured on style,
not on time). [59]
3. Connotations. The bent back and the linear, dynamic movements of the
rowers became a symbol of the forwardly-oriented dynamism of urban
male youth. Whereas the main concern of young farmers was to be able to
take over the farm and work of their fathers, middle-class men often had to
push for the front themselves and make an individual career. In gymnastics
the collective control over space was crucial, whereas in competitive rowing
the individual fight against time was fundamental. In farmers’ culture the
cultivation of land (space) and collective sale of agricultural products was
basic, whereas in urban production the mastering of time became more

and more important. ‘Time is money’, as Benjamin Franklin put it.
Conclusion
The Grundtvigian spiritual and national revival in the decade around 1900 contained
a high degree of enthusiasm and a strong collective feeling, which was demonstrated
not least through gymnastics displays where young farm-lads’ and girls’ teams
marched into and out of the arena singing patriotic anthems, led by a gymnast
carrying a huge Danish national flag. This form of gymnastics was inspired by the
Swedish poet and educationist Pehr Henrik Ling, whose gymnastics spread
throughout the military and school systems of a number of countries around 1900.
Danish farmers’ gymnastics can be viewed as an incarnation of many of the
fundamental features of farmers’ culture. Through gymnastics vital ideas and values
were dramatized and embodied, making gymnastics a dynamic part of the overall
transformation of Danish rural society around 1900. The Lingian variation of
gymnastics can be regarded as the corporeal dimension of the Grundtvigian revival,
where the straightened, glistening, white-clad gymnast, who draws himself up so the
sun can fall on him, became a symbol of the independent rural man who, literally
speaking, can look members of the other classes in the eye instead of feeling low and
subjugated. This peculiar Danish bias towards an enlightened countryman-farmer
also showed itself in the development of an independent tradition of a voluntary
gymnastics culture practised in the countryside, the equivalent of which cannot be
found in other European countries, where the tendency, on the contrary, was towards
an undermining of the rural population’s position. The small independent farmers’
cultivation of a love of their country was to a great extent fed by their growing
perception at that time that they formed the heart of the nation, giving bread to the
rest of society and making up its core.
At the end of the 1870s, after the long, productive, so-called Kornsalgs (grain-
selling) period, Danish agriculture entered something of a sales crisis, which was a
threat to the farmers’ existence as a strong and independent class in society.
1350 H. Bonde
The answer to the challenge came in the formation of the Cooperative Movement,
which spread across the entire agricultural sector, by and large in parallel with the
spread of Lingian gymnastics. The atmosphere of unity was therefore fostered in both
the Cooperative Movement and gymnastics. In contrast to the liberalism and
individualism of the cities and the general accent on individual skill within sports,
rural gymnastics placed its emphasis on the team as a unit. Lingian gymnastics was a
voluntary, corporeal socialization of the young, who were instrumental in developing
collectivism in a cooperative society. It would be unthinkable that individualist
athletic sports such as running or jumping could have provided the fundamental
body culture in a highly collectivist rural society, where there was an ideological
chasm separating them from sporting individualism. In addition, as in gymnastics
systems, the leader directed all the movements of the team, just as the patriarchal
farmers controlled their families and staff in their daily work life.
In the political realm of society, too, gymnastics and shooting had a significant
impact. The Danish historian Lorenz Reerup has suggested the translation
‘emancipative nationalism’ as the expression of a unified pursuit of national
aspirations and the struggle for Danish democracy against the right-wing dictatorial
government of Prime Minister J.B.S. Estrup around 1900, which constituted the most
important experiential basis for Grundtvigianism. [60] This struggle was also carried
on with the latent threat that the rural population’s volunteer rifle and gymnastics
associations would be used against a right-wing dictatorship. In rural districts both
riflemen and gymnasts from 1861 organized themselves into the Danish Association
of Rifle-Shooting, in which shooting was the prime pursuit until 1929, when the
collaboration fell apart. In addition to the rural population’s national sentiments
there was a (non-aggressive) notion of the Danes as a chosen people possessing an
outstanding culture, from which other people might well learn.
In sum, farmers’ gymnastics through the straightened back incarnated the
attempt to show the same degree of civilization as the upper classes of society, with
which the farmers struggled for political recognition. The forwardly gazing, tense
bodies and controlled movements can be interpreted as an attempt to create self-
control in a time that required the farmers to participate in the modern market
economy. In addition, the synchronicity of the movements made the farmers
become more familiar with the collective spirit that was needed in the time of the
emerging Danish smallholders’ movement, which was later to become internation-
ally renowned.
It might seem a paradox that the linear, stiff and disciplined farmers’ gymnastics
was part of a Grundtvigian liberating revolution that included the fight for
democracy and the creation of the smallholders’ movement. However, we cannot
assume that there is total correspondence between the expression and the content of a
given gymnastic sign. Hermeneutic analysis is needed in order to decode the meaning
of the bodily symbols to the participants in the gymnastic culture. The categories
‘freedom’ and ‘liberation’ at the level of the culture of the body are historical terms,
without a totally fixed content. They must always be analysed within a certain
cultural horizon, and what seems emancipatory to one group might bear the opposite
meaning for following generations.
What does the example of Danish gymnastics tell us in an international
