Alexander Alekhine is a great Russian chess player, the only world champion who died undefeated. At different times he was called a child prodigy and an alcoholic, a fascist and a genius.
Hereditary chess player
In geniuses, talent usually manifests itself in the earliest childhood, Alekhine was no exception in this sense. In many ways, the family environment also contributed to the rapid development of the chess prodigy. Chess was played by his older brother, Alexei, who later also became a well-known chess player (of course, not at all on the same scale as his brother) and the publisher of the Chess Bulletin magazine.
But the first who sat down with Alexander at the chessboard was not his brother, but his mother - she began to teach him when Sasha was 7 years old. At 10, Alexander was already playing in correspondence tournaments, and he also won his first tournament victory by correspondence. And at 16, he won an amateur tournament in the Moscow chess club, took first place in the All-Russian tournament, received the title of maestro and made his debut on the international arena.
Enemy of the Soviets
Alekhine left Soviet Russia back in 1921, but his final break with his homeland took shape 6 years later, after a historic match with Capablanca and winning the world title. At a banquet held in his honor in a Parisian club, Alekhine allegedly allowed himself a number of caustic remarks about the Bolshevik government. Whether the words were spoken or not, whether it was a provocation, nothing could be changed - the next day, several émigré newspapers published articles that quoted Alekhine and his wishes: the invincibility of Capablanca. These publications marked the beginning of the chess player's disgrace in his homeland - many well-known compatriots spoke about the incident, and for the chess community in the USSR, Alekhine became enemy number one. Even Alekhine's brother published a statement (most likely he did it under pressure) in which he condemned his brother's anti-Soviet statements and moods.
Drinker
Addiction to alcohol - not a rare companion of a genius - did not bypass Alekhine. In the thirties, after several years of uncompromising triumph, a significant decline is planned in Alekhine's career, which is largely facilitated by his addiction to alcoholic beverages. The result of the fall is the lost match for the world title to the Dutch grandmaster Max Euwe. Having lost the title, Alekhine pulls himself together, begins to take training and important meetings much more seriously, refuses to drink alcohol before the rematch. In the end, he returned the title of world champion to himself, defeating Euwe in the final, but Alekhine did not manage to defeat his addiction. By the end of his life, the chess player was diagnosed with advanced cirrhosis of the liver.
antisemite
Alekhine's biography contains many contradictory episodes, but it is very difficult to subject these dust-covered facts to any critical assessment. One of these dark spots in the biography of the chess genius was a series of anti-Semitic articles under the general title "Jewish and Aryan Chess", written for one of the Parisian newspapers, as well as participation in tournaments held under the auspices of Nazi Germany. However, Alekhine himself vehemently and repeatedly refuted his authorship of the articles, I refer to the editorial work done by the newspaper employee, the ardent anti-Semite Gerbets. Speaking about participation in chess tournaments, one should still take into account the fact that at that time he was in a tenacious captivity of circumstances - in the 41st year, Alekhine ended up in the occupied territories and was forced to agree in order to save himself and his family from repression.
Needless to say, Alekhine's reputation in chess circles suffered greatly - due to cooperation with the Nazis, many chess players threatened to boycott tournaments in which Alekhine took part, and even insisted on depriving him of the champion title.
Freemason
During his stay in Paris, Alekhine became close friends with another Soviet émigré and chess player, Osip Bernstein. Bernstein and led him to join the local Asthenia Masonic lodge. Its members were mostly Russian emigrants, and for Alekhine joining it was, in a sense, an attempt to break the fetters of the spiritual loneliness that binds him, an opportunity to get along with other cultured Russian people in order to muffle his homesickness. In fact, Alekhine was never an active freemason - while the others were discussing lofty things and arguing about the fate of the world, he played chess with Bernstein more and more and at some point was expelled from the box.
Polygamist
The most important and, by and large, the only passion in Alekhine's life remained chess - he didn't get along very well with his family. Alekhine had as many as four wives, but he did not live with any of them for more than ten years (he divorced the first in less than a year), and he saw his son from his second marriage extremely rarely, completely shifting upbringing to his mother, and after her death - on her acquaintances.
cat owner
There is nothing surprising in the fact that Alekhine was a great lover of cats. The only faithful companion on the path of life for him was his beloved Siamese cat named Chess. Their union was stronger and longer lasting than any of Alekhine's love affairs - not a single woman lived with a chess player longer than his furry pet. Chess was a real talisman, partner and friend for Alekhine - he took the cat around the world with him and regularly took him to matches. Alekhine was accused of almost witchcraft - before the matches he let the cat sniff the board. The death of Chess was a real blow for Alekhine, he was depressed for a long time and even refused to participate in major chess tournaments.
The future great chess player was born in 1892 in Moscow into a very wealthy family. His father, Alexander Alekhin, was at one time the provincial marshal of the nobility in Voronezh. Alekhin Sr. adhered to liberal views and even sat in the last State Duma in the history of the Russian Empire. Mother Anisya Prokhorova was "from the peasants", and not from the nobility. But from the rich. Her father Ivan Prokhorov was one of those same Prokhorovs who kept the oldest textile factory in Moscow, the Trekhgornaya Textile Manufactory.
Alexander Alekhin was the youngest child in the family. He had a sister and brother Alexei, who was also a chess player, but did not achieve the glory of his younger brother. Although it was with his brother that Alexander played the first chess games, his mother taught him to play this game when he was about seven years old. Alekhine himself believed that he began to study chess more or less seriously only at the age of 12.
Chess fascinated him so much that his parents were even forced to take extreme measures and for some time simply forbid him to sit down at the board. In addition, he suffered from meningitis - a very serious illness, which at that time claimed many lives.
Alekhin studied at one of the most prestigious Moscow gymnasiums - Polivanovskaya, which was famous for its strong teaching staff. Among the students and graduates of this gymnasium at different times were such celebrities as Valery Bryusov, Andrei Bely, Georgy Lvov, Sergei Efron, Maximilian Voloshin. The sons of Leo Tolstoy also studied there.
