“Chess is gymnastics of the mind,” Vladimir Ilyich Lenin once said. The later head of government of the Soviet Union, whose founder he is considered to be, initiated the rise of the board game to a Russian-Soviet national sport with this attitude. The ruling CPSU accepted chess as a school subject, paid for and promoted exceptional talent. So it’s no wonder that ten of the 16 chess world champions in history came from Russia or the Soviet Union.
And even if the last Russian world champion title dates from 2007 (Vladimir Kramnik) and of the 20 currently strongest players in the world according to the Elo list (rating that describes the playing strength of chess players) of the world association Fide, only three from Russia, but five Coming from the USA, the Russian influence in chess was unmistakable until recently. Until recently, many important tournaments were held in Russia, and Russian corporations such as Gazprom acted as sponsors. With the Russian war in the Ukraine, however, this changed abruptly.
Between sadness and misunderstanding
The world association canceled all sponsorship contracts with Russian companies, the Chess Olympiad, the most important team competition in sport, scheduled for the end of July, will no longer take place in Moscow, as will the Fide Chess Congress, at which a successor to the incumbent Russian President Arkady Dvorkovich will be determined target. The world association is also investigating Russian world-class player Sergei Karjakin after he defended Vladimir Putin and the war and mocked Ukrainian victims. In contrast to many other sports, Russian players are not yet excluded from international competitions.
At the Grand Prix currently taking place in Berlin, five of the 16 participants are from Russia. Your participation is also possible because 44 of the country’s best chess players recently appealed in an open letter to Russia’s head of state Vladimir Putin for an immediate end to the war. Your example should set a precedent, be a role model. An exclusion from the competitions would only be counterproductive, so the thought. One of the signers of the appeal, Daniil Dubow, recently said in an interview with Der Spiegel magazine that he was depressed and that it was difficult “to prepare for the games when you have to scan the news every three minutes.” Nevertheless, Dubow, who also plays in Berlin, has little understanding that he is no longer allowed to compete under the Russian flag, but only under the Fide flag. He “does not represent the Kremlin. I represent Dostoyevsky and Chekhov.”
Many question marks remain
How complicated the situation is for the chess world can also be seen from the words of Ilja Merenzon. The managing director of the chess tournament organizer “World Chess”, who also organized the Grand Prix in Berlin, told rbb: “There are no good solutions as long as there is war.” There isn’t much you can do, you have to wait and see. The lost sponsors from and tournaments in Russia? “We have to see what it means exactly,” said Merenzon. But still, “we turned our logo into a peace sign”.
Paul Meyer-Denker, President of the Berlin Chess Association, is clearer to rbb. The euphoria that had arisen in the run-up to the tournament was no longer felt when the war began. The fact that five of the 16 participants are from Russia “feels a bit like business as usual, the signal that goes out doesn’t feel good”. But the decision to let the tournament take place in this form was up to the world association, according to Meyer-Denker. He hopes that more Russian players will make similar statements to Daniil Dubow. As for the future of chess and Russian involvement in it? “The next few weeks, months and years will show that,” says Meyer-Denker.
For a sport that thrives on thinking ahead like chess, these are questionable tones.
Broadcast: inforadio, March 27, 2022, 9:15 p.m
Source: rbb