Hero of the Pre-War Olympiads: Grandmaster Vladimirs Petrovs

Table of Contents:
Contents Index of Games..............................................................................................................4 Preface by Vladimir Dedkov......................................................................................6 Part I: Selected Games and Career, by Dmitry Kryakvin (2013)...............9 The Leading Scorer of the Latvian Team..........................................................9 On an Equal Footing with Alekhine and Capablanca.................................39 The Last Olympiad...............................................................................................62 A Victim of Circumstances.................................................................................69 Part II: A Star Prematurely Extinguished, by Galina Petrova-Matisa (2008)..................................................................91 “Shine, Shine, My Star…”....................................................................................91 A New Passion That Became the Main One...................................................92 Lucky as Petka!......................................................................................................97 The Greatest Attack.......................................................................................... 100 A Conflicted Person.......................................................................................... 105 My First Encounter with Chess Players – Paul Keres............................. 107 The Lady with the Dog – Raisa Flohr.......................................................... 110 A Hero for All Life – Alexander Alekhine................................................... 115 Finally, Traveling Around Europe Together!.............................................. 119 Who Needs Cotton?.......................................................................................... 127 A Century-Long Show...................................................................................... 131 The Wartime Tournaments.............................................................................. 138 The Maestro’s Last Game................................................................................ 140 Not Subject to Rehabilitation......................................................................... 146 The “Conquest” of Siberia................................................................................ 149 “God Bless Us For a Free Life!”...................................................................... 153 Afterword by Vladimir Dedkov and Olga Sorokina....................................... 155

About the Author :
Dmitry Kryakvin (born in 1984) is a grandmaster (2009), journalist, chess historian and coach. His pupils have included many grandmasters, of which the strongest is Andrei Esipenko. Dmitry has written a number of chess books on a wide variety of subjects. This is his second book for Elk and Ruby. Galina Petrova-Matisa (1914 - 2000) was a Latvian human rights activist and the wife of Vladimirs Petrovs. She was the head of the Latvian chapter of the Memorial Society.

Review :
"The first part of the book is dedicated to the chess highlights of Petrovs' career, while the second part is something quite special: the memoirs of Galina Petrova-Matisa, Petrovs' widow. It's a very personal account of their short life together, the terrible struggles she faced alone with their daughter as members of her family were arrested and sentenced to hard labour and her continued attempts to rehabilitate the memory of her husband. It's an amazing document as it succeeds in painting a living picture of so many things: the social atmosphere at top-level tournaments of that time (she became friendly with both Raisa Flohr and Olga Capablanca), Petrovs' volatile character in all its facets as well as the crushing fear and injustice of the period of history she lived through...Another lovely book from Elk and Ruby" - Grandmaster Matthew Sadler, New In Chess magazine, no. 5, 2022 "The work contains a large number of rare family and tournament photos and overall amounts to an amazing tribute to a Grandmaster whose reputation would have been consigned to oblivion, had Stalin and his cohorts of terror had had their way." - Grandmaster Ray Keene, The Article, 4 June 2022