Genrich Kasparyan

Genrich Kaparyan (Armenian Գենրիխ Գասպարյան, in scientific transliteration Genrix Gasparyan), better known internationally as Genrich Moiseyevich Gasparyan (Russian Генрих Моисеевич Каспарян, * 27. February 1910 in Tbilisi, Georgia; † 27 December 1995 in Yerevan, Armenia), was a Soviet chess master and famous study composer of chess.

Kasparyan is considered one of the best study composer ever.

Life

Kasparyan learnt to play chess from his older brother at the age of 13. From 1926 to 1931, he attended the Polytechnic Institute in Tbilisi and graduated as a civil engineer. During this time, he devoted a lot of time to chess composition and composed around 40 tasks. His playing strength in tournament chess also increased. In 1931 he became the city champion of Tbilisi and won first place in a qualifying tournament for the USSR championship ahead of the future world chess champion Mikhail Botvinnik. In 1936, he moved to Yerevan and secured the title of Master of Sport with a 9½:7½ victory over Vitaly Chekhov, making him Armenia's first chess champion. He was a soldier from July 1941 to November 1945 and was honoured with several medals. In 1950, FIDE awarded him the title of International Master. In 1956, he was awarded the title of Meritorious Master of Sport and retired from active tournament chess, but worked as a chess coach until 1990. In total, he won the Armenian Championship ten times during his career from 1934 onwards. In January 1948, Kasparjan achieved his highest historical Elo rating of 2625, placing him 31st in the subsequently calculated world rankings.

Kasparyan attended the technical college (later renamed the Labour School) in Tbilisi from 1917. In 1925 he graduated from secondary school and in 1926 he entered the Polytechnic Institute in Tbilisi. Gasparian graduated from the Transcaucasian Institute of Communications Engineering in 1931 with a doctorate in road construction and from then on worked as a civil engineer. From January 1932 to November 1933, he worked as a construction engineer on the Black Sea, building the railway between Ochamchiri and Sochumi. From 1934, until his conscription in July 1941, he worked as a construction engineer in project planning in Tbilisi, Alaverdi and Yerevan. After Gasparjan was called up for military service in the Soviet Army in July 1941, he worked there until November 1945. He received a medal in 1944 for the defence of the Caucasus and in 1945 for the victory in the "Great Patriotic War 1941-1945". From 1946, Kasparjan taught chess in Yerevan until April 1952. He then worked as a design engineer at the Project Institute from April 1952 to 1953. He then taught chess again in Yerevan until May 1957 and in Tbilisi from June 1957 to April 1964. In the meantime, Kasparjan received an award for "labour valour" in 1958.

From May 1965 to 1990, Kasparjan again taught chess in Yerevan. During this time, he retired in 1970 and was awarded the "Order of the Patriotic War, Second Class" in 1985. Kasparjan died in Yerevan on 27 December 1995.

Religiousness

Genrich Kasparyan was a very religious Christian. He was offered several times to join the Komsomol and the Communist Party, but always refused, so he did not receive any corresponding privileges.

Family

Kasparyan was married twice. His first marriage from 1937 to 1947 produced no children. His second marriage gave him a son - the study composer Sergei Gasparjan (1952-† 2022) - and a daughter.

His chess studies:

Genrich Kasparyan's first endgame study was published in 1928. His oeuvre comprises a total of 545 correct studies, of which around 300 were honoured in competitions. From 1947 to 1983 he took part in 13 USSR championships (1st to 11th and 13th and 14th championships) for study composition and won six, one of which was shared. Except for his last participation, he never finished lower than third place. From 1956 he was an international arbiter for chess composition. In 1960 he became International Master, and in 1972 Grand Master of Chess Composition. 70 points from the publication of chess compositions in FIDE albums were a prerequisite for the award of this highest title. Kasparjan achieved a total of 174.17 points in his career.

His composing style

Many of Kasparyan's studies begin with a position close to a game. Kasparjan often ended the analysis of variations so early that it was not clear to solvers that the position was really won or drawn. Kasparjan endeavoured to achieve maximum economy. In positions with mutual zugzwang there was almost always a thematic seduction. Often all the pieces moved during the solution, while Kasparian took care to minimise the number of captures. In addition, Gasparjan developed ideas from other composers and was very precise in his analyses. In cases where one of his studies was found to be incorrect, Kasparjan endeavoured to correct it.

Judge in chess study tournaments

Kasparyan was active as a judge in many Armenian and Georgian tournaments, including the tournament for the 14th Chess Olympiad.

Collector of chess studies

Kasparyan systematically collected and categorised studies. In the end, his collection comprised more than 30,000 pieces.

Publications

Kasparyan published numerous books in Russian, with print runs of up to 100,000 copies. Gia Nadareishvili was the only one of his contemporaries to publish more and more diverse books.

Commemoration:

The special stamp Birth Centenary of Henrik Kasparyan was issued in Armenia on 27 February 2010 to mark the 100th anniversary of Kasparyan's birth.

Article by Timothy Whitworth (March 1996):

"Ghenrikh Kasparyan's career as a study composer spanned more than sixty years, from the time when Alexey Troitzky and Leonid Kubbel were in their heyday to our own time. His first study appeared in 1928, and in those early years it was Kubbel in particular who was his mentor. "The works of Kubbel gradually became for me the standard, and from then on I aspired to the same high level that Leonid Ivanovich achieved." As his work developed over the following decades, Kasparian produced many studies of great depth and analytical refinement. He was a strong player (the champion of Armenia ten times and a competitor in four USSR championships) and it shows in his compositions. In introducing his collection of 400 studies, published in 1987, he described his work in the following terms. "I have paid the greatest attention to the themes of positional draw, mate, stalemate, and systematic manoeuvre. This is no accident, but entirely natural: in contemporary study composition these themes are often being elaborated, they are promising, fruitful and, perhaps, inexhaustible." Yes, his themes may be the familiar ones, but the originality and subtlety of the play give his compositions a variety that seems as inexhaustible as the game itself. 

Kasparyan has left us a colossal legacy, not only as a composer, but also as an anthologist. Between 1963 and 1980, he published five thematically classified anthologies, which constitute an invaluable resource for students of the  endgame study. But of all his books, perhaps the one to seek out first is his anthology Zamechatelnye etyudy (1982). It is the best, that is to say, the most useful and enjoyable, large-scale general anthology ever to have appeared."

Source: Wikipedia