Diploma thesis – chess in the Soviet Union

After I have read the book "Der KGB setzt matt: Wie der sowjetische Geheimdienst die Schachwelt manipulierte" ("The KGB Plays Chess: The Soviet Secret Police and the Fight for the World Chess Crown" by Boris Gulko, Yuri Felshtinsky, Viktor Korchnoi, Vladimir Popov) I thought about writing my diploma thesis about chess in the Soviet Union and am now looking for relevant literature. Therefore, I wanted to ask you all if you know any good/helpful books on this topic. If you can help me, I would be very grateful and appreciate it very much if you could post any suggestions. Many thanks in advance.

I think it depends on how deep you wish to go if it is only Russia and the political involvement, or the whole Soviet Union with its surrounding state. On top of my mind, I'd recommend work of Genna Sosonko or Andrew Soltis. 

Thank you! I have to read more on the topic for now, then I will decide if I'm going to focus on Russia or on the whole Soviet Union.

"White King and Red Queen: How the Cold War was Fought on the Chessboard" is a must read, IMO.Try to interview some of the ex-Soviet chessplayers to give a unique touch to your thesis.

  Talk to Staff member "batgirl".

The book of Donner's articles may be of some use.  I think it's called The King.  Also Sosonko

Kasparov talks quite a bit about Soviet chess in My Great Predecessors II, III and V.  Mark Dvoretsky's Profession Chess Coach is a kind of memoir.  R.G. Wade came out with a book called Soviet Chess in 1976.

Thank you very much to everyone!

I agree with mickynj that Soviet Chess 1917-1991 is a very useful book. Good luck in your thesis.

Thank you!

Absolutely agreed!  Also talking to living players from the time would really be a great addiction  

It would certainly be interesting to interview an ex-Soviet player! Maybe I'll try to contact one of them

You should certainly read two books titled Chess is my Life. One is by A. Karpov, the other is by V. Korchnoi. Read them together. Compare them.

 Mark Taimanov, who had some problems with Soviet authority after his loss to Fischer, wrote a book "I was Fischer's victim" (I didn't find translation on any language, russian name of this book is "Я был жертвой Фишера"). He mostly focuses on chess games, but in second chapter of this book he tells some stories about him losing some national titles, having problem on border and so on, because this loss was considered as intentional loss to american chess player.

Thank you!

Thanks! I am fine also with books in Russian, so this one will definitely be helpful

The subject is so broad, that you have an opportunity to address it from many different perspectives. Here are some possible themes:

• The great rivalries: Fischer - Spassky, Karpov - Korchnoi and Karpov - Kasparov. The Soviet establishment was active in supporting "their" candidate in all three cases
• Botvinnik's "School of Chess". How young players with high potential were picked out and then trained by the best.
• The moguls behind the scenes. Geidar Aliev, Kirsan Ilyumzhinov. Big money that was there to help Kasparov (in case of Aliev), or promote Elista (in case of Ilyumzhinov)
• The defectors. Korchnoi, Alburt, Ivanov.
• The trainers. Zak, Dvoretsky, Tolush, Bondarevsky, etc.
• Chess in popular culture. Post stamps with chess themes, chess in Russian movies, chess players as pop culture icons

This is by no means a complete list, and each bullet point might be worthy of a thesis by itself.

Thank you very much for all this topic suggestions!