Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

[Vadim Tsypin]

Machine translation quality has improved dramatically during the last decade. This allows to re-discover hidden gems that were published earlier in languages other than English. I'm pleased to offer a very coherent translation of a 2013 interview where Yuri Averbakh and Boris Spassky reminisce about Dr. Fedor Bohatirchuk.

[Gordon Taylor]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Thanks for this. The translation is far from perfect but is quite readable. Fascinating material!

[Vadim Tsypin]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Thanks for this. The translation is far from perfect but is quite readable. Fascinating material!

My pleasure, Gordon.

Yes, it is frustrating that translation is inconsistent (same group of words rendered differently in different context) and sometimes downright weird, but I still marvel at how good it is, compared even with the beginning of the century. I believe it's not simply a matter of bigger linguistic corpus or processor speed, Google obviously uses some type of a self-learning AI here. Now and then, I even venture to use Google Translate to access news in Mandarin, it's a very humbling exercise. :-)

Back in 2013, I tried to find online the two-volume biography of Dr. Bohatirchuk that is referred to in the article, but to no avail. Unable to find it now, either.

[Larry Bevand]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Hi Vadim,

Andrew McMillan of Toronto (originally PEI) has worked on this subject. He reads Chesstalk regularly but never posts unfortunately. From what I have been told, He is a semi-regular at the Hart House Chess Club and is doing translation.

Larry

[Vadim Tsypin]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Hi Vadim,

Andrew McMillan of Toronto (originally PEI) has worked on this subject. He reads Chesstalk regularly but never posts unfortunately. From what I have been told, He is a semi-regular at the Hart House Chess Club and is doing translation.

Larry

Wow, Larry, thanks a lot! It would be awesome to have this book translated and published in English ( and sold at the Boutique Stratégie :) ).

Andrew, if you are indeed reading this, kindly consider chiming in on the status of your project.

Alternatively, Alex Ferreira, if you could tell us something with Andrew's permission, that would be great as well.

Thanks in advance.

[Ken MacDonald]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Wow, Larry, thanks a lot! It would be awesome to have this book translated and published in English ( and sold at the Boutique Stratégie :) ).

Andrew, if you are indeed reading this, kindly consider chiming in on the status of your project.

Alternatively, Alex Ferreira, if you could tell us something with Andrew's permission, that would be great as well.

Thanks in advance.

Andrew was not translating the 2 volume work, he was writing his own book on Bohatirchuk.

[Vadim Tsypin]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Andrew was not translating the 2 volume work, he was writing his own book on Bohatirchuk.

Got it, thanks a lot! This sounds even more intriguing since Andrew would have access to a lot of Canadian material and contemporaries that were probably off-limits for an author of a Russian book.

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

October 23, 2017

I posted details of the two Voronkov volumes in September, 2013 on ChessTalk

http://forum.chesstalk.com/showthrea...nkov#post72496

The two volumes are available today as a set for 67 USD + shipping from the Czech Republic.

I will not endorse the Russian edition because I feel that a Canadian one is in order.

[Vadim Tsypin]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

October 23, 2017

I posted details of the two Voronkov volumes in September, 2013 on ChessTalk

http://forum.chesstalk.com/showthrea...nkov#post72496

The two volumes are available today as a set for 67 USD + shipping from the Czech Republic.

I will not endorse the Russian edition because I feel that a Canadian one is in order.

Thank you Wayne! I read all posts in your 2013 thread with great interest.

You mentioned there that Volume 3 of the biography by Voronkov was in the works. Was it ever published?

[Wayne Komer]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

October 24, 2017

Another volume by Voronkov has appeared but it is not clear to me if it is Volume III of the set we have been discussing. Here are the publisher’s specs:

Title: Moi zhiznenny put k Vlasovu i Prazhskomu manifestu
Author: Bohatirchuk, Fedor / Voronkov, Sergei

(My living route to Vlasov and Prague Manifesto).

Bohatirchuk's book of memories was first published in San Francisco in 1978, in Russian. The present book is not only a reprint of the 1978 edition - almost a half of the book contains documents from the so far unpublished Bohatirchuk's archive: manuscripts, articles, letters and photographs about his life in Tzarist Russia, the USSR, Poland, Germany and Canada, where he lived since 1948. For the first time, the authors' writings on the Vlasov movement, which are also historically valuable, appear here. The author of the second part well-known chess historian Sergei Voronkov.

