Hero of the Pre-War Olympiads: Grandmaster Vladimirs Petrovs

Our short life together was fun, fascinating and happy. I accompanied my husband to chess tournaments. We traveled a lot, saw a lot, met the most interesting people. Meeting Alekhine, Euwe, Flohr, Capablanca, Keres was unforgettable. We became friends with many of them. Now, when I turn the pages of my life and remember my family, which was obliterated so ruthlessly, the old wounds open again and start bleeding. This book tells the story of one of the most enigmatic and tragic figures in chess history – the Latvian grandmaster Vladimirs Petrovs (1908 – 1943). His name was struck out of chess literature for decades. His games and biography are largely unknown to the public – even though Petrovs defeated Alekhine, Fine, Reshevsky, Boleslavsky and many other great players of the past, gained prizes at supertournaments including joint first at the famous Kemeri 1937 tournament, and performed strongly for Latvia at chess Olympiads. According to the Chessmetrics website, Petrovs was ranked no. 14 in the world in November 1938, and his performance at Kemeri 1937 was 2709. He had a 2.5-2.5 lifetime score against Alekhine. In the first part of this book, grandmaster and chess historian Dmitry Kryakvin instructively analyzes Petrovs’ career through 52 games and fragments. As well as the above players, opponents include Smyslov, Euwe, Bogoljubov, Keres, Stahlberg, Flohr, Spielmann, and many other global stars of pre-war chess. In the second part, Petrovs’ widow Galina Petrova-Matisa recounts the tragic fate of her husband and family members and her search for the truth of what happened to Petrovs. She further provides biographical details of their short, blissful family life for four-and-a-half years, including unforgettable meetings with the world’s strongest chess players and their families. The work contains a large number of rare family and tournament photos.

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