Johann Sehwers

Johann Sehwers, Jānis Zēvers (Latvia, 28.06.1868 - 05.11.1940)

Significant chess composer of endgame studies (about 100 works)

He was born in Lewimani (Latvia) and lived in Riga, but after he married a German woman settled in Germany, adapting his name to a Germanic form

Doctorate in philosophy. Sehwers was passionate about chess composition and came to create a wealth of interesting endgame studies.

He published a book "Endspielstudien" (Berlin and Leipzig, 1922) that he dedicated to his wife.

Source: Website arves.org

Die Schwalbe (magazine for chess problems) wrote in Issue 276, December 2015:

"The Baltic German Johann Sehwers (28.6.1868-7.11.1940) was a teacher and linguist and as such was particularly interested in the influence of the German language on Latvian. At the end of the 19th century, inspired by a study by Bething, he began to compose endgame studies. He published a collection of his approximately 100 studies, comprising 87 exercises, with de Gruyter in 1922." (dieschwalbe.de)

Others: 33 endgame studies by him are selected with solution on Website arves.org. (Selection was made by Mario Guido García)

Life

More information about Sehwers and other Latvian composers from Riga around 1900 can be found in Alain Pallier's article "Herman Mattison (Hermanis Matisons, 28xii 1894-16xi 1932)" in EG 185, July 2011, pp 215-219.

Johann Sehwers was a renowned philologist. His field of research was the influence of German language in Latvian.