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Georgian Women’s Chess
December 13, 2020
There is an article in The Washington Post entitled “Georgian women ruled chess in the Soviet era. A new generation chases the same ‘Queen’s Gambit’ glory.” by Inna Lazareva.
This may be behind a paywall.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...d2d_story.html
The start of the article has an Audrey Hepburn look-alike with this introduction:
“TBILISI, Georgia — In a bedroom painted purple, where a picture of chess great Bobby Fischer hangs alongside posters of Ariana Grande and characters from "Game of Thrones," 17-year-old Kato Pipia sits at her computer, nailing chess victories over her opponents. Pipia won the World Schools Championship for online chess in October, held with students from 37 countries. Her next big dream? “International chess master,” she said.”
The great Georgian women players are mentioned: Nona Gaprindashvili, Nana Alexandria and Maia Chiburdanidze.
I had never heard of this Soviet gamesmanship when Georgia was still a part of the Soviet Union:
“Within the Soviet Union, meanwhile, the state apparatus routinely discriminated against Georgians and other non-Russians. “Some Communist officials were not too happy to see a Soviet women’s team made up entirely of Georgian women,” Alexandria added.
In 1978, the Kremlin stepped in just as a Soviet chess team of Georgians was due to play at the Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires. “One hour before the plane for Buenos Aires was due to take off, the youngest Georgian player on the team, Nana Ioseliani, was substituted for a Russian player by Soviet officials,” Alexandria said.
“Such things do not happen one hour before a flight.” A similar substitution was attempted in 1980 at the Olympiad in Malta. “But the Georgian minister of sport flew to Moscow to intervene, and the team made up of Georgian women was left intact,” she added.
Back home in Georgia, the female chess stars became celebrities. “In that period — the 1980s, 1990s, almost every newborn girl was named Nona, Maia or Nana, in honor of our famous women,” explains Nana Dzagnidze, whose father named her after Nana Alexandria.
Dzagnidze became a chess grandmaster in 2008.
Currently, a new generation of young women is representing Georgia in international chess tournaments. Some of them grew up in the difficult years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, when most people survived on four hours of electricity a day, amid rampant crime, chronic food shortages and a civil war. “I remember I had to read books and play chess at home by candlelight,” said Nino Batsiashvili, 33, a three-time Georgian women’s chess champion and the most recent Georgian woman to become a grandmaster, in 2018.”
December 13, 2020
There is an article in The Washington Post entitled “Georgian women ruled chess in the Soviet era. A new generation chases the same ‘Queen’s Gambit’ glory.” by Inna Lazareva.
This may be behind a paywall.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...d2d_story.html
The start of the article has an Audrey Hepburn look-alike with this introduction:
“TBILISI, Georgia — In a bedroom painted purple, where a picture of chess great Bobby Fischer hangs alongside posters of Ariana Grande and characters from "Game of Thrones," 17-year-old Kato Pipia sits at her computer, nailing chess victories over her opponents. Pipia won the World Schools Championship for online chess in October, held with students from 37 countries. Her next big dream? “International chess master,” she said.”
The great Georgian women players are mentioned: Nona Gaprindashvili, Nana Alexandria and Maia Chiburdanidze.
I had never heard of this Soviet gamesmanship when Georgia was still a part of the Soviet Union:
“Within the Soviet Union, meanwhile, the state apparatus routinely discriminated against Georgians and other non-Russians. “Some Communist officials were not too happy to see a Soviet women’s team made up entirely of Georgian women,” Alexandria added.
In 1978, the Kremlin stepped in just as a Soviet chess team of Georgians was due to play at the Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires. “One hour before the plane for Buenos Aires was due to take off, the youngest Georgian player on the team, Nana Ioseliani, was substituted for a Russian player by Soviet officials,” Alexandria said.
“Such things do not happen one hour before a flight.” A similar substitution was attempted in 1980 at the Olympiad in Malta. “But the Georgian minister of sport flew to Moscow to intervene, and the team made up of Georgian women was left intact,” she added.
Back home in Georgia, the female chess stars became celebrities. “In that period — the 1980s, 1990s, almost every newborn girl was named Nona, Maia or Nana, in honor of our famous women,” explains Nana Dzagnidze, whose father named her after Nana Alexandria.
Dzagnidze became a chess grandmaster in 2008.
Currently, a new generation of young women is representing Georgia in international chess tournaments. Some of them grew up in the difficult years following the collapse of the Soviet Union, when most people survived on four hours of electricity a day, amid rampant crime, chronic food shortages and a civil war. “I remember I had to read books and play chess at home by candlelight,” said Nino Batsiashvili, 33, a three-time Georgian women’s chess champion and the most recent Georgian woman to become a grandmaster, in 2018.”