Georg Lurich – perfect body and sharp mind. Lurich in art

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Lurich dahlias, Lurich St. George's
athlete

Date of birth: Place of birth:

village of Väike-Maarja, Estland Governorate, Russian Empire

Citizenship:

Russian Empire, RSFSR

Date of death: Place of death:

Armavir, RSFSR

Georg Lurich on Wikimedia Commons

Georg Lurich- (April 22, 1876, village of Väike-Maarja, Estland province, Russian Empire - January 22, 1920, Armavir, RSFSR) - two-time world champion in French wrestling. Circus performer. Popularizer of sports. One of the pioneers of Russian sports journalism.

1 Etymology of the surname
2 Childhood. Youth
3 Start of sports activity
4 Career pinnacle
5 Death
6 Personality
7 Lurich in art
8 Sports and social activities
9 Interesting facts
10 Memory
11 See also
12 Notes
13 Links

Etymology of the surname

It is believed that the surname Lurich, altered into the German style, was given to the athlete’s serf ancestors by one of the Baltic barons, but its root is in the Estonian luuri vedamine - an ancient athletic game of the Estonians that served as entertainment during public festivities. It consisted of trying to pull each other with a kind of reins thrown over the back of the opponent’s head. Another option is when two opponents, bending their knees and resting their feet on each other’s feet, pull the stick. As if confirming the surname, George’s relatives were distinguished by their physical strength. The athlete’s grandfathers and great-grandfathers, both on his mother’s and father’s side, were distinguished by their strong physique, good health, and besides, they were also people of an extremely sober lifestyle. As far as is known, three of his ancestors lived to be almost 100, and one even lived to be 103 years old. And his uncle Hans, who reminded Georg of the hero of the folk epic “Kalevipoeg”, whom he admired, could easily lift an eighteen-pound boulder from the ground, could hold a 50-pound load at arm’s length, or, grabbing his nephew’s uniform student belt, lift it over his head and carry it everywhere village

Childhood. Youth

Georg Lurich was born on April 22, 1876 in the village of Väike-Maarja near the town of Rakvere in the Estonian province, Russian Empire(today - Estonia). An extremely sickly boy by nature, in early childhood he suffered severe pneumonia, which significantly undermined his health. He was of frail build, pale, physically weak, at the same time being a man of exceptional willpower with an incredible desire to overcome his weakness. Lurich decided to develop himself through physical exercise, probably impressed by the performance of two professional athletes, the Germans Leidner and Lomberg, which he saw at the age of 12 in Tallinn. years of study at the Revel Real School, due to health reasons, George was even exempted from gymnastics, but he began to independently engage in physical education and strength exercises, and soon achieved amazing results. At the age of 15, Lurich squeezed two-pound dumbbells on a dare, simultaneously lifting them with both hands, 4 thousand times. Later, Georg showed enviable dedication, perseverance, hard work and perseverance, devoting all his free time to training. Classes with dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells and heavy boulders alternated with exercises such as gymnastics, running, jumping, swimming, cycling and skating. Within a year of graduating from real school, Lurich is already attracting the attention of the press with his sporting successes. A local newspaper reporter wrote: “We have a 17-year-old hero living in Estonia...”. There were reasons for this: Lurich lifted a 4-pound weight with one hand 20 times, lifted several tied weights with a total weight of 10 pounds from the ground with one finger, while he held another 95 pounds in his outstretched left hand. Popular rumor quickly called him an unprecedented strongman and made him a famous and respected person. It is not surprising that after graduating from real school (1895), he decided to become a professional wrestler and athlete.

Start of sports activity

To make his dream come true, in 1895 Lurich went to St. Petersburg, to the famous “athletic office” of Dr. Kraevsky, the “father” of Russian weightlifting, mentor to many great wrestlers and athletes, including such stars as Hackenschmidt and Poddubny. In just a year, under the guidance of experienced mentors, Georg achieves stunning results and finally decides to devote his entire life to sports. Many of Lurich's achievements, demonstrated at the first competitions in his life, exceeded the world weight lifting records set by the most outstanding strongmen. 1896-1897 he wins the titles of “the first wrestler of Russia”, “Athlete - Champion of Russia”, then “World Champion in lifting weights with one hand”. 1901, in Hamburg, Georg wins the title of world champion in (classical) “French” wrestling, and next year, in Riga, again easily puts all his eminent rivals on the shoulder blades and confirms his title of the strongest wrestler in the world. Afterwards, with the rank of champion, Lurich travels around the world, takes part in the most prestigious competitions in Europe and America, performs demonstrations in front of a completely fascinated unprecedented strongman with an amazing figure, an audience that enthusiastically accepts the unique numbers and tricks he demonstrates. Wins brilliant victories over the German strongman Siegfried (1904) and the huge Turk Kara Mustafa (1908).

