The Legacy of Arlindo Vieira--Part Two
Arlindo Vieira’s works and his passion for Soviet chess sets have inspired collectors and increased our knowledge and understanding of them. He employed a photo-based methodology that has served as an example to later collectors and has set an agenda greatly influencing which sets collectors deemed desirable.
Before Vieira’s 2012 works, the collection of Soviet chess sets was a stepchild to mainstream collecting. There were no books nor articles addressing them. Except for the odd figural, historical, or “propaganda” set, they were largely ignored by the chess collection literature and auction catalogs. Soviet sets occasionally appeared for auction on eBay, but they came without much information, explanation, or context. Interest in Soviet chess instead focused on its high level of play, its many masters and Grandmasters, and their domination of world chess for decades. While Isaac Linder’s two magnificent works, Chess in Ancient Russia and The Art of Chess, explored the evolution of chess pieces in ancient Russia, they offered precious little about late Tsarist and Soviet sets.
Of these the absence of information about Soviet chess pieces, Vieira wrote in the Chess.com Chess Books and Equipment forum:
Linder’s book has no value to the Russian Staunton pieces in their variants. Quite frankly only a Russian can do this book. Curious is the feeling that in Russia there has never been a real interest in the history of competition chess pieces. Even in the recent Chess Museum in Moscow, there are few competition sets of and even the match table Karpov-Kasparov (1984) has an unbelievable ‘German Knight’ or something like set because the original (unique chess set in the world, and very “Jaques”!) was stolen just after the end of the competition. Already they had one of those that was typical of Soviet competitions (GM pieces) but until this they took away. Funny that my blog in articles related to Soviet chess pieces have several visits from Russia! I, who even am Portuguese. Enigma, and mysteries. As you know, even among great collectors who all know… the Soviet chess pieces have always been poor relatives to the fortunes of Jaques, BCC, and so on! Perhaps the great impetus given to [Russian and Soviet] chess sets happened here in the Chess.com Forum.
The major contributors to the forum to which Vieira alludes now have largely migrated to Facebook collector groups.
Vieira (“BurnAmos”) belonged to the Chess.com Equipment forum in the mid-2010s, where his work became known to a group of collectors, Mike Ladzinski (“Goodknight Mike”), Ron Harrison (“Ronbo”), Lokahai Antonio (“UpCountryRain”) and me (“Cgrau”) among them, igniting a passion and a curiosity in Soviet sets in us. We began to seek out sets like those Vieira had shown us from his Russian and Soviet collection, as well as the “Utopia” sets for which he longed, on eBay, Etsy, and from dealers with whom we have become acquainted. So did others who had become familiar with his YouTube video and blog. We posted photos and information about these sets in the Forum, which in turn sparked interest among others, notably Stephen Kong (“Chess Praxis”), especially when we moved our platform from the Chess.com forum to collectors’ groups on Facebook. After several years, I formed a Facebook group, Shakhmantynye Kollektsionery (“SK”), dedicated to Soviet and Russian chess collecting. As of this writing, SK has grown to roughly 1,800 members world-wide, including a good number from the former Soviet Socialist Republics.
To be sure, other Western collectors had sought out Soviet chessmen before Vieira’s 2012 work. As early as 2000, for example, Antonio Fabiano’s trip to Russia and the Tchigorin Chess Club of St. Petersburg had whetted his appetite, and he since has compiled a truly amazing collection of Soviet and late Tsarist sets, but Vieira’s work validated and enthused these collectors too. And, too, there had been collectors of Soviet pieces who live in the former Soviet Socialist Republics. But until Vieira sparked interest in the West, ultimately finding expression in the formation of Shakhmantynye Kollektsionery in 2020, there was little communication between them and Western collectors.
"Simplicity in manufacture, without great detail in the pieces, the result of the need for serial manufacture, and at affordable prices."
Arlindo Vieira, Xadrez Memoria
Vieira significantly increased our knowledge of and ability to think about Soviet chess sets. He found the pieces to be simple in design and manufacture, both to facilitate mass production and to keep them affordable for mass consumption. In that simplicity, he often found gracefulness in the combination of thin stems and wide bases, despite the generally poor quality of materials and too often workmanship, but also, at the high end, quality in design and manufacture the equal of Jaques of London. The kings did not bear crowns. The royals and bishops often bore opposite color finials, the knights and pawns characteristically stood proportionately large. Too often, the pieces were played on boards with squares so small that they were asphyxiated. Time and again he demonstrated that placing the same pieces on properly sized boards gave them air to breathe, bringing them to life, and allowing their elegance to shine through.
Arlindo also observed that the quality of the chessmen diminished over over time. Detail in design and workmanship declined. Wooden finals and knights came to be replaced by plastic ones, and graceful designs displaced by clumsy ones. Many of his observations later could be verified, others questioned and debated, but always they have offered a baseline and a framework for others on how to think and talk about Soviet chess pieces.
Vieira also gave us names for sets, making it easier for us to talk about them. He designated four sets “Grandmaster” sets and gave them numerical designations to distinguish them. And he began calling a set he saw frequently in photos of Latvian events “Latvian” pieces. Vieira’s names continue to be used today, though Soviet collector Mike Ladzinski has added the moniker “Bronstein” to the “GM2”, alluding to a photo of Bronstein and Tal playing with it, and other collectors, myself included, have begun renaming the “Latvian” pieces as “Mordovian-Latvian”, since so many of the sets are housed in boxes bearing stamps indicating they were made in Mordovia.
"A self-respecting collector of chess pieces must be an archeologist of chess photographs…"
Arlindo Vieira, Xadrez Memoria
An even more crucial part of the framework Vieira gave us was his core methodology: mining the photographic record to identify chess pieces by time, place, and event. This methodology enabled him to identify not only what he had, but what he didn’t have, thereby creating an agenda for future collecting efforts, his “Utopia.” But this methodology has another more basic, more subliminal effect. The photographic record not only ties pieces to times, events, and places, but connects collectors to the great players who played with these pieces; to the rise and dominance of the Soviet School of Chess, and the tumultuous historical context in which it occurred; and to all the magnificent chess played with them. The photographic record connects the collector to that chess, those players, that history. The connection is palpable. It is powerful. And the feeling of connection continues to tie viewer and subject ever more as slide after slide fades in and out of Vieira’s video. This connection simply does not exist for figural sets, or even for playing sets before the ubiquity of photography. But it is the heart and soul of the collector of Soviet chess sets, and Vieira shows us that.
Vieira laid out a roadmap for what to collect. Collectors began to seek out sets like those from his collection shown from the ubiquitous “Latvian” and Grandmaster sets to the rare Tsarist set introducing his video. Even more desired have been the three “Utopia” sets showcased in his final section. Then there are those sets not shown at all in his work, but which the application of his method of culling the photographic record, or research inspired by his work would identify. We shall see many such sets as our exploration continues.
Finally, questions Vieira left unanswered begged for further inquiry. His section covering the “1940-1950s Championship Set,” presented photos of several different, if arguably stylistically related sets. Each of these needed to be researched and located in space and time, and their relationship with each other, if any, clarified. Then there are questions of style. Do Soviet chess pieces have a style or style? What are its elements? What do they share and how do they differ from chessmen that proceeded them? Are they at all related to changes in conceptions of art and design, and to the broader political, economic, and social objectives of the Soviet state? It is with Vieira’s observations and these broader considerations in mind that we undertake our study of Soviet chessmen.
