Masterpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships 3

Tredje del av Sergey Voronkovs bredt anlagte gjennomgang av Sovjetmesterskapene og sovjetisk sjakk fram til Stalins død i 1953. Historien om mye glimrende sjakk med et dramatisk og dels blodig bakteppe.

Forlagets egen omtale:

The third volume of Sergey Voronkov's epic tale takes the reader on a historical journey through the late Stalinist period in the USSR. It covers in depth the five Soviet championships from 1948 to 1952 and the playoff match between Botvinnik and Taimanov in 1953, which concludes one month before Stalin's death.

Against a background of rampant anti-Semitism, a new wave of repressions and descent into the First Cold War, in which chess was an important front, the USSR captures the world chess crown and Botvinnik and the generation that followed him, including Smyslov, Keres, Bronstein, and Boleslavsky, assert their places at the top-tables of Soviet and indeed global chess.

Yet a new group of legends begins to emerge, including Petrosian, Geller, Korchnoi, Taimanov, Averbakh, Simagin, Kholmov, and Furman making their championship debuts, as well as a semi-final appearance by Nikitin and Spassky's first quarter-final. At the same time, the reader learns about lesser-known masters Yuri Sakharov and Johannes Weltmander, victims of Stalinism who found solace in chess from their otherwise tragic lives.

The present volume contains 77 games and fragments, once again mostly annotated by the participants and other contemporary masters, augmented with modern computer analysis. It is illustrated with over 220 photos and cartoons from the period. Many of these photos come from unique archives, including that of David Bronstein, and are published for the first time.

Innholdsfortegnelsen:

004 Index of Games

006 Introduction: Chess of the Red Propaganda

014 Gold for the Cosmopolitans. 16th Soviet Championship:

Moscow, 10th November – 13th December 1948

095 Cossacks of the Kuban. 17th Soviet Championship:

Moscow, 16th October – 20th November 1949

183 The Chigorinist’s Feat. 18th Soviet Championship:

Moscow, 10th November – 12th December 1950

279 The Wooden Man’s Gibberish. 19th Soviet Championship:

Moscow, 11th November – 14th December 1951

395 The End of an Era. 20th Soviet Championship:

Moscow, 29th November – 29th December 1952

486 Between Heaven and Earth. Match for the Title of Soviet Champion:

Moscow, 25th January – 4th February 1953

513 Championship Tables

518 Championship Rankings (1939– 1952)

521 Bibliography