perspective? First of all, that the Western process of modernization in the sphere
of ‘movement culture’ is not linear and uniform. Denmark has become a modern
industrialized nation in a process which to a significant degree was based on the
political, economic and cultural power of Danish farmers. This is contrary to
developments in Great Britain, the United States and Germany. As late as 1960
Danish agricultural exports contributed more to the country’s GNP than
manufacturing industry. And until that time gymnastics had played a significant
role in Danish ‘movement culture’, an importance that can still be observed today in
the strength of Danish gymnastics and in its organizations, the originally town-based
and competitive DGF (Danish Gymnastic Federation) and the originally country-
based DGI (Federation of Danish Gymnastics and Sports). Gymnastics formed an
integral and important part of the unique Danish process of modernization.
Secondly, the Danish example demonstrates that the class struggle takes place more
or less openly in the sphere of body culture. Through collective movements, rituals
and symbols a social group such as the Danish farmers can confirm and develop its
own internal values and outwardly express them to other classes of society.
Swedish gymnastics continued to expand after the First World War and were
integrated into many European military and pedagogical systems. [61] In Denmark
they became the central part of the curriculum in physical education in schools after
1901. School gymnastics, however, mostly degenerated into mere discipline training,
to which the ‘awakening’ and liberating aspects of farmers’ culture seemingly could
not be transferred. In 1904 the Danish health writer I.P. Muller published his book on
home gymnastics, My System, [62] which gained international approval and sold 1.5
million copies. In My System Muller strongly criticized the tense, stiff body with
indrawn abdomen and arched chest of Swedish gymnastics.
However, the most severe attack on Swedish gymnastics came from the emerging
independent movement of female gymnastics. The Finnish gymnastics pedagogue Elli
Björksten in particular gained great influence in Denmark with her accentuation of
rhythm, relaxation and movement as distinctive marks of female ‘movement culture’.
The very influential Danish rural school of Snoghøj, which was founded in 1925,
spread the concepts of Björksten gymnastics to many women. In the towns, too,
Björksten and other pioneers of female gymnastics were very successful. [63] Male
team gymnastics were also inspired by the female concepts of movement – not,
however, by relaxation. A shift from the old ‘positional’ Swedish traditions to
‘movement gymnastics’ can be observed in the 1920s. At the very popular gymnastic
folk high school founded by Niels Bukh, this new ideal of masculine dynamics was
being developed. Bukh’s revolution showed itself first and foremost in the extreme
speed of movements. It was said that the floor of the gymnastic hall was always
slippery from sweat after displays by his students. [64] This can be interpreted as a
modernization of farmers’ gymnastics, closing the gap between this culture and
1352 H. Bonde
dynamic city sports. In addition, Bukh’s male gymnasts incorporated jumping into
their curriculum. The patterns of jumping measured in time and geometrical space
resemble those of sport in that both are founded on speed and fast forward
movements. However, men’s gymnastics were also influenced by rhythms, especially
from the 1970s, and are today even guided by taped music. This cultural
‘feminization’ of gymnastics is probably one of the main reasons why many men
have abandoned these exercises since the Second World War. An even deeper cause of
gymnastics’ diminishing popularity is to be found in the decline of agriculture. Many
country dwellers migrated to the cities and urban male sport has now totally eclipsed
gymnastics. However, over the same period gymnastics has gained in popularity
among city women, and even today gymnastics is a very vital Danish body culture
with appeal to both genders.
Notes
[1] In this article ‘Swedish’ or ‘Ling’ gymnastics are defined as the basic gymnastics of Pehr
Henrik Ling (1776–1839). ‘Farmers’ gymnastics are defined as the practical application of
Ling gymnastics to the Danish farming community from the 1880s to 1920.
[2] See ‘The Time and Speed Ideology’, in this volume.
[3] Cf. Elias, What is Sociology?
[4] See Dunning, Sport Matters and Holt, Sport and the British, 12–43.
[5] See Mangan, Athleticism in the Victorian and Edwardian Public School.
[6] Ibid., 29.
[7] Holt, Sport and the British, 135.
[8] Duding, Organisierter gesellschaftlicher Nationalismus in Deutschland, passim.
[9] Pfister and Hofmann, ‘Turnen – a Forgotten Movement Culture’.
[10] Gems et al., Sports in American History, 37.
[11] In his book Krop og Kultur, Ove Korsgaard offered a more dialectic picture of farmers’
culture.
[12] Cf. Korsgaard, Idræt, krop og demokrati, 54–71. See also Vestergaard Madsen, Oplysning i
bevægelse.
[13] Korsgaard, Medborgerskab, identitet og demokratisk dannelse.
[14] Lindroth, Ling – från storhet till upplösning.
[15] However, in the inter-war period Ling gymnastics did have a wider public appeal in Sweden:
see Lindroth, Idrott Mellan Krigen, passim.
[16] In absolute figures the total rural population in 1901 amounted to 1.491 million (61 per cent),
whereas the total urban population amounted to about 959,000 (39 per cent). This picture
changed dramatically in the first decade of the twentieth century: the total urban population
in 1911 amounted to 1.852 million, whereas the total rural population amounted to 1.051
million. Afterwards the share of the rural population continued to fall dramatically from 36
per cent in 1915 to 25 per cent in 1940. I have chosen my references from books on Scan-
dinavian agrarian economy written in English. See Christensen, Rural Denmark, 92 and 36.
[17] In the folk high schools in about 1907–8 about 7,000 pupils were educated in gymnastics; see
Meyer, Idrætsbogen, vol. II, ‘Gymnastics’, 50. It is impossible to estimate precisely how many
exercised in the community centres.
[18] In 1907 about 33,000 people took part in farmers’ gymnastics in ‘De danske skytte
foreninger’ (The Danish Association of Rifle-Shooting): ibid.
[19] See Lauridsen, ‘Mål og Midler’, 3.

