By V. Krishnaswamy, IANS
New Delhi : A few days ago, a friend from Europe sent the result sheet of a chess match that had this writer scratching his head — a chess match between the USSR and Yugoslavia? A contest between two countries that had ceased to exist more than a decade a half ago? Surely someone had got something wrong somewhere.
A closer scrutiny of the players pitted against each other revealed a plethora of legendary names that adorned the chess scenario from the 1950s to the 1980s. Names like Viktor Korchnoi, now a Swiss citizen, music loving Russian Mark Taimanov, Yugoslav legends Svetozar Gligoric, Aleksandr Matanovic and so on.
A chess organiser in Moscow came up with the novel idea of inviting 10 legends, including two women, from the erstwhile USSR and Yugoslavia for a match that turned the clock back.
Back in the 1990s, there was a book called “Druzya I Soperniki” (“Friends And Rivals”), which chronicled and dealt with the history of the USSR-Yugoslavia chess matches. Many of the names whose games have been mentioned in that book came to the table in Moscow last week in a match that “USSR” won 11-9.
In the period from the 1950s to the 1980s, matches between the USSR and Yugoslavia were a regular feature and they produced some great games.
For the purpose of this match, 76-year-old Korchnoi — a former Soviet defector — led the “USSR” team. Clashing with Korchnoi was 84-year-old Svetozar Gligoric, who had led the Yugoslav team with success on so many occasions in the past.
One of the famous stories about Gligoric, born in 1923, was on how he learnt chess. Hailing from a poor family in Belgrade, he did not have a chess set and he made one for himself by carving out the pieces from the corks of wine bottles.
Korchnoi, who challenged for the world title many times but never won it, beat Gligoric 1.5-0.5 and then quipped, “You are stronger now than you were fifty years ago!” Chess website Chessbase.com reported Gligoric was uncertain whether this was a compliment or not!
The “USSR” team included Mark Taimanov, 81, who did some great work in Sicilian defence and even had a variation named after him. Another Russian player Yuri Averbakh — who was born six days after Gligoric — is now an arbiter, writes books on endgames and is also a respected administrator.
Another famous player in the field was Belgrade-born Aleksandr Matanovic, whose two major works are the five-volume “Encyclopaedia Of Chess Openings” and “Chess Informator” (1966). He was born in 1930.
One of the interested viewers of the match was Hungarian Andor Lilienthal, now 96, and reckoned to be the world’s oldest living grandmaster. For company, he had Boris Postovsky, a former Russian coach, now living in the United States.
The 10 board teams also included some veteran women players like Katarina Blagojevic and Milunka Lazarevic for Yugoslavia and Elena Fatalibekova and Ludmila G. Zaitseva for “USSR”.
The “USSR” team was Viktor Korchnoi, Evgeni Vasiukov, Mark Taimanov, Yuri S. Balashov, Igor Zaitsev, Yuri L. Averbakh, Vladislav Vorotnikov, Anatoly D. Machulsky, Elena Fatalibekova and Ludmila G. Zaitseva.
The Yugoslav team was Svetozar Gligoric, Borislav Ivkov, Aleksandr Matanovic, Dragoljub Velimirovic, Nikola Karaklajic, Svetozar Vlahovic, Zoran Spasojevic, Andreja Savic, Milunka Lazarevic and Katarina Blagojevic.
(V. Krishnaswamy can be contacted at [email protected])