Mikhail Botvinnik (1911 - 1995) - a modest but firm man, very purposeful, had the nature of a champion who has perfected throughout his life. The chess school of Russia, which he created, is his main victory. In this article we will try to tell what a versatile person Mikhail Botvinnik was. His biography is not limited to chess.
Childhood
While in Israel in 1964, M. Botvinnik himself spoke about the following about his childhood. My father was from a village near Minsk and was engaged in agriculture. He was a man of immeasurable physical strength. Freely grabbed the bull by the horns and threw it to the ground. Botvinnik Mikhail Moiseevich himself assumed that he had inherited everything from his father - both character and physical becoming. My father went to St. Petersburg to study as a dental technician. There he met Serafima Samoilovna Rabinovich, a dentist. They got married, because they were not only professionally close, but spiritually - both participated in the 1905 revolution. The technician, the father of the future champion was magnificent. And soon the young family, in which the first son Isaac was already born, moved to a huge sunny seven-room apartment on Nevsky. The family had a cook, a bonna, a maid. And then the 17th year came when it was necessary to hide from unexpected guests. Father in the 20th year left his family and married a second time. In that marriage, he had two daughters, and his mother raised children herself. But father helped them financially.
Introducing Chess
A friend of his brother, who lived in a neighboring courtyard, at 12 showed Misha how they play chess. By this time, Mikhail Botvinnik was already at school and re-read all the classical literature: Lermontov, Gogol, Turgenev. He especially fell in love with War and Peace and Pushkin. Later, he got acquainted with the works of M. Zoshchenko and fell in love with them. He later recognized the author, who believed in him not only as a chess player, but also as a person who would achieve a lot in life. But that was already in 1933. In the meantime, Misha learned everything in chess on his own. He wrote Lasker’s games in notebooks and commented on them. Here is what kind of sport Mikhail Botvinnik chose - chess.
Parental attitude
Misha went to a chess club. But when he told his father about this, he reacted sharply negatively to his son’s enthusiasm. He just thought it was a gamble like cards. And the mother absolutely did not approve of her son's hobbies. When an invitation came to her son from Stockholm in 1926, she got nervous and ran to school asking not to let the teenager go abroad. But at school, her anxieties were treated with irony and let Misha go to Sweden.
Only one thing was reconciled between mother and father with chess: that this is not a profession, but a hobby. Mikhail Botvinnik simply could not play. And he didn’t have a coach. He did everything himself. I read chess books, analyzed. Until the end of his days, he believed that a chess player should do everything himself: analyze, and once again analyze. This is the main thing, and information these days is not difficult to obtain.
Study, work and chess
Mikhail Botvinnik early, when he was not yet 16 years old, graduated from high school, and from a place in the quarry gets to the national championship. The results are magnificent: nine wins, seven draws and four losses. He was the youngest member. And only a year later, he could apply and enter the Polytechnic Institute. Chess is somewhat pushed back. But while studying at the institute, and later in graduate school, Mikhail participates in sports tournaments. In 1933, at the national championship, having gathered all his strength, he receives a victory. In the same year, the match with S. Flor was an honorary draw. But the whole West believed in this champion of Czechoslovakia. For this victory, Botvinnik was awarded a car and the title of Grand Master of the USSR.
Marriage
In the year 34, an acquaintance visiting friends was held with a neighbor on the table. It was a young graceful black-haired beauty-ballerina. He accompanied her home in the pouring rain. And a year later the wedding took place. The happy marriage lasted fifty two years. Wise Gayane Davidovna, if she could not go to the tournament with her husband, she always recommended not to pay attention to anything. She advised her husband to protect the nervous system. And she cited Galina Ulanova as an example, who came to the performance two hours before it began and did not talk to anyone, prepared.
International victories
In 1936, the leading chess players of the world gathered at a match in England - Euwe, Lasker, Capablanca, Alekhine. Botvinnik and Capablanca divided 1st and 2nd place. In 1938, the Botvinnik - Capablanca party received the prize "For Beauty", and there, Mikhail Moiseevich defeated Alekhine.
