July 30, 2023, 11:21 a.m.
(Magnus Carlsen and Vasily Ivanchuk. Photo by FIDE)
On March 21, 2022, the International Chess Federation's ethics commission disqualified Russian grandmaster Sergey Karjakin for six months for "damaging the reputation of chess." The punishment was due to the fact that Karjakin had publicly supported a full-scale armed invasion of Ukraine. The decision itself was positively received not only by Ukrainian chess players, but also by the chess community throughout the developed world. However, the period of disqualification of only six months was already assessed with a very mixed response. In this article, Intent will tell you what the International Chess Federation is, what it does and what position it takes on the war between Russia and Ukraine.
General characteristics of the International Chess Federation
The International Chess Federation (hereinafter referred to as FIDE) is a sports organization that holds international chess competitions and unites national chess federations. FIDE promotes chess, approves chess rules, awards titles and controls the rating system. Currently, 200 countries are members of FIDE. The organization is headquartered in Lausanne. The official languages of FIDE are English and French. The organization's budget for 2023 is 16 million 861 thousand euros. The FIDE slogan is the Latin expression Gens una sumus, which means "We are one family". FIDE's logo is a chess knight set against a globe.
Image: freelogovectors.net
FIDE was founded in Paris in 1924 by fourteen countries. It is one of the oldest international sports federations in the world.
The General Assembly is the highest legislative and executive body of FIDE. The General Assembly elects officers for a 4-year period, amends the Statutes and makes the final decision on the admission and expulsion of members of the organization.
The Council is composed of key FIDE officials and can make most decisions between meetings of the General Assembly.
The chief officer of FIDE is the President. The President represents FIDE in the international arena and signs contracts on its behalf, which must be approved by the highest bodies of the organization. Like any FIDE official, the President is appointed for a 4-year term. Since October 2018, this position has been held by Arkady Dvorkovich, a former assistant to the Russian President and former Deputy Prime Minister of Russia. As FIDE President, Dvorkovich replaced another Russian statesman and politician, President of the Republic of Kalmykia Kirsan Ilyumzhinov.
Photo: Wikipedia
Interestingly, the position of FIDE president has been held by prominent chess players in the past. In particular, the fifth world champion Max Euwe was the president of the organization. He was followed by the leader of the Icelandic national team and participant in the tournament of candidates for the world champion title, Fridrik Olafsson. He became the only FIDE president to combine the position with chess practice.
One of the important activities of FIDE is the organization of chess Olympiads. The first Olympiad was held by FIDE two years after its foundation, but organizational problems led to the fact that only four countries took part in the competition. Because of these problems, the competition was called the Minor Olympiad. In 1927, a full-fledged Olympics was held. The Hungarian national team won the Little Olympics and the first two full-fledged competitions. Since 1950, the Olympiads have been held regularly every two years. FIDE took steps to ensure that chess became part of the all-sports Olympic Games. In particular, in 2001, anti-doping rules were introduced in chess, which are generally unnecessary in this sport.
Undoubtedly, the main activity of FIDE is to organize world championship competitions. The organization did not establish its authority in this area immediately. Before FIDE, world champions set their own financial and organizational requirements, sometimes simply twisting the arms of contenders. In 1928, the organization recognized Yukhim Bogolyubov as FIDE champion. Presumably, in this way it wanted to put pressure on the current world champion Alexander Alekhine. In the same year, the world champion attended the FIDE Congress and agreed to play matches under the organization's control. At the same time, at Alyokhin's request, the world championship match with Capablanca could only take place under the difficult financial conditions of their previous match, which were set by the former champion himself. FIDE tried to establish rules for choosing a contender for the title and in 1935 nominated Salo Flora. However, the current world champion Max Eve noted that he planned to play the next match with Capablanca and only then was he ready to meet with Flohr. FIDE established full control over the organization and conduct of the World Championships only after the end of World War II and the death of world champion Alexander Alekhine.
In 1993, there was a split in the history of the World Championships. Champion Garry Kasparov and title challenger Nigel Short said that FIDE was unable to provide adequate financial conditions for the match, so they planned to play under the auspices of a new organization, the Professional Chess Association. In response, FIDE stripped Kasparov of his championship title and removed both grandmasters from the rating lists. Since then, two champions have existed in the chess world in parallel. During this period, FIDE decided to make the world championship more spectacular by replacing the world championship match with a knockout tournament, where a large group of chess players competed in mini-matchups and the loser left the competition. This system gave a wide range of players the opportunity to become a champion, but it did not guarantee that the winner would actually be the best in the world. Four competitions were held under this system. And it is not at all obvious that three of the champions would have had a chance to become world champions under the classical model of the competition, which would have required them to win a match against Kasparov or Kramnik.
Garry Kasparov and Nigel Short, 1993. Photo: chessentials.com
The unification of the titles took place only in 2006 during a match between Vladimir Kramnik and Veselin Topalov, although the match itself was on the verge of collapse. Topalov accused Kramnik of frequently running to the restroom, where he used electronic devices to help him. The decision of the Appeals Committee offended Kramnik, who did not show up for the fifth game and refused to continue the match, but later changed his mind.
