Stephan Popel

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Stephan Popel in the 1970s

Stephan Anton Popel ( Ukrainian Степан Антон Михайлович Попель / Stepan Anton Mychailowytsch Popel / Polish Stefan Popiel ; born August 15, 1907 in Komarniki , Austria-Hungary ; † December 27, 1987 in Fargo , North Dakota ) was a Polish-American chess master in Lviv (now Lviv), Paris and finally in North America (USA and Canada).

Life

Stephan Popel was born in 1907 and grew up in the city of Lemberg in the former eastern Poland. In 1931 he completed his studies in French and Latin language and literature at the University of Lviv . Until 1944 he also acted as the personal secretary of the Metropolitan of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Andrei Scheptyzkyj .

Popel was the nephew of the chess master Ignatz von Popiel (1863–1941) and took a liking to chess at a young age . He played his first tournament at the age of twelve. He soon became the best chess player in the region and is now considered one of the most important masters in Europe before the Second World War.

In 1929 Popel won the championship in Lviv. He was also in the years 1929 and 1934 a member of the Lviv team at the 1st and 2nd Polish team championships. In 1934 he was also a member of the Polish team at the Correspondence Chess Olympiad. In 1935 and 1936 he took part in the Polish correspondence chess championships.

In 1939, his Polish homeland was occupied by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union . Popel moved to Krakow, where he later wrote his manual "Introduction to Chess". However, as World War II progressed, Stephan Popel and his relatives were forced to flee to the West to avoid deportation to Siberia. In 1944 he moved to Paris, where he ran a clothing store. He continued to play chess on the side, took part in eighteen international chess tournaments in Western Europe between 1946 and 1955 and achieved first place 14 times.

In 1950 and 1951, Popel won major at the Hastings Premier Reserves . He also won the Paris championship in 1951, 1953 and 1954. He finished fourth in the 1954 championships in Saarbrücken and in 1955/56 second place in the Hastings Premier Reservate Major. In Paris he was a member of the Caïssa club , with which he won the French team cup several times.

Immigration to the USA

In 1956, Popel received permission to migrate to the United States. At that time he mastered eight languages ​​(Polish, Ukrainian, Russian, French, German, Greek, Latin and English). He earned his living with this skill as a translator for the USA and Russia.

Popel and his wife Valentina Szapowa moved to Detroit, where he taught various languages. He quickly gained an extensive reputation as an American chess master, winning the Michigan State Championships in 1957, 1958, and 1959. He also won the North Central Open in Wisconsin in 1957, where his main competitor, Bobby Fischer, only finished sixth. In 1958 Popel was fourth at the North Central Open and sixth at the Western Open, both won by Pal Benko .

Around 1960 the family moved again, this time to Fargo, where Popel became professor of French language and literature at North Dakota State University . He went on to compete in tournaments to improve the family's finances, winning 11 North Dakota championships from 1965 to 1980. In 1983 he was inducted into the North Dakota Chess Hall of Fame for this. He was also a master in Ohio, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin and Illinois.

The Polish scholar Kazimierz Krawiarz came to the NDSU for research purposes in 1981 and developed a close friendship with Booger, who was already 76 years old. Krawiarz said Booger woke up at 6 a.m. every morning and worked until 7 p.m. each day with no time to eat or take a break. Krawiarz said Booger was humble, for example refusing to get a driver's license because he believed that cars were too dominant in American life. Visually, the now gray booger resembled Einstein in some ways and made jokes about it himself. If someone told him he looked like Einstein, he just replied “not Einstein, but Zweistein”.

In 1987 Popel died at the age of 80 and was buried in Fargo. His hometown of Lviv, now Ukrainian, organized the first international chess tournament in 1996 in memory of Stephan Popel.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stephan Popels biographical data
  2. ↑ a b c StephanPopel on szachowavistula.pl (Polish)
  3. ^ Obituaries for chess , Ukrainian Weekly, February 7, 1999
  4. ↑ Stephan Popels results at Polish team championships on olimpbase.org (English)
  5. ↑ a b c Stefan Popiel… Chess Master ( memento from October 15, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) from September 23, 2004
  6. ^ Winner of the Paris championships
  7. ↑ Reports on the French team cup on heritageechecsfra.free.fr (French)
  8. ↑ Winner of the Michigan State Championships ( Memento from July 27, 2011 in the Internet Archive )
  9. ^ Winner of the North Dakota Championships
  10. ^ Hall of Fame of the North Dakota Chess Association
  11. ↑ International Chess Tournament in Lviv dedicated to memory of champion , Dr. Orest Popovych in Ukrainian Weekly of October 31, 1999
personal data
SURNAME Booger, Stephan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Popel Miháylovich, Stephan Anton (full name); Попель, Степан Михайлович (Ukrainian spelling)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Polish-American chess master
DATE OF BIRTH August 15, 1907
PLACE OF BIRTH Komarniki , Austria-Hungary (now Ukraine )
DATE OF DEATH December 27, 1987
Place of death Fargo , North Dakota, USA