FIDE president Folke Rogard by Henrik Malm Lindberg

Henrik Malm Lindberg - FIDE President Folke Rogard - cover
Henrik Malm Lindberg - FIDE President Folke Rogard - cover

During the FIDE olympiad in Budapest and the centenary celebration of the world chess organisation, our Swedish member Henrik Malm Lindberg presented his recent biography of his countryman Folke Rogard (1899-1973) who held the presidency of FIDE from 1949 to 1970.

Henrik says about his new book:

It has puzzled me how Folke Rogard managed to fade into oblivion for the vast majority of those active in the chess world. The more I got to know him during my many long days in various archives, the more dimensions of his work emerged. The image of him—the precocious student, lawyer, businessman, family man, and, of course, chess president—has many nuances. My book had to focus primarily on the later aspects of his career, specifically his role as a chess organizer in Sweden and internationally. FIDE President Rogard had to deal with the Cold War during his international career. Although I am a trained economic historian, I probably did not realise until quite late in my writing the full extent of how this low-intensity war shaped chess in the post-war period. Chess became a kind of theatre of war—a way for the superpowers to prove their superiority on the board or the superiority of their own social system.

New fascinating personalities also evolved when investigating how Rogard organized chess, some of them such as the US businessman and chess patron Al Bisno, played a significant role but mostly in the shadows, to take just one example. During his reign, Rogard not only tried to mediate between East and West but also to develop international chess and FIDE as an organization. He handed over a significantly larger federation to his successor, Max Euwe, but more importantly, he established an infrastructure of rules and procedures around titles, rankings, and championships, which facilitated the continued growth of chess.

You can order the book from various sellers, including Barnes & Noble and Amazon, through the publisher Thinkers Publishing, or directly from the author at: and in the latter case a signing can be arranged.

Henrik Malm Lindberg

FIDE President Folke Rogard

The lawyer organized modern chess during cold war

Henrik Malm Lindberg - FIDE President Folke Rogard - cover
Henrik Malm Lindberg - FIDE President Folke Rogard - cover

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