Successful sportmen and -women are always draught into the narrative of ideological nationalism. All dictatorships - left, right, religious fundamentalism like in the case of nowadays Iran - they all need sport to crown their ideological efforts. The syllogism is pretty easy: they, the champions do have the support of the masses; by including them as part of the identity narrative, they political establishment is taking advantage and projecting on oneself the popularity of the sport players. Although there are plenty of examples in the media about such situations, I haven´t read until Courir - Running, in my translation - by Jean Echenoz - a literary transposition of the tensions implicit in such an image abuse by the dictatorships.
I may confess that I haven´t paid too much attention to Echenoz, a prix Goncourt laureate. Maybe because I haven´t got any specific references until now, but in any case, although shortly over 100 pages,s is a masterpiece in storifying the never ending mendling of politics into sports.
The example is took from the confrontations during the Cold War, not all of them necessarily connected to arms race and nuclear dreams. The main character of the book, whose story is told by the storyteller, without necessarily giving him the right to speak by himself, as it usually happens when politics are taking over the individual voices, is an outstanding athlete, beating easily all the world records, but unhappily being born in the then Czechoslovakia who just started its history under the influence of the Soviet Union. His career starts shortly at the end of the WWII and his destiny follows shortly the political enslavement of his own country. He is used as a political symbol, only to end up being misused and manipulated. And he will end up voiceless, despite a short moment of awareness, during the short-lived Prague Spring, at the end of the 1968, when the promises of freedom and democracy were cut short by the Soviet tanks.
The destiny of the athlete can be replicated by many other stories of other champions, in practicall all fields of the sport. All over the former Communist Block, soccer clubs, for instance, used to be another playground for different political entities and ´intelligence´ agencies for displaying their pride and rivalities.
Courir is a reminder of all this, said in a story which may bring more clarity to historical events as reflected into individual life, than thousand of pages of academic articles.
Recommended to anyone looking for good literature with a powerful political subtext.
Rating: 5 stars
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