Russian-language books
David Ames
Now there are so many English-language books deserving attention that
Russian books are never mentioned.
Where are Russian books reviewed, and are to be purchased, nowadays?
I posted my question to a USCF forum and got no answers to my
question.
David Ames
Quadibloc
> Now there are so many English-language books deserving attention that
> Russian books are never mentioned.
This isn't the only factor operating.
After the fall of the Soviet Union, the Commonwealth of Independent
States has experienced difficult economic times - and the government
is no longer officially supporting the game of chess for reasons of
national prestige. Many of Russia's grandmasters have left the
country.
Thus, I strongly suspect the cause is not so much the improvement in
the English-language literature of Chess, but that its Russian-
language literature has fallen so much, in both quantity and quality,
that if one is going to cast one's net wider to include foreign
languages, French or German or Dutch might serve as well as Russian
these days.
John Savard
David Ames
1. Russian is going to stretch my mind more than French or German. I
have had some instruction in each of them. When a night course in
Dutch was offered locally, I was financialy unable to pursue it.
2. I would prefer to make up my own mind (perhaps with the help of
reviews) about the usefulness of current Russian chess literature.
3. Karpov has written a book about the Caro-Kann. I would not
assume, without some informed reviewer's opinion, that it is lierature
of inferior quality.
David Ames
Quadibloc
> 1. Russian is going to stretch my mind more than French or German. I
> have had some instruction in each of them. When a night course in
> Dutch was offered locally, I was financialy unable to pursue it.
Congratulations on your facility with languages.
> 2. I would prefer to make up my own mind (perhaps with the help of
> reviews) about the usefulness of current Russian chess literature.
As I noted, this was speculative - I have not kept my eye on the
Russian chess literature scene, but past news events would simply seem
to indicate that it may be having difficulties, and thus that could
account for what you had observed.
> 3. Karpov has written a book about the Caro-Kann. I would not
> assume, without some informed reviewer's opinion, that it is lierature
> of inferior quality.
And the conditions I noted would simply mean that Grandmasters would
perhaps be less likely to write new book in Russian. If they have done
so, however, then of course it is their knowledge and abilities - not
economic conditions in Russia in general or for Chess in particular -
that would influence the quality of the book, so of course I am
claiming no such thing.
I would be quite happy to be proven wrong and to hear that not only
this one book by Karpov, but many other good books on Chess are still
being written for the Russian Chess-playing public.
John Savard
ChessFire
> When I was young, BCM used to review Russian-language chess books.
> Now there are so many English-language books deserving attention that
> Russian books are never mentioned.
yeah, my team captain peter clarke often had reviews, plus the books
in russian language
i think one current source of material may be Russian Chess House
which brokers them
i have also bought Russian books via Convekta - these days they often
add a 4-language introduction, but Convekta tries to turn the books
[if they are instructional] into multi-lingual software
i have a couple of Russian language titles
Hastings 1895 [which has some previously unpublished pictures] and
also a chess biography by Viktor Korchnoi, via a mutual friend who
published them
sadly this friend died, and I am unsure if his extensive range of
publications in Russian and English is still operating - I just
checked, and its not
my other Russian friend was Roschal of 64 who could often aim you at
anything you wanted, alas he too has passed
----
I think another writer is correct here - since the advent of the Wall
coming down, and also internet trading becoming secure, publishing
shifted into English language - and since most publishing is a volume
game, those rarer titles never made it into English and have gone OOP.
Major publishers look like Pergamon, and perhaps smaller reviews by
people like this:
SERGEY BYSTROV, INTERNATIONAL MASTER. FIVE NEW CHESS BOOK
PUBLICATIONS. .... BOOK REVIEWS. SERGEY BYSTROV. "Russian book's hits
of 2004"
Probably the best site for Russian books generally I looked at was:
http://www.russianmegastore.com/
which is in NY City Phone 1-877-500-1200
But I think they do not specialise in chess titles but may have access
to them by special order.
Cordially, Phil Innes
sd
> my other Russian friend was Roschal of 64 who could often aim you at
> anything you wanted, alas he too has passed
As a possible indication of the state of things, the last issue of EG
(the endgame magazine) noted it no longer had a reciprocal
relationship (magazine exchange) with them, meaning it was often hard
to report on the studies tournies being conducted there. The reason
for the lack of exchange was a similar one: Western composers were not
sending their work to the 64 tournies, so why bother with
disseminating the results to the West?