Top career

In sports, Lurich was a typical self-taught person and did not bow to recognized authorities. He independently, with incomprehensible thoroughness, examined his own body and developed his own system for developing the strength of human muscles, thought out to the smallest detail, which allowed him to turn from a weak teenager into one of the most strong people planets. He learned to control his own body so deftly that he could, in front of an astonished audience, move individual muscles or groups of muscles, while remaining completely motionless. If he was sometimes defeated, then, as a rule, he owed his defeat primarily to his overly courageous and enterprising nature, his thirst for a sports researcher, which forces him to try out some new technique even in the most decisive battles. Lurich was an athlete to the core. By 1910, Georg had already set 20 world records for weight lifting. Among Lurich's favorite circus acts, in which he demonstrated his heroic strength, were holding two camels, lifting a horse and its rider on his shoulders, and juggling weights that were difficult for an ordinary person to even just lift off the ground with two hands. In 1912, Georg won another first prize in wrestling in Hamburg and went on a tour of America. where he learns the techniques of the newly emerging Free American wrestling. Like many popular athletes, Lurich became a victim of impostor scammers who toured the cities of the empire under his name. Lurich's motor talent was very high; he wrestled both in belts and in classical and freestyle. Among the rivals he defeated in different times there are such names as Hakkenshmidt, Pedersen, Zbyshko-Tsyganevich, Pytlyasinsky and others. Particularly noteworthy is his success in freestyle wrestling in 1913 over the world champion American Frank Gotch, to whom he first lost, and then a month later in a rematch held in Havana, twice put down the one who ruined the career of Hackenschmidt himself. First world war found Lurich abroad, in America. There he found himself on tour with his fellow countryman and friend Aberg. Communication with Russia was interrupted.

Death

They returned to their homeland in 1917. In 1918 they already performed in Petrograd at the Ciniselli Circus. But there was famine in the city, and the friends went to the southern regions - Ukraine, the North Caucasus, where at the beginning of 1920 in Armavir both were struck down by typhus, which took them to the grave within a month of each other. The great athlete died suddenly at the age of 43, on January 22, 1920 in Armavir. He is buried in his small homeland, in the village of Väike-Maarja.

Personality

He had such a body
That envy has eaten up some people.
He knew ten languages -
This angered the fools.
Lurich is a bright star,
Our pride forever!
Heroic deeds
He is known beyond the seas.
Brighter than the sun medals
There was a sparkle on his chest.
He traveled around the globe,
Both young and old knew him.
He has no equal in strength, -
He has countless victories...

Folk art

Georg Lurich is one of the greatest athletes in history. He is the standard of a person leading a healthy, versatile lifestyle, and a supporter of the emerging sports science. By his own example, he demonstrated the importance of the harmonious development of an athlete and a person. Lurich was a truly unique personality - in addition to his grandiose sporting achievements, he had a great sense of humor, was widely educated, was known as an excellent chess player (he played chess with the greatest masters of this game, including Lasker, Chigorin and Tarrasch) and a brilliant musician who played the piano masterfully (even on long trips I never parted with my harmonica). In addition, Georg was a polyglot and writer - he knew 10 languages, wrote stories and articles about sports and physical culture, collected and recorded folk tales.

In 1910, in public circles in Tallinn there was even talk about building a monument to the people's favorite in the capital of Estonia. people called him “our Yuri,” which Lurich himself really liked. Wide popularity grew into popular love, which became food for the halo of various kinds of rumors and legends circulating among sports fans. Poems were also composed using folk imagination.