Collage © L!FE. Photo: © wikipedia.org © Pixabay
According to the recollections of classmates, Alekhine was a withdrawn and aloof youth, he did not communicate with anyone, and in almost all school lessons he preferred to think over and analyze chess games, since from the age of ten he was very actively fond of playing chess by correspondence, which was then a fashionable hobby.
He was not interested in either the revolutionary hobbies of his classmates, or the insoluble questions of life, or the work of Gorky, who was insanely fashionable at that time, or the theater. Chess was his only passion. Later, he developed another hobby. It was his Siamese cat named Chess, whom Alekhine (who has already become the world's leading chess player) considered his talisman and always took to matches, planting next to him.
The most surprising thing is that at the same time Alekhine studied exemplarily and was an excellent student. His memory was truly phenomenal. Later, when he became already famous, even the most outstanding chess players of the world were surprised that Alekhine remembered all his played games, even if it was several years ago. At the same time, he was very distracted and forgetful in everyday life.
Already at the age of 16, young Alekhine won the tournament of the Moscow chess club among amateurs and went to his first international tournament in Germany. He failed to win, although he performed well. But he managed to meet (not within the framework of the tournament) with the prominent German grandmaster Kurt von Bardeleben. He was not a chess superstar, but he was considered a very strong master. 16-year-old Alekhin literally declassed him, winning four fights out of five and drawing one.
Photo: © RIA Novosti / Mikhail Filimonov
The following year, he participated in the Moscow Championship, but took only fifth place. But he won the All-Russian Amateur Tournament. Then he took part in several more international tournaments, taking places in the middle of the table. However, his potential was obvious: Alekhine fought on equal terms with famous masters, while still a high school student.
A few months before the outbreak of the First World War, a grandiose chess tournament was held in St. Petersburg with a very strong line-up of participants. The main stars of the competition were world champion Emanuel Lasker, rising world chess superstar Jose Raul Capablanca, one of the strongest German chess players Siegbert Tarrasch and a very strong American Frank Marshall. In total, 10 people participated in the tournament. The competition was held in two rounds. In the first round, all participants played with each other, after which the six strongest on points went to the second round and fought for the title of winner. Alekhine took the final third place, losing in the table only to the recognized world stars Lasker and Capablanca.
First trouble
Alekhine and Jose Raul Capablanca at the St. Petersburg chess tournament in 1914. Collage © L!FE. Photo: © wikipedia.org
A week after the end of the tournament, Alekhine graduated from the Imperial School of Law. In July 1914 he left for Germany for a major international tournament. In the midst of the competition (Alekhine just confidently took first place) the First World War began. All Russian chess players who were at the tournament were immediately interned as subjects of a hostile state. They spent several days in prison, after which they were released.
However, on the way to Baden-Baden, a group of Russian chess players were again arrested and sent to prison for several days. Finally, the Germans decided to subject the prisoners to an examination by a medical commission. Those whom she considered unfit for military service, they agreed to let go. The rest would have to remain in captivity until the end of the war.
Alekhine was declared unfit for service for health reasons and released. I had to get home through neutral countries, and as a result, the journey took several months. He returned to Russia only in November.
The outbreak of the war made it impossible to hold major international tournaments, and Alekhine whiled away his time in Russia, playing with local grandmasters, as well as giving blindfold sessions on several boards at once. Often such sessions were charitable, i.e. profits from them went to socially useful needs.
In the summer of 1916, he went to the front as part of the flying detachment of the Red Cross. Some sources report that the chess player was shell-shocked several times and received awards for rescuing the wounded, but not all sources confirm his awards.
The February Revolution deprived him of practice for several years. In addition, his father died, and Alekhine himself turned into a class alien "bourgeois". The most little-studied period of Alekhine's life began. Information about him is extremely contradictory, and no one really knows what he did during the Civil War. It is only known that he tried to leave for Odessa, where German troops were stationed at that time. There, he either tried to earn money in a chess tournament, or he wanted to emigrate through the local port. However, this was not possible. Soon the city was occupied by the Bolsheviks, and Alekhine found himself in the cellars of the Odessa Cheka. He was saved by the intercession of one of the big Bolsheviks. Researchers give different names, but most likely, one of the leaders of the local Bolsheviks, either Rakovsky or Manuilsky, intervened in the matter.
Shortly after his release, he moved to the quieter Moscow, which at least did not change hands every few months. Information about his stay in the Soviet capital is also contradictory. According to one version, he worked as a criminal investigation investigator, according to another, he worked as a translator through the Comintern. One way or another, in 1920 he was finally able to return to chess and confidently won the first All-Russian Chess Olympiad in 1920.
In Moscow, he did not stay long. Having met a Swiss Social Democrat who came to Moscow through the Comintern, he married her and obtained permission to leave the country with his wife.
At the peak of my career
Alekhine gives a simultaneous game session in Berlin, 1930. Collage © L!FE. Photo: © wikipedia.org
Having moved to Europe, Alekhine began to make up for lost time during the years of wars and revolutions. He was directly involved in almost all major tournaments held on the continent, and won more than half of them. By the mid-20s, it became clear that he was at least one of the five strongest chess players in the world.
Alekhine himself at that time dreamed of a match for the chess crown with Capablanca, who at that time dominated all world chess players and was considered the absolute strongest player. However, this was not so easy to do. Having become world champion, Capablanca put forward very strict requirements for applicants who wanted to challenge him. They had to compete according to its conditions (up to six wins, no restrictions on the number of matches) and, most importantly, provide the prize fund to the winner at their own expense.
This Capablanca fund was estimated at 10 thousand dollars, of which two thousand were received by the winner, and the rest was divided between the participants in a ratio of 60 to 40 in favor of the champion. Capablanca's demands were difficult to fulfill, 10 thousand at that time was a very large amount (approximately corresponding to 140 thousand modern dollars) and Alekhine did not have it.
Therefore, he had to wait six years for the championship match. As a result, the Argentine leadership helped with the organization on the condition that the fight would take place in Buenos Aires. The match began in September 1927 and ended only at the end of November, dragging on for 34 games (which was an absolute record at that time). Before the start of the fight, absolutely everyone was sure of Capablanca's victory. He was at the peak of his form, moreover, he had five victories over Alekhine, who had not a single one over his opponent. Some experts were even sure that only a few draw games would become the ultimate dream for Alekhine, and he would not be able to win a single victory over the world champion.