Fedor Bohatirchuk, 1892-1984, was one of the world's best players between wars. Reputable scientist, USSR champion in 1927, participant in all 3 Moscow tournaments 1925, 1935, 1936. Boris Spasski said about Bohatirchuk that if he plays chess professionally, he could be the first Soviet world champion. The book does not contain games. Bibliography, name index.

Place of publication: Prague
Publisher: Russkaya tradicia
Year of publication: 2017
Edition: 1st edition
Pages: portrait, 181 photos and illustrations, 616 pages. 1480 grams
Binding: Hardcover
Language: Russian
Price: USD 45.00

[Vadim Tsypin]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

October 24, 2017

Another volume by Voronkov has appeared but it is not clear to me if it is Volume III of the set we have been discussing. Here are the publisher’s specs:

Title: Moi zhiznenny put k Vlasovu i Prazhskomu manifestu
Author: Bohatirchuk, Fedor / Voronkov, Sergei

(My living route to Vlasov and Prague Manifesto).

Bohatirchuk's book of memories was first published in San Francisco in 1978, in Russian. The present book is not only a reprint of the 1978 edition - almost a half of the book contains documents from the so far unpublished Bohatirchuk's archive: manuscripts, articles, letters and photographs about his life in Tzarist Russia, the USSR, Poland, Germany and Canada, where he lived since 1948. For the first time, the authors' writings on the Vlasov movement, which are also historically valuable, appear here. The author of the second part well-known chess historian Sergei Voronkov.

Fedor Bohatirchuk, 1892-1984, was one of the world's best players between wars. Reputable scientist, USSR champion in 1927, participant in all 3 Moscow tournaments 1925, 1935, 1936. Boris Spasski said about Bohatirchuk that if he plays chess professionally, he could be the first Soviet world champion. The book does not contain games. Bibliography, name index.

Place of publication: Prague
Publisher: Russkaya tradicia
Year of publication: 2017
Edition: 1st edition
Pages: portrait, 181 photos and illustrations, 616 pages. 1480 grams
Binding: Hardcover
Language: Russian
Price: USD 45.00

Super interesting, thanks Wayne.

I held the 1978 edition in my hands in one of the big university libraries stateside, cannot even remember where it was. Would hope it could be circulating in an electronic form but a quick search didn't show any files right now.

Following your kind reference, I was able to find an interview Mr. Voronkov gave to the Czech radio where he describes the changed political climate and problems he had publishing the planned third volume. The usual caveat regarding machine translation applies.

[Vadim Tsypin]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Exciting news: I found a site which is not only in a Russian zone but also uses a domain name in Cyrillic, maybe this was the reason it didn't show up in Google searches.

It contains links to a (poorly) scanned 1978 book as a PDF, and to the two volumes by Voronkov as DejaVu. Most interestingly, there is a link to a PDF document called "All games" and to a folder that supposedly contains games in CBV. I downloaded "All games" PDF, and there are 245 games.

Wayne, Hugh:
In your 2013 thread you gave 224 as the number of Dr. Bohatirchuk's games that were published by then. It might be interesting to go through that new document and see whether anyting could be added to CanBase.

Thanks!

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

I've been slowly comparing the games, and I notice that there are several telegraph/correspondence games which I wouldn't have included in my database anyways. I keep correspondence games in a separate file (with rare exceptions).

[Vadim Tsypin]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

I've been slowly comparing the games, and I notice that there are several telegraph/correspondence games which I wouldn't have included in my database anyways. I keep correspondence games in a separate file (with rare exceptions).

Thank you Hugh for going through this exercise. Let's hope that a heretofore-unknown OTB game shows up.

[Hugh Brodie]

Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

Here are my findings when comparing the two databases:

1) The PDF document includes many correspondence games not in my (Canbase) database. (I don't normally include correspondence games, and I won't include these).
2) The PDF document includes games from a couple of Ukrainian championships which I don't have.
3) The PDF document is missing the 11 games from the 1955 Canadian Championship/Closed (Ottawa).
4) The PDF document is missing a game against Georgy Dzagurov (Moscow 1939). I have no source for this game - but I have now found out that the game appears in Chrenev's "The Russians Play Chess". (I have a copy somewhere).
5) The PDF document is missing a lot of games he played in Canada throughout the 50's and 60's. They are mostly club or inter-club games - but most are against strong players (e.g. Maurice Fox, Lawrence Day), and most have documented sources.