Lurich in art

Lurich was amazingly built. His figure was considered the most beautiful male figure in the world. At that time, the art of weightlifting was highly revered and was popular not only among the people, but also among the artistic community. And often the jury of weightlifting championships was formed from famous artists, performers and journalists who received great aesthetic pleasure from the competition. Many famous sculptors, such as Rodin, Begas, Htoppe and many others, seeing Lurich, asked him to pose for them. Georg was also the favorite model of the famous Estonian sculptor Amandus Adamson, a graduate of the St. Petersburg Academy of Arts. One of their joint works, “Champion,” was awarded first prize at the 1904 World Exhibition in St. Louis, just during Olympic Games. Adamson's second famous work, for which Lurich was the model, was called “Kalevipoeg at the Gates of Hell,” where the hero of the Estonian folk epic is depicted at the moment of liberation “from the captivity of the rocks.”

Sports and social activities

Georg was a naturally talented propagandist and a strong theorist. He seriously studied the development of the human body and often reproached scientists for paying too little attention to the problems of health, sports and physical education. The owner of a sharp mind and a perfect body, Georg skillfully and knowledgeably gave lectures to ordinary people on the need to maintain body hygiene, engage in physical education, lead a healthy lifestyle, cultivate strength and agility, and strive through self-improvement to make the world around him a better place.

Lurich argued that any person can become a strongman and athlete, regardless of the inclinations inherent in him by nature, provided he regularly plays sports. Training, according to the great strongman, is nothing more than mastering oneself, one’s own will and aspirations. As a coach, Lurich managed to train a whole galaxy of outstanding athletes and wrestlers who later gained worldwide fame, among them Kristaps Weyland-Schultz. Georg's most famous student was Alexander Aberg, his fellow countryman and close friend, whom Georg helped get on his feet. And then from this naturally strong guy, he made a multiple world champion. Lurich highly appreciates the abilities of his outstanding student. He has no secrets from Aberg.

He was often published in sports publications, gave interviews, speaking not only as a celebrity, but also as a publicist and even a scientist, publishing empirically obtained scientific knowledge. Reproaching scientists for paying little attention to physical education and sports, Lurich wrote:

Why, for example, is horsepower taken as a unit of measurement of power, and not human power, which is smaller than horsepower, and, therefore, would be more convenient to use as a more accurate measure? Why doesn’t science study the power capabilities inherent in the human body at all, but focuses its attention only on the animal world? Why is there no financial support for the physical education movement, which plays such an important role in human development?! As already noted, high science has always treated physical culture like a stepmother, and this area would still remain terra incognita (unknown land - author's note) if we, athletes, had not begun to develop it ourselves, - we gave each movement of the human body an appropriate, deeply thought-out name, thoroughly studied and analyzed the capabilities of each muscle and brought weightlifting, which includes both wrestling and weight lifting, to such a high level of development that it actually turned into a science itself. By setting world records, we were able to determine with mathematical accuracy the boundaries of the physical strength of a person as a whole, as well as his individual muscle groups. World records are boundary stones that mark the limit of human physical strength. Now, when this or that record is broken, it is no longer just proof that one athlete is stronger than another, but a great event, hitherto unprecedented on earth. At the same time, it also has great scientific significance, because in this case the boundary stone of the strength of the corresponding muscle group moves a few more degrees forward. And the significance of this advancement is no less than the advancement of some polar explorer a few degrees closer to the North Pole. Weightlifting is associated with continuous exertion of force, which gives us the opportunity to determine the endurance of the lungs, heart, and circulatory system - thereby we provide science with invaluable material not only in the field of anatomy, but also in the field of human physiology.

Lurich's position on human development was:

The soul and body of a person must form a single harmonious whole, because the underdevelopment of one of these components always has a detrimental effect on the other. Only in a healthy body does a healthy mind live. A spirit that has achieved perfection, but lives in a weak, fading body, is like a palace built on the sand. A person who is physically developed but not spiritually developed is usually considered an ignoramus, but with no less justification we can apply this definition to a professor who, due to laziness and lack of willpower, has reduced his body to the position of a fashionable clothes hanger, for the education of such the professor is inharmonious, one-sided.

Lurich loved folk art and was actively involved in collecting Estonian folklore. To this day, the Estonian Literary Museum houses more than 800 pages of folk song texts collected by Lurich during his infrequent and short-term holidays in his small homeland.

