Citius-Altius-Fortius – Igrzyska Olimpijskie w Moskwie w 1980 roku jako strategia promocyjna radzieckiej modernizacji u schyłku epoki Breżniewa
Citius-Altius-Fortius – Moscow Olympic Games of 1980 as a promotional strategy of Soviet modernization at the decline of the Brezhnev era

Summary/Abstract: The purpose of the article is to describe the place and role of the XXII Summer Olympic Games in the Soviet propaganda. The research problem was defined as the selection of main threads in the propaganda discourse and the determination of their content, purpose and hierarchy. The research method is that of critical analysis of propaganda discourse in representative press titles and other texts transferring the official point of view. The author puts forward the hypothesis that the Olympics ’80, alongside the resumption of the construction of the Baikal-Amur Railway, was the last „big project” of the postwar USSR. The authorities used it as a tool to promote communism not only in the capitalist world, but also in the USSR itself. Organization of a global-scale undertaking would have to convince Soviet citizens about the condition of their state. There were three main threads in the propaganda. First, the modeling of the Olympic development of Moscow as an example for the USSR and the whole world. Secondly, the Olympics as a „festival of sport and peace”. Thirdly, the construction of a whole database of texts and statements that give the impression that international public opinion affirms the high material and organizational level of life in the USSR.

• Details
• Contents