Larissa Ilinichna Volpert (; 30 March 1926 – 1 October 2017) was a Soviet

chess Chess is a board game for two players. It is an abstract strategy game that involves Perfect information, no hidden information and no elements of game of chance, chance. It is played on a square chessboard, board consisting of 64 squares arran ...

Woman Grandmaster FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

and Russian and Estonian

philologist Philology () is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of ...

. She was a three-time Soviet women's chess champion (1954, 1958, and 1959). Born in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, she learned chess from her older brother and received chess instruction at the Leningrad

Pioneers Palace Young Pioneer Palaces or Palaces of Young Pioneers and Schoolchildren were youth centers designated for the creative work, sport training and extracurricular activities of Pioneer movement, Young Pioneers (primarily in the Young Pioneers (Sovi ...

. In 1947, she tied for first at the Leningrad Women's Championship. She played her first USSR Women's Championship in 1949 and finished equal fifth. In 1954, she won her first USSR Women's Championship. She scored 2–0 against

Nina Hrušková-Bělská Nina Hrušková-Bělská (5 May 1925 – 30 November 2015) was a Czech chess player who held the FIDE title of Woman International Master (WIM, 1950). She was a five-time winner of the Czechoslovak Women's Chess Championship (1946, 1948, 1952, ...

in the 1954 USSR v.

Czechoslovakia Czechoslovakia ( ; Czech language, Czech and , ''Česko-Slovensko'') was a landlocked country in Central Europe, created in 1918, when it declared its independence from Austria-Hungary. In 1938, after the Munich Agreement, the Sudetenland beca ...

match. In 1958 she shared the USSR Women's Championship title, and in 1959 she won for the third time, her second outright victory. Volpert earned the

Woman International Master FIDE titles are awarded by the international chess governing body FIDE (''Fédération Internationale des Échecs'') for outstanding performance. The highest such title is Grandmaster (GM). Titles generally require a combination of Elo rating and ...

title in 1954 and the Woman Grandmaster title in 1978. She had a degree in philology from

Leningrad University Saint Petersburg State University (SPBGU; ) is a public university, public research university in Saint Petersburg, Russia, and one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Russia. Founded in 1724 by a decree of Peter the Great, the uni ...

and since 1977 taught Russian philology at the

University of Tartu The University of Tartu (UT; ; ) is a public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

. Her major works are about

Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin () was a Russian poet, playwright, and novelist of the Romantic era.Basker, Michael. Pushkin and Romanticism. In Ferber, Michael, ed., ''A Companion to European Romanticism''. Oxford: Blackwell, 2005. He is conside ...

's and

Lermontov Mikhail Yuryevich Lermontov ( , ; rus, Михаи́л Ю́рьевич Ле́рмонтов, , mʲɪxɐˈil ˈjʉrʲjɪvʲɪtɕ ˈlʲerməntəf, links=yes; – ) was a Russian Romantic writer, poet and painter, sometimes called "the poet of ...

's poetry, especially in their connections to French literature. She died at the age of 91 on 1 October 2017.Умерла Лариса Ильинична Вольперт
//

Postimees is an Estonian daily newspaper established on 5 June 1857, by Johann Voldemar Jannsen. In 1891, it became the first daily newspaper in Estonia. Its current editor-in-chief is Priit Hõbemägi. The paper has approximately 250 employees. ''P ...

, 1.10.2017.

References

External links

* 1926 births 2017 deaths Russian Jews Chess Woman Grandmasters Russian female chess players Russian chess players Soviet female chess players Soviet chess players Jewish chess players Chess players from Saint Petersburg Saint Petersburg State University alumni Estonian female chess players Estonian chess players Academic staff of the University of Tartu Sportspeople from Tartu Soviet literary historians Mikhail Lermontov scholars Women literary historians 20th-century Russian sportswomen {{Russia-chess-bio-stub