The sculpture of Georg Lurich, installed on the Pirita Highway near the Olympic Sailing Center, has been attacked by vandals for the eighth time, which makes it a kind of record holder among the monuments of Tallinn.
Athletic halls named after Georg Lurich were opened in European and Estonian cities.
The film “In the Lurich Arena” was made about Lurich

Memory

Stele at the Tallinn Real School.
Monument on Pirita Highway, Tallinn.

Notes

Georg Lurich is a comprehensively developed personality | Strength training
V. Becker “Outstanding wrestlers of the world”
book by O. Langsepp, E. Dmitriev “Kalev of the 20th century”
GEORGE LURICH
IN THE ARENA - LURICH

Lurich, Georg Information About

Quite frail and awkward at birth, Georg Lurich managed to turn himself into a living machine unique in power and beauty; He did this, interestingly, according to his own system, without relying on any authorities or famous coaches. Having become a true national legend, Lurich is remembered by Estonians to this day.

Georg Lurich - Estonian strongman and Greco-Roman wrestling specialist; was widely known at the beginning of the 20th century. Along with his own achievements, he became famous as a coach of other outstanding wrestlers and heavyweights - in particular, Georg Hackenschmidt and Aleksander Aberg.

Georg Luri was born in the village of Väike-Maarja, in Vironia (Väike-Maarja, Viru County); at that time the village and the district belonged to the Russian Empire. Georg's father was the owner of a local store, Jüri Luri. The Luri family was Estonian by origin; this, however, did not prevent them from subsequently changing their surname to “Lurich” - thereby reflecting the change of religion, from traditional Estonian Lutheranism to the faith of the Baltic Germans. When changing their faith, the family was driven not only by spiritual, but also by mercantile motives - they believed that as members of the dominant church they would receive more opportunities in the city (in particular, in terms of educating children). Already in early childhood, Georg showed a clear interest in sports.

In 1895, Georg graduated from Tallinn school and went to St. Petersburg; there he continued his sports activities under the guidance of the outstanding coach Vladislav Kraevsky. Lurich performed in the summer gardens of St. Petersburg, fought with local wrestlers and worked in tandem with strongman Gustav Boesberg, demonstrating his extraordinary abilities. Georg enjoyed considerable popularity - which is only an additional

greatly strengthened his desire to become a professional wrestler.

Georg Lurich became the first Estonian to set a number of world records. The Estonian public showed great interest in the talented fellow countryman; At home, Lurich's popularity exceeded all his expectations. Between 1897 and 1898, George toured the country; his achievements played a significant role in the growth of the popularity of sports in the country - new sports clubs began to appear throughout Estonia, like mushrooms after rain. In 1896, Georg Lurich became friends with 18-year-old fellow countryman Georg Hackenschmidt; later Lurich became Hackenschmidt's coach - and helped him become a very famous strongman and wrestler.

Lurich's success benefited Estonia not only in terms of the development of sports - it also had a significant impact on the flourishing of Estonian self-awareness and national pride, indirectly pushing the country along the path of the struggle for independence. Estonia was still part of the Russian Empire, but Georg's achievements gave many local officials and intellectuals the opportunity to talk about the "indestructible Estonian spirit."

Even before the start of World War I, Lurich went to the States to perform in front of American sports fans; Another of his comrades and colleagues, Alexander Aberg, went on tour with him. Lurich traveled around the States, performing in wrestling matches, from 1913 to 1917; among other things, he managed to fight with American champion Frank Gotch. The battle ended in victory for the American

th fighter - and, by the way, became his last battle.

Georg and Alexander did not arrive home to Estonia directly - they traveled through Japan, China and Russia. Having reached home, the wrestlers took part in the capital's tournament; alas, due to the outbreak of war and the German invasion, this tournament was never completed. The athletes went to St. Petersburg, and then to the southern part of Russia; the trip to the south was caused by the same war - due to the situation in the country and the world, there was no work for the fighters either in St. Petersburg or in Moscow. The southern lands, then under white control, looked much more promising; Unfortunately, the war continued to flare up - and the fighters soon had to move again. Ultimately, Lurikh and Aberg were carried to a remote corner of the country, where they were stuck in the village of Armavir. Initially, the fighters considered leaving the country via the Black Sea; alas, in 1920 the situation changed radically again. The front line has reached here too; cities were constantly changing hands, soldiers and civilians were dying in incredible numbers, and funerals were going on almost continuously. The warm winter made the situation worse; weather conditions brought with them a typhus epidemic. One could not count on adequate medical care in those conditions; Lurich became seriously ill and died of typhus on January 20, 1920. His friend was not much luckier; Having caught typhus, Aberg seemed to be able to defeat the disease, but due to his non-compliance with the treatment regimen, the wrestler immediately developed pneumonia

from which he died on February 15, 1920. The wrestlers were buried in the same grave in the local cemetery.

