The Red Czar of Moscow and the Hall of the Mountain King

Five minutes walk from my house in Clapham lies a large Victorian block boasting a blue plaque. It confirms the former residency of Edvard Grieg (1843–1907), composer of Peer Gynt. Grieg is one of the most celebrated modern Norwegians, along with explorer Roald Amundsen (1872–1928) artist Edvard Munch (1863–1944) dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828–1906) and reigning World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen. 

I tend to think of Grieg’s most famous, if perhaps briefest piece, In the Hall of the Mountain King, whenever Carlsen comes to mind. The blue plaque is a constant reminder and my awareness of it is occurring with increasing frequency, as Carlsen, The King of Chess, rockets from one triumph to the next. The champion’s latest success has been victory in the Meltwater Series, ahead of such mental Matadors as Wesley So and Anish Giri, notching up a prize of $100,000 in the process.

If Carlsen has a fault, bedevilling his otherwise flawless progress to the stars, now out-rating even the historical greats, Emanuel Lasker, José Capablanca, Alexander Alekhine, Bobby Fischer, Garry Kasparov… then it is, paradoxically, a lack of that remoteness which makes a monarch special. “There’s such divinity doth hedge a King” as Shakespeare put it in Hamlet, or, Shakespeare again, lambasting the counter case, and citing the deposed Richard II as his frightful warning: “the skipping King, he ambled up and down, with shallow jesters and rash bavin wits, soon kindled and soon burnt; carded his state. Mingled his royalty with cap’ring fools.” (Henry IV, Part One).

In contrast, King Henry IV lauds his own public relations strategy:

“Had I so lavish of my presence been,
So common-hackney’d in the eyes of men,
So stale and cheap to vulgar company,
Opinion, that did help me to the crown,
Had still kept loyal to possession
And left me in reputeless banishment,
A fellow of no mark nor likelihood.
By being seldom seen, I could not stir
But like a comet I was wonder’d at;
That men would tell their children ‘This is he;’
Others would say ‘Where, which is Bolingbroke?’
And then I stole all courtesy from heaven,
And dress’d myself in such humility
That I did pluck allegiance from men’s hearts,
Loud shouts and salutations from their mouths,
Even in the presence of the crowned king.
Thus did I keep my person fresh and new;
My presence, like a robe pontifical,
Ne’er seen but wonder’d at: and so my state,
Seldom but sumptuous, showed like a feast
And won by rareness such solemnity.”

Also, William Shakespeare, Henry IV, Part One. 

Magnus Carlsen during the World Rapid and Blitz Chess Championships, Berlin, 2015. (Alamy Live News)

Carlsen evidently does not subscribe to this advice, as can be seen from his numerous informal games published online, his willingness to compete in virtually every available rapid, blitz or quick play tournament, and, most dangerous in my estimation, lending his prestige to what I consider the heresy of that abomination, whose name is nearly legion, appearing, to tempt humankind from the paths of righteousness, under the guises of shuffle chess, Fischerrandom, Chess 960 or Chess 9LX. Carlsen may have won the recent Meltwater event with two rounds to spare, but at the close he collapsed, losing consecutively to Vladislav Artemiev, Teimour Radjabov and Lev Aronian, in what is allegedly the most watched chess event of all time. Shades of Zukertort at London 1883, as seen in last week’s column Magnetic Poles.

One former champion from the Pantheon of Greats, Mikhail Botvinnik, the Red Czar of Soviet Chess, would certainly have disapproved of Carlsen’s relaxed approach to access and the type of events in which he participates. Botvinnik was in many ways the purest of the pure, an orthodox archimandrite for the most orthodox, the World Champion who even excoriated indulgence in rapid play chess, or indeed any other deviant variation.

Mikhail Botvinnik was World Champion in 1948–57, 1958–60 and 1961–63. Born near St Petersburg, he became the first Soviet (as distinct from Russian) master to achieve world predominance. In his training methods and a general attitude to the game he epitomised the ideals of the emergent Soviet school.

Although a relatively late starter, learning chess around the age of eleven, a string of successes gradually established him as a grandmaster of world-class: =1st Moscow 1935 (equal with Flohr, ahead of Lasker, Capablanca and Spielmann), 2nd Moscow 1936 (behind Capablanca), =1st Nottingham 1936 (tied with Capablanca, ahead of Euwe, Fine, Reshevsky, Alekhine, Lasker, Flohr…). The Nottingham result made Botvinnik a national hero – in chess at least, Soviet revolutionary society had caught up with and surpassed the West. In a curious victory telegram printed in Pravda two days after the event ended, Botvinnik cabled his thanks to the whole nation, the party and to Stalin, the “beloved teacher and leader“, for their support. Botvinnik’s reward was a new car.

In the important A.V.R.O. 1938 tournament Botvinnik managed only third prize, a point behind Keres and Fine. Nevertheless by his victories in individual games over Alekhine and Capablanca, he strengthened his claim to be considered as a World Championship Candidate.

During the war years he worked as an electrical engineer at power plants in the Urals and in the Molotov High-tension Laboratory. From 1943 onwards he was given some time off to play chess and he won both the wartime National Championships, the 13th in 1944 and the 14th in 1945. When peace returned, he emerged as victor in the first important post-war tournament, Groningen, Holland, 1946.

The death of Alexander Alekhine that same year had left a vacancy for the World Championship, and in 1948 FIDÉ, the World Chess Federation, staged a match-tournament for the title among the five leading contenders: Mikhail Botvinnik, Vassily Smyslov, Paul Keres, Sammy Reshevsky and Max Euwe. (Fine was also invited but did not participate). Botvinnik finished as a clear winner, three points ahead of Smyslov, his nearest rival. As noted last week, Miguel Najdorf should have taken Fine’s slot, but for reasons then explained, his claim was overlooked.