From left to right: Alekhine, referee Carlos Augusto Querencio, Capablanca. Photo: © wikipedia.org
All the more unexpected was the confident victory of Alekhine. He won six games, while Capablanca took only three. He didn't even show up to finish the last game, instead sending congratulations on the victory to the new champion. The key factor was the preparation of Alekhine, who spent a lot of time studying the opponent's style of play. Whereas Capablanca was so sure of his victory that he did not bother himself with exhausting preparations.
Alekhine became the first Russian world chess champion and the fourth in history after Steinitz, Lasker and Capablanca. The loser immediately requested a rematch, but now Alekhine insisted on the old rules of the championship fight, and Capablanca wanted to change them. Due to the fact that the rivals did not come to an agreement, the revenge between them did not take place.
The next seven years were the peak of Alekhine's career. He confidently won the tournaments in which he participated, traveled all over the world with chess tours, arranged sessions of simultaneous blind play, and wrote several books. He also defended the championship title twice, defeating challenger Efim Bogolyubov both times.
recession
Participants of the international chess tournament in St. Petersburg - José Capablanca (second from right, seated), Emanuel Lasker (third from left, seated), Alexander Alekhin (third from left, standing). Collage © L!FE. Photo: © RIA Novosti
In 1934, Alekhine married American-British chess player (and a very wealthy widow) Grace Vishar. From that moment on, his luck seemed to change. His game completely went wrong, he began to make childish mistakes. There has been a sharp decline in his career. If at the peak of his form he won most tournaments, regardless of the composition of their participants, now he was increasingly closer to the middle of the table.
Most researchers attribute the sharp decline in Alekhine's game to two factors. First, with the loss of motivation. After the victory over the seemingly invincible Capablanca, it was difficult to find new incentives, and Alekhine relaxed too much. Secondly, he began to get involved in alcohol and this was reflected in his results.
Euwe (left) and Salomon Flohr (center) analyze the game. Match Alekhine - Euwe, 1935. Photo: © wikipedia.org
In 1935, a match for the title of world champion took place between Alekhine and the Dutchman Max Euwe. Before the match, the Russian chess player was considered the absolute favorite and was confidently leading in the first games. But in recent matches, Euwe increasingly began to take over and eventually won by a small margin - 15.5 to 14.5.
Alekhin gathered his strength and brought himself into shape. In 1937, a rematch took place, which Alekhine confidently won (15.5 to 9.5), although the Dutchman was now the favorite. Alekhine regained the title of world champion. However, events soon unfolded in Europe that actually put an end to the career of a brilliant chess player.
Life under occupation
Collage © L!FE. Photo: © RIA Novosti / Vladimir Grebnev © Pixabay
In September 1939, World War II began. Alekhin by this time was a citizen of France and enlisted in the army. According to some sources, he served as a translator, according to others - in the sanitary unit. One way or another, he was not fit for military service in any case.
After the rapid defeat of France, he left for the south of the country, which was not occupied by the Germans. He tried to arrange a championship match with Capablanca, but the war caused financial difficulties, and a few months later the Cuban chess player died.
Alekhine was not enthusiastic about the new regime and tried to emigrate to Portugal. However, the Vichy regime did not give him permission to emigrate. In the end, it was possible to agree that he would be released from the country in exchange for several ideologically verified articles. Soon, the collaborationist newspaper Pariser Zeitung published several articles about "Jewish and Aryan chess" and their differences, the author of which was Alekhine. After that, he was released from the country.
However, his wife remained in France, fearing for her estate. Left without a livelihood, Alekhine during the war was forced to participate in chess tournaments on the territory of Nazi Germany and the occupied European countries. In 1943, having left for a tournament in neutral Spain, he refused to return and settled there for several years. To make ends meet, he gave chess lessons and also participated in local tournaments.
After the end of the war, chess life began to gradually revive. Alekhine was still the reigning world champion. In the winter of 1945, he was invited to the first major post-war tournament in London. However, he never took part in it because of the intrigues of his colleagues.
His old rival Euwe, having enlisted the support of his American colleagues (and also promising contenders for the title), staged a noisy campaign against Alekhine. The chess players gathered around Euwe threatened to boycott him if he participated in the tournament. Moreover, Euwe organized a whole commission, which began to demand that Alekhine be stripped of his champion title on the basis of his collaborationist activities.
The main accusations against Alekhine were his participation in several German chess tournaments, as well as articles about "Jewish and Aryan chess." Alekhine himself sent letters to the organizers of the tournaments, as well as to several chess federations, explaining his position. He claimed that he was forced to play in tournaments in order to at least somehow live under the conditions of occupation. And articles about "Aryan chess" were a condition for permission to emigrate. At the same time, he argued that there was nothing anti-Semitic in the original article and that it had been heavily edited by the editors.
It was really difficult to suspect Alekhine of sympathies for the Nazis. Back in 1939, after the German invasion of Poland, Alekhine publicly called for a boycott of the German chess team (at that time it participated in the Chess Olympiad), and then made repeated attempts to leave the occupied territories (and eventually settled in neutral Spain).
Max Euwe. Photo: ©AP Photo
It is worth noting that Euwe himself was also, as they say, not without sin. He did not play in Nazi Germany, but he participated in a chess tournament in Hungary, which was an ally of the Nazis. In addition, Euwe headed the chess federation in Nazi-occupied Holland and collaborated de facto with the collaborationist government. In addition, the situation was in his favor. In the event that Alekhine was stripped of his title, it either automatically passed to Euwe, or played out in a championship match involving Euwe and another contender.
However, not all leading chess players supported Euwe, and in the end, the issue of Alekhine's boycott and his disqualification was decided to be submitted to FIDE for consideration. Unexpectedly, help came from the USSR. The influential Soviet chess federation wanted to nominate Mikhail Botvinnik as a contender for the title of strong grandmaster. In general, the USSR maintained an ambivalent attitude towards Alekhine. On the one hand, it was officially recognized that he was a living chess genius and one of the greatest masters of the game. On the other hand, it was invariably emphasized that class and politically, he was completely alien to Soviet society.
