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

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  • Hans Jung
    replied
    Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

    Good introductory article on GM Bohatirchuk. Spells out who he was. What a life!

    Leave a comment:


  • Wayne Komer
    replied
    Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

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

    November 27, 2017

    There is a long article today on Fedor Bohatyrchuk at Chessbase.com by Andre Schulz. There are photos of the man and finally, of his gravestone.

    I give the first few paragraphs:

    The man who was Dr. Zhivago: Fedor Bohatyrchuk

    by André Schulz


    Even chess players hardly remember Fedor Bohatirchuk although the Ukrainian-Canadian doctor and chess master led a life worth remembering. He lived in turbulent times, and he was a strong chess player with a life-time score of 3½-½ against Mikhail Botvinnik. He also inspired Boris Pasternak to the character of "Doctor Zhivago". Today, Bohatyrchuk would celebrate his 125th birthday.

    Fedor Parfenovich Bohatirchuk was born November 27, 1892, 125 years ago. But most sources give November 14, 1892, as Bohatirchuk's date of birth. This discrepancy is probably caused by the differences between the Julian and the Gregorian calendar. After the Russian Revolution the more precise Gregorian calendar was used in the Soviet Union but before the revolution the Julian calendar which lags 13 days behind the Gregorian calendar was better known in Russia. This difference is also the reason why the so called "October Revolution" (which according to the Julian calendar broke out on October 25, 1917) took place in November (November 7, 1917) if one follows the Gregorian calendar.

    Bohatirchuk was born in Kiev, which today is in Ukraine but back then was part of the Russian Empire. There have been different ways to transcribe Bohatirchuk's name from Cyrillic but in this article we follow the writing used in the ChessBase Mega database and the name on his grave.

    Bohatirchuk learnt to play chess when he was 15 years old. At the beginning of his chess career Bohatirchuk visited a couple of tournaments with Mikhail Chigorin who was Bohatirchuk's chess teacher for a short time before he died in 1908. 1910 Bohatirchuk won the City Championship of Kiev for the first time, ahead of Efim Bogoljubow. In 1914 José Raúl Capablanca visited Kiev and won an exhibition match against the young master.

    Bohatirchuk was one the Russian players who played at the Congress of the German Chess Federation in Mannheim 1914 when World War I broke out and the Russian players were interned by the Germans. However, Bohatirchuk was soon released and sent to Switzerland with Alexander Alekhine, Peter Saburov and N. Koppelmann. From Switzerland the Russians made their way to Genoa where they waited about a month for a ship that would bring them back to Russia. While waiting, they played a lot of chess and Bohatirchuk later said that this month in which he played more than a 100 games against Alekhine had been better for his chess than all other matches and tournaments.

    Between 1923 and 1934 Bohatirchuk played in six USSR Championships (1923, 1924, 1927, 1931, 1933, 1934) and in 1927 he won the tournament together with Romanovsky, ahead of players such as Botvinnik and Dus-Chotimirsky. In 1925 he took part in the first great international chess tournament played in the Soviet Union, Moscow 1925, and finished 11th of 21 participants. Bogoljubow won ahead of Lasker and Capablanca.

    In 1926, Bohatirchuk wrote the first chess book in Ukrainian, titled "Shahy". He also was an active member of the Chess Federation of the Ukrainian Soviet Republic.
    _______

    See the rest of the rest of the article at:

    https://en.chessbase.com/post/the-ma...or-bohatyrchuk

    Leave a comment:


  • Denis Allan
    replied
    Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

    I remember hearing a very different story years ago. That Spassky was accompanied on his trip to Canada by two men whose job was to watch him. He knew of Bohatirchuk and wanted to meet him and found someone who could arrange it. While at a banquet in Ottawa he went to the back of the room, purportedly to the washroom, where someone helped him slip out a back door and took him to meet F.B. When he returned there was no problem as his minders knew that to report his absence could have worse repercussions for themselves than for him. Can't remember who told me this but my best guess would be Lawrence Day.

    Leave a comment:


  • Hugh Brodie
    replied
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • Vadim Tsypin
    replied
    Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

    Originally posted by Hugh Brodie View Post
    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.
    Last edited by Vadim Tsypin; Wednesday, 25th October, 2017, 01:30 AM. Reason: Misspelled a five-letter word. :(

    Leave a comment:


  • Hugh Brodie
    replied
    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).

    Leave a comment:


  • Vadim Tsypin
    replied
    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!

    Leave a comment:


  • Vadim Tsypin
    replied
    Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

    Originally posted by Wayne Komer View Post
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • Wayne Komer
    replied
    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

    Leave a comment:


  • Vadim Tsypin
    replied
    Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

    Originally posted by Wayne Komer View Post
    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?

    Leave a comment:


  • Wayne Komer
    replied
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • Vadim Tsypin
    replied
    Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

    Originally posted by J. Ken MacDonald View Post
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • Ken MacDonald
    replied
    Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

    Originally posted by Vadim Tsypin View Post
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • Vadim Tsypin
    replied
    Re: Boris Spassky: "My meeting with Bohatirchuk was a gift of fate"

    Originally posted by Larry Bevand View Post
    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.

    Leave a comment:


  • Larry Bevand
    replied
    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

    Leave a comment:

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