A Poetic/Metaphoric Post; A Tribute to Magic!
I beg to be forgiven, for two reasons: This post might be slightly (or quite) incoherent, meaning it might not follow an obvious line of thought, an intellectual goal, an aim: it is mostly a sharing of games and players that have inspired me in the last few years in which I have been posting here.
Because of my circumstance and destiny (yes, I believe in destiny!) I was never able to fully develop the necessary qualities, technical and personal, that would have enabled me to have "success" in chess. But what is success, exactly? The attainment of your goals, your dreams, your desires? What if that "attainment" was not in accordance with your own soul's wishes, but came from a shallower part of your being? What if "The Spirit that Moves All Things" had something else for you? Something that would elevate your spirit more, something that would make you more useful to humanity?
I am reminded of a famous (for me) scene from the movie "The Last Emperor"....in this scene, the Emperor, under the new Communist regime, is assigned a mentor; someone who can teach him new values. They are working in a garden, and at one point the Emperor says (paraphrase): "You only love me because I am useful!"
And in his response, his mentor, who was a good man, said: "Is it that bad, to be useful?"
In the next scene, some kind of "purge" is going on within China, and as the Emperor watches from the side of the road, he sees his mentor being carried away, in handcuffs.
Many are my heroes in chess, among them Rubinstein, Schlechter, Zukertort, Chigorin, Tartakower, Morphy, Alekhine, Keres, Bronstein, Gufeld, Tal, Nezhmetdinov, Nimzowitsch, Lasker, Steinitz.....the list is almost endless! Petrosian, Taimanov, Polugaevsky, Adorjan!
Each one had different struggles in life, struggles of circumstance and of character, one or the other, and sometimes both. And these are only some of the most well-known Masters of their era; there are others whom I have never heard of, and in this site, thanks to the efforts of Simaginfan, RoaringPawn, Batgirl and others, I have had the good fortune of making their acquaintance.
There are various qualities that make these players heroes in my eyes. Two qualities stand out above all; Courage and Imagination.
Courage, of course, is important in any sporting endeavor, because to do sport is to do battle; whether you are playing chess, tennis, bowling, darts, fútbol (soccer), or any other sport. It is a hardening of the nervous system that allows you not to collapse under the greatest tension at the critical moment in the battle.
Imagination is the second quality that really inspires me; it is this luminous energy that can transcend the actual circumstance, and see the future one. It is an inspiration, an act of beauty and faith, that fascinates chess lovers and leaves them wondering: how did he come up with that?
Goodness of heart is another one that is of great importance to me. It is that vibration that sits in the middle of your chest; that love for others, and respect, and a sense of dignity in the interaction with other human beings. It is the fundamental vibration that is felt beyond the moves; it is a feeling that permeates, like a gentle mist, where you feel moist, but not wet, touched, but not hit; a subtle vibration that gives you a sense of who this "player" is, this human being who struggles in life, who has joys and sorrows, gains and losses, tragedies and triumphs, in his destiny.
It is the humility of Polugaevsky, who was so kind, Botvinnik thought he was TOO kind. It is the modesty of Schlechter, who died of hunger. It is the heart of Bronstein, who saw his whole generation perish, almost before his very eyes. It is the perseverance of Petrosian, who had to sweep the streets when his father died. It is the transcendence of Lasker, who was so poor as a child, when he moved to Berlin with his brother Berthold, that they shared ONE pair of trousers for both of them; one brother had to wait for the other one to come home, if he wanted to go out.
It is the pure love of chess of Chigorin, who almost single-handedly and tirelessly tried to popularise chess in Czarist Russia. it is the amazing talent for teaching of Nimzowitsch, and Tartakower!
And yet, any of these players are almost unkown to me as people, because their games only reveal one aspect of their lives.
Yet players like Tal, Nezhmetdinov, Bronstein, Petrosian, make me richer as a person, to read about their life; their struggles.
History is quite unkind and superfcial; it depends on the consciousness (or lack of it) of the historian.
Take Steinitz, for example:
I heard that he died crazy, saying he could give God odds of a pawn and move. Yet many years later, I read that his wife and daughter died, and that his death certificate says he died of "melancholy". The man died of sorrow! How can I not feel for him? Who cares what "history" says?
