Vladimir Petrovs. Murder By Denunciation.
A strong title!? Probably. But it reflects my feelings. Sometimes things make me angry – that is part of being human.
Some time ago I wrote this article https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/romanovsky-revisited-tragic-scenes-from-a-wonderful-book There I said that when you write about chess history you just have to give the facts – however painful it may be to write them,
In that case you could excuse the atrocities by saying that it was wartime, and the guilty only saw their innocent victims as a faceless 'enemy'.
The Petrovs story is different. The people responsible knew him. They were chessplayers and Professional Colleagues', so to speak.
They would have known of his wife and child, and that Petrovs himself was a decent human being.
'' I decided not to publicize the names of the snitches, but I can say that there were three of them – three Moscow masters who played in several Soviet Championships.''
The Romanovsky article was upsetting to write, and this one makes me both angry and upset. However, having said that I will present the material without comment. For that reason I have decide not to include the material from pages 134 – 135, which gives his wife's account of the last time they saw each other, but will include the photograph of his wife and daughter which he grabbed from their flat to take with him.
Last time round https://www.chess.com/blog/simaginfan/the-latvian-team-of-the-1930s-a-chess-goody-bag I touched on Vladimir Petrovs. I had not intended to go down this road at the time, but a dear friend of mine – a much better chess historian than me – said to me that the Petrovs story deserves to be better known, so I decided to share a little of it and point you in the direction of a wonderful book which explores his chess, his life and the circumstances of his death.
Before I forget, let me make a special thankyou to Ilan at Elk and Ruby publishers ( no, I am not getting anything for this!!)
Firstly for giving me permission to quote from the book and to post some of the pictures. Secondly for being fearless in what they do and allowing their authors – including one of my heroes Voronkov – to give the stories behind the chess.
O.K. The book in front of me is this one.
The first half contains the chess content by Dmitry Kryakvin - some games and many fragments plus some background.
The second half is the reminiscences of Petrovs' wife - with some contributions from the great Voronkov.
Translations to English by Alexei Zakharov - great work mate!
Lets get on with it, with apologies for the formatting issues caused by all the cut and paste stuff.
The Wartime Tournaments
Meanwhile, Petrovs also stayed in the USSR. He played in tournaments, won prizes and knew nothing about what was happening to his family. The first big wartime tournament was of course the 1941 Moscow Championship, held in
November and December. Without a doubt, this tournament was more of a political act than a sporting event. Mazel won the championship, and Vladimirs finished as runner-up. According to V. G. Povarov, a match between Alatortsev and Petrovs had also been scheduled for September in Moscow, but all he could find in the press of the time was that the first game was adjourned.
The second major wartime tournament was held on 17th February – 12th March 1942 in Moscow. It was a double round robin featuring eight masters. Bondarevsky won, and Petrovs finished second.
Sverdlovsk hosted a tournament on 22nd March – 10th April 1942, with six masters and five first category players taking part. First place was mostly contested between Boleslavsky, who was considered the heavy favorite, and Ragozin, who was in great form, even though he only came from the besieged Leningrad two weeks earlier. Ragozin ultimately won, and Petrovs again came second. This tournament was the last complete one in Vladimirs Mikhailovich Petrovs’ career; at the very least, there were no further mentions of his chess activity, either by eyewitnesses or in the press. Four months later, in August, he was arrested. According to some unverified sources, he was taken away straight from the chess board at some tournament. I haven’t managed to find out what kind of tournament or competition this was.
Here is Petrovs’ resume that he submitted when he applied for a job with the letters department of the USSR Council of People’s Commissars’ Radio Committee [Voronkov in his book explains this document’s origin]:
“I was born in Riga on 27th September 1908, in a worker’s family. My father worked at a shoe factory. I graduated from secondary school in 1925 and enrolled in the law school of Latvian University, which I graduated from in spring 1940. I took breaks in my education for financial reasons.
Since 1924, I have taken various jobs, mostly giving private lessons. I worked as a journalist since 1929, mostly reporting on sports and chess. In 1933–1941, I worked in Riga’s civilian organs in various capacity; in the last few years, I have worked as an administrator of registry offices in the Latvian SSR. In 1926, I earned the chess master’s title, which determined the next steps in my life: I took part in international tournaments and Olympiads in various countries of Central and Western Europe and America.
Since 1940, I’ve been playing in Soviet tournaments. In the Latvian SSR, I worked for and with the Proletarskaya Pravda newspaper and Atputa magazine; in Moscow, for the 64 chess newspaper, Shakhmaty v SSSR, Krasny Sport, and Moskovsky Bolshevik, and for the English magazine CHESS.
In September 1941 I volunteered for the newly formed Latvian Riflemen Division near Gorky. I was dismissed for being of no use to the Red Army and was left to carry out public work with a deferral of conscription until 31.12.19.. (the last two digits were cut out by the hole puncher). From 1st January 1942 until 15th June 1942 I worked in the Moscow City Committee of Dynamo as an aide to the Commander. I am married. I have never been a member of any political organization.
