Aron Nimzowitsch — chess grandmaster and writer with roots in the Russian Empire
Aron Isayevich Nimzowitsch was born on 7 November 1886 in Riga, then the capital of the Livonia Governorate of the Russian Empire and now of Latvia, into a prosperous German-speaking Jewish merchant family; Mikhail Tal, another future chess great, would be born in the same city fifty years and two days later. He learned chess from his father, a strong amateur, and later attributed his gift for combinations to a childhood spent untangling the arguments of the Talmud.
He went to Germany to study at the University of Berlin, and there decided to become a professional chess player. A failure at the Barmen tournament of 1905 led him to rethink his style and to study chess strategy in depth, and by 1906 he had earned the title of master. In 1914 he shared first place in the All-Russian Masters tournament in St Petersburg with Alexander Alekhine. After 1917 he left Russia and, after several years of moving between countries, settled in Copenhagen, in 1922 by most accounts and 1920 by others. He was stateless from 1917 until he became a Danish citizen, and he lived in Copenhagen for the rest of his life, in a single rented room.
The 1920s brought his greatest results. He won Copenhagen 1923, with his celebrated 'immortal zugzwang' game against Friedrich Sämisch, and Marienbad 1925, Dresden 1926, Hanover 1926 and London 1927. His victory at Carlsbad in 1929, ahead of José Raúl Capablanca and the strongest players of the day, is regarded as the peak of his career, and in 1930 he finished second to Alekhine at San Remo and won at Frankfurt. In the late 1920s he was one of the best players in the world and sought a match for the world championship.
His lasting influence came through his writing. With Richard Réti, he was the leading figure of the hypermodern school, which argued that controlling the centre from a distance mattered more than occupying it with pawns, and gave strategic weight to ideas such as prophylaxis, overprotection and the blockade of passed pawns. He set these out in Die Blockade (1925), Mein System (My System, 1925–27), one of the most influential chess books ever written, and Die Praxis meines Systems (Chess Praxis, 1929), which shaped the young Tigran Petrosian. Many openings bear his name, among them the Nimzo-Indian Defence.
In Denmark, where he was known as the country's chess teacher, he influenced a generation of players. He died in Copenhagen on 16 March 1935, aged forty-eight, and is buried in Bispebjerg Cemetery.
"Left Russia during the upheavals after 1917; after years of moving, settled in Copenhagen in 1920 or 1922 and became a Danish citizen."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Riga, Livonia Governorate (now Latvia)
Born in Riga, in the Livonia Governorate of the Russian Empire, in 1886 into a German-speaking Jewish merchant family, he learned chess from his father and shared first place in the All-Russian Masters tournament of 1914 with Alexander Alekhine.
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Riga, Livonia Governorate (now Latvia). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.