Szachy wojenne 1939 - 1945. War Chess - Pawel Dudzinski

 

It has been quite some time since I posted a book review but this is not so much a book review as much as it is a plea for a translation, this book deserves a much wider audience, than its limited edition of 600 copies and Polish language will afford it. Perhaps McFarland or some other publisher will consider the undertaking the task of translating and publishing Szachy wojenne. I don't read Polish, so what I gleaned of the books contents is from the five page English summary that is at the end of Szachy wojenne.

This very handsome book seems to have an illustration or chess diagram on every page, and numerous games many played in harrowing circumstances,but the importance of Szachy wojenne lies in its narration and the English summary gives us who don't read Polish, an idea of the book's value.

   ' The theme of the present book covers all the official and unofficial chess activities of ,,the Poles", ,,the Germans", and ,,the Ukrainians" in the years 1939- 1945 on the occupied territories of the Second Republic, and in the case of ,,Chess by the Germans" - also the German part of Silesia and Pomerania, which were incorporated in the Polish state after 1945.'

But also the chess activities of Polish players who were living outside the country fighting withe Free Polish forces, or as the case of the Polish Olympiad team who were stranded in Buenos Aires at the beginning of the war ; or the Poles who were deported to the Gulag, following the partition of Poland by Germany and Soviet Union; which closely followed the German invasion.

The Nazis sponsored tournaments in occupied Poland  in which Alexander Alekhine  and other European masters participated; Paul Keres, and Efim Bogoljubow to name just two. How does affect our view of them?

But it is above all the story of the Polish chess players who truly had to "endure the unendurable" , who played chess when they could, clandestinely under yoke of the Third Reich;  in the ghettos, in concentration camps; but mainly they had to survive and many perished in the Nazi death machine.

So I hope someone will consider translating and publishing this book so that it may reach a wider audience.  In the meantime til we have a translation of Szachy wojenne, that I may give it proper review; til then I am working on a couple of reviews which shall post soon.

Szachy wojenne 1939 - 1945. War Chess 

Pawel Dudzinski

Ostrow Wielkopolski, Biblioteka publiczna Ostrow.Towarzystwo Szachowe. (2013)

300 pages

Forthcoming chess books from Mcfarland

Just a quick post on what's new and  forthcoming from Mcfarland.
Just published Emil Kemeny A Life in Chess by John S. Hilbert

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-7359-5

Forthcoming a new biography of Mikhail Botvinnik
The Life and Games of a World Chess Champion by Andy Soltis

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-7337-1

also to be released in the future from Mcfarland is William H.K. Pollock A Chess Biography by Olimpiu G. Urcan

http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?isbn=0-7864-5868-2

and last but not least The Classical Era of Modern Chess by Peter J. Monte


http://www.mcfarlandpub.com/book-2.php?id=978-0-7864-6688-7

Per Skjoldager and Jorn Erik Nielsen: Aron Nimzowitsch : on the road to chess mastery, 1886-1924

Til now there has not been a generally available biography of Aron Nimzowitsch; there are course his own books, and a number of game collections; but nothing like a comprehensive biography. Nimzowitsch has always had a certain mystic quality attached to him . What the authors have done is to pierce the veil that has obscured the man.

Nimzowitch's early years in Riga, his family life, and his wandering student years in Riga, Zurich, and Germany give us a sense a man pulled between familial duty and his intellectual pursuits; the family business or the life of a chess master.

Almost from the very start of Nimzowitsch's chess career he was the center of controversy, for both his eccentric behavior and unorthodox ideas about chess. Nimzowitsch's first tournament was the 1904 Coburg Haupttunier A, "It was quite a challenge for a newcomer who had not even taken part in a local club tournament. But he had a strong belief in his own abilities and had been practicing hard in the cafes of Berlin."
It may have been this strong belief in his own abilities that may have led many to think of Nimzowitsch as ill-mannered prat.

   " A young rising talent, who must keep a tight rein on his temper if he wants to achieve a similar success
   in social life as he has done on the chessboard"- Bohemia 29 September 1907

Siegbert Tarrasch known as the "Praeceptor Germaniae" ( the Teacher  of Germany) was one of the most influential chess writers of his time. To Nimzowitsch,  Tarrasch was the great "popularizer" of chess but he considered him intellectual mediocrity. Tarrasch for his part who was also one of the most successful tournament players of his time, thought of Nimzowitsch's play as "perverted". The dispute at times became quite  personal; with each sure of his ideas and each not willing to give any ground. The dispute was carried out in the chess press in game notes and articles, many of which are reproduced in the book, of special interest are those games where both Nimzowitsch and Tarrasch notes to the same game are reproduced. In the end an uneasy peace was reached by these two giants of the chessboard.

Hypermoderism or neo-romantic chess are the terms often used to describe Nimzowitsch's and others theoretical chess ideas, about control of the center; was Hypermoderism a school or a movement? The book quotes the quip from Richard Teichmann that " In the first place there is no Hypermodern School, and in the second place Nimzowitsch is its founder." (p. 219)

There are gaps in the chess career of Nimzowitsch, some of this may be  explained by his dispute with Tarrasch, he didn't play that often in tournaments in Germany where he may have felt Tarrasch and his allies held sway. The first world war and the Russian civil war in its aftermath,  limited Nimzowitsch's playing opportunities. There was also a period when his health became an issue, he is thought to have suffered from tuberculosis for a time.

