Miroslav Soukup

Miroslav Soukup (Czechoslovakia, 24.10.1903 - 1981)

Chess composer

He composed also direct mates and selfmates.                                                                                                              Selection of chess studies composed by him On the Dutch Website arves.org are 20 endgame studies composed by Soukup shown.

Source: ARVES.org

"Miroslav Soukup is best known as the editor of the Chess Art Edition, in which he published a total of 17 books in small editions between 1936 and 1947. He composed over 100 chess problems, four of which made it onto the FIDE albums.   However, there is a secret connected with his life that has motivated me the most to write this article. He published his last book in 1947, his last work in 1948 and then disappeared completely without a trace (and the date of his death is not even known). This article is dedicated to his life, work and the search for his fate after 1948

1. Life
Miroslav Soukup was born on October 24, 1903 and lived first in Pardubice, later in Prague. Let us first hear from Miroslav Soukup himself, who writes in the afterword to his book From Kunětické hory (1940) about his beginnings as a role player:

The "Golden Pike" was visited by a small, big boy who was studying technology and was using the holidays to do an internship at the "Telegrafia" factory. He played chess excellently, but strangely enough, he sometimes sat down, dug and arranged the pieces himself in a certain position. At my age and his, it was easy to get to know each other: Jan Havelka is said to have tried to complete a task in Prague for which his father had given him the idea. The task? Yes – checkmate and one and one more are included, but the editing doesn't work and one variant has a dual that isn't easy to remove... A flood of new concepts poured over me that I hadn't seen before and didn't know how to deal with them. I sat down, listened to the helpful explanations of my dear companion – and was caught, forever enthralled by the thousands of threads of the fine yarn of the task combinations, never to be let go of them again. Tasks – these are the pieces that I used to see on the first pages of a chess magazine and that I always quickly turned over to get to the games! A winter wish shook me: What would happen if I did the task myself? A new face of chess appeared to me, unclear at first, but then quickly clear. To complete the task was my firm, if ill-considered, resolution. A little of this quickly gathered knowledge of the principles of composition - you must not play chess right away and there must be at least three checkmates - was enough to present to my teacher in a few days of evening discussion what, in my opinion, must have been a stunning two-move combination. I set up the task according to a large, carefully hand-drawn diagram and looked expectantly at my companion. And please - he solved it! Pride shook me, my task is solved! While other authors read, composers play, I am a problem solver! Well, he solved it, you know, and somehow suspiciously early, praised something, criticized something - and I was a cheerful workaholic, I ran home through the dark street with my head burning, vowing to myself that I must continue to compose, must and read my name written above the magic square.
At the beginning of everything, however, was my father - if he had not dusted off his old Dufresne sometime in 1920, I might today be running around chess listlessly, as I certainly run around many wonderful and mysterious things that do not sufficiently encompass human life. I became - I know this - only a very average overseer, but the duties opened up a kindred world to me, I made many friends and acquaintances through them and spent good times with them.
It may seem small to some that the meaning of life is to deal with chess problems, but there is no measure of what is big and what is small. For even the most useful work can seem to a person a futile effort in a moment of skepticism, and somewhere a skeptical question is always waiting for us: "What is all this for?" In order that this small-mindedness does not destroy our work, it is necessary to look for a higher purpose.

The chess activity of Miroslav Soukup in 1922–1948 is relatively well documented. Of course, the greatest credit for this belongs to himself. However, his life after 1948 (when he was only 45 years old) is shrouded in mystery. Apparently, he no longer played chess and may have been somehow affected by the communist coup in 1948. Interesting information can be found on

Karel Mokré's website. It is said that there is a copy of Soukup's book "Chess Problem Solver" with his handwritten signature dated September 20, 1974.

Another trace of Miroslav Soukup dates back to 1969, when the book "Do you have a cat?" was published by the State Agrarian Publishing House (in the "My Hobbies" edition). (PDF, 7.2 MB, added 27.7.2010), OCLC number: 42115859. This book (which was published in an edition of 60,000 copies and is frequently cited on the Internet and in professional literature) was lent to me by Mrs. Jarmila Pánková, to whom I owe my great gratitude. She wrote to me that when she was a child, they lived (just like the Soukups) in the so-called official colony. She herself had a cat and Miroslav Soukup (who was then her grandfather's age) was their friend, whom they asked for advice when something was wrong with the cats. The cat was their common subject and she did not even know that Mr. Soukup played chess. He remembers that after the liquidation of the Úřednická colony in 1976, he moved with the Soukups to Bohnice, the Soukups then lived in Hlivická Street. She wrote to me about his book about cats: “ I see it as a part of his multifaceted personality. In a way, it also says a lot about himself. And I think that no other book about cats with such culture will be published.” And about Miroslav Soukup himself, she writes: “ He was one of those who know and know so much that they have no need to boast or elevate themselves above others.”