Winning the World Championship seemed temporarily to sate Botvinnik‘s chess ambitions. He returned to his engineering studies and obtained a doctorate in 1951. He played almost no serious chess until his first defence of the world title in 1951 against Bronstein, which ended in a drawn match (5 wins, 5 losses, 14 draws), resulting in the champion retaining his title. Then, from 1951 to 1954 he played more regularly, but without the success which normally attends the World Champion. His one notable achievement in this period was victory in the 20th USSR championship 1952, after a play-off match with Mark Taimanov. In the 1954 contest Botvinnik faced Smyslov and history repeated itself – another drawn match (7 wins, 7 losses, 10 draws) allowed Botvinnik to keep the world title for a further three years.

In 1957 he was dethroned, losing the world title to Smyslov with 3 wins, 6 losses and 13 draws. His play may then have been affected by his wife‘s illness, for the following year he claimed the ex-champion‘s right to return match and regained the throne by 7 wins, 5 losses and 11 draws.

World Chess Championship Moscow, right Smyslow, left Botvinnik 1957(Alamy)

A similar experience awaited him in 1960 when he lost the World Championship again, this time to Mikhail Tal (2 wins, 6 losses and 13 draws) only to take it back in 1961 in the return match with 10 wins, 5 losses and 6 draws. Finally in 1963 he lost the world title for the third time: to Tigran Petrosian with 2 wins, 5 losses and 15 draws. This time the loss was permanent, for, by a new FIDÉ ruling, Botvinnik was no longer entitled to a return encounter and he felt disinclined to attempt to qualify through the 1965 candidates matches. He had held the title, with two brief interruptions, for some 15 years; since his day, only Kasparov has matched his record.

Part of the secret of Botvinnik‘s genius was his immense capacity for logic and hard work. Every game he played was subjected afterwards to intensive analysis and he proved to be his own most severe critic, without a trace of self-deception. He was the first to suggest that tournament preparation should include physical as well as mental exercises. He disliked tobacco and, feeling that he was sometimes distracted by noise and by opponents who smoked, acquired immunity by requesting his trainer, Ragozin, to smoke constantly during training games, with a radio turned on full blast.

In 1972 I interviewed Botvinnik. He was 61; I was 24 and about to turn chess professional. I well recall the frequency with which, sagely finger-wagging, a quantity of prohibitions poured forth from the Patriarch, all starting “young man”. An anecdote exists about the occasion when someone asked Botvinnik if he had ever played five-minute chess. Back flashed the answer, “once, on a train in 1927” and echoing Confucius, when questioned by a disciple as to whether he had ever fasted: “Yes, but I found no benefit in it!”

Mikhail Botvinnik and wife Gayane, 1963 (Alamy)

The contrast between the respective and opposing philosophies of Carlsen and Botvinnik puts me in mind of that satirical play of 1638, The Antipodes, by the talented English dramatist, Richard Brome. Brome envisages a society which inverts all hallowed and traditionally accepted norms. He foresees the kind of civilisation which, for example, has the police treating criminals with remarkable deference and leniency, a society which might donate huge sums to impracticable foreign projects, while raising taxes at home, which dishonours heroes, deeds of charity and nobility, in favour of rogues, charlatans and frauds. Brome’s attitude in the play to gender identity is also more than fluidly ambiguous. Food for thought for our own times. As Tom Gallegos points out in my column on Reason, we forget or disregard at our peril the lessons and wisdom made available by the labours and insights by thinkers of former times.

When dealing with Topsy Turvy worlds, Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland and Alice Through the Looking Glass are hard to beat. The former is predicated on playing cards and the latter on chess. An Exhibition, Curiouser and Curiouser, at the Victoria and Albert Museum, Kensington, London, running till the end of this year, is unmissable. There I learnt that Lewis Carroll (the nom de plume for Charles Lutwidge Dodgson) is in fact a reversal of Dodgson’s two Christian names, but with certain linguistic modifications. Namely: Lutwidge=Ludwig=Lewis, while Charles=Carolus= Carroll. The reconstruction of the Mad Hatter’s tea party is the high point, incorporating a sumptuous spread, set with a varying kaleidoscope of motifs and colours, embellished by the shadow of a dormouse criss-crossing the table. As the Roman poet Horace (65–8 BC) in his Ars Poetica (“The Art of Poetry”) wrote: Parturient montes, nascetur ridiculus mus (“the mountains will labour and the result will be a laughable mouse”) — this case, quite justifiably.

Here are this week’s chess games:

Carlsen’s win from the Meltwater Series 2021. Magnus Carlsen vs Jan-Krzysztof Duda  shows a drastic sacrificial miniature by the champion, well before his collapse at the end of the tournament.

Now three of Botvinnik’s classic victories, all embellished with profound strategies, dazzling sacrifices and astonishing tactics.

Botvinnik vs Capablanca 1938 was a true battle of champions, with the young Botvinnik uncorking an amazing sacrificial win. Some consider this the greatest game of chess ever played.

Botvinnik vs Keres 1966: even at the age of 55 Botvinnik was capable of masterpieces. His final move hit Keres like a thunderbolt.

A third and final Botvinnik win against Portisch in 1968, displaying the kind of geometrical artistry which would have delighted that Grandest of Masters, David Janowski.

Raymond Keene’s latest book “Fifty Shades of Ray: Chess in the year of the Coronavirus”, containing some of his best pieces from TheArticle, is now available from  Amazon , and  Blackwell’s .

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