While FIDE was considering the issue of disqualification, the chess player died. The health of the already elderly Alekhine was undermined by illness (three years before his death, he suffered a severe form of scarlet fever), alcohol and life in the occupation. On March 24, 1946, he died in a Portuguese hotel, sitting in an armchair at a chessboard. According to some reports, he choked and suffocated while eating, according to others, his heart stopped.
Alexander Alekhine became the only world champion in history who died in this rank and thus remained undefeated (another undefeated world champion, Bobby Fischer, was stripped of his title after refusing to match with a challenger and actually ended his career on this, but nevertheless he was formally defeated was not).
Tombstone on the grave of Alekhine at the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris. The work of his friend chess player Abram Barats. The tombstone contains the erroneous date of birth of November 1. Photo: © wikipedia.org
Interestingly, soon after Alekhine's death, the attitude towards him in the USSR changed dramatically to an extremely positive one. Although it was still recognized that he did not accept the revolution, nevertheless he began to be considered one of his own. Since 1956, tournaments in memory of the outstanding chess player have been regularly held in the USSR. In honor of Alekhine, an asteroid discovered by Soviet astronomers was named, books were written about him, and in some way he became a cult figure in the Soviet Union.
Alexander Alekhine is still the leader in the number of overall victories among all world chess champions in history. In 1240 official fights, he won 719 times. Thus, he achieved victory in 58% of fights. For comparison, Capablanca, Lasker and Fischer won 55% of the duels (while having half as many meetings), Euwe and Botvinnik won 47%, Kasparov - 42%, Karpov - 37%, and Spassky won only 32% at all. % fights. Therefore, it is not surprising that Alekhine is still considered one of the greatest chess players in history.
Alexander Alekhine is an outstanding chess player with a bright but tragic fate. It was this man who first won the championship of the RSFSR and became the fourth world champion. His life was not easy: he went through the war, received several wounds, was undeservedly in prison, miraculously escaped execution, lived in several countries and played chess like no one else did.
Alexander Alexandrovich Alekhin had a doctorate in law, was known as a master of attack in chess combinations, had his own style of play and was a truly brilliant chess player, leaving this world undefeated. But first things first.
Childhood and youth of Alexander Alekhine
The future outstanding chess player was born on October 31, 1892 in Moscow. His parents, Alexander Ivanovich Alekhin and Anisya Ivanovna (nee Prokhorova), belonged to a noble family: his father was a collegiate assessor, and his mother was the daughter of a textile worker. The family lived well and had an estate in the Voronezh province.
Little Sasha learned to play chess at the age of seven, and his mother was his teacher, and at first Alexander did not show serious interest in this game, regarding chess as fun. But three years later, one event occurred that marked the beginning of his great future.
Real interest in chess came to Alekhine at the age of ten, after Harry Pillsbury came to Moscow for tournaments, who impressed the boy with his game and inspired him to seriously take up chess. Sasha began to play enthusiastically with his older brother, and three years later, at the age of 13, he won the competition of the Chess Review magazine. Further more. Three years later, at the age of 16 (1908), Alekhine became the champion of Moscow, and a year later, at the age of 17 (1909), he won first place and the title of maestro at the All-Russian tournament, this was his first serious success.
Achievements of a chess player in his youth
Victory after victory, prize after prize - and real passion wakes up in Alekhine, his goal is to take the chess crown. First, in 1912, he becomes the first in the championship among the Nordic countries, a year later - a victory in the tournament in Scheveningen. And in 1914, at the All-Russian tournament of masters, Alekhine shares the victory with Aron Nimtsovich, which allows him to go to the international tournament of champions. There, the chess player concedes victory to the German Emanuel Lasker and the Cuban José Raul Capablanca, but this only incites Alekhine to prepare even more seriously for the match for the chess crown.
While participating in a tournament in the German city of Mannheim, in the midst of the competition, Germany declares war on Russia, this happened on August 1. The organizers interrupt the tournament, and since Alekhine was in the lead, he is awarded first place.
Being on enemy territory, Alexander and several other chess players end up in prison, where they continue to play blind. A month and a half later, Alekhine was declared unfit for service and on September 14 he was deported to his homeland. At that time, Alexander was 22 years old.
World War I and repression
Alexander's road to his homeland was not easy. He had to return first through France, then through England and Sweden. As a result, he ended up at home only at the end of October. But on October 20, he took part in a simultaneous game in Stockholm, and gave all the money he earned to Russian chess players in German captivity. At the same time, he is deprived of all his property, and Alekhin moves to Ukraine. But in Odessa he is accused of espionage and a terrible sentence is passed - execution. Fortunately, this does not happen, and Alexander returns to his homeland, where he continues his diligent chess training.
Two years later, in 1916, when he turns 24, Alexander goes to the front as a volunteer - despite the fact that he had serious heart problems. In the war, he receives several wounds and two shell shocks, after which he had to return home.
For saving the wounded (Alekhin led the Red Cross detachment) and for his heroism, he was awarded two St. George medals and the Order of St. Stanislav.
In 1919, Alexander became an employee of the MUR, and a year later, a translator of the Comintern. He manages to successfully combine work with a hobby, becoming a chess champion in Russia.
The further path of the great chess player
In 1920, Alexander Alekhine won the All-Russian Olympiad, after which he plunged into a chess career. He begins an active life, he achieves high results at tournaments in The Hague, Budapest, London and other cities, winning victory after victory.
Alekhin also acts as the organizer of many championship matches, paying organizational expenses and awarding prize funds. In order to collect the necessary sums, he organizes “blind” matches in New York and Paris, organizes chess battles and plays in simultaneous games.
The turning point in Alekhine's career was tournaments with Jose Raul Capablanca, who invariably defeated his opponents. Alexander carefully studied his games, and as a result, he managed to win several times, thanks to which he became the fourth world champion.
