The thesis analyzes the historiography of the research and distinguishes four periods according to the criterion of changing the methodological approaches of researchers to the study of relevant issues, which was motivated by the transformation of theoretic and ideological approaches to the coverage of historical events at one time or another.
The dissertation provides a comprehensive overview of the formation and development of the public-pedagogical movement for the physical education of children and young people in the lands of the Dnieper Ukraine at the end of the 19th cen. – 1917.
The work generalizes the contribution of P. Lesgaft to the development of the theory and practice of physical education of children as a theoretical basis for the deployment of a public-pedagogical movement for the physical education of children and young people in Ukraine. The thesis looked into the activities of his followers, Kiev doctors and educators V. Kramarenko and O. Anokhin, who have contributed to the scientific substantiation of the physical education of children and young people usefulness, its introduction as a feasible educational subject to compulsory content of school education, and the importance of sport as an integral part of the harmonious development of each man; the formation and activities of the first mass sports societies and clubs not only in Kiev, but also in other cities of the Dnieper Ukraine; holding mass events; implementing professional training of gymnastics teachers. The work contains detailed analysis of V. Kramarenko’s (a complex of strength and gymnastic exercises) and O. Anokhin’s (psychophysiological movements) systems of physical education, based on the principles of physiological and anatomical expediency, national character and naturality.
The research characterizes the activity of professional courses-congresses during the research period, which helped to find solutions to the urgent problems of physical education of children and youth. It presents the panorama of the activity of sports and gymnastic societies and associations, Sokol and Scout centers, which were involved in the physical education of children and young people. The study proves that the public-pedagogical movement was the manifestation of local initiatives of certain conscious, democratically-minded representatives of the society – doctors, educators, patrons, community and territorial leaders, and encouraged the authorities to take action to improve the physical education of the younger generation.
The positive consequences of the activities of public sports societies should be considered the mass attraction of young people to physical culture, spreding ideas about a healthy lifestyle, leisure, sports achievements at the national and world levels. Despite the bureaucratic difficulties for the sports movement, the lack of proper public funding, social and property, class relations in society, since the end of the XIX century the ideas of physical education and culture, health protection are gaining popularity, activate the emergence of new public sports societies, clubs in educational institutions, industrial enterprises, the publication of scientific, popular and professional editions, best practices exchange, which positively influenced the rooting of ideas about the purposeful physical development of children and young people, the spread of sports among young people and adults.
The negative trends in organization of sports centers for children and youth include: the short duration of the created sports associations (due to organizational, financial difficulties, social inertia); often formal, not interested attitude of the management of educational institutions to sports and masswork; the lack of specialists – teachers who would be able to organize classes at a professional level.
