Michael
Negele in the Cleveland Public Library.
White gloves are compulsory here - at least for the scrapbooks
and the original manuscripts!
At the wall in the background the John G. White painting. |
The second issue of our finds is devoted to one of the fathers of the
"Hypermoderns" - the Danish-Latvian grandmaster Aaron Nimzowitsch
(1886-1935). Among other things in Cleveland there is the following picture
from 1932 with accompanying text in a show case.
A further historically interesting photo was found on a paper cutting.
(Unfortunately the photo is only preserved in poor quality.) Nimzowitsch
had just won the jubilee tournament of the Berlin Chess Society in February
1928 (by 10/13) ahead of Bogoljubow, Tartakower and P. Johner.
"Congratulations, Mr. Nimzowitsch!" - Emanuel Lasker congratulates
the winner of the Berlin chess tournament. |
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Two
years before Lasker had been portrayed in a drawing by the artist
David Friedmann - as well in Berlin.
(International Master Tournament, 17 to 29 November 1926) |
[Miriam Morris, the daughter of
David Friedmann is still looking for portrait drawings by her father,
see her enquiry of
October 2006.]
A particularly remarkable find is the letter sent by Nimzowitsch to Emanuel
Lasker at the beginning of the year 1929. It's rather easy to make out
Nimzowitsch's central request: it consists in the attempt to induce Lasker
to a cooperation on his planned booklet, his petition is embedded in all
kinds of flattering remarks which could have achieved rather the opposite
of the desired effect by their eccentricity. Anyway, the obsequious attitude
taken up by Nimzowitsch towards Lasker is to be noticed throughout the
text. We don't know Lasker's reply to this letter, in any case the planned
brochure has never been published (instead Nimzowitsch's autobiographical
booklet Kak ja stal grosmejsterom ["How I became a Grandmaster"]).
Here the original letter dated
the 4th of January, 1929 (please click the preview pictures!):
You
will find in the following pdf-files a transcription to typewritten text
(by Michael Negele) as well as a translation into English (by Kurt Landsberger):
German version
/ English version
We are indebted to our friend Kurt Landsberger for the this time especially
arduous translation work. The
same month
(January 1929) Nimzowitsch's article "Laskers allumfassender Spielstil"
[Lasker's all-embracing playing style] was published in the Wiener
Schachzeitung which we offer here as an additional good read:
Nimzowitsch
article (jpg-file)
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