FIDE serves as a kind of guarantor of chess rules. In general, chess is a fairly conservative game whose rules do not need to be changed. It is another matter that the rules of the competition sometimes require correction. Probably the last major changes in the rules occurred at the turn of the XX-XXI centuries due to the development of electronic technologies and, in particular, the growing power of chess programs. Thus, the postponement of games, when the game was postponed to another day, was abolished. The modern version of the chess rules also states that if a player is obviously carrying an electronic device in the playing area, he or she is immediately scored a defeat.
American physics professor Arpad Elo developed a system for calculating player ratings for games involving two players. FIDE has been using this system since 1970 to calculate the world's chess players' ratings. Currently, official rating changes occur monthly.
FIDE has the right to award chess titles for success in competitions. To obtain the next title, you need to fulfill the required standard three times in different tournaments and reach a certain rating. Member federations also have the right to award titles and grades starting from national master and below. However, the title of FIDE Master is much more important in comparison.
The USSR joined FIDE in 1947. Ukrainian grandmasters have repeatedly played for the USSR national team and participated in individual qualifying competitions for the chess crown. The Odesa grandmaster Yukhym Heller was one of the strongest chess players in the world in the 1950s and 1970s. At the turn of the 1940s and 1950s, Isaac Boleslavsky was a contender for the world crown. Leonid Stein was one of the strongest players in the world in the 1960s. The winners of the chess Olympiads as part of the USSR national team were Alexander Belyavsky, Vladimir Tukmakov, Gennady Kuzmin, Vasily Ivanchuk, and Vladimir Savon. Ukrainian natives Kira Zvorykina, Lidia Semenova, and Marta Litynska played for the USSR women's team.
Ukraine joined the FIDE in 1992. Since then, Ukrainian chess players have been leading the world. Ruslan Ponomaryov became the FIDE world champion. Vasyl Ivanchuk became the world champion in both blitz (time limit 5 minutes per game) and rapid (time limit 20 minutes per game). Anna Ushenina and Maria Muzychuk became world champions among women. Anna Muzychuk was twice a world champion in blitz and once in rapids.
The Ukrainian men's and women's national teams have won 2 times at the Chess Olympiads. The women's team has won the last five Olympiads, and is the current champion. The men's and women's national teams have won the World Team Championships once each. The women's team is the current bronze medalist.
FIDE reacted quickly to Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. On February 25, 2022, the FIDE Council decided that the 2022 Chess Olympiad would be moved from Russia to another country. Subsequently, it was decided to hold the competition in India, as well as to ban the Russian men's and women's national teams from participating in the competition.
On February 27, one of the leaders of the Ukrainian national team, Maria Muzychuk, asked Russian chess players on social media to express their attitude to the Russian invasion. Already on March 3, 44 Russian chess players published an open letter to the Russian president, protesting the war in Ukraine. Among the signatories were prominent athletes, including two-time world vice-champion and one of the best players in the world Jan Nepomnyashchego, 12th world champion Alexandra Kosteniuk, world champion in rapid Daniel Dubov, World Cup winner Peter Svidler, and FIDE world champion Alexander Khalifman. Some Russian athletes were unable to sign the letter while competing abroad. In particular, three-time world blitz champion Alexander Grischuk condemned the Russian invasion right from the competition.
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Press conference of grandmasters Alexander Grischuk and Dmitry Andreikin. Video: FIDE
Of course, not all Russian chess players condemned the invasion. On February 27, grandmaster and former Ukrainian citizen Sergey Karjakin wrote his own open letter to Putin, supporting the aggression against Ukraine. He was supported by grandmaster and commentator Sergey Shipov. In response, FIDE disqualified Karjakin for six months.
In mid-March, FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich spoke out against the Russian invasion of Ukraine. He added that FIDE is making sure "that there is no official chess activity in Russia or Belarus, and that players are not allowed to represent Russia or Belarus in official or ranking tournaments until the war is over and Ukrainian players return to chess." To clarify, Russian and Belarusian athletes were allowed to play under the neutral FIDE flag.
Despite Dvorkovich's statement, criminal proceedings were initiated in Ukraine against grandmasters Anatoly Karpov, Sergey Karjakin, Sergey Shipov and FIDE President Arkady Dvorkovich on the facts of spreading calls for war and encroachment on the territorial integrity of Ukraine.
Next year, FIDE will celebrate its 100th anniversary. It is an international organization that has vast experience in organizing chess competitions. There have been ambiguous episodes and outright mistakes in the history of FIDE. FIDE is periodically criticized for the lack of transparency in its operations, devaluation of the grandmaster title, etc. However, at this point, it must be recognized that there is still no alternative to the organization.
In many international organizations, the president or secretary general is simply the chief official who represents them on the world stage. In FIDE, the person of the president has a significant impact on the policy of the entire organization. Ukrainians cannot be happy about the fact that the last two FIDE presidents were close to Putin. However, it cannot be denied that the elections were held on a democratic basis. Arkady Dvorkovich is an experienced politician. He managed to win over such reputable chess players as Anand and Aronian. He tries to organize many competitions and listens to the opinions of athletes, which is different from his indifferent predecessor. During the election year, he protested against the war, which attracted Western chess players, and then saved the careers of Russians by allowing them to play under a neutral flag. He immediately reacted to Karjakin's performances, but the disqualification was only for six months. So we have to admit that he is doing everything technically and prudently. Those who strongly dislike Dvorkovich will have to be patient for the next three years. If Dvorkovich doesn't make any serious mistakes, his credibility will only increase. So the next candidate for the post must be either a reputable manager or a reputable chess player.
Олег Пархітько
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