Prince Sergey Semyonovich Urusov (3 August 1827 – 20 November 1897) was a leading 19th century Russian

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 ...

player; he was also a self-published amateur mathematician. His brother Dmitry Urusov (1829-1903) was also a strong player. He was a member of the Urusov

noble family Nobility is a social class found in many societies that have an aristocracy (class), aristocracy. It is normally appointed by and ranked immediately below Royal family, royalty. Nobility has often been an Estates of the realm, estate of the rea ...

, holding the title of Prince (

Knyaz A , also , ''knjaz'' or (), is a historical Slavs, Slavic title, used both as a royal and noble title in different times. It is usually translated into English language, English as 'prince', 'king' or 'duke', depending on specific historical c ...

), and an officer in the Tsarist army. In 1853 he played a few games against Alexander Petrov who was visiting

Saint Petersburg 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 ...

; the score is usually given as 3–1 in favour of Petrov (sources vary on this). The same year he won a match against

Ilya Shumov Ilya Stepanovich Shumov (, 28 June 1819 in Arkhangelsk – July 1881 in Sevastopol) was a Russian chess master. He served as an officer in the Russian Navy until 1847, then worked as a civil servant in Saint Petersburg. He was invited, along with ...

by 4–3, and again in 1854 by a score of 12–9. Also in 1854, he drew a match against

Carl Jaenisch Carl Ferdinand von Jaenisch (; April 11, 1813 – March 7, 1872) was a Finnish and Russian chess player and theorist. In the 1840s, he was among the top players in the world.Adriano Chicco, Giorgio Porreca, ''Dizionario enciclopedico degli sc ...

by a score of 2-2. He fought in the

Crimean War The Crimean War was fought between the Russian Empire and an alliance of the Ottoman Empire, the Second French Empire, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and the Kingdom of Sardinia (1720–1861), Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont fro ...

in 1854–55, and was awarded the

Order of Saint George The Order of Saint George () is the highest military decoration of the Russian Federation. It was originally established on 26 November 1769 Julian (7 December 1769 Gregorian) as the highest military decoration of the Russian Empire for commiss ...

for bravery during the Siege of Sevastopol. During the war he met

Leo Tolstoy Count Lev Nikolayevich Tolstoy Tolstoy pronounced his first name as , which corresponds to the romanization ''Lyov''. () (; ,Throughout Tolstoy's whole life, his name was written as using Reforms of Russian orthography#The post-revolution re ...

; the two became long term friends, exchanging frequent correspondence. They later fell out after Tolstoy left the

Russian Orthodox Church The Russian Orthodox Church (ROC; ;), also officially known as the Moscow Patriarchate (), is an autocephaly, autocephalous Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox Christian church. It has 194 dioceses inside Russia. The Primate (bishop), p ...

. Following the Crimean War, he left the army and devoted himself to chess. There were few organised tournaments at the time, so his chess activity consisted primarily of individual matches. He was considered the second strongest Russian player after Petrov, who beat him again in 1859 by a score of +13 −7 =1; the same year he won matches against Shumov and Viktor Mikhailov. He drew a match against the Austrian

Ignatz Kolisch Baron Ignatz von Kolisch (6 April 1837 – 30 April 1889), also Baron Ignaz von Kolisch (German) or báró Kolisch Ignác ( Hungarian), was a merchant, journalist and chess master with Jewish roots. Kolisch was born into a Jewish family in Pres ...

in 1862, who was one of the strongest players in the world at the time, and defeated the strong German player Philipp Hirschfeld in 1866. In 1878 he retired from chess and bequeathed his valuable collection of chess books to

Ilya Tolstoy Count Ilya Lvovich Tolstoy (; 22 May 1866 – 11 December 1933) was a Russian writer, and the third child and second son of Leo Tolstoy. Early life Ilya was born at Yasnaya Polyana and spent most of his young life there, until the family took ...

. The Urusov Gambit in the

Bishop's Opening The Bishop's Opening is a chess opening that begins with the moves: :1. e4 e5 :2. Bc4 White attacks Black's f7-square and prevents Black from advancing the d-pawn to d5. By ignoring the beginner's maxim "develop knights before bishops", White ...

(1.e4 e5 2.Bc4 Nf6 3.d4 exd4 4.Nf3) is named after him.

References

External links

*
Urusov's playing record
at edochess.ca {{DEFAULTSORT:Urusov, Sergey Semyonovich 1827 births 1897 deaths 19th-century chess players from the Russian Empire Russian military personnel of the Crimean War Nobility from the Russian Empire Recipients of the Order of St. George of the Fourth Degree Amateur mathematicians