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Article Number
LXSOLSCK
Author

Soviet Chess 1917 - 1991

450 pages, paperback, McFarland, 1. edition 2014

€48.50
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This large and magnificent work of art is both an interpretive history of Soviet chess from the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the U.S.S.R. in 1991 and a record of the most interesting games played. The text traces the phenomenal growth of chess from the Revolutionary days to the devastations of World War II, and then from the Golden Age of Sovietdominated chess in the 1950s to the challenge of Bobby Fischer and the quest to find his Soviet match. Included are 249 games, each with a diagram; most are annotated and many have never before been published outside the Soviet Union. The text is augmented by photographs and includes 63 tournament and match scoretables. Also included are a bibliography, an appendix of records achieved in Soviet national championships, two indexes of openings, and an index of players and opponents.
More Information
EAN 9780786497584
Weight 840 g
Manufacturer McFarland
Width 17.7 cm
Height 25.4 cm
Medium Book
Year of Publication 2014
Author Andrew Soltis
Language English
Edition 1
ISBN-13 9780786497584
Pages 450
Binding paperback
Table of Contents

vii Preface
xi List of Crosstables
001 Introduction

003 01. Up from a Basement
015 02. Chess to the Workers
026 03. Big Chess
045 04. Togh Examiners
063 05. The New Soviet Man
082 06. International Moscow
102 07. The Terror
115 08. Palaces, Twins and Absolute Champions
137 09. Barbarossa
157 10. Joining the World

Between pages 194 and 195 ther are 16 pages of plates containing 23 photographs

195 11. Golden Age
245 12. Invisible Crisis
278 13. Fischer Fear
310 14. After Reykjavik
339 15. Target: Korchnoi
370 16. Scandals
391 17. Endgame

421 Notes on Sources
425 Bibliography
429 A Guide to the Pronunciation of Players´Names
431 Soviet Dominance of FIDE, July1, 1991
433 Soviet Championship Summaries
435 Index of Openings (ECO)
436 Index of Players and Opponents
438 Subject Index


