Our Doyens

Apart from Yuri Averbakh to whom - as a newcomer in the group of our doyens - we recently paid a tribute, our association can enumerate four additional members who stand in the 10th decade of their lives:

Isaak Maxovich Linder, Moscow, Russia
(*20 November 1920, Vienna)

Dr. Isaak M. Linder is widely known in the chess world as a distinguished historian and author of numerous books which have partly been published in German or English. You will find a short résumé of his work and activities (with additional pictures) in our former birthday greetings particularly from the years 2004 and 2005. Together with his son Vladimir I. Linder he contributed the chapter "Emanuel Lasker in Russia" to the large Lasker monograph (2009), and still in 2010 their two biographies Emanuel Lasker: 2nd World Chess Champion and José Raúl Capablanca: 3rd World Chess Champion (see www.newinchess.com/...) were published in English.

(Further photographs in our Report from 2007)

Kurt Landsberger, Verona, NJ, USA
(*28 December 1920, Prague)

On the pages of this website we quite often come across Kurt Landsberger, the great-grandnephew of Steinitz and biographer of the first official world chess champion, and many a member has also met him personally - on the occasion of his various visits to Europe or his attendances at our general meetings (Forchheim 2004, New York 2007, Vienna 2010).

Short biography of Kurt Landsberger (2003)
Short biography of Kurt Landsberger (2003)

For further informations we refer to a number of own pages:

Alex Crisovan, Pfäffikon, Switzerland
(*2 October 1919, Békéscsaba, Hungary)

Our Swiss veteran joined the KWA at the advanced age of 87 (i.e. 2006), his activities as author, journalist, player and official were addressed in our short tribute from 2008 (and the pages from 2006 + 2007 linked there), moreover you will find here an additional photo of him (in his prime). You may read up a more detailed short biography (with a photograph and a game) in Richard Forster's "Festschrift" Schachgesellschaft Zürich 1809 bis 2009 (Zurich 2009), p. 245f.
Not forgotten is Alex Crisovan's unexpected visit of our annual meeting in La Tour-de-Peiltz (2006) together with his spouse, here once again the Group photo from that event.

We also willingly remind of Alex Crisovan's last major publication, the beautiful book on Alois Nagler and the Nagler memorial tournament Zurich 1998:

Review by Markus Angst in
SSZ 3/2007, p.13 (PDF),

and a second review in
NZZ Online.

Benjamin (Billy) F. Levene, Bedford, NY, USA
(*16 February 1918, New York)

Our second doyen from the USA, the "resilient" dentist Dr. Benjamin Levene celebrated his 94th birthday just a few days ago, on this our congratulations! We gladly heard from well-informed circles that he is still hale and hearty - and that too we wish him for the years to come.
In our birthday greetings from 2008 we had compiled some details by and about Dr. Levene, and also his visit of the KWA general meeting in New York City (2007) together with his spouse Hope was recorded on our pages. For further reading we offer two pdf files about the 13th CCI Convention in Boca Raton, Florida (2008) which he attended:
The CCI-USA News, Vol. 2008 issue II
(8.6 MB) as well as an article from Chess Life - July 2008 (p.22-25; 4.8 MB).

Ralf Binnewirtz, 19/02/2012

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