Later, in 1935, Alekhine fought the Dutchman Max Euwe, and lost by just one point. But two years later, in 1935, Alexander took a revenge match (the first in the history of chess), gaining an unconditional victory. And so far this case is the only case when a chess player won as a result of a rematch.
Personal life
The brilliant chess player has never been deprived of female attention. His first wife was an employee of a Soviet organization, Alexandra Bataeva, but this union did not last long. In marriage, a daughter was born, whom the father subsequently was not interested in.
Soon Alekhine married a second time - to the Swiss journalist Anna-Lise Rügg, and although their union was also short-lived, he helped Alexander emigrate to Europe and hold a number of important tournaments for him, as well as defend his doctoral dissertation at the Sorbonne in parallel. In this marriage, a son was born, who was named Alexander in honor of his father and grandfather.
Later, the chess maestro marries for the third time, the widow of General Nadezhda Vasilyeva became his wife. This marriage was stronger than the previous ones and lasted ten years.
For the fourth (and last) time, Alexandra married a woman who was 16 years older than him, the widow of a tea planter. Thanks to her rich inheritance, Alekhine's financial situation improved significantly.
It is worth noting that all four wives of the chess player were older than him. He always cherished their photographs and photographs of his children, before whom he felt guilty that he could not devote enough time to them, being distracted by chess.
The last years of the life of a chess player
The news of the Second World War caught Alexander Alekhine in Argentina at the next Chess Olympiad. The chess player decided to return to Europe, and after learning about the occupation of France, he volunteered for the French army as an interpreter.
In 1943, the chess player fell down with scarlet fever, which he suffered very hard. Soon he moved to Spain, where he remains, living quite modestly, sometimes taking part in second-class tournaments. He has to earn a living by private lessons. And soon the famous grandmaster is no longer invited to competitions.
In 1945, Alexander is accused of anti-Semitic statements, and he is left all alone. He would play his last match in February 1946 against Portuguese champion Francisco Lupi, scoring his last victory.
At the end of March, Alekhine was supposed to play with Mikhail Botvinnik, but on the eve of the meeting, the great chess player died. He died in a hotel room in Portugal, and the cause of his death is still unclear. Doctors call asphyxia, and angina pectoris, and even murder. Alexander Alekhine was buried in the Portuguese city of Estoril, but in 1956 his ashes were reburied in Paris.
Chess achievements
Throughout his career, the brilliant chess player took part in 87 tournaments, of which he won in 62, as well as in 23 matches, of which he emerged victorious in 17, and in four more there was a draw.
Alexander Alekhine went down in history as a chess player who uses deep theoretical positions in the game, many combinations are named after him, including the famous Alekhine Defense.
He is the author of more than 20 books, most of which are collections of chess games with detailed analysis of moves and commentary on them. Alexander Alekhine left this world an undefeated king who was never dethroned.
Alexander Alekhine is the only undefeated.
Popularization of this ancient game was the main goal of the chess player, which is why he traveled to many countries and participated in world tournaments.
In life, Alekhine was an absent-minded person, not at all adapted to everyday life.
The great chess player adored cats, which he even took to tournaments. His favorite was the Siamese cat Chess (the nickname from English translates as “chess”).
Of all the cities on the planet where Alekhine visited, he loved Ryazan the most.
His grandson, Viktor Alekhin, is a master of voice acting, his voice is familiar to many. He voices audiobooks, films and cartoons, works at Humor FM radio.
On the tombstone of a chess player in Paris, the inscription is engraved: “Chess genius”.
Chess player quotes
“How many disappointments the opponent brings to the true artist in chess, striving not only for victory, but above all for the creation of a work of enduring value.”
“I willingly combine tactical with strategic, fantastic with scientific, combinational with positional, and I strive to meet the requirements of each given position.”
“The fact that the player was in time trouble is, in my opinion, as unexcusable as, for example, the statement of the criminal that he was drunk at the time of the crime.”
“The value of the combination increases significantly due to the fact that it is the logical conclusion of the previous positional game.”
“With a period of political oppression, some seek oblivion from everyday arbitrariness and violence in chess, while others draw strength from them for a new struggle and temper their will.”
Video about the life of a great grandmaster
Alexander Alekhine is a great Russian chess player, the only world champion who died undefeated. At different times he was called a child prodigy and an alcoholic, a fascist and a genius.
Hereditary chess player
In geniuses, talent usually manifests itself in the earliest childhood, Alekhine was no exception in this sense. In many ways, the family environment also contributed to the rapid development of the chess prodigy. Chess was played by his older brother, Alexei, who later also became a well-known chess player (of course, not at all on the same scale as his brother) and the publisher of the Chess Bulletin magazine.
But the first who sat down with Alexander at the chessboard was not his brother, but his mother - she began to teach him when Sasha was 7 years old. At 10, Alexander was already playing in correspondence tournaments, and he also won his first tournament victory by correspondence. And at 16, he won an amateur tournament in the Moscow chess club, took first place in the All-Russian tournament, received the title of maestro and made his debut on the international arena.
Enemy of the Soviets
Alekhine left Soviet Russia back in 1921, but his final break with his homeland took shape 6 years later, after a historic match with Capablanca and winning the world title. At a banquet held in his honor in a Parisian club, Alekhine allegedly allowed himself a number of caustic remarks about the Bolshevik government. Whether the words were spoken or not, whether it was a provocation, nothing could be changed - the next day, several émigré newspapers published articles that quoted Alekhine and his wishes: the invincibility of Capablanca. These publications marked the beginning of the chess player's disgrace in his homeland - many well-known compatriots spoke about the incident, and for the chess community in the USSR, Alekhine became enemy number one. Even Alekhine's brother published a statement (most likely he did it under pressure) in which he condemned his brother's anti-Soviet statements and moods.
