Chess exhibition in Jena and chess museum in Löberitz
Siegfried Schönle, Kassel, reports on his visit to a chess exhibition in Jena in the ThULB (Thüringer Universitäts- und Landesbibliothek) together with Konrad Reiß, Zörbig, and the two-day visit to the Löberitz chess museum in eastern Germany.
Schachausstellung in Jena und Schachmuseum in Löberitz (in German)
New Member: Noémie Dumont
Our new member, Noémie Dumont from Lyon (France), introduces herself in the members area (You must be logged in to read).
Klittich Auction only online
As the website of Antiquariat Klittich reported today, the auction on Saturday 27th November cannot be attended, due to the Corona situation in Germany. The auction can only be carried out “online”, or otherwise by written in bids, by telephone or by fax until two days before the auction. For further details, please see the Klittich website (www.klittich-pfankuch.de/indexengl.htm).
Bob van de Velde
The auction days of Antiquariat A. Klittich-Pfankuch November 26th and 27th, 2021
After three consecutive online auctions due to Covid 19, our member Karl Klittich has hoped for a 'normal' biennial auction with normal customer participation on 25th to 27th November. It goes without saying that our Board has the same hope. After all, since almost two years we will have our first normal meeting of the board, and we could also organise our usual informal member meeting at the end of the viewing hours on 26th November.
However, in the meantime the new Covid wave makes it doubtful that the German authorities will allow the usual presence of attendees. The latest information about the situation in Germany and especially in Braunschweig can be found on the website of the Antiquariat (http://www.klittich-pfankuch.de).
Read more … The auction days of Antiquariat A. Klittich-Pfankuch November 26th and 27th, 2021
The date of Rubinstein’s death 3
Our member Wilfried Krebbers took another step towards solving the problem of the anniversary of Rubinstein's death. In the Belgian daily newspaper Le Soir of March 17, 1961, he found an obituary notice from Rubinstein on page 7. The date of death is mentioned there as March 14, 1961.
This should be another indication that Rubinstein died on March 14th and not on March 15th.
Wayne Komer, RIP 1941-2021
Wayne Komer
* 01-09-1941 † 13-09-2021
From Canada comes the sad news that our senior member Wayne Komer passed away on September 13. Wayne was a devoted chess historian and collector of chess litterature, which he presented to a larger audience on the Chesstalk page. Tony Peterson has supplied this link to his obituary on the page:
ChessTalk / Parlons Échecs: R.I.P. Wayne Komer, 09-01-1941 - 09-13-2021
The date of Rubinstein’s death 2
Our member Alan McGowan has sent us a reaction on the question of the correct day of the demise of Akiba Rubinstein. The question was put forward by Mr. Philip Jurgens (Ottawa, Canada) and commented by our member John Donaldson (see the contribution on 2021-08-30: The date of Rubinstein’s death). Alan asks:
"Could you perhaps induce a Belgian member of CH&LS to look at the newspapers of the day; a death notice would help solve the issue. Or, going to the heart of things, acquire a copy of the death certificate?”
Well, this sounds like a challenge to our Belgium members! Who of them meets this challenge?
Bob van de Velde
Swiss Chess Museum checkmate
Our member Bernd Schneider has sent us the bad news that the Chess Museum in the Swiss municipality Rain near Luzern has gone bankrupt. Its founder and owner Werner Rupp hadn't pay rent for quite a long time. Recently, in the presence of the police, but without the presence of Mr. Rupp, the building of the Museum was closed. In it the 32.000 chess boards, sets and pieces, together with 10.000 books, stay behind, partly packed in boxes, and waiting till the financial debt has been paid. Among the objects are the legacy of Viktor Kortchnoi and 3000 chess related stamps. The Luzerner Zeitung has published details about the background of this bankruptcy: Miete nicht bezahlt: Schachmuseum ist schachmatt
Alain Biénabe, RIP 1958-2021
Recently, we have received the sad news that our long-time member Alain Biénabe is deceased on February 22th 2021 after suffering from Parkingson’s disease during 12 years.
This offers ...
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Chess, Draughts, Morris & Tables. Position in Past & Present
For chess historians it seems important, at least to me, to have a broader view on the history of the game than more or less exclusively on the sources that offer mainly chess material. We may realize that the history of chess is part of the history of mind games or mind sports, which is a much larger field of research, and no less complicated, even when we focus only on the history of the board games. The annual colloquia of the Board Games Studies are there to prove this.
Another proof is the recently published book Chess, Draughts, Morris & Tables. Position in Past & Present by the Dutch authors Arie van der Stoep, Jan de Ruiter, Wim van Mourik. As experts on the history of draughts (checkers) they are well known in Dutch draughts circles, and this background becomes clear already on the first pages, not by discussing in the first place the position of draughts and its history, but by immediately presenting the question whether draughts have been developed from chess, or … just the other way around. But this is not their main concern. Their aim is another, they try to find answers to the many questions that arise about the position of the discussed board games in the societies of the past and the present. To this end they compare the positions of the games in the different phases of history and in doing so they make use of sources from various fields of expertise, such as philology, literature, art history, sociology. Many beautiful illustrations, lavishly spread throughout the book, support this approach.
Read more … Chess, Draughts, Morris & Tables. Position in Past & Present