Mikhail Botvinnik

Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik ( – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster. The sixth World Chess Champion, he also worked as an electrical engineer and computer scientist and was a pioneer in computer chess. Botvinnik was the first world-class player to develop within the Soviet Union. He also played a major role in the organization of chess, making a significant contribution to the design of the World Chess Championship system after World War II and becoming a leading member of the coaching system that enabled the Soviet Union to dominate top-class chess during that time. His pupils include World Champions Anatoly Karpov, Garry Kasparov and Vladimir Kramnik. Early years Botvinnik was born on August 17, 1911, in what was then Kuokkala, Vyborg Governorate, Grand Duchy of Finland, now the district of Repino in Saint Petersburg. His parents were Russian Jews; his father, Moisei Botvinnik (1878–1931), was a dental technician and his mother, Shifra (Serafima) Rabinovich (1876–1952), a dentist, which allowed the family to live outside the Pale of Settlement, to which most Jews in the Russian Empire were restricted at the time. As a result, Botvinnik grew up in Saint Petersburg's Nevsky Prospect. His father forbade speaking Yiddish at home, and Mikhail and his older brother Isaak "Issy" attended Soviet schools. Botvinnik later recounted, "I was asked once, “What do you consider yourself to be from the point of view of nationality?” My reply was, “Yes, my position is 'complicated'. I am a Jew by blood, a Russian by culture, Soviet by upbringing.”" On his religious views, he called himself an atheist. In 1920, his mother became ill and his father left the family, but maintained contact with the children, even after his second marriage to a Russian woman. At about the same time, Botvinnik started reading newspapers, and became a committed communist.