Old vs New GM's

Johannes Zukertort

Zukertort family emigrated to Prussia. In 1861, he enrolled at the University of Breslau to study medicine; he later claimed that he completed his degree, but this has been disputed. In any case he met Adolf Anderssen while in Breslau and fell in love with chess.

This new passion did not prevent Zukertort from distinguishing himself in other ways. He became fluent in a wide range of languages (perhaps as many as 14). He fought for Prussia against Austria, Denmark, and France; was once left for dead on the battlefield; and was decorated for gallantry nine times; and he was noted as a swordsman and marksman. He was an accomplished pianist and, for a while, a music critic. He even found time for political activity, as editor of a political paper, a writer for Bismarck's newspaper, the Allgemeine Zeitung, and as a leading spokesman for prison reform.

Mikhail Botvinik

Engineering was as much of a passion for Botvinnik as chess – at Nottingham in 1936, where he had his first major tournament win outside the USSR, he said "I wish I could do what he's done in electrical engineering" (referring to Milan Vidmar, another grandmaster). He was awarded the Order of the Badge of Honour for his work on power stations in the Urals during World War II (while he was also establishing himself as the world's strongest chess player). He earned his doctorate in electrical engineering in 1951. In 1956, he joined the Research Institute for Electrical Energy as a senior research scientist. In September 7, 1991 Botvinnik was awarded an honorary degree in mathematics of the University of Ferrara (Italy) for his work on computer chess.

Milan Vidmar

He began to study mechanical engineering in 1902, and he graduated in 1907 at the University of Vienna. He got his doctor's degree in 1911 from the Technical faculty in Vienna. The study of electrical engineering at Technical faculty began not until 1904, so Vidmar had to take special examinations of the field basics. He was a professor at the University of Ljubljana, a member of the Slovene Academy of Arts and Sciences, and the founder of the Faculty of Electrical Engineering. Between 1928 and 1929 he was the 10th Chancellor of the University of Ljubljana. In 1948 he established the Institute of Electrotechnics that now bears his name.

Viswanathan Anand

Anand did his schooling in Don Bosco, Egmore, Chennai and holds a degree in commerce from Loyola College, Chennai. His hobbies are reading, swimming, and listening to music.

I could not even find anything notable about Fischer, Kasparov, Topalov or others.

And someone pls again tell me how todays GM's are much, much better, and complete than the old ones? Considering the time, help and easy access to databases they have, they are maybe better chess players, but as persons, they are way behind.

It does seem that some of the older players were more accomplished outside chess. Of course, Kasparov may still have non-chess accomplishments yet to come . . .

The older players couldnt make a decent living from chess alone, as the top players today can. So, they were forced to be more accomplished outside of chess since they had to find a means of earning a living. Keep in mind that as recently as 1969 when Spassky defeated Petrosian for the WC he only got about $3,000. for winning the WC !  Fischer changed that single handedly,  pretty  much.

And we are all grateful for that, Fischer did more for chess than most of the GM's in the past, if not all of them. But still, you could not talk to Bobby if it was not about chess. Take chess out of ones life, and what is he? I always think of Capablanca who's parents tried to talk him off chess, so he could be involved in many spheres of life.

"In 1905 Capablanca passed with ease the entrance examinations for Columbia University in New York City (...). In the same year he joined the Manhattan Chess Club, and was soon recognized as the club's strongest player. (...) In 1908 he left the university to concentrate on chess." (José Raúl Capablanca, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).

Doesn't the competitiveness of the game today, make people have to choose the chess vocation, or another? Your comparisons don't take into account how many people are striving for the very little prize money in chess. And your assessment "...as persons, they are way behind", is a superficial claim.

At the era of the first champions chess was neither a sport, nor a profession. Relatively few people studied it. Nowadays having talent and a few hours a week is not enough to become #1, so people have to devote most of their time to the game.