Russian & Soviet chess, 1920s
Sarah Hurst
sarahhurst at ALASKA.NET
Tue Oct 14 22:24:55 UTC 2008
I would suggest you contact chess historian Edward Winter about this. He
writes a column called "Chess Notes" that can be seen at
http://www.chesshistory.com/winter/index.html and the website includes his
email address. If he can't find the answer to your question, then I doubt
that anyone can!
Sarah Hurst
-----Original Message-----
From: SEELANGS: Slavic & East European Languages and Literatures list
[mailto:SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU] On Behalf Of Prof Steven P Hill
Sent: Tuesday, October 14, 2008 12:15 PM
To: SEELANGS at BAMA.UA.EDU
Subject: [SEELANGS] Russian & Soviet chess, 1920s
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.
_____________________________________________________________________
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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