I tend to try and seperate the man from his art.
I absolutely adore Wagner's music even though he was a proto-Nazi.
People who hated the Soviet Union and what it stood for would naturally desire to see Korchnoi as "heroic" in opposition to that dastardly stooge of the communist state, Karpov.
When ideology comes into play, it's a rare person who keeps a clear head.
Viktor Korchnoi, who turned 80 is one of the great figures of twentieth-century chess, but also one of the most controversial. Evgeny Vasiukov, who’s known him for 60 years, felt compelled to voice what he considers the truth about Korchnoi, both as a man and a chess player check this interview http://www.chessintranslation.com/2011/03/vgeny-vasiukov-on-viktor-korchnoi/ in the interview vasiukov says The thing is that he was far from the only one in those years who was invited to stay, to play for some other country. Many people nowadays, not knowing the ins and outs of the context, say, “ah, what a hero Korchnoi is”. I don’t agree with that position. Few know that doing what he did he was, above all, trampling on his family. Tal told me that when Korchnoi’s wife and son were allowed to leave [the Soviet Union] (and his son had already been to prison before that), he didn’t even meet them. Instead they were met by his lawyer with a divorce letter. And Tal once asked Korchnoi’s son, “Igor, what’s your relationship with your father like?” To which the son replied, “I don’t want to hear or speak about Mr. Korchnoi”. So there’s that side of life… Everyone talks only about the chess side, but life – it doesn’t end with chess. After all, we live among people, both those close to us, and distant… and in the chessbase article http://chessbase.com/newsdetail.asp?newsid=7111 there's a picture of victor's son attending the party Frederic Friedel wrote The next morning on a walk along the lake, it suddenly dawned on me: "Are you Igor, for whose freedom we were fighting back in 1976, when Viktor was playing Karpov in Baguio City?" Indeed it was the man, who in Korchnoi's book "Chess is my Life" has written a ten-page memoir, telling readers of his life in the USSR after the defection of his father, including the time he spent in jail. Today Igor lives in Switzerland and is a software designer. An interesting and enjoyable new friend – as is Alexander from the other side of the family. which of the following is true? what was the relationship between korchnoi and his son really like?