The Lubyanka Gambit

En gruoppvekkende bok om noe av Sovjetsjakkens mørke bakside, om skjebnen til en rekke fremragende sjakkspillere og oppgaveforfattere i Stalins totalitære helvete. Både historien og flotte partier og oppgaver.

Forfatteren ble selv født i Gulag i 1944 og ble senere en dyktig postsjakkspiller, oppgaveløser og sjakkhistorisk forfatter. Som nær sagt toppen på kransekaka skriver forfatteren også personlig om sin lærer i oppveksten, forfatteren Aleksander Solzhenitsyn.

En viktig sjakkbok, men som i disse tider også kan få det til å gå litt ekstra kaldt nedover ryggen på oss.

Forlagets egen omtale:

First published in Russian in 2004 and now available in English for the first time, The Lubyanka Gambit is a classic work investigating the darkest side of chess history in the Soviet Union. It is the culmination of nearly two decades of research by Correspondence Chess Grandmaster, historian and human rights campaigner Sergei Grodzensky, whose own father was sent to the Gulag in Stalin's times. It describes the careers and life stories, based on archival documents and witness testimony, of Soviet chess composers, players and famous amateurs who were repressed by the Soviet authorities, ending up either executed or sent to the Gulag. Featured names include Lazar Zalkind, Arvid Kubbel, Vladimirs Petrovs, Petr Izmailov, Georgy Schneideman, Nikolai Krylenko and Natan Sharansky, among many others. The theoretical contribution to the history of composition is one key theme in this work.

The Lubyanka Gambit also looks in detail at the historical context of the purges of chess players and describes how chess was played by prisoners in the Gulags and internal exile. Perhaps the icing on the cake is provided by Grodzensky's personal memories of the Soviet Union's foremost Gulag writers Alexander Solzhenitsyn (his schoolteacher) and Varlam Shalamov (his father's close friend). This book contains 72 full games and fragments analyzed by the participants, contemporaries, the author and other leading players, as weil as 145 computer-checked compositions.

Sergei Grodzensky, born in 1944 in the Gulag city of Vorkuta, gained the Soviet Master of Sport title for over-the-board chess in 1985, and the international grandmaster title for correspondence chess in 1999. He twice won the AII-Russian Problem and Studies Solving Olympiad (1963 and 1964) and has also won composition competitions. Grodzensky has represented Russia in world and European championships at correspondence chess. He is the author of over 600 articles covering the history and theory of chess, as weil as 17 books. Outside chess, he made a career as a professor of engineering, gaining a doctorate in 2002.

Innholdsfortegnelsen:

• Index of Games ..................................................................................6
• Foreword by Alexander Yakovlev ....................................................................8
• Introduction by the Author ............................................................................9
• Chess and Soviet Totalitarianism .................................................................11
• Chess Composers....................................................................................30
• Lazar Zalkind – A Debt of Conscience .......................................................30
• Arvid Kubbel – Kubbel’s Brother ...............................................................55
• Mikhail Platov – Co-Author of “A Beautiful Thing” ....................................89
• Sergei Kaminer – The Interrupted Song ...............................................100
• Pavel Neunyvako – “To the Madness of the Brave...” .............................111
• Mikhail Barulin – He didn’t Sign Anything ...........................................123
• Over the Board Chess Players ..........................................................137
• Vladimirs Petrovs – “A Star Prematurely Extinguished” ........................137
• Petr Izmailov – The First Champion of Soviet Russia ..........................164
• Georgy Schneideman – The Surname That Cost His Life ....................199
• Mikhail Shebarshin – From Trade Union Champion to BelBalt Gulag Champion ....................218
• Nikolai Salmin – A Life Cut Short at Thirty ...........................................233
• Hoisted by their Own Petard ...........................................................236
• Nikolai Krylenko – The Rise and Fall of the Supreme Commander ......236
• Vladimir Fridberg – The Fate of the Prosecutor ................................252
• Rodion Shukevich-Tretyakov – Devoted to the Revolution .................257
• Chess in the “Destructive-Labor Camps” .......................................261
• Introduction .............................................................................261
• The Gulag Prisoners – “Vorkuta, Vorkuta, a Wonderful Planet...” ......264
• Varlam Shalamov – Chess in the Life and Work of the Author of Kolyma Tales .......271
• Alexander Solzhenitsyn – As I Remember Him ..........................284
• Vladimir Levitsky – Champion of the Step Gulag ......................295

• Solovki Special Purpose Camp – The Original Gulag ...................301

• Georgy Brenev – A Career Split in Two .............................303

• Natan Sharansky – The French Defense, Lefortovo Variation ................310
• Afterword ..........................................................................318
• Epilogue – Bullet Chess ...............................................320