English Chess Federation Book of the Year 2021In his threevolume treatise leading Russian chess historian Sergey Voronkov vividly brings to life the longforgotten history of the Soviet championships held in 19201953. Volume I covers the first 10 championships from 19201937 as well as the title match between Botvinnik and Levenfish. The key contestants also include world champion Alekhine and challenger Bogoljubov lesserknown Soviet champions Romanovsky Bogatyrchuk Verlinsky and Rabinovich and names that today will be unfamiliar yet were big stars at the time Riumin Alatortsev Makogonov Rauzer Ragozin Chekhover and many others.This book can be read on many levels a carefully selected collection of 107 of the best games commented on mostly by the players themselves supported by computer analysis. A detailed and subtly argued social history of the Soviet Chess School and of how chess came to occupy such an important role in Soviet society. A discussion of how the chess community lost its independence and came to be managed by Party loyalists. A portrayal of how the governing body and its leader Nikolai Krylenko strived to replace an entire generation of freethinking chess masters with those loyal to the state. A study of how the authorities goals changed from wanting to use chess as a means of raising the culture of the masses to wanting to use chess to prove the superiority of the Soviet way of life. Or a sometimes humorous often tragic history of talented yet flawed human beings caught up in seismic events beyond their control who just wanted to play chess. This book is illustrated with around 170 rarely seen photos and cartoons from the period mostly taken from 1920s1930s Russian chess magazines.As Garry Kasparov highlights in his foreword this book virtually resembles a novel with a mystery plot protagonists and supporting cast sudden denouements and even authors digressions or to be exact introductions to the championships themselves which constitute important pa