Half a century ago I left a country, the red color of which
dominated a large portion of the world map. One way or another, the
fate of almost every single person described in this book is
forever linked with that now none-existent empire. Many of them
ended up beyond its borders too. Cultures and traditions, and
certainly not least of all a Soviet mentality, couldn't have just
left them without a trace. Having been transplanted into a
different environment, they had to play the role of themselves
apart from certain corrections with regard to the tastes and
customs of a new society. Nevertheless, every one of them, both
those who left the Soviet Union, and those who stayed behind, were
forever linked by one common united phenomenon: they all belonged
to the Soviet school of chess. This school of chess was born in the
20's, but only began to count its true years starting in 1945, when
the representatives of the Soviet Union dominated an American squad
in a team match. Led by Mikhail Botvinnik, Soviet Grandmasters
conquered and ruled the world, save for a short Fischer period,
over the course of that same half century. In chess as well as
ballet, or music, the word "Soviet" was actually a synonym for the
highest quality interpretation of the discipline. The Soviet Union
provided unheard of conditions for their players, which were the
sort of which their colleagues in the West dare not even dream.
Grandmasters and even Masters received a regular salary just for
their professional qualifications, thereby raising the prestige of
a chess player to what were unbelievable heights. It was a time
when any finish in an international tournament, aside from first,
was almost considered a failure when it came to Soviet players, and
upon their return to Moscow they had to write an official
explanation to the Chess Federation or the Sports Committee. The
isolation of the country, separated from the rest of the world by
an Iron Curtain, was another reason why, talent and energy often
manifested themselves in relatively neutral fields. Still if with
music, cinematography, philosophy, or history, the Soviet people
were raised on a strict diet, that contained multiple restrictions,
this did not apply to chess. Grandmasters, and Masters, all varied
in terms of their upbringing, education, and mentality and were
judged solely on their talent and mastery at the end of the day.
Maybe that's why the Soviet school of chess was full of such
improbable variety not only in terms of the style of play of its
representatives, but also their different personality types. Built
was a gigantic chess pyramid, at the base of which were school
championships, which were closely followed by district ones. Later
city championships, regions, republics, and finally-the ultimate
cherry on top-the national event itself. The Championships of the
Soviet Union were in no way inferior to the strongest international
tournaments, and collections of the games played there came out as
separate publications in the West. That huge brotherhood of chess
contained its very own hierarchy within. Among the millions, and
multitudes of parishioners-fans of the game-there were the
priests-candidate masters. Highly respected were the
cardinals-masters. As for Grandmasters though well...they were true
Gods. Every person in the USSR knew their names, and those names
sounded with just as much adoration, and admiration as those of the
nation's other darlings-the country's best hockey players. In those
days the coming of the American genius only served to strengthen
the interest and attention of society towards chess, never mind the
fact that by that point it had already been fully saturated by it.
The presence of tons of spectators at a chess tournament in Moscow
as shown in the series "The Queen's Gambit" is in no way an
exaggeration. That there truly was the golden age of chess. Under
the constant eye, and control of the government, chess in the USSR
was closely interwoven with politics, much like everything else in
that vanished country. Concurrently, the closed, and isolated
society in which it was born only served to enable its development,
creating its very own type of culture-the giant world of Soviet
chess. I was never indifferent to the past. Today, when there is
that much more of it then the future, this feeling has become all
the sharper. The faster the twentieth century sprints away from us,
and the thicker the grass of forgetting grows, soon enough, and
under the verified power of the most powerful engines that world of
chess will be gone as well. It was an intriguing, and colorful
world, and I saw it as my duty to not let it disappear into that
empty abyss. Genna Sosonko, May 2021.
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