[20] See, for instance, Brydegaard, ‘Gymnastiksang’, where the cross is the central religious
symbol. See also the poem by Emborg in Ungdom og Idræt.
[21] Rasmussen, ‘En Opfordring og et godt eksempel’.
[22] For the celebration of masculinity in Ling gymnastics, see Ljunggren, Kroppens bildning.
[23] Emborg, ‘Gymnastiksang’.
[24] See Bonde, Mandighed og Sport, 113.
[25] See especially Howitz, Bidrag til en Sundhedslære for Kvinder, passim.
[26] On Lindhard, see Bonde, ‘Kønnet i kroppen’; Jørgensen, ‘Fra læge på Danmarks
Ekspeditionen til Nordøst Grønland’, 162.
[27] Bukh, Primary Gymnastics.
[28] See Bonde, Gymnastics and Politics, 46.
[29] See, for instance, Eco, Den Frånvarande Strukturen, 11–19. See also ‘Gestualitet’ in Greimas,
Semiotik, sprogteoretisk ordbog. For a brilliant essay on semiotic methodology, see Ginsburg,
Ledtråder, 8–19. In his Encyclopedic Dictionary of semiotics, vol. 2, the grand old man of
American semiotics, Thomas A. Sebeok, included non-verbal communication as a vital field
of semiotic study. See also Barthes, ‘The World of Wrestling’, the initial chapter in his
Mythologies.
[30] Cf. RCS, ‘The Semiotics of Sport’ and Ajayi, Yoruba Dance.
[31] Ling gymnastics were named ‘rational gymnastics’ to imply a medical dimension. It was the
purpose of Ling gymnastics to strengthen and straighten all the parts of the body in order to
attain physical health. It was not difficult for the Danish pioneer physiologist of the science
of sport, J. Lindhard, to attack Ling gymnastics. At the turn of the century he began
experimental studies of gymnastics and apparently succeeded in showing the shaky medical
foundations of Ling gymnastics: see Lindhard, Den Specielle Gymnastikteori.
[32] Johnson and Lakoff, Philosophy in the Flesh.
[33] An attempt to use multimedia for research in sport history is Bonde, Niels Bukh – en politisk-
ideologisk biografi.
[34] An interesting forerunner of a semiotic analysis of gymnastics is Dr Karl Gaulhofer’s Die
Fusshaltung. Gaulhofer analyses the stiff posture of Swedish gymnastics but does not link it
to the general processes of social history. See also Tikkanen, Die Beinstellungen in der
Kunstgeschichte. For a more recent approach to the history of gestures, see the articles in
Bremmer and Roodenburg, A Cultural History of Gesture. Unfortunately, this interesting
book does not comment on sport or gymnastics.
[35] The model presented here is particularly designed to interpret Ling gymnastics with its linear
and predictable movement patterns. The term ‘sign’ has some static connotations which
seem particularly suitable to the analysis of pictures and Ling gymnastics In order to analyse
the more complex and dynamic movements of, for instance, soccer transmitted through
video or film, other more dynamic terms like ‘trait’ or ‘feature’ might be used. See Juel,
‘Dokumentarfilm – hvad er det?’ and Juel, Billeder og Begreber, passim.
[36] The terms signifiant and signifié have been introduced by Saussure. To him a ‘sign’ is defined
as a combination of its expression (the verbal utterance of a word. ‘signifiant’) and its
content (the meaning of the word: ‘signifié’); see Saussure, ‘The Linguistic Sign’, 37. In this
paper I have applied the same terms to the language of movement culture: the physical
expressions of the body constitute the ‘signifiant side’, while the codes and genres define its
content (‘signifié’).
[37] See Hall, The Hidden Dimension.
[38] Gaulhofer, Die Fusshaltung, 7 and 174.
[39] However, this does not mean that the signifiant aspect is totally relative. For example, the
tense bodies and linear movement patterns of Swedish gymnastics could not be replaced by
1354 H. Bonde
relaxation and anarchy without changing the meaning (signifié). Saussure claims that the
expression of a word like chair has no ‘motivated’ relation with the content of the word. The