I am reminded of Verdi, the famous composer. His wife and daughter, if I remember correctly, died the same year. Verdi was so sad, he could not compose music. Three years, if I remember correctly, went by. Finally he was able to start writing music again.
I told you this was going to be a bit incoherent!
Rashid G. Nezhmetdinov
Ah, Rashid! You inspired Tal so much! When we look at Tal's games, we can see your imprint in them, your style! If Tal was the "Magician from Riga", he was just your apprentice in magic chess!
Mikhail Tal vs. Botvinnik, 1961
One of the things that Bronstein objects to is that, beginning with Botvinnik, this "school" of thought stated that you had to hate your opponent in order to win. Among its adherents are Korchnoi, Karpov and Kasparov, according to Bronstein.
Within the first few seconds of this short documentary, Korchnoi explains why you have to hate your opponent:
But Tal was NOT like that. Botvinnik, if he was playing a match with someone, as part of his preparation, would develop animosity towards the person. But with Tal, he could NOT do it! And therefore, Botvinnik said about Tal (paraphrase): "Is it not wonderful? To be loved by everyone?"
Eduard Gufeld
Zukertort
Fischer-Bronstein
Bronstein.....where do I start? Most people judge his career by the fact that he "failed" to win the World Championship. Yet the same "historians" fail to write about the two tragedies surrounding Bronstein's life:
Bronstein came from a loving family. At the age of 11 (1935) his father was arrested and sent to the Gulag for six years, and declared an "Enemy of the State", "because he had "tried to defend peasants... who were put under pressure by corrupt officials."
You can see the sorrow in Bronstein's eyes in these photos:
The second incident was WWII. Ukraine lost more people, in proportion to its population, than any other country in WWII!
Kiev was attacked mercilessly by the Germans AND the Russians during the war......
The ruins of Kiev during WWII
First Battle of Kiev (1941)
"The First Battle of Kiev was the German name for the operation that resulted in a very large encirclement of Soviet troops in the vicinity of Kiev during World War II. This encirclement is considered the largest encirclement in the history of warfare (by number of troops). The operation ran from 7 August to 26 September 1941 as part of Operation Barbarossa, the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union.[6] In Soviet military history, it is referred to as the Kiev Strategic Defensive Operation, with somewhat different dating of 7 July – 26 September 1941.[7]
Much of the Southwestern Front of the Red Army (Mikhail Kirponos) was encircled but small groups of Red Army troops managed to escape the pocket, days after the German panzers met east of the city, including the headquarters of Marshal Semyon Budyonny, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko and Commissar Nikita Khrushchev. Kirponos was trapped behind German lines and killed while trying to break out.
The battle was an unprecedented defeat for the Red Army, exceeding even the Battle of Białystok–Minsk of June–July 1941. The encirclement trapped 452,700 soldiers, 2,642 guns and mortars and 64 tanks, of which scarcely 15,000 escaped from the encirclement by 2 October. The Southwestern Front suffered 700,544 casualties, including 616,304 killed, captured or missing during the battle. The 5th, 37th, 26th, 21st and the 38th armies, consisting of 43 divisions, were almost annihilated and the 40th Army suffered many losses. Like the Western Front before it, the Southwestern Front had to be recreated almost from scratch." (From Wikipedia)
We go back to destiny....
(From an interview of Bronstein from 1994....)
"You know, I spent nearly all of World War II close to the front. For this reason I still feel that it was my war too. It may be that I have never grown out of it: my generation perished, and I have felt a vacuum around me all my life.....You haven't asked me, it didn't occur to you to ask me: why didn't I want to be World Champion? I simply felt shame before my generation. Fate had left me alive- what for? So that I could declare that I was better than all the others? The idea of a chess champion seems to me atavistic in general. In art there mustn't be champions!"
And this move, which stunned Korchnoi!
In honor of Ukraine, here is Sergey Prokofiev!
"Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (/prəˈkɒfiɛf,
One of my personal favorites, Prokofiev's Lt. Kije Suite......
