16 August 2009

N. Grekov, 'Soviet Chess'

The table of contents of a non-fiction book is usually a valuable clue to the structure of its subject as seen by the book's author, a published, hence de-facto, subject matter expert. In my post on D.J. Richards, 'Soviet Chess', I listed the contents of two key chapters in that book, covering the 1920s and 1930s.

This current post does the same for Nicolai Grekov's 'Soviet Chess', published in 1949 by Chess Review. Used copies are available from Bookfinder.com via Author is Grekov; Title is Soviet Chess. More than half of the book's chapters, which are listed in the following table, cover the 1930s. The comments in brackets ('[]') are mine,

01 - The Origins of Chess in Russia
02 - Petroff and His Contemporaries
03 - The Age of Tchigorin [Chigorin]
04 - The Formative Period [Alekhine; 1899-1925]
05 - 1st International Tournament, Moscow, 1925
06 - The New Generation of Russian Masters [5th-8th All-Union Championships, 1927/-29/-31/-33]
07 - The Visits of Flohr and Euwe [Botvinnik - Flohr 1933-34, Leningrad 1934]
08 - 9th All-Union Championship, Leningrad, 1934
09 - 2nd International Tournament, Moscow, 1935
10 - 3rd International Tournament, Moscow, 1936
11 - Botvinnik's Triumph at Nottingham, 1936
12 - Minor Events, 1936-1937 [the category system, titles, women]
13 - 10th All-Union Championship, Tiflis, 1937
14 - Other Events, 1937-1938 [Levenfish - Botvinnik 1937; R.Fine visit; Ragozin]
15 - AVRO Tournament, 1938
16 - Training Tournament, Moscow and Leningrad, 1939
17 - 11th All-Union Championship, Leningrad, 1939
18 - Matches, 1940; 12th All-Union Championship, Moscow, 1940
19 - Absolute Championship Match-Tournament, Moscow, 1941
20 - Tournaments, 1941-1942 [WWII takes its toll]
21 - Tournaments, 1943 [Moscow, Sverdlovsk, Moscow Championship]
22 - 13th All-Union Championship, Moscow, 1944

The phrase 'All-Union Championship' is synonymous with 'Soviet Championship'.

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