relation between the word ‘chair’ and its meaning is arbitrary, whereas the word ‘bow-wow’
is highly motivated. With Saussure’s terminology one can say that there exists a motivated
relation, between the nationalism and class-consciousness of farmers’ gymnastics (signifié)
and its actual physical presence (signifiant). See Saussure, Semiotics, 36, n.18.
[40] See Bonde, Mandighed og Sport, 165.
[41] Vigarello, Concepts of Cleanliness.
[42] Bonde, Mandighed og Sport, 170.
[43] See Gyldendals Dansk–Engelske Ordbog.
[44] See Knudsen, Lings Formgivende Buløvelser, passim.
[45] Knudsen, Lærebog i Gymnastik, 106.
[46] Rasmussen, ‘En Opfordring og et godt eksempel’.
[47] See, for instance, Ungdom og Idræt 1 and 6 (1911) and 4 (1911).
[48] Of the 33,000 members 8,000 were women and 5,000 boys: Meyer, ‘Idrætsbogen’, 50.
[49] The Danish expert in the culture of the Danish smallholders and agricultural labourers,
Fridlev Skrubbeltrang, sums up: ‘About 1890 more than 20% of the pupils at the folk high
schools were agricultural labourers and smallholders, an amazingly large number when one
considers the economic conditions of rural labourers.’ Roar Skovmand shows how
gymnastics increased in popularity during the 1880s. In 1876–7 12 schools did ‘shooting and
gymnastics’. In the period between 1876 and 1888–9 21 other folk high schools took up
gymnastics. The average weekly hours of education in gymnastics at the 32 folk high schools
that performed gymnastics exercises in winter 1888–9 were five: see Skovmand,
Folkehøjskolen i Danmark, 251.
[50] Korsgaard, Krop og Kultur. See also Korsgaard, The Struggle for the People.
[51] See the previous article in this volume.
[52] However, this was only a tendency, not an actual elimination of riding for aesthetic purposes.
For instance, school riding is still a major Olympic event.
[53] Cf. Fabricius Møller, Grundtvigianisme i det 20. Århundrede.
[54] See Emborg, ‘Gymnastic Song’, verse 4.
[55] Marden, Jeg Vil Fremad. The gist of the book was to show how after leaving school the young
man could push himself to the front and become famous and rich. In 1916 the book sold 2
million copies and was translated into many languages. N.H. Rasmussen called the message
of the book ‘The evangelism of the future’.
[56] Rasmussen, ‘Jeg vil Fremad’. I would suggest another interpretation of ‘homewards’
implying the nationalistic dimension of gymnastics, ‘home’ meaning ‘fatherland.
[57] See the first article on Niels Bukh in this volume.
[58] For further details see Bonde, Mandighed og Sport, 129–64.
[59] See the previous artice in this volume of IJHS.
[60] Rerup, ‘Fra litterær til politisk nationalisme’.
[61] We lack research on the spreading of Ling gymnastics outside Sweden and Denmark. See
Lindroth, Ling – från storhet till upplösning.
[62] See the article on I.P. Muller in this volume.
[63] See Trangbæk, Kvindernes idræt, 117.
[64] See the first article on Niels Bukh in this volume.
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ISSN 0952-3367 (print)/ISSN 1743-9035 (online) Ó 2009 Taylor & Francis

configurational change. [3]

The Semiotics of ‘Movement Culture’

traditional scholarly mistrust of anything ‘sensual’ and non-verbal. However, the

Semiotic Model of ‘Movement Culture’

semiotically speaking the signifié or content side of ‘movement culture’.

The Straightened Back

The Community Spirit

‘democratic national sentiment’, is central to an understanding of the thinking of the

The Individualistic Body

The Dynamic Body

(A) LEVEL OF EXPRESSION

In order to show the potential of this semiotic model, it is useful to make a

(A) LEVEL OF EXPRESSION

the efficient American way of rowing by bending one’s back became

basic, whereas in urban production the mastering of time became more

[19] See Lauridsen, ‘Mål og Midler’, 3.

Barthes, R. Mythologies. London: Paladin, 1972.

London: Methuen, 1948.

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