He won 3rd place. These victories enabled the chess player to believe in himself. At the World Cup, Mikhail agreed to measure strength with Alekhine, but the war began. Throughout the years of the war, the grandmaster worked as an electrical engineer in Perm and invariably took first place at all USSR championships. The meeting with Alekhine was postponed to 1946, but the world champion suddenly died. In 1948, he immediately took the lead at the World Cup and lost only two games at it, Mikhail Botvinnik. The world champion was for the first time a Soviet man. Since 1948, having won the world title, Botvinnik stopped performing, and the break lasted three years. He was seriously engaged in science. In 1951, he defended his doctoral dissertation in electrical engineering. This could not but affect the quality of his game this year.
World Championships
In 1951, there was a draw at the match with David Bronstein, but Mikhail Moiseevich remained the champion.
- In 1954, there was also a draw at the tournament with V. Smyslov.
- In 1957, he was not ahead of Vasily Vasilyevich Smyslov, but in 1958, Botvinnik won the rematch.
- In 1960, he lost to Mikhail Tal, but in 1961 - again a victory, and very convincing.
- And only in 1963 was Tigran Petrosyan ahead of him.
That is, 15 years it was the undisputed world champion. After that, Mikhail Botvinnik continued to win other international competitions.
Championship Relations
The first one with whom all relations were terminated was D. Bronstein, since he behaved unethically. In the hall opposite the stage, his fans were sitting in a box, and if he won a pawn, then applause immediately sounded. But Bronstein, making a move, quickly ran offstage, and then returned. This fumbling prevented Botvinnik from concentrating. In addition, Bronstein, a KGB worker, was against the Alekhine-Botvinnik game. He recommended that the chess player declare Alekhine a person who collaborates with the Nazis, and deprive him, without fighting, of the title of world champion.
T. Petrosyan also behaved, to put it mildly, incorrectly. During one of the matches, he was incredibly capricious: he refused to sign an insignificant clause in the rules of the match, then he agreed, then he refused again. This meant only one thing - Botvinnik wanted to pat his nerves. Well, when the match began, Petrosyan’s fans began pouring soil brought from Armenia before entering the stairs. How did Botvinnik react to this? As a disgrace. He suggested that if holy ground from Jerusalem was poured in front of him, he would suggest that these “initiators” simply sweep the floor.
Distinctive character traits
Perseverance and perseverance, the ability to set a goal and, without being distracted, to follow it. The mood at the matches was usually fighting. The grandmaster worked a lot on this, as well as on physical training. Indeed, in intense tournament fights a lot of effort was spent. The chess player himself believed that if he gained weight during the tournament, then he did not give his best in the game. And in order to better maintain physical fitness, during responsible games, he always fortified himself with chocolate.
At home
The family lived in an ordinary two-room apartment. She consisted of five people, including a nanny for her daughter.
There was only one table in the house. On it, the child did his homework, and Mikhail Moiseevich laid out a chessboard. And in 1951, during a match with Bronstein at night, so as not to interfere with homework, he sat and thought over the games in the bathroom, and the board stood on a basket of linen.
Being a great specialist in technology (doctor of sciences, professor), he took over all the male homework. With his own hands, for example, he was repairing plumbing. Somehow in the country, all dirty, he was doing something in the well. A neighbor passed by, Brezhnev’s assistant, and, seeing a dirty mess, casually threw: “And then come to me”. The misunderstanding was resolved when they met.
The house on the site allocated in 1949, according to his own calculations and drawings, again, Mikhail Moiseevich built himself with his own hands.
In everyday life he was completely unpretentious. He loved delicious food, but could only be content with buckwheat.
In the science lab
He had no desk in the laboratory. This was no coincidence. Mikhail Moiseevich believed that the seat dampens and prevents thinking. With enthusiasm for about thirty years, he was engaged in the creation of the Pioneer chess program. And she won the victory in Canada over a similar foreign one.
The scientist also responded to the tragedy in Chernobyl. He believed that nuclear plants should be built only where people do not live, in the Far North, for example. But the "top" responded to this proposal with complete silence.
