In our series ‘The Uncrowned Chess Kings’, we will see the life journey of Efim Bogoljubow, the Champion of USSR and Germany who suffered from victimisation during both the World Wars but still managed to become one of the most noted player in the history of Chess.
Efim Bogoljubow was born on April 14, 1889 in a family of priests. Initially, Efim, too, wanted to become a priest and studied Theology in Kiev. However, subsequently he changed his mind and enrolled in the Polytechnical Institute to study Agriculture.
Unlike many famous Chess players, Bogoljubow started learning the game quite late- at the age of 15. Within some years he started winning competitive matches. In 1911, Bogoljubow tied for first place in the Kiev championship and started getting invited for International Chess Championships since then.
In July/August 1914, Bogoljubow played in the Mannheim Tournament (19th DSB Congress) which was interrupted by the First World War. After the declaration of the war, Germany detained eleven Russian players playing in the Mannheim tournament and jailed them. Efim Bogoljubow was one of them along with Alekhine, Bogatyrchuk, Flamberg, Koppelman, Maliutin, Rabinovich, Romanovsky, Saburov, Selezniev, Weinstein.
In September 1914, four of the internees (Alekhine, Bogatyrchuk, Saburov, and Koppelman) were allowed to return home via Switzerland but not the other seven. During this time Bogoljubow met Frieda Kaltenbach, daughter of a schoolteacher. They married in 1920 and had two daughters. Bogoljubow spent most of the rest of his life in Germany.
After the World War I ended in 1918, life returned to normalcy & Bogoljubow got an opportunity to bounce back. He won many international tournaments like Berlin 1919, Stockholm 1919, Kiel 1921, and Pistyan 1922. He tied for 1st–3rd at Karlsbad 1923.
In 1924, Bogoljubow briefly returned to Russia which had then become the Soviet Union. He won the Soviet Championships in 1924 and 1925. He also won at Breslau in 1925, which was in Germany then. This made him the only player to ever become both German and Soviet champion in the same year.
However, in Soviet Union, Bogoljubow was not allowed to play tournaments without permission from Soviet Red Army. Therefore, in 1926, he permanently emigrated to Germany, and became a “Person who did not exist” in the Soviet Union.
Bogoljubow represented Germany at first board in the 4th Chess Olympiad at Prague in 1931, winning the individual silver medal (+9−1=7).
Due to his brilliant performance in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Bogoljubow was chosen as Challenger to play World Championship in 1929 and 1934 but could not match the quality of play by the defending Champion, Dr Alexander Alekhine.
When the Nazis came to power in 1933, Bogoljubow was no longer allowed to play for the German national team or in German championships. He joined the Nazi party in 1938, so that his daughters would be allowed to study at German university. However, this did not change his situation. He was not allowed to play for Germany ever again, though he secretly coached the German national teams for the 1936 and 1939 Chess Olympiads.
Bogoljubow was a great strategic master and an expert on the Queen Pawn openings. The Bogo-Indian Defence, invented by Bogoljubow, is still a popular opening against Queen’s Gambit.