List of Crosstables
012 First Soviet Championship, Moscow, October 4 - 24, 1920
021 Second Soviet Championship, Petrograd, July 8 - 24, 1923
032 Fourth Soviet Championship, Leningrad, August 11 - September 6, 1925
042 First Moscow International, November 10 - December 8, 1925
052 Fifth Soviet Championship, Moscow, September 26 - October 25, 1927
060 Moscow Championship, 1928
072 Seventh Soviet Championship, Moscow, October 10 - November 11, 1931
074 Eighth Soviet Championship, Leningrad, August 16 - September 9, 1933
078 Botvinnik - Flohr Match, Moscow-Leningrad, November 28 - December 19, 1933
080 "Tournament of Masters with Euwe," Leningrad, August 17 - September 1, 1934
088 Second Moscow International, February 15 - March 15, 1935
098 Third Moscow International, May 14 - June 8, 1936
118 Tenth Soviet Championship, Tbilisi, April 12 - May 14, 1937
122 Moscow Championship, 1938
128 Eleventh Soviet Championship, Leningrad, April 15 - May 16, 1939
132 Twelfth Soviet Championship, Moscow, September 5 - October 3, 1940
135 Absolute Soviet Championship, Leningrad-Moscow, March 23 - April 29, 1941
140 Moscow Championship, November 1941 - January 8, 1942
146 Moscow Championship, 1943
154 Thirteenth Soviet Championship, Moscow, May 21 - June 17, 1944
158 U.S. - USSR Radio Match, September 1 - 4, 1945
168 Fifteenth Soviet Championship, Leningrad, February 2 - March 8, 1947
170 Tchigorin Memorial, Moscow, November 25 - December 23, 1947
175 World Championship Tournament, The Hague-Moscow, March 2 - May 18, 1948
178 First Interzonal, Saltsjöbaden, July 15 - August 15, 1948
186 First Candidates Tournament, Budapest, April 4 - May 20, 1950
193 World Championship Match, Moscow, March 15 - May 11, 1951
198 Eighteenth Soviet Championship, Moscow, November 10 - December 12, 1950
204 Nineteenth Soviet Championship, Moscow, November 11 - December 14, 1951
214 Second Candidates Tournament, Neuhausen-Zürich, August 28 - October 24, 1953
223 USSR - U.S. Match, New York, June 16 - June 23, 1954
226 Twenty-Second Soviet Championship, Moscow, February 11 - March 15, 1955
234 Twenty-Fourth Soviet Championship, Moscow, January 20 - February 22, 1957
238 World Championship Match, Moscow, March 5 - April 27, 1957
239 World Championship Match, Moscow, March 4 - May 8, 1958
240 Twenty-Fifth Soviet Championship, Riga, January 12 - February 14, 1958
244 World Championship Match, Moscow, March 15 - May 7, 1960
250 Twenty-Eighth Soviet Championship, Moscow, January 11 - February 11, 1961
253 World Championship Match, Moscow, March 15 - May 12, 1961
256 Fifth Candidates Tournament, Curacao, May 2 - June 26, 1962
260 World Championship Match, Moscow, March 23 - May 20, 1963
270 World Championship Match, Moscow, April 11 - June 9, 1966
274 International Tournament of the Central Chess Club, Moscow, May 21 - June 18, 1967
290 World Championship Match, Moscow, April 4 - June 17, 1969
294 USSR versus Rest of the World, Belgrade, March 29 - April 5, 1970
298 Thirty-Eighth Soviet Championship, Riga, November 25 - December 28, 1970
308 World Championship Match, Reykjavik, July 11 - September 1, 1972
316 Match-Tournament of National Teams, Moscow, April 24 - 30, 1973
320 Forty-First Soviet Championship, Moscow, October 2 - 26, 1973
325 Final Candidates Match, Moscow, September 16 - November 22, 1974
330 Alekhine Memorial International, Moscow, October 14 - November 3, 1975
342 Forty-Fourth Soviet Championship, Moscow, November 26 - December 24, 1976
352 World Championship Match, Baguio City, July 18 - October 18, 1978
356 Montreal 1979, April 10 - May 7, 1979
364 World Championship Match, Merano, October 1 - November 18, 1981
379 USSR versus Rest of the World, London, June 24-29, 1984
386 World Championship Match, Moscow, September 19, 1984 - February 15, 1985
389 World Championship Match, Moscow, September 3 - November 9, 1985
394 World Championship Match, London-Leningrad, July 28 - October 9, 1986
396 Fifty-Third Soviet Championship, Kiev, April 2-28, 1986
405 World Championship Match, Sevilla, October 12 - December 19, 1987
408 Fifty-Fifth Soviet Championship, July 25 - August 19, 1988
416 World Championship Match, New York-Lyons, October 8 - December 31, 1990
The Union Soviet socialist Republic has dominated the chess world for nearly a whole century. New chess inventions were made as the King's Indian defence with it's rising generation of soviet players of the 1940's as Bronstein and Boleslavsky, but other major lines in the Sicilian and Spanish defence may not be forgotten. The years 1917 - 1991 are important and not only for the great chess victories that were played but even more for the history of the Soviet chess started with the Bolshevik Revolution to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. Around the 1950's we could speak of the golden age of the Russian chess. The government paid chess professionals a giant salary as a well paid Russian engineer. The Bibliography of Soviet Chess is impressive with it's impressive Russian sources. This all ensures us an excellent inside story of these stormy years. Follow the famous and less famous masters with their highlights and tragedies. The story of the young Aljechin and how he escaped from a firing squad, according to one fanciful version he was saved by Trotsky who unfortunately for the story was nowhere near Odessa at that time. One of the most unknown period in Russian chess are the years 1941/1945 with the invasion of the Nazis and the defeat of Hitler in 1945. Some chess masters did survive the war as Oleg Moiseev was not even 18 years old when he was called up for army duty in January 1943. He was wounded near Smolensk that December, operated on a makeshift field hospital and spent seven months recovering, later he went to become a postal Grandmaster in correspondence chess. Or the Latvian Chess genius Petrov who died at Kotlas 1943 of an inflammation of the lungs. I hoped to see in this book some more information about the tournament from Baku 1943 but it seems that this tournament is lost in history. Maybe a tip for a deep research of Fiala and his Quarterly for chess history could dig up some new games. There is much more as the Keres Mystery, The Fischer effect etc. But the story of Leonard Stein who nearly gave chess up for a job as a metal worker did impress me. Was the payment of engineer so bad in the USSR? I heard that engineers in the former DDR where paid very bad! I found it a great pleasure to read this Soviet Chess 1917 -1991. It's more than an exciting roman!
Included is an excellent collection of 249 games, where most of them are excellent analysed and never been published outside Russia; the text is augmented with 23 photo's.

A great historical work!
Highly recommended!

John Elburg