Mark Taimanov

Early life

Taimanov was born in Kharkiv where his parents studied at the time. They moved to Leningrad when he was six months old. His father Eugenie Zakharovich Taimanov was half-Cossack and half-Jewish; his family escaped to Kharkiv from Smolensk during the World War I. He was a student at the Kharkiv Polytechnic Institute and later made a career as a head engineer at the Kirov Plant and the Hydraulic Plant, but left it to work as an engineer at the Leningrad Conservatory and various Leningrad theaters after his brother and his wife's relatives were imprisoned in 1937. Taimanov's mother Serafima Ivanovna Ilyina came from an Orthodox Russian family; she studied at the Kharkiv National Kotlyarevsky University of Arts. As a piano teacher she later introduced her son to music. Mark was the eldest of three children. When he was nine, he performed as a young violinist in the Soviet children's film Beethoven Concerto that was released in 1937. During the Great Patriotic War he and his father evacuated to Tashkent shortly before the Siege of Leningrad started; his mother along with his two siblings decided to stay in the city and had to survive the siege up till their evacuation in March 1942.

Chess career

He was awarded the International Master title in 1950, and the International Grandmaster title in 1952. He played in the Candidates Tournament in Zurich in 1953, where he tied for eighth place. He was regularly in the world's top 20 players for over 25 years.;

Soviet team play

He represented Saint Petersburg (then known as Leningrad) in internal Soviet regional team competitions, scoring (+36, =56, -24) in 116 games, across 15 events, between 1948 and 1983. He represented the sports society "Burevestnik" (Students) in internal Soviet club team competitions.

Soviet championships

He played in 23 USSR Chess Championships (a record equalled by Efim Geller), tying for first place twice. In 1952 he lost the playoff match to Mikhail Botvinnik, who was World Champion at the time. In 1956, after finishing equal with Yuri Averbakh and Boris Spassky in the tournament proper, he won a match-tournament ahead of them, for the title.

Loss to Fischer

Taimanov lost to Bobby Fischer in the 1971 Candidates quarterfinal by the unprecedented margin of 6-0. About this match, Taimanov later recalled that Fischer "was an incredibly tough defender" and that "the third game proved to be the turning point of the match". After his loss to Fischer, the Soviet government was embarrassed, and, as Taimanov later put it in a 2002 interview, found it "unthinkable" that he could have lost the match so badly to an American without a "political explanation". Soviet officials took away Taimanov's salary and no longer allowed him to travel overseas. The official reason given for punishing Taimanov was that he had brought a book by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn into the country, but that explanation was secondary in nature. The officials later "forgave" Taimanov, and lifted the sanctions against him. Fischer's match wins later in 1971, first by 6–0 against Bent Larsen, then by 6.5–2.5 against Tigran Petrosian, may have helped change their minds. Taimanov considered this match "the culminating point" of his chess career and later wrote a book about the match, titled How I Became Fischer's Victim.

International teams

Taimanov represented the USSR in international team play with enormous success.

At the 1956 Moscow Olympiad, as first reserve he scored (+6, =5, −0), winning team gold and board bronze medals. This was his only Olympiad appearance.

Taimanov represented the USSR four times in the European Team Championship. At Vienna 1957, he played board seven, scored (+2, =3, −0), winning team and board gold medals. At Oberhausen 1961, he played board eight, scored (+6, =3, −0), and won team and board gold medals. At Hamburg 1965, he played board seven, scored (+3, =4, −1), and won team and board gold medals. At Kapfenberg 1970, he played board six, scored (+4, =2, −0), and won team and board gold medals.

In the inaugural Russia (USSR) vs Rest of the World team match, Belgrade 1970, he played board seven, and scored (+2, =1, −1) against Wolfgang Uhlmann.

Chess legacy

Taimanov was one of the few players to have beaten six world champions (Botvinnik, Vasily Smyslov, Mikhail Tal, Tigran Petrosian, Spassky, and Anatoly Karpov). Opening variations are named after Taimanov in the Sicilian Defence, Modern Benoni and Nimzo-Indian Defence. He wrote books on two of his named variations, as well as an autobiographical best games collection. Taimanov's favorite chess players were Alexander Alekhine, Mikhail Tal and Garry Kasparov.

Major chess writings

Note that several of Taimanov's books are available in Russian, German, and English languages.

Music career

Taimanov was a top concert pianist in the Soviet Union. With his first wife, Lyubov Bruk, he formed a piano duo, some of whose recordings were included in the Philips and Steinway series Great Pianists of the 20th Century. Taimanov personally knew composer Dmitri Shostakovich, cellist Mstislav Rostropovich and pianist Sviatoslav Richter.

Personal life and death

Taimanov married four times. He remarried late in life, and became the father of twins at the age of 78. Fifty-seven years separate his oldest child and his twins.

His younger sister Irina Taimanova (born 1941) is a prominent opera director, TV presenter and professor at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory.

Taimanov died on 28 November 2016 in Saint Petersburg, at the age of 90, after a month and a half of medical treatment.