Drinker
Addiction to alcohol - not a rare companion of a genius - did not bypass Alekhine. In the thirties, after several years of uncompromising triumph, a significant decline is planned in Alekhine's career, which is largely facilitated by his addiction to alcoholic beverages. The result of the fall is the lost match for the world title to the Dutch grandmaster Max Euwe. Having lost the title, Alekhine pulls himself together, begins to take training and important meetings much more seriously, refuses to drink alcohol before the rematch. In the end, he returned the title of world champion to himself, defeating Euwe in the final, but Alekhine did not manage to defeat his addiction. By the end of his life, the chess player was diagnosed with advanced cirrhosis of the liver.
antisemite
Alekhine's biography contains many contradictory episodes, but it is very difficult to subject these dust-covered facts to any critical assessment. One of these dark spots in the biography of the chess genius was a series of anti-Semitic articles under the general title "Jewish and Aryan Chess", written for one of the Parisian newspapers, as well as participation in tournaments held under the auspices of Nazi Germany. However, Alekhine himself vehemently and repeatedly refuted his authorship of the articles, I refer to the editorial work done by the newspaper employee, the ardent anti-Semite Gerbets. Speaking about participation in chess tournaments, one should still take into account the fact that at that time he was in a tenacious captivity of circumstances - in the 41st year, Alekhine ended up in the occupied territories and was forced to agree in order to save himself and his family from repression.
Needless to say, Alekhine's reputation in chess circles suffered greatly - due to cooperation with the Nazis, many chess players threatened to boycott tournaments in which Alekhine took part, and even insisted on depriving him of the champion title.
Freemason
During his stay in Paris, Alekhine became close friends with another Soviet émigré and chess player, Osip Bernstein. Bernstein and led him to join the local Asthenia Masonic lodge. Its members were mostly Russian emigrants, and for Alekhine joining it was, in a sense, an attempt to break the fetters of the spiritual loneliness that binds him, an opportunity to get along with other cultured Russian people in order to muffle his homesickness. In fact, Alekhine was never an active freemason - while the others were discussing lofty things and arguing about the fate of the world, he played chess with Bernstein more and more and at some point was expelled from the box.
Polygamist
The most important and, by and large, the only passion in Alekhine's life remained chess - he didn't get along very well with his family. Alekhine had as many as four wives, but he did not live with any of them for more than ten years (he divorced the first in less than a year), and he saw his son from his second marriage extremely rarely, completely shifting upbringing to his mother, and after her death - on her acquaintances.
cat owner
There is nothing surprising in the fact that Alekhine was a great lover of cats. The only faithful companion on the path of life for him was his beloved Siamese cat named Chess. Their union was stronger and longer lasting than any of Alekhine's love affairs - not a single woman lived with a chess player longer than his furry pet. Chess was a real talisman, partner and friend for Alekhine - he took the cat around the world with him and regularly took him to matches. Alekhine was accused of almost witchcraft - before the matches he let the cat sniff the board. The death of Chess was a real blow for Alekhine, he was depressed for a long time and even refused to participate in major chess tournaments.
The future great chess player was born in 1892 in Moscow into a very wealthy family. His father, Alexander Alekhin, was at one time the provincial marshal of the nobility in Voronezh. Alekhin Sr. adhered to liberal views and even sat in the last State Duma in the history of the Russian Empire. Mother Anisya Prokhorova was "from the peasants", and not from the nobility. But from the rich. Her father Ivan Prokhorov was one of those same Prokhorovs who kept the oldest textile factory in Moscow, the Trekhgornaya Textile Manufactory.
Alexander Alekhin was the youngest child in the family. He had a sister and brother Alexei, who was also a chess player, but did not achieve the glory of his younger brother. Although it was with his brother that Alexander played the first chess games, his mother taught him to play this game when he was about seven years old. Alekhine himself believed that he began to study chess more or less seriously only at the age of 12.
Chess fascinated him so much that his parents were even forced to take extreme measures and for some time simply forbid him to sit down at the board. In addition, he suffered from meningitis - a very serious illness, which at that time claimed many lives.
Alekhin studied at one of the most prestigious Moscow gymnasiums - Polivanovskaya, which was famous for its strong teaching staff. Among the students and graduates of this gymnasium at different times were such celebrities as Valery Bryusov, Andrei Bely, Georgy Lvov, Sergei Efron, Maximilian Voloshin. The sons of Leo Tolstoy also studied there.
Collage © L!FE. Photo: © wikipedia.org © Pixabay
According to the recollections of classmates, Alekhine was a withdrawn and aloof youth, he did not communicate with anyone, and in almost all school lessons he preferred to think over and analyze chess games, since from the age of ten he was very actively fond of playing chess by correspondence, which was then a fashionable hobby.
He was not interested in either the revolutionary hobbies of his classmates, or the insoluble questions of life, or the work of Gorky, who was insanely fashionable at that time, or the theater. Chess was his only passion. Later, he developed another hobby. It was his Siamese cat named Chess, whom Alekhine (who has already become the world's leading chess player) considered his talisman and always took to matches, planting next to him.
The most surprising thing is that at the same time Alekhine studied exemplarily and was an excellent student. His memory was truly phenomenal. Later, when he became already famous, even the most outstanding chess players of the world were surprised that Alekhine remembered all his played games, even if it was several years ago. At the same time, he was very distracted and forgetful in everyday life.
Already at the age of 16, young Alekhine won the tournament of the Moscow chess club among amateurs and went to his first international tournament in Germany. He failed to win, although he performed well. But he managed to meet (not within the framework of the tournament) with the prominent German grandmaster Kurt von Bardeleben. He was not a chess superstar, but he was considered a very strong master. 16-year-old Alekhin literally declassed him, winning four fights out of five and drawing one.
Photo: © RIA Novosti / Mikhail Filimonov
The following year, he participated in the Moscow Championship, but took only fifth place. But he won the All-Russian Amateur Tournament. Then he took part in several more international tournaments, taking places in the middle of the table. However, his potential was obvious: Alekhine fought on equal terms with famous masters, while still a high school student.
A few months before the outbreak of the First World War, a grandiose chess tournament was held in St. Petersburg with a very strong line-up of participants. The main stars of the competition were world champion Emanuel Lasker, rising world chess superstar Jose Raul Capablanca, one of the strongest German chess players Siegbert Tarrasch and a very strong American Frank Marshall. In total, 10 people participated in the tournament. The competition was held in two rounds. In the first round, all participants played with each other, after which the six strongest on points went to the second round and fought for the title of winner. Alekhine took the final third place, losing in the table only to the recognized world stars Lasker and Capablanca.