After Lurich's death, Estonians continued to praise the legendary countryman; stories about his exploits now sounded almost on a mythological level. Legends about George's incredible achievements circulated throughout the country - in particular, in its rural areas - for many, many years. An example of such a legend is the story of how Lurich acquired his incredible power. According to legend, one summer Lurich was relaxing on a hillside; the day was too hot and George decided to go down into the valley to a cold spring to cool off a little. On the way, Lurich tripped heavily over a rock, falling onto the stones. Getting up, George continued on his way and reached the source; Having washed his hands and feet in it, he received his incredible abilities. Returning to the fatal stone, Lurich easily picked it up and threw it several times like a potato. Legend claims that this stone still lies on the slope of a memorial hill in the home village of the outstanding Estonian wrestler.

In 1912, Estonian architect Amandus Adamson made a bronze statue of Lurich; It was called "Champion". By a funny coincidence, the statue soon became a champion not only in name, but also in essence - with its help, the architect won a competition of creators held in Paris. Subsequently, it was the image of Lurich that Adamson was inspired to create another of his compositions, “Kalevipoeg at the Gates of Hell.”

At the beginning of the 20th century, the birth of sports science took place, and it was advanced by people who largely walked by feel. One of these heroes was the wrestler and circus performer Georg Lurich. Today he is deservedly mentioned among the greatest athletes in history.

Most athletes are always obsessed with their activities and results. Lurich, in addition to his grandiose achievements in sports, had a great sense of humor, was a widely educated person, an excellent chess player and musician, a polyglot and a writer. The athlete did a lot to popularize sports and was among the pioneers of Russian sports journalism. Lurich lived very little - only 43 years. However, the list of his achievements is so long that it is difficult to believe that they were accomplished by one person.

Childhood and youth

Georg Lurich was born in 1876 in the village of Väike-Maarja in the Estonian province of the Russian Empire. He grew up as an extremely sick boy and at an early age suffered severe pneumonia, which only worsened his health. Thin, pale and physically weak, Georg turned out to be the owner of exceptional willpower and the desire to overcome his weakness.

At the age of 12, he attended a performance in Tallinn by two professional athletes from Germany - Lomberg and Leidner. Impressed by what he saw, the boy firmly decided to develop himself through physical exercise.

Georg studied at the Revel Real School and was exempt from gymnastics due to health reasons. However, he himself began to engage in physical education and perform strength exercises. And very soon he showed amazing results. At the age of 15, Lurich synchronously squeezed dumbbells weighing 2 pounds (about 800 g) four thousand times with both hands.

Georg was very persistent and hardworking, he devoted all his free time to training. In addition to training with dumbbells, kettlebells, barbells and heavy boulders, he ran, swam, jumped, biked and skated. At the age of 17, the Estonian press wrote about him as a hero. Lurich by this time had really learned to surprise the public. For example, he lifted a 4-pound weight (about 65 kg) 20 times with one hand and with one finger tore off a bunch of weights weighing 10 pounds from the ground, while holding a 95-pound load (about 40 kg) in his outstretched left hand.

Georg turned out to be famous person even before graduating from real school, and after graduating, he decided to become a professional athlete and wrestler.

Coming to sports

In 1895, Lurich went to St. Petersburg to see the famous doctor Kraevsky, who is called the “father” of Russian weightlifting. It was he who was Gakkenshmidt’s mentor. During the year of training, Georg showed incredible results and finally decided to connect his life with sports. At the very first competitions in his career, Lurich broke several world records set by other strongmen.

In 1901, Georg became the world champion in French wrestling at a competition in Hamburg and confirmed this title the following year in Riga. So Lurich receives the status of a world celebrity and begins to travel to different countries, demonstrating his tricks, unique performances and wrestling skills. In 1904, he defeated the German strongman Siegfried, and in 1908, the Kazakh giant nicknamed Kara Mustafa.