It was the conditions in post-war Riga that made it necessary that Nimzowitsch settle elsewhere at least for a time. There arose the opportunity to give a number of simultaneous exhibitions along lectures in Sweden then later in the rest of Scandinavia; it was these lectures in which Nimzowitsch was able consolidated the themes for his books; and  over time Nimzowitsch made Scandinavia his home base of operations finally settling in Denmark.

Would we have Nimzowitsch's books, if he didn't have had these interruptions in his career, had he been able to play more often in tournaments? The authors think not, and I tend to agree with them.

For me the surprise of the book is the number of simultaneous exhibitions Nimzowitsch gave, I had never thought that he played that many simultaneous exhibitions in his career.

Be warned this is no lionizing portrait , there are many anecdotes in the book most at Nimzowitsch expense. He did not suffer those who he viewed as fools lightly, in an era when being a gentleman still mattered; to Nimzowitsch with his outsider status as a Jewish Latvian of  Russian citizenship and rebel nature it seemed not to matter to him.




It is difficult sometimes to review a good book, in that you don't want to overpraise; to gloss over a book faults however minor. No such difficulty exists for this new Nimzowitsch biography, if anything one cannot praise this book enough. A second volume is promised for some time in the future for this reader it cannot come soon enough. If I could I would easily give it six stars out of five. Very well done and like Dickens' Oliver, I want more, please.


 

Aron Nimzowitsch : on the road to chess mastery, 1886-1924
Per Skjoldager and Jorn Erik Nielsen 
McFarland (2012) 468 page 
 

Joseph Henry Blackburne research project

When I posted Some games from Tim Harding's Eminent Victorian Chess Players  I had the what I thought was a vain hope that someone would write a Blackburne biography, now comes the news that Tim Harding has a contract offer from McFarland for a biography of  Joseph Henry Blackburne.  All I can say  is that I can think of few authors better qualified to write a Blackburne biography.

More information on the Joseph Henry Blackburne research project can be found at: http://www.chessmail.com/research/blackburne.html

My review of Tim Harding's Eminent Victorian Chess Players can be found at
http://chessreader.blogspot.com/2012/07/tim-harding-eminent-victorian.html

Tim Harding: Eminent Victorian Chess Players

Readers of chess history have much to be thankful for, with publishers like McFarland, Caissa Editions, and others illuminating many of the byways of the game. Little known players and once forgotten tournaments are now getting their due, thanks to the enterprising spirit of these publishers , and of a handful of hard working chess historians. Tim Harding the author of numerous chess books on opening theory and correspondence chess has of late turned his attention to chess history; Eminent Victorian Chess Players is the latest book to come from his historical research.

Ten players are the subject of Eminent Victorian Chess Players they range from the well-known William Steinitz to the obscure Rev. Arthur Bolland Skipworth. Each of the ten was eminent in his own way in the Victorian chess scene, whether as player, author,chess journalist or organizer.

The English champion Howard Staunton and Austrian world champion Steinitz stand at the center of much of the narrative but the other eight receive their just due. Much was made of the "gentleman amateur" vs. the "chess professional", Harding exposes the xenophobia and anti-Semitism which was an undercurrent of Victorian chess life. I must say they were a cantankerous lot with one totally disagreeable character the aforementioned Rev. Skipworth. The battles in the chess press of the time make for some entertaining reading.

To think that all major chess in Victorian Britain was limited to London would be a mistake, as there was an active scene in the counties with players like Amos Burn (one of the eminent) being based outside the capital whether for business or personal reasons. there were also nascent efforts to to create a national chess organization which for the most part fell on infertile ground at the time.

The inclusion Steinitz and the other foreign "chess professionals" may come as a surprise but each had substantial career in Britain and at least one became a British subject. Several of the ten have been subject of biographies already of at least part of their careers, with Burn already being the subject of an exhaustive biography, but for the majority of the ten their lives and games even their names are not well-known. There is still much to discover and game scores to unearth.

At the end of the book there is a  full scholarly apparatus but this no dry scholarly tome but an entertaining and  informative book. Tim Harding has done very well by his model (Eminent Victorians by Lytton Strachey).

 I don't intend to look a gift horse in the mouth but one minor quibble, I regret McFarland has decided to published the book in paperback rather than hardcover.

Coming soon from McFarland

For the chess history minded reader the new chess book catalog is out from McFarland listing a number of new books to be issued in the coming months.The Fall and Winter new releases will include:

The Zurich Chess Club, 1809–2009
RICHARD FORSTER
ISBN 978-0-7864-6064-9

Arthur Kaufmann: A Chess Biography, 1872–1938
OLIMPIU G. URCAN
AND PETER MICHAEL BRAUNWARTH
ISBN 978-0-7864-6145-5


William H.K. Pollock: A Chess Biography
OLIMPIU G. URCAN AND JOHN S. HILBERT
ISBN 978-0-7864-5868-4

Books coming in the Spring of 2012

Aron Nimzowitsch: On the Road to Chess Mastery,
1886–1924
PER SKJOLDAGER AND JØRN ERIK NIELSEN
ISBN 978-0-7864-6539-2


Eminent Victorian Chessplayers
TIM HARDING
ISBN 978-0-7864-6568-2

[The Early Modern Era of Chess History] Title not yet set
P.J. MONTÉ
ISBN 978-0-7864-6688-7