František Josef Prokop

František Josef Prokop (* 18 July 1901 in Hořovice; † 21 September 1973 in Prague) was an important Czech chess composer and strong chess player. He occasionally used the pseudonyms A. Sedláček and Pražský.

Life

Prokop studied at the Faculty of Natural Sciences and the Faculty of Law at the Czech Technical University in Prague. After four semesters, financial difficulties arose in the family in 1922 following the death of his father, which is why Prokop initially began a career as a journalist in the Olomouc magazine Pozor, but left the Moravian town of Olomouc again after a year. In 1923, Prokop was not called up for military service, presumably due to tuberculosis. In 1924 and 1925, Prokop worked for the extreme right-wing magazine 28. rijen, which was named after the date of independence, and from 1927 to 1936 for Národní listy, where he was appointed editor-in-chief of the monthly magazine that began in 1928. However, the magazine was cancelled after six months. In the 1930s, Prokop became a film critic and editor of the chess column in Národní listy. He later became the main editor of České slovo and then Lidové noviny in Prague. His journalistic activities were often interrupted by unemployment.

František Prokop has been an international judge for chess composition since 1956

In 1938, Prokop inherited from an uncle and from then on lived as a private citizen, but in 1940 he had to resume his journalistic activities.

In criminal proceedings after the Second World War, Prokop was sentenced to four years' imprisonment for collaboration as a journalist during the occupation of Czechoslovakia.

Prokop married Anna Sedláčková in 1929; the marriage remained childless.

Although a strong practical chess player himself (according to his historical Elo rating, he was 84th in the world rankings in September 1944), he soon turned more and more to chess composition and achieved brilliant success with his endgame studies. Already in the first four years of his creative work from 1924 to 1927, he presented himself to the chess world as an accomplished artist with his works. From the very beginning, he imprinted his works with the hallmark of his incisive personality. In addition to theoretical studies, he favoured aesthetically pleasing positions in which a wealth of thought and technical perfection could be expressed.

In the Prague chess world, Prokop was in dialogue with the best composers, which positively influenced his discipline in selection, the depth of his thoughts and the subtlety of his creative work.

About his endgame studies

Prokop transferred elements of the composition of chess tasks to the study. This is particularly evident in the chameleonic echo of his stalemate pictures, a trademark of the Bohemian endgame study.

He also cultivated this favoured reproach in the self-mate.

Source: Germain Wikipedia

Others: On the Dutch Website ARVES.org are selected 46 endgame studies by him. The solution are almost very short and no longer than 5 moves.