Mark Taimanov

Taimanov was born in Kharkiv, where his parents studied at the time. They moved to Leningrad when he was six months old. His father Evgeny 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.

He was awarded the International Master title in 1950, and the International Grandmaster title in 1952 by FIDE. 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.

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.

Taimanov lost to Bobby Fischer in the 1971 Candidates quarterfinal by the unprecedented score 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 merely a bureaucratic pretext. The officials later "forgave" Taimanov, and lifted the sanctions against him. Fischer's overwhelming match wins later in 1971, first by 6–0 against Bent Larsen, then by 6½–2½ against Tigran Petrosian, may have helped contribute to their change of mind. 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.

Taimanov died on 28 November 2016 in Saint Petersburg, at the age of 90.

Mark Taimanov celebrates 90th birthday

As a child Mark Taimanov was a film star and later he was one of the best chessplayers of his time. He was also a celebrated concert pianist, giving concerts all over the world. With his fourth wife he founded and runs a chess school in St. Petersburg. Today, 7th February 2016, Taimanov celebrates his 90th birthday. Dagobert Kohlmeyer <a href="[Post:view_link]">talked to the multi-talent.</a>