Alexander Fyodorowitsch Ilyin-Schenewski

Alexander Fyodorowitsch Ilyin-Schenewski, 1927
Association	Soviet Union
Born	November 28, 1894 Saint Petersburg , Russian Empire
Died	September 3, 1941 Novaya Ladoga
Best Elo rating	2577 (July 1927) ( Historic Elo rating )

Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky ( Russian Александр Фёдорович Ильин-Женевский . Scientific transliteration Aleksandr Ilyin Fedorovič-Ženevskij , born November 16, ^jul. / 28. November  1894 ^greg. In St. Petersburg when Alexander Fedorovich Ilyin, † 3. September 1941 in Novaya Ladoga ) was a Soviet chess player and organizer.

Life

Youth and Political Activities

Alexander Ilyin was a brother of Fyodor Raskolnikow . In the spring of 1910 he visited the St. Petersburg chess club for the first time and was admitted to the city championship in the same year, in which, however, due to his inexperience, he finished last. In December 1912 he was arrested for his involvement with the Bolsheviks and then expelled from school.

Time in Switzerland

With the help of a benefactor, he went to Geneva to continue his education. There he also devoted himself to playing chess, won the Geneva championship in February 1914 and took part in the Swiss national championship in the summer of the same year, where he finished in the middle.

Service in the Russian Army

Shortly afterwards he returned to Russia, where he changed his name to Ilyin-Zhenevsky (Sheneva is the Russian name for Geneva) to avoid confusion with Lenin , who had published some articles under the pseudonym Ilyin . In St. Petersburg he played a match against the master Anatol Tschepurnow, which ended in a draw (4: 4 with 5 draws ). At the beginning of 1915 he was drafted into the army, graduated from the St. Petersburg Cadet School in May and was sent to the front. On July 9, he suffered severe trauma from a shell hit in the immediate vicinity and received medical treatment for almost a year. He had completely forgotten the rules of chess and had to learn the game all over again.

February Revolution

In January 1917 he took part in the city championship again for the first time, which, however, could not be played to the end due to the outbreak of the February Revolution . Ilyin-Zhenevsky was actively involved in the revolution and worked for the Soldatskaya Pravda and Krasnaya Gazeta newspapers . He wrote a book about this period that was also translated into English in 1931 under the title From the February revolution to the October revolution .

Organization of chess life

In December 1918 Ilyin-Zhenevsky moved to Moscow and tried there to rebuild the chess life that had come to a standstill. His good political contacts were very useful. In the summer of 1920 he was instrumental in organizing the All-Russian Chess Olympiad , which is considered the first Soviet championship . He himself took part in the tournament and finished tied for ninth place, but was able to achieve a draw against the tournament winner Alexander Alekhine . Since 1920, Ilyin-Schenewski ran the first permanent chess column of an important newspaper in Soviet Russia in the newspaper K novoj armii . He later became editor of the magazine Schachmatny Listok , which existed as Schachmaty w SSSR until the end of the Soviet Union .

Own chess activities

From 1923 Ilyin-Schenewski lived in Petrograd again. In 1925 he finished 1st – 4th. Place at the city championship and thus qualified for the USSR championship, in which he shared 6th – 8th. Place came. In the same year he took part in the International Master Tournament held in Moscow . There he finished 9th – 10th. Place and caused a stir with his win against world champion José Raúl Capablanca , against whom he was successful with a queen sacrifice . In 1926 and 1928 he was again master of Leningrad, in 1927 he won the championship of the trade unions.

The last few years

In the 1930s Ilyin-Schenewski's health deteriorated as a long-term consequence of his war injury and he could no longer achieve any significant tournament success. He played his last of a total of nine USSR championships in 1937. However, he had a significant influence on the promotion of talent at the Soviet chess school and supported the young Mikhail Moiseevich Botvinnik . Ilyin-Schenewski was killed by a German bomb during the Second World War .

Opening theory

In the Dutch defense , a variant is named after him.

His best historical rating was 2577.

See also

• Chess Fever Ilyin-Schenewski as an extra in a film humor

Works (selection)

• Meschdunarodnyj schachmatnyj turnir w Moskwe (Dnewnik utschastnika) [The international tournament in Moscow. Diary of a participant], Moscow 1926.
• Matsch Alekhine-Capablanca , Moscow 1927.
• Sapiski sovietskowo mastiera [Notes by a Soviet Master], Leningrad 1929.

literature

• A. Ilyin-Genevsky: Notes of a Soviet master. Caissa Editions, Yorklyn 1986, ISBN 0-939433-00-1 .

Web links

• Literature by and about Alexander Fjodorowitsch Iljin-Schenewski in the catalog of the German National Library
• Portrait (English)