Russian & Soviet chess, 1920s

[Prof Steven P Hill]

Dear colleagues, particularly chess fans:

As I've watched and re-watched ""Shakhmatnaia goriachka"/"Chess Fever" 
(1925 Soviet short comedy directed by Pudovkin), I have tried to identify 
the chess "stars" of that decade who participated in the big 1925 Moscow 
International Chess Tournament and who appear in Pudovkin's film.  Some 
of those stars,  like Capablanca and Marshall,  are identified in the film's 
titles, while some others are not, unfortunately.  

When I later looked up the outcome of the '25 Tournament itself,
I got a real surprise.  Jose Capablanca (perhaps pre-tournament 
favorite) finished only third (13.5 points), and veteran Emanuel 
Lasker finished second (14).  Biggest surprise of all was that the 
Tournament was WON by a Ukrainian-Russian-German, Efim 
Dmitrievich Bogoliubov (Bogoljubow), who scored 15.5 points. 

I would have thought that Bogoliubov (at that time supposedly living 
in the Soviet Union, although at other times he lived in Germany)
 would have been shown on camera and identified at some point in 
Pudovkin's Soviet Russian film. I.e., three cheers for local boy winning 
international sports championship!  But the conspicuous absence of 
Bogoliubov from the film might have a couple of explanations --

(1) Bogoliubov was indeed shown and identified in Pudovkin's film 
originally, but later was censored out?  (When he moved permanently 
to Germany and, during WW2, played in a number of fascist-sponsored 
tournaments.)  

Or else --

(2) Pudovkin shot his film early on, during the initial stages of the big 
Tournament, at a time when the outcome was unknown -- and when 
Bogoliubov had not yet emerged as the tourney champ?

Attached below are a couple paragraphs about Bogoliubov I copied from
a chess web site.

Best wishes to all,
Steven P Hill,
University of Illinois.
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The chess career of Efim Bogoljubow spanned forty-four years, and his statistics 
are impressive. He played about 1700 games in 120 tournaments, in which he 
claimed prizes 48 times; and in 29 matches, 16 of which he won. Bogoljubow is 
also the author of a book series, published in the USSR and Germany. In fact, at 
least one of his books is still relevant [ . . . ]

After the First World War, Bogoljubow rapidly ascended to the world's elite. His 
strength was probably best symbolized in three major tournaments that 
encompassed the peak of his career. The first was in Bad Pistyan in 1922, which he 
won with 15 out of 18 ahead of Alekhine and other strong players. In the next two 
years he won both the 3rd and 4th Championships of the Soviet Union, already no 
mean feat. His crowning achievement came in the Moscow 1925 supertournament, 
where in 21 rounds he won 13 games and lost only 2, finishing a full point and a 
half ahead of Lasker, and even further ahead of Capablanca, Marshall, Torre, Reti, 
Rubinstein, Spielmann, and a host of other great players [ . . . ] 
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