Sport između kulture i civilizacije: stanovište osvalda špenglera
Sport Between Culture And Civilization: Oswald Spengler’s Standpoint

Summary/Abstract: This paper represents a review of the idea of sport in the context of Oswald Spengler’s philosophy of culture through two key horizons: the first one represents a general view of the fundamentals of Spengler's thesis on the decline of the West, while the second one discusses the concept of modern sport in the context of the distinction between the “ancient Greek palaestra” and the “Roman stadium”. The first part of the text thematizes Spengler’s understanding of history, on the basis of which it is possible to understand his idea that civilization can be observed as “the most artificial” and the final stage of culture. In this context, this paper examines the characteristics of ancient and occidental cultures, as well as the key turning points that foreshadowed their end and the beginnings of civilization. The ancient concept of time as аcyclical process turns out to be incomprehensible to contemporary historical interpretation, which leads to a number of subsequent read-ins of ideas that were not familiar to that era. “The man of civilization” tries to intellectualize the problems of the age of culture that were not intellectualistically structured, thus creating the first stumbling block in the understanding of eras different from his own. The author stresses the important observation of Norbert Elias that the significance of the very term “civilization” differs in various European nations.

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