First trouble
Alekhine and Jose Raul Capablanca at the St. Petersburg chess tournament in 1914. Collage © L!FE. Photo: © wikipedia.org
A week after the end of the tournament, Alekhine graduated from the Imperial School of Law. In July 1914 he left for Germany for a major international tournament. In the midst of the competition (Alekhine just confidently took first place) the First World War began. All Russian chess players who were at the tournament were immediately interned as subjects of a hostile state. They spent several days in prison, after which they were released.
However, on the way to Baden-Baden, a group of Russian chess players were again arrested and sent to prison for several days. Finally, the Germans decided to subject the prisoners to an examination by a medical commission. Those whom she considered unfit for military service, they agreed to let go. The rest would have to remain in captivity until the end of the war.
Alekhine was declared unfit for service for health reasons and released. I had to get home through neutral countries, and as a result, the journey took several months. He returned to Russia only in November.
The outbreak of the war made it impossible to hold major international tournaments, and Alekhine whiled away his time in Russia, playing with local grandmasters, as well as giving blindfold sessions on several boards at once. Often such sessions were charitable, i.e. profits from them went to socially useful needs.
In the summer of 1916, he went to the front as part of the flying detachment of the Red Cross. Some sources report that the chess player was shell-shocked several times and received awards for rescuing the wounded, but not all sources confirm his awards.
The February Revolution deprived him of practice for several years. In addition, his father died, and Alekhine himself turned into a class alien "bourgeois". The most little-studied period of Alekhine's life began. Information about him is extremely contradictory, and no one really knows what he did during the Civil War. It is only known that he tried to leave for Odessa, where German troops were stationed at that time. There, he either tried to earn money in a chess tournament, or he wanted to emigrate through the local port. However, this was not possible. Soon the city was occupied by the Bolsheviks, and Alekhine found himself in the cellars of the Odessa Cheka. He was saved by the intercession of one of the big Bolsheviks. Researchers give different names, but most likely, one of the leaders of the local Bolsheviks, either Rakovsky or Manuilsky, intervened in the matter.
Shortly after his release, he moved to the quieter Moscow, which at least did not change hands every few months. Information about his stay in the Soviet capital is also contradictory. According to one version, he worked as a criminal investigation investigator, according to another, he worked as a translator through the Comintern. One way or another, in 1920 he was finally able to return to chess and confidently won the first All-Russian Chess Olympiad in 1920.
In Moscow, he did not stay long. Having met a Swiss Social Democrat who came to Moscow through the Comintern, he married her and obtained permission to leave the country with his wife.
At the peak of my career
Alekhine gives a simultaneous game session in Berlin, 1930. Collage © L!FE. Photo: © wikipedia.org
Having moved to Europe, Alekhine began to make up for lost time during the years of wars and revolutions. He was directly involved in almost all major tournaments held on the continent, and won more than half of them. By the mid-20s, it became clear that he was at least one of the five strongest chess players in the world.
Alekhine himself at that time dreamed of a match for the chess crown with Capablanca, who at that time dominated all world chess players and was considered the absolute strongest player. However, this was not so easy to do. Having become world champion, Capablanca put forward very strict requirements for applicants who wanted to challenge him. They had to compete according to its conditions (up to six wins, no restrictions on the number of matches) and, most importantly, provide the prize fund to the winner at their own expense.
This Capablanca fund was estimated at 10 thousand dollars, of which two thousand were received by the winner, and the rest was divided between the participants in a ratio of 60 to 40 in favor of the champion. Capablanca's demands were difficult to fulfill, 10 thousand at that time was a very large amount (approximately corresponding to 140 thousand modern dollars) and Alekhine did not have it.
Therefore, he had to wait six years for the championship match. As a result, the Argentine leadership helped with the organization on the condition that the fight would take place in Buenos Aires. The match began in September 1927 and ended only at the end of November, dragging on for 34 games (which was an absolute record at that time). Before the start of the fight, absolutely everyone was sure of Capablanca's victory. He was at the peak of his form, moreover, he had five victories over Alekhine, who had not a single one over his opponent. Some experts were even sure that only a few draw games would become the ultimate dream for Alekhine, and he would not be able to win a single victory over the world champion.
From left to right: Alekhine, referee Carlos Augusto Querencio, Capablanca. Photo: © wikipedia.org
All the more unexpected was the confident victory of Alekhine. He won six games, while Capablanca took only three. He didn't even show up to finish the last game, instead sending congratulations on the victory to the new champion. The key factor was the preparation of Alekhine, who spent a lot of time studying the opponent's style of play. Whereas Capablanca was so sure of his victory that he did not bother himself with exhausting preparations.
Alekhine became the first Russian world chess champion and the fourth in history after Steinitz, Lasker and Capablanca. The loser immediately requested a rematch, but now Alekhine insisted on the old rules of the championship fight, and Capablanca wanted to change them. Due to the fact that the rivals did not come to an agreement, the revenge between them did not take place.
The next seven years were the peak of Alekhine's career. He confidently won the tournaments in which he participated, traveled all over the world with chess tours, arranged sessions of simultaneous blind play, and wrote several books. He also defended the championship title twice, defeating challenger Efim Bogolyubov both times.
recession
Participants of the international chess tournament in St. Petersburg - José Capablanca (second from right, seated), Emanuel Lasker (third from left, seated), Alexander Alekhin (third from left, standing). Collage © L!FE. Photo: © RIA Novosti
In 1934, Alekhine married American-British chess player (and a very wealthy widow) Grace Vishar. From that moment on, his luck seemed to change. His game completely went wrong, he began to make childish mistakes. There has been a sharp decline in his career. If at the peak of his form he won most tournaments, regardless of the composition of their participants, now he was increasingly closer to the middle of the table.
