Abstract: Sport is viewed as a form of active and respectable leisure that became popular in Russia in the late XIX – early XX centuries among the upper classes. The article analyzes the reasons, which led Russia towards shifting from the Greek-Byzantine model of leisure to Western European, bringing the examples of fiction writings that reflect the genesis and evolution of sport, enthusiasm of the representatives of nobility for such types of sports and physical activity, as billiard, lawn tennis, cricket, fencing, gymnastics, horse racing, equestrian sports, ice skating, and cycling. Methodology of systemic and axiological approaches used in the research, substantiates the inclusion of examples illustrating the phenomenon of sport in the Russian classics. The analysis of oeuvres by L. N. Tolstoy, A. P. Chekhov, I. A. Bunin, V. V. Nabokov allows concluding that in multiple noble families, the organization of active leisure, physical education, demands in sports activity and healthy lifestyle, were of great importance; thus, the enthusiasm for sports has gradually become the component of everyday culture of the representatives of upper classes.

Abstract: The relevance of research is connected with non-inclusion of lexeme "sport" as culture component in the passport of scientific specialty 24.00.01 "The theory and cultural history" that has caused the appeal to researches of the domestic and foreign culturologists, philosophers, historians connected with identification of sociocultural component of sport. In article the role and the place of sport in cultural life of Russia at turn of the 19-20th centuries come to light. Object of research - specifics of the Russian sport as sociocultural phenomenon of the pre-revolutionary period. The methodology of the system and axiological approaches used in research, causes inclusion of the examples illustrating reflection of phenomenon of sport in literary works. The main conclusions of the conducted research are the following: The historical retrospective has allowed to reveal the conditions and factors which have exerted impact on genesis and development of amateur and professional sport: many classes, coexistence of traditions of elite and national culture, the outlined democratization of society, introduction of occupations physical culture and sport in programs of educational institutions, influence of the ideas of Olympism and the developing international sports movement. The interest of the nobility and intellectuals in the Western European culture, existence of appliances and free time have caused origin of the gentlemen's sport which has become form of active and respectable leisure and transformed at boundary of the 19-20th centuries of amateur. Development of the market relations has exerted impact on formation of the professional sport which had utilitarian functions and gained development in mass culture. Correlation of the kinds of sport (amateur, military and applied, professional) presented in cultural space of Russia at the turn of the 19th -20th centuries with theories of origin of sport allows to explain current trends sport development variety as the phenomena of mass culture.