Moscow, 18th June 1942. V. M. Petrovs.”
Vladimirs Petrovs’ dates of birth and death in foreign sources were mostly wrong. Based on information from official sources, we can now correct them: Vladimirs Mikhailovich Petrovs, an ethnic Russian, was born in Riga on 27th September 1908 and died in a Soviet labour camp (somewhere near Kotlas) on 26th August 1943.
One of Latvia’s most prominent players was and still remains a persona non grata in chess history.
From autumn 1942, the Soviet Union turned Vladimirs Petrovs into a “non-person”. For instance, an article about chess tournaments in 1942 never even mentions Petrovs’ name among the participants of the Moscow and Sverdlovsk tournaments. Judging by the Sverdlovsk report, one would think that the second prize was never awarded.
In 1945, when I got back to Riga, I immediately ran to our flat on Matisa Street. As I entered the courtyard, I was greeted by sheets of paper with game scores and notes written by my husband, scattered by the wind. The new “owners” of the flat had acted like conquerors: the former owner, the “enemy of the people”, was imprisoned, and all his confiscated belongings were “bought out” from the state. After some insistent knocking, an obviously drunken man in boxer shorts opened the door. When I asked for specific items to remember my husband by, this shining example of the “new culture” said, “They got lost during our last drinks party!”
I got further proof that the flat had been looted in the Ministry of Finances, when on the table of some department head, I saw a familiar looking stationery holder set that was presented to Petrovs by fellow soldiers from his military unit for his Kemeri tournament win. The list of goods sold from the apartment that I obtained in the ministry obviously didn’t feature the library, the paintings, the grand piano, the furniture set from the office, or the prizes won by my husband.
The Maestro’s Last Game
Petrovs was arrested on 31st August 1942 and, according to a decision of a special council on 3rd February 1943, sentenced to 10 years of labour camps for anti Soviet propaganda. He was arrested after a denunciation. I learned about that from Petrovs’ case file, which I finally managed to obtain in Moscow in 1996. I decided not to publicize the names of the snitches, but I can say that there were three of them – three Moscow masters who played in several Soviet Championships. Sapienti sat…5
For the rest of my life, I used all possible channels (published notices, and wrote to camps and newspapers) to search for those who were imprisoned together with Petrovs or met him on the way to his Calvary. Only in March 1990, thanks to Voronkov, at the time the head of the Shakhmaty v SSSR magazine archive department, did I manage to find Alfred Martynovich Mirek, a doctor of art history, who shared the cell at Lubyanka with my husband. From him, I learned what happened to Petrovs. I was so anxious before this meeting; I wanted to know everything and I feared that it would open all the unhealed wounds once again.
The following text by Alfred Mirek was first published in Russian in Shakhmaty v SSSR No. 9, 1990 in an article entitled “Encounter at Lubyanka” [and it was published in English in Voronkov’s book ]:
The turnover in the cell I wound up in was rather quick. This was an assembly point – a kind of hub where prisoners were sorted. The initial interrogations almost immediately determined the ultimate fate of the arrested.
In the morning, when I came to and cooled down somewhat, I started looking at the surrounding people. Almost everyone – there were around ten people in the cell – slept while sitting or reclining. Especially those who had returned from the night interrogation. Only one guy was wide awake – a chubby, stout man who sat at the open barred window with a view of the courtyard. He regularly got good deliveries (the only one in the cell) and behaved rather cheekily, with barely concealed superiority. A joker, “everybody’s buddy”. He would give some people treats, befriending them and getting them to talk, but would push others away with rudeness and mockery. A man, seemingly a worker, who sat beside me, nodded disdainfully towards him and said quietly, “He’s a plant, don’t say too much…” I looked at the guy involuntarily, and he asked me with an arrogant smile, “What have you come with, young man?” and threw me a sushka. The sushka fell on the floor. I turned away.
And then another victim of the sweep entered the cell – yes, the sweep, since he had arrived without any luggage, as though from a neighbouring room. A young, square built man, calm, collected and fit like a sportsman. He wore a dark suit, the collar of his shirt was unbuttoned. [I remember – this is probably the same pinstriped suit we bought in London. It was his Sunday best suit, which he was supposed to wear at the championship. Where was he taken? Where did they find him? He didn’t play at the Kazan tournament – perhaps they arrested him on the way there – G. M. Petrova Matisa.] He had no belongings with him, not even a coat or a hat. He sat down, looked around and introduced himself, “Petrovs, a chess player”. I had only heard of Botvinnik, Lasker and Capablanca back then, so the name didn’t impress me at all. I wasn’t a big fan of chess, even though I obviously did know what it was.
