English Chess Forum

Matt Mackenzie wrote: ↑

Wed May 11, 2022 8:05 pm

Yes, the longest lived GM and possibly longest lived FIDE titleholder of any kind.

(though he was maybe just beaten to it there by Austrian FIDE Master Anton Kinzel, born in January 1922 and possibly still alive)

Late in 1935 I visited the Moscow Chess Club for the first time, and there I was fortunate enough to listen to a lecture by the great endgame expert Nikolai Grigoriev. It made an indelible impression on me. When Grigoriev explained his pawn studies, moving the pieces on the demonstration board with his thin, artistic fingers, I sensed, rather than understood, the great depth and beauty of chess, observing with my own eyes how human thought spiritualises these little wooden pieces, and they, like real actors, begin performing miraculous spectacles, capable of touching the most sensitive parts of the human soul. It was this perception of chess as an art that finally linked me with it. I wanted to understand chess and study it.

Back to 1935. In the following 87 years of his life, the new chess lover will become Grandmaster, USSR Champion, second of several World Champions, World Championship arbiter, President of the Soviet Chess Federation, successful author, recognized historian, and, of course, study composer, like his mentor.

Unfortunately for chess, the 4-time Moscow Champion, tournament organizer, journalist, and genius composer, Nikolai Grigoriev, wouldn't have the same longevity. At the age of 43, he tragically died from cancer aggravated by the torture inflicted by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police. His studies remain immortal.