Friedrich Amelung

Friedrich Amelung (picture around 1880)

Friedrich Ludwig Balthasar Amelung (born March 11th ^July / March 23rd  1842 ^reg. In Katharina ( Meleski ), Livonia ; † March 9th ^July / March 22nd  1909 ^reg. In Riga ) was a Baltic industrialist, chess player and publicist . Between 1889 and 1901 he published the Baltic chess sheets .

Life

Performance of a living game of chess for the 100th anniversary of the Spiegelfabrik

Friedrich Amelung came from a family of industrialists who immigrated from Germany at the end of the 18th century and lived in the part of the Livonia governorate that is now part of Estonia . After graduating from high school in Dorpat (Tartu), he studied philosophy and chemistry at the University of Dorpat from 1862 to 1864 . He then lived in various Baltic cities before moving to Riga in 1902 .

Carl Philipp Amelung (1769–1817), a grandfather of the chess player, founded the “mirror glass factory under Woizek” named after the village Woiseck near Oberpahlen (Põltsamaa) in 1792 . The Katharina mirror factory and the Lisette glassworks were then built in a moorland north of the Wirzsee (Võrtsjärv) (the location was around thirty kilometers west of Dorpat, which explains the occasional statement “Katharina bei Dorpat”). In 1864 Friedrich Amelung took over the management of the mirror factory and the company Amelung und Sohn, which had existed since 1808 .

In addition to his work in all areas of chess, he dealt with Baltic history in various works . Friedrich Amelung died in Riga. He found his final resting place in the Klein St. Johannis cemetery (between Katharina and Woiseck) .

Baltic chess master

Grave cross of Friedrich Amelung in the cemetery in Klein St. Johannis

Members of the Amelung family had long been known to be strong chess players. Karl Friedrich Amelung was mentioned by name, who "was called to Petersburg to show his skills to Prince Potemkin ".

Friedrich Amelung successfully continued the tradition. On his frequent trips to Berlin, he found the opportunity to successfully cross blades with the best German masters. Between 1860 and 1877 Amelung played, not without success, against Adolf Anderssen , Gustav Richard Neumann , Carl Mayet and Emil Schallopp . In 1877 he won a competition against Andreas Ascharin 5: 4 (+4 = 2 −3), but lost to Emanuel Schiffers 4: 8 (+2 = 4 −6). Yet his real field remained the analytical and compositional direction. As far as literary preoccupation with the game of chess is concerned, Amelung can also be regarded as the first Baltic chess historian.

Amelung was the editor of a chess column in various magazines. From 1889 to 1901 he published the Baltic Schachblätter in eight issues , a chronicle of chess life in this region and at the same time a platform for journalism, theoretical and historical chess articles. Finally, in 1898, Amelung was one of the co-founders and until 1901 first secretary of the Baltic Chess Federation .

Study composer

From 1879 to 1885 Amelung lived in Reval and developed a lively activity of collecting Baltic chess notes. He composed numerous chess problems and endgame studies . In total, he has published more than 230 studies, including some miniatures. His contributions to the theory of peasant endgames attracted particular attention . Below is one of his analytical studies:

Friedrich Amelung
Rigaer Tageblatt, 1901

	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H
8th									8th
7th									7th
6th									6th
5									5
4th									4th
3									3
2									2
1									1
	a	b	c	d	e	f	G	H

White moves and wins

Solution:

1. Qh3 – e3 + Nf4 – e2 +
2. Kc3 – d3 Rf1 – f2
3. Qe3 – d2 + Ke1 – f1
4. Kd3 – e3 Rf2 – h2 5. De1 (+)
5. Qd2 – d1 + after conquest of the knight, the queen wins against the rook .

Publications (selection)

• Baltic cultural studies from the four centuries of the religious era (1184–1561) , Dorpat 1884 (reprint: Hanover 1971) ISBN 3-7777-0944-1
• Baltic cultural-historical picture atlas , Dorpat 1886–1887
• Baltic chess sheets , 8 booklets (1889–1891; 1893; 1898; 1900–1901), reprint edition, Publishing House Moravian Chess, Olomouc o. J. [2001]
• "The endgame of Thurm against Springer", in: Deutsche Schachzeitung , 1900 (55), pp. 1–5, 37–41, 101–105, 134–138, 198–202, 261–266.
• “The endgame of Thurm and Springer against the queen”, in: Deutsche Schachzeitung, 1901 (56), pp. 193–197, 225–229.
• “The endgames with a quality advantage, especially the endgame of Thurm and Läufer against Bishop and Knight”, in: Deutsche Schachzeitung, 1902 (57), pp. 265–268, 297–300, 330–332.
• “On the final of the checkers against bishops and knights”, in: Deutsches Wochenschach , 1903, p. 384
• (together with Arthur Gehlert ) “The oldest London chess circle on St. Marinstrasse”, in: Deutsches Wochenschach , 1904, p. 29

Individual evidence

1. ^ Johann Berger : Schach-Jahrbuch für 1899/1900 , Veit & Comp., Leipzig 1899, p. 96 ("Katharina bei Dorpat").
2. ^ Articles on the customer of Estonia , Volume 14, Issue 2, October 1928, p. 72 (PDF).
3. ↑ Randviir, Jüri: Caissa riik ja rüütlid , Tallinn 1984.
4. ^ O. (tto) Koch: The chess game of the new and newest times. In: P. R. von Bilguer ( v. D. Lasa ): Handbuch des Schachspiels , 8th edition, Leipzig 1916, p. 112. The year K. F. Amelung was born was 1769.
5. ^ The publisher was initially Julius Springer , Berlin. The Baltic chess sheets were later continued by Carl Behting and Paul Kerkovius in Riga as the "organ of the Baltic chess clubs", from 1902 to 1910 a total of four other books were published.
6. ↑ Anatoli Jewgenjewitsch Karpow et al.: Schach - encyclopedic dictionary, Sowjetskaja enzyklopedija, Moscow 1990, p. 16 and 319 (Russian), ISBN 5-85270-005-3 .

literature

• Lewis Stiller: Multilinear Algebra and Chess Endgames (PDF; 527 kB), in: Games of No Chance , Vol. 29, 1996, pp. 151-192. (deals with Amelung's contribution to endgame research)

Web links

• Literature by and about Friedrich Amelung in the catalog of the German National Library
• Baltic Historical Commission (Ed.): Entry on Friedrich Amelung. In: BBLD - Baltic Biographical Lexicon digital
• Compositions by Friedrich Amelung on the PDB server
• Replayable chess games by Friedrich Amelung on chessgames.com (English)