Heroic strength and lost homeland

Lurich had no authority in sports; he explored his body himself and created a personal system for developing muscle strength. The effectiveness of his technique was obvious - Georg became one of the strongest people on the planet. Level of control own body struck. The athlete often showed the public a trick with moving individual muscle groups or even individual muscles, while maintaining complete immobility.

By 1910, Lurich had set 20 world records related to weight lifting. He performed as a circus hero with different acts, but most of all he loved the following three:

holding two camels;

lifting on the shoulders of the rider along with the horse;

juggling heavy objects that a simple person could hardly lift from the ground with both hands.

In 1912, Lurich left for America and studied free-American wrestling techniques there. In 1913, he defeated Frank Gotch, the world champion in freestyle wrestling from the United States. Georg initially lost to him, but a month later he took revenge and twice defeated Gotch, who several years earlier had spoiled the career of Hackenschmidt himself.

When World War I began, Lurich was in the United States and toured with Aberg, another Estonian wrestler. Thus, his connection with his homeland was interrupted for several years.

Return and death

In 1917, Lurich and Aberg arrived in Russia and almost immediately returned to their usual way of earning money - they began performing in the St. Petersburg Ciniselli Circus. However, very few townspeople at that time could afford such entertainment; most did not even have enough money to eat normally. Lurich and Aberg went to perform in the south of the country - to the North Caucasus and Ukraine.

At the beginning of 1920, both athletes were in Armavir, where they contracted typhus and died within a month of each other. Georg Lurich was buried in his native village.

Besides sports

Most of the strongmen of that time can hardly be called standards of beauty. Lurich stood out here too - he was not only well-built, his figure was considered the most beautiful among men in the world. George was asked to pose by many famous sculptors, including Rodin.

Among Lurich’s talents, it is also worth noting his ability to approach complex issues from the position of a scientist and oratory skills. He gave lectures to ordinary people, to whom he spoke about the need for physical education, hygiene and a healthy lifestyle.

Georg knew 10 foreign languages, wrote articles and stories on sports, and also collected Estonian folklore. In his small homeland, people called him “our Yuri,” and the athlete really liked it. Even during Lurich’s lifetime, they wanted to honor him with his own monument in Tallinn.

ABOUT this person historians wrote: “Georg Lurich can be considered a phenomenon in the sense that he was lucky enough to go through his life path, combining the qualities of both an outstanding weightlifter and a wrestler, and achieve the title of world champion in both sports. In this way, he convincingly refuted the opinion that a high-class wrestler can never be a good weightlifter and, conversely, an outstanding weightlifter will never achieve remarkable results in wrestling. If he was sometimes defeated in a fight, then, as a rule, he owed his defeat, first of all, to his overly courageous and enterprising nature, his thirst for a sports researcher, which forced him, even in decisive battles, to try out some new technique . Lurich was an athlete to the core.”

His image is immortalized in the works of famous artists and sculptors of the beginning of the last century: Rodin, Klipger, Begos and Werner. He was filmed during his lifetime, and already in Soviet times a feature film about him was released in Estonia.

Lurich was an extraordinary person. He spoke ten languages, played the piano beautifully, played chess masterfully, wrote stories on sports topics, and gave lectures on physical education. There is now a monument to him in Tallinn, and a tournament in his memory is held there every year.

Quotes from Georg Lurich:

“Anyone can become an athlete - even when a person lies in the cradle, nature gives him a certificate that he can become as strong as, for example, me.”

“A true athlete-wrestler is a kind of pioneer, helping to eradicate the stupid prejudice that exists among us, that physical labor is humiliating for a person, and physical strength no one needs it."

“The meaning of athletics is not that this or that athlete will win something for himself, say, fame and money, and not in who is placed on the shoulder blades of whom - Aberg Poddubny or Poddubny Aberg, because in any case, humanity as a whole is unlikely to either win or lose. The main purpose of a sporting competition is for us, athletes, to feel like the vanguard and to issue a serious warning to the physically weakening human race. Our call is this: “Man, get out of your crazy way, look at us: is it possible? We are not made of the same flesh and blood as you?

“It is in vain that some parents are upset that their son, having taken up sports despite their prohibition, too quickly outgrows his clothes, which his father and mother acquired with such great difficulty - for we must admit that clothes can be purchased new, but "No amount of money can buy health and strength."