On that sunny day, seven or eight of us, including Petrovs, were led outside, and as soon as we started to walk in a circle, someone commanded, “Turn to the wall, walk closer to it. Hands behind head!” Then soldiers entered the door beside us and walked to the opposing wall (we could hear the stomps on the ground and the clatter of guns). I looked at the wall without seeing it, fearing the worst: I knew from books and movies that sometimes, in critical situations, they “eliminated” prisoners. With my peripheral vision, I saw tense, unmoving faces to my left and right. “Should it really happen on such a sunny, quiet, warm fall day! On the other hand, ‘fall’ is quite symbolic”, I thought, distracting myself from the petrified waiting. At this moment, we heard another command, “Hands behind backs, start walking!” Before we even recovered, we unconsciously, mechanically started walking by the courtyard walls. It turned out that it was time for a change in the security shift, and this ritual was used as a safety precaution in such cases.
This was my second and last walk in Lubyanka jail. It was also the last time I saw Grandmaster Petrovs. In the evening, he was called for interrogation and never returned to our cell. It seems that they had started to work on him in earnest. During these two weeks, he became rather haggard and gradually got the sense that he was doomed.
As I learned later, my husband was sent to the Butyrka prison and got completely broken there. Five months at Lubyanka and Butyrka were enough –
on the way to Vorkuta, he, already mortally ill, was taken off the train at some transfer station and soon died.
That game at Lubyanka was apparently the last in the grandmaster’s life. It’s unlikely that he ever got an opportunity to sit at his beloved chess board again in the remainder of his short life. Petrovs’ sentencing document that I received upon request says, “The charges against your husband were based on cases of his expressing his unhappiness with living conditions in the Baltic republics after they joined the USSR”.
There is a chapter in the book about Petrovs' later status as ' persona non grata' within the Soviet Union for many, many years.
I first started looking at Petrovs as a result of my studying the great Paul Keres. Back then I could find very little, but one thing really aroused my suspicions - I am a cynic by nature. Keres' own book of his best games did not include his famous brilliancy prize winning game from the 1940 USSR Championships.
Nowadays I understand more!
In the book Galina Petrova-Matisa gives some wonderful reminiscences - Alekhine and his wife do not come out of it well! - including this about Paul Keres - a fine human being subject to the same atrocities those in neighbouring Latvia.
I immediately liked Paul Keres when we met. A modest, tall and lean young man, with a clever, serious, intelligent face. I thought that he was likeable, and I said as much to Petrovs; he also spoke of Keres with warmth, saying that he was very talented and had a bright future, and that he always feared facing Keres at the board. Keres was almost the same age as me, we were both students. Paul studied mathematics in Estonia. He spent all his free time at the tournament with another young man – his secretary, who was almost always at his side.
I got to know Keres more closely in the following way: Petrovs was analyzing an adjourned game, and I brought a book and went to a park located right behind the hotel. This was a splendid, huge park adjacent to a dense forest. As I walked around, I stumbled upon Keres’ secretary, who was anxiously looking for him everywhere. I told him that I hadn’t seen Keres, and he turned a corner to some side alley; I walked on and, entering the thick of the wood, suddenly saw Keres in a secluded place, sitting on a bench. He seemed to be hiding from everyone. I told him about meeting his secretary, and he smiled kindly and asked not to reveal his location – he wanted to spend some time alone. I was heading off, but he asked me to sit down and talk a bit about anything but chess. When he learned that I knew nothing about chess and the life of chess players and never read chess magazines, Keres seemed to be relieved. He said that this was good for me, but then it’s a surprise that I chose a chess player, of all people, as a husband. I said that opposites probably attract…
Keres said that Petrovs was a talented and promising chess player. We discussed life in Latvia and Estonia, our universities; Keres complained that he had no time for studies and said he feared that chess related travels would prevent him from finishing his education altogether. That’s how we became acquaintances and then friends, and I gratefully remember his respect for me and sincere concern and compassion later, because of Petrovs’ tragic fate. He was completely sure of his innocence; Keres was virtually the only chess player who honoured my husband’s memory and didn’t turn away from me. I honestly don’t know what was stopping others from doing the same. Fear? Fear to mention a repressed man’s name years and even decades after his death?
A photograph of Petrovs and Keres from the 1938 Latvia - Estonia match.
It was taken during this game.
Let's quickly give a little more chess. As I said last time, Petrovs could seriously play - he had a 50% lifetime score against both Alekhine and Capablanca.
Krykavin gives this.
Also noted is this game - I will let you study this one for yourselves!
And to finish, a game which won a special prize. As I say, these days Petrovs' games are easy to find and hopefully you will take a look.
Beautiful!!
That's all I can bring myself to do - feel free to add more to the story in the comments.
There are far too many similar stories. Thousands upon thousands. Many years ago I heard one 'first hand' from a man who's father had escaped from Estonia. Just one story from a real person can mean more that all the huge numbers. A piece of psychology that I call 'the Anne Franks effect'.
Had her diaries not been found, we would not know the story and been touched by it.
If Vladmir Petrovs had not been a wonderful chess player, this would have been one of the forgotten stories.
So accept this offering in memory of all of the forgotten.
A final thank you to Ilan at Elk and Ruby publishers, without whom this would have been less than it is. Please buy the book - so much in there that I wanted to reproduce, but did not. A purchase that you won't regret.