This is what I found in the archives of the security forces Since January 7, 1960, the State Security (IV. Administration of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Economic Counterintelligence) was interested in Miroslav Soukup. His attachment was based on the decision of the commission appointed by Chief XI. of the SNB administration (Defensive Administration for the Protection of the Economy) on June 3, 1981 destroyed (I quote: “due to the person's age (78 years)”). So Miroslav Soukup was still alive in 1981. (updated on 30.10.2008)

From the accounts of eyewitnesses, I can add that after 1948, fearing oppression by the communist regime, Miroslav Soukup destroyed his printing press (with which he published his well-known series of chess books in editions of 50-60 copies). He had many other hobbies, he devoted himself to philately and then to cat breeding. In all his endeavors, he is said to have been extremely successful. In the 1960s, he is said to have briefly returned to chess composition, but none of his works from that period are known. (updated 24.12.2008)

Meeting with Miroslav Soukup - an article written especially for my site by engineer Jaroslav Karel (added 12.03.2009)

I found out thatMiroslav Soukup really returned to chess composition in the 1970s! I discovered at least 3 of his jobs:
1st prize Free Speech 1972-73, the competition was judged by J. Fritz. The task was reproduced in Chess Art 12/1973 , no. 3752, pp. 45–46 with the comment: “The Free Speech Chess Watch announced a competition for chess pieces published between 20.8.1972 and 3.3.1973. The composer achieved full success in this, especially important for the Czechoslovak chess composition - Miroslav SOUKUP, an avid propagator of our problem in the pre-war period, with a composition that, depending on the position on the chessboard and the course of the solution, rather resembles a brave young man and not a guardian of our chess composition .” It is a pity that after 1. - Je1 2.Nc3 and 2.Nb3 there is only a small dual. However, the task can probably be considered correct.
On the following page 46, in the notation we find another Soukup roll from this competition, which received the 1st honorable mention (there are several typos in the solution in ŠU, the opening is of course 1.Ke8 and one of the defenses should be correct 1. - N:a7, not 8).
Another roll was published directly in Chess Art, No. 5, No. 3459, ŠU 3/1973. This composition was well received by researchers (see ŠU 10/1973).
In ŠU 4/1976 Vratislav Miltner dedicated a roll to M. Soukup. It is also curious that in Chess Art 5/1990 (p. 79) Miroslav Soukup is mentioned in the list of composers among those who had the 1st performance class, but he was probably not among the living at that time. However, I didn't find an obituary in Chess Art. The fact that these magazines had OCRed was very helpful in my search.
(updated on August 24, 2011)

2. Chess composition
As a chess composer, he composed over a hundred problems (three-moves, multiple moves, somatomata and several studies). He published the first one in the Czech Journal in December 1922. Chess Player (and not in the National Policy of 1924, as some publications falsely claim). He has 4 problems in the FIDE albums (1914-1944/II nos. 1275 and 1278, 1945-1955 nos. 1155 and 1250), but he got only 2 points for them (as 2 of them are in the supplementary album 1914-1955.) 1944/II).
He originally had 31 jobs in the WinChloe database, I have searched and added more, so he now has a total of 88 jobs from 1922 to 1948, which is the bulk of his work.

3. Publishing activity
During his time in Pardubice he edited the magazine Chess World 1924-26. See Chess World 2/1925 - 3/1926 (17.8 MB)

Miroslav Soukup headed the task sections "Radio Week" (1939-45), "Venkov" (1933-34) and in 1938 Groš . In the years 1934-1938 he was editor of the task section of Czechoslovak Chess (at the beginning of 1934 he managed the task section from Pardubice, from issue 6/1934 onwards from Prague).

In the years 1936-1947 he published books in his famous edition "The Art of Chess", a total of 17 books were published. Publications no. 3, 12 and 13 were printed by the Lapáček printing house (the number of copies is unknown), the others were printed by Miroslav Soukup himself in very small, numbered editions. Volumes 16 and 17 are already labelled by M. Soukup as the "Christmas edition of MS", but the numbering remains the same.
Miroslav Soukup also published several non-chess books, for example "Vincent van Gogh - Four Letters" (1936), OCLC number: 53860643"

Source: kotesovec.cz