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Sergey Voronkov: Materpieces and Dramas of the Soviet Championships, volume 1 (1920-1937). 

The English Chess Federation's Book of the Year 2021. The jury stated: “The book reads like a novel… A most remarkable, absorbing and entertaining chess history which fully lives up to its title, Masterpieces and Dramas, on and off the board. A worthy winner of Book of the Year 2021 over strong competition.”

In his three-volume treatise, the distinguished Russian chess historian Sergey Voronkov vividly reconstructs the long-forgotten history of the Soviet championships between 1920 and 1953.

Volume I covers the first ten championships from 1920 to 1937 as well as the title match between Botvinnik and Levenfish. Key figures include world champion Alekhine and challenger Bogoljubov, as well as lesser-known Soviet champions such as Romanovsky, Bogatyrchuk, Verlinsky and Rabinovich, and names that are now obscure but were once mayor players: Riumin, Alatortsev, Makogonov, Rauser, Ragozin, Chekover, and many others.

This book can be read on multiple levels: as a carefully curated selection of 107 of the best games, mostly annotated by the players themselves and supported by computer analysis; as a detailed and subtly argued social history of the Soviet School of Chess and how chess came to occupy such an important role in Soviet society; as an analysis of the loss of independence of the chess community and its progressive subordination to administrators loyal to the Party; as a portrait of how the governing body and its leader, Nikolai Krylenko, strove to replace an entire generation of freethinking masters with others loyal to the State; as a study of the evolution of the authorities' objectives, which shifted from conceiving of chess as a means to elevate the culture of the masses to using it to demonstrate the superiority of the Soviet way of life; Or, finally, as a sometimes humorous and often tragic story of talented but imperfect human beings caught up in seismic events beyond their control who, in essence, just wanted to play chess. The book is illustrated with around 170 little-known photographs and cartoons from the period, mostly taken from Russian chess magazines of the 1920s and 1930s.

As Garry Kasparov points out in his foreword, “… this book is practically like a novel: with a mystery plot, protagonists and supporting characters, unexpected twists and turns, and even 'author's digressions,' or rather, introductions to the championships themselves, which form important parts of the book. These introductions, with broad and precise strokes, paint a portrait of the early post-revolutionary era, heroic and terrible at the same time. I have always said that chess is a microcosm of society. Showing chess in the context of its time is what makes this book valuable even beyond its purely analytical dimension.”

15.5 x 23.5 cm paperback. Elk and Ruby, Canterbury 2020. 534 pages. Condition: brand new. Weight 818 g.

https://elkandruby.com/books/masterpieces-and-dramas-of-the-soviet-championships-volume-i-1920-1937-paperback/

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