Most researchers attribute the sharp decline in Alekhine's game to two factors. First, with the loss of motivation. After the victory over the seemingly invincible Capablanca, it was difficult to find new incentives, and Alekhine relaxed too much. Secondly, he began to get involved in alcohol and this was reflected in his results.
Euwe (left) and Salomon Flohr (center) analyze the game. Match Alekhine - Euwe, 1935. Photo: © wikipedia.org
In 1935, a match for the title of world champion took place between Alekhine and the Dutchman Max Euwe. Before the match, the Russian chess player was considered the absolute favorite and was confidently leading in the first games. But in recent matches, Euwe increasingly began to take over and eventually won by a small margin - 15.5 to 14.5.
Alekhin gathered his strength and brought himself into shape. In 1937, a rematch took place, which Alekhine confidently won (15.5 to 9.5), although the Dutchman was now the favorite. Alekhine regained the title of world champion. However, events soon unfolded in Europe that actually put an end to the career of a brilliant chess player.
Life under occupation
Collage © L!FE. Photo: © RIA Novosti / Vladimir Grebnev © Pixabay
In September 1939, World War II began. Alekhin by this time was a citizen of France and enlisted in the army. According to some sources, he served as a translator, according to others - in the sanitary unit. One way or another, he was not fit for military service in any case.
After the rapid defeat of France, he left for the south of the country, which was not occupied by the Germans. He tried to arrange a championship match with Capablanca, but the war caused financial difficulties, and a few months later the Cuban chess player died.
Alekhine was not enthusiastic about the new regime and tried to emigrate to Portugal. However, the Vichy regime did not give him permission to emigrate. In the end, it was possible to agree that he would be released from the country in exchange for several ideologically verified articles. Soon, the collaborationist newspaper Pariser Zeitung published several articles about "Jewish and Aryan chess" and their differences, the author of which was Alekhine. After that, he was released from the country.
However, his wife remained in France, fearing for her estate. Left without a livelihood, Alekhine during the war was forced to participate in chess tournaments on the territory of Nazi Germany and the occupied European countries. In 1943, having left for a tournament in neutral Spain, he refused to return and settled there for several years. To make ends meet, he gave chess lessons and also participated in local tournaments.
After the end of the war, chess life began to gradually revive. Alekhine was still the reigning world champion. In the winter of 1945, he was invited to the first major post-war tournament in London. However, he never took part in it because of the intrigues of his colleagues.
His old rival Euwe, having enlisted the support of his American colleagues (and also promising contenders for the title), staged a noisy campaign against Alekhine. The chess players gathered around Euwe threatened to boycott him if he participated in the tournament. Moreover, Euwe organized a whole commission, which began to demand that Alekhine be stripped of his champion title on the basis of his collaborationist activities.
The main accusations against Alekhine were his participation in several German chess tournaments, as well as articles about "Jewish and Aryan chess." Alekhine himself sent letters to the organizers of the tournaments, as well as to several chess federations, explaining his position. He claimed that he was forced to play in tournaments in order to at least somehow live under the conditions of occupation. And articles about "Aryan chess" were a condition for permission to emigrate. At the same time, he argued that there was nothing anti-Semitic in the original article and that it had been heavily edited by the editors.
It was really difficult to suspect Alekhine of sympathies for the Nazis. Back in 1939, after the German invasion of Poland, Alekhine publicly called for a boycott of the German chess team (at that time it participated in the Chess Olympiad), and then made repeated attempts to leave the occupied territories (and eventually settled in neutral Spain).
Max Euwe. Photo: ©AP Photo
It is worth noting that Euwe himself was also, as they say, not without sin. He did not play in Nazi Germany, but he participated in a chess tournament in Hungary, which was an ally of the Nazis. In addition, Euwe headed the chess federation in Nazi-occupied Holland and collaborated de facto with the collaborationist government. In addition, the situation was in his favor. In the event that Alekhine was stripped of his title, it either automatically passed to Euwe, or played out in a championship match involving Euwe and another contender.
However, not all leading chess players supported Euwe, and in the end, the issue of Alekhine's boycott and his disqualification was decided to be submitted to FIDE for consideration. Unexpectedly, help came from the USSR. The influential Soviet chess federation wanted to nominate Mikhail Botvinnik as a contender for the title of strong grandmaster. In general, the USSR maintained an ambivalent attitude towards Alekhine. On the one hand, it was officially recognized that he was a living chess genius and one of the greatest masters of the game. On the other hand, it was invariably emphasized that class and politically, he was completely alien to Soviet society.
While FIDE was considering the issue of disqualification, the chess player died. The health of the already elderly Alekhine was undermined by illness (three years before his death, he suffered a severe form of scarlet fever), alcohol and life in the occupation. On March 24, 1946, he died in a Portuguese hotel, sitting in an armchair at a chessboard. According to some reports, he choked and suffocated while eating, according to others, his heart stopped.
Alexander Alekhine became the only world champion in history who died in this rank and thus remained undefeated (another undefeated world champion, Bobby Fischer, was stripped of his title after refusing to match with a challenger and actually ended his career on this, but nevertheless he was formally defeated was not).
Tombstone on the grave of Alekhine at the Montparnasse cemetery in Paris. The work of his friend chess player Abram Barats. The tombstone contains the erroneous date of birth of November 1. Photo: © wikipedia.org
Interestingly, soon after Alekhine's death, the attitude towards him in the USSR changed dramatically to an extremely positive one. Although it was still recognized that he did not accept the revolution, nevertheless he began to be considered one of his own. Since 1956, tournaments in memory of the outstanding chess player have been regularly held in the USSR. In honor of Alekhine, an asteroid discovered by Soviet astronomers was named, books were written about him, and in some way he became a cult figure in the Soviet Union.
Alexander Alekhine is still the leader in the number of overall victories among all world chess champions in history. In 1240 official fights, he won 719 times. Thus, he achieved victory in 58% of fights. For comparison, Capablanca, Lasker and Fischer won 55% of the duels (while having half as many meetings), Euwe and Botvinnik won 47%, Kasparov - 42%, Karpov - 37%, and Spassky won only 32% at all. % fights. Therefore, it is not surprising that Alekhine is still considered one of the greatest chess players in history.