Abstract

The features of the formation of the image of judo in the Soviet media have been traced in the article. Article includes the analysis of the historical reasons for the gradual changes of the Soviet government’s political course towards this martial art during the 1960s-1970s. Publications on judo in the Soviet media have been collected and analyzed, including Ukrainian means of the public information and thematic (sports and geography) ones. The peculiarities, the reasons and motives for the comparison of Japanese judo and Soviet Sambo by Soviet propaganda have been revealed, the history of Sambo and its relationship to judo have been summarized; the history of the Soviet judo has been traced from its official introduction in the sports life of the Soviet Union in the early 1960s with an analysis of the motives of this event, then the period of its existence in the framework of the Soviet Sambo, including consideration of the reasons for such it provisions, and until the declaration of judo as a separate sport and consolidating such a status of this martial art in the public consciousness by providing an official explanation of the reasons of that decision in the press. The prehistory of the Soviet judo, has also been discussed in the article, the creation on the basis of this martial art Sambo by V. Oshchepkov has been noted. It was later considered the Soviet international martial art, while judo was banned. It became legal again only after its inclusion into the Olympic program in Tokyo 1964, but it developed for a long time only in the framework of the Soviet Sambo. The USSR, according to the vision of its leadership, could not participate in the Olympic judo competitions. Firstly USSR tried to promote the idea of the predominance of Soviet Sambo in comparison to this Japanese martial art. The benefits of Sambo over judo were prescribed in the Soviet press. However, the loss of superiority of Soviet wrestlers in sport judo competitions in the early 1970s forced the Soviet government to reconsider its policy in relation to judo and to separate it from Sambo by creating in 1973 the Federation of judo of the USSR.