Talk:Interregnum of World Chess Champions

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Please, do keep the article because it deals with a very important period in the history of the chess crown. I bet other authors will add to it, otherwise I'll do in days. Thanx in advance.

I will remove the template for now, but please try to expand it, at least a little bit, within the next few days. Right now it is completely incomprehensible to people who don't know anything about World Chess Championships. Natalie 20:49, 30 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Seems to be done

Now can we esteem the article as a real one? I'll just categorise it... Zabaznov 09:24, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

It is a reasonable important article, but it does need references. Voorlandt 22:22, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Merger proposal

Since this page is almost entirely about the negotiations for the World Chess Championship 1948, I propose that it be merged into World Chess Championship 1948. There should be no practical problems with this, because both pages are comparatively short. Peter Ballard (talk) 02:30, 4 January 2008 (UTC)

  • This page title isn't a likely search term and the gap it covers was barely over a year, so a merge seems appropriate to me. Quale (talk) 02:38, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
No, at present. The articles about champions have a "predecessor-successor" box at the bottom; Alekhine's "successor" and Botvinnik's "predecessor" are "Interregnum", with links to this article.
The content of the "Interregnum" article would also logically fit into the World Chess Championship and FIDE. Linking World Chess Championship or FIDE as Alekhine's "successor" and Botvinnik's "predecessor" would puzzle some readers as the interregnum would just a one chapter in along history.
FIDE's history needs to be expanded anyway, as there's a lot more to be said about: the events of 1937-1939, when FIDE struggled (not very successfully) to find a way of selecting a challenger for Alekhine; the Fisher affair(s); other challenges presented by Soviet bullying (I've summarised some in Max Euwe); the facts behind Kasparov's and Short's breakaway in 1993; the internal struggles precipitated by that breakaway; and the current situation, where many players and commentators are concerned that FIDE has become the personal property of Kirsan Ilyumzhinov and dangerously dependent on him for financial support.
I've also expanded the "Interregnum" article, to show more of the confusion that existed at the time, and that makes it less easy for another article to swallow (not my original intention, I just found a lot of information I thought was relevant and useful; in fact at first I agreed with Peter Ballard's proposed merge, until I saw the predecessor-successor links from Alexander Alekhine and Mikhail Botvinnik).
So I suggest "Interregnum" should stay as is, with 1-paragraph summaries in the other articles, like the one I've stitched into World Chess Championship 1948.
Re Quale's "This page title isn't a likely search term", that's hard to dispute; but the "Interregnum" article should be made reachable by linking to it from all relevant articles (World Chess Championship, FIDE, Alexander Alekhine and Mikhail Botvinnik at absolute minimum; possibly also the other participants in the World Chess Championship 1948 tournament plus Reuben Fine who was invited and Salo Flohr whose name was in the frame for quite a while). Philcha (talk) 10:42, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I disagree. "The Interregnum" is not a widely used term (in fact I never heard of it before today), and to put the Interregnum in the succession box is, I feel, bordering on WP:Original Research. Also, my original point still stands, that nearly the entire article is about the negotiations for the World Chess Championship 1948 and so belongs there; just like preambles and negotiations for other World Championship matches belong in their respective articles. Peter Ballard (talk) 11:37, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
I don't think putting "Interregnum" in the succession box borders on WP:Original Research: it's a well-attested fact that there was a gap; the term "interregnum" was used by Edward G. Winter in 2003-2004 at Interregnum, and googling for "interregnum chess" gets plenty of other hits. And I wouldn't want to interrupt the chain of links in the succession boxes. Philcha (talk) 12:28, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Well, I don't think this decision is critical either way, but I'd have to say that Botvinnik did succeed Alekhine as WC, "Interregnum" didn't. I don't think it's completely wrong to put Interregnum in the succession boxes, but really Interregnum was never the world chess champion. And Peter is right—nearly everything in the article is about negotiations and preparations for what ultimately became the 1948 WC tournament and properly belongs there. Prologue for a WC doesn't get it's own article. It shouldn't be duplicated, and the World Chess Championship 1948 article shouldn't refer to this one for that information. I agree that facilitating linking is a good reason for a separate article, but only 3 content pages link here currently, one of them being the proposed merge target World Chess Championship 1948. Every article I can think of that should refer to this article can just as easily and sensibly point to World Chess Championship 1948: World Chess Championship, FIDE, Alexander Alekhine, and Mikhail Botvinnik. I don't follow the argument about the need to link other participants in the 1948 WC. They should refer to this article, but clearly they must refer to the 1948 WC article, so why both? (Reuben Fine and Miguel Najdorf as non-participants can also easily and very reasonably link to World Chess Championship 1948.) Aside from the linking concern just addressed, the only good reason I see for a separate article would be if the merge target were too large. I don't think that's a problem here. "Interregnum" would make a fine section title in World Chess Championship 1948, and I think a merge would improve both articles. I think an analogy to a book on chess world championships might be helpful. If each WC match were a chapter in that book, would Interregnum get its own chapter, or would it be the beginning of the 1948 chapter? I think it would be the beginning of the 1948 chapter. Quale (talk) 17:00, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
"If each WC match were a chapter in that book [on chess world championships], would Interregnum get its own chapter, or would it be the beginning of the 1948 chapter?" is a very useful question. But I still think there are 2 possible answers. For example if the chapter "World Chess Championship 1948" said a lot about the games or e.g. the Botvinnik-Keres controversy, one might make "Interregnum" a separate chapter.
Another question: would you want the details I've added to the "Interregnum" article to constitute the first 50% approx of World Chess Championship 1948, and for any remarks in other articles to link to it there?
Re "Botvinnik did succeed Alekhine as WC, “Interregnum” didn't", it would be better for the succession boxes to say e.g. "(title vacant)" or "(no champion for 2 years)" and link to the article that explains how this arose and how it was resolved. Philcha (talk) 17:39, 4 January 2008 (UTC)
Answering a few random points: Would I want 50% of the 1948 article to be about the negotiations? Yes! It is the most interesting part. Should a chess history book include the "interregnum" in discussing the 1948 tournament? I think yes, and have one example in support: "From Morphy to Fischer" by Israel Horowitz has one chapter on the 1948 tournament, including negotiations. It begins with a bit about the wartime developments (deaths of Lasker and Capablanca, development of Soviet chess) and negotiations for a post-war Alekhine-Botvinnik match, Alekhine's death, and negotiations for the 1948 tournament (5 pages in all) then 13 pages on the tournament itself.
Should the succession box have "title vacant, then Botvinnik" after Alekhine? Yes, for precedent, see the handling of the Womens' championship between Susan Polgar and Xie Jun.
Googling for "Interregnum chess Alekhine", without the quotes, only give 99 hits, which isn't a lot. I saw the (excellent) Winter article, but just because Winter uses the term "Interregnum" (as does long time internet chess historian Mark Weeks at http://chessforallages.blogspot.com/2007/12/interregnum-according-to-fine.html ) doesn't mean it is a widespread or universal term. I still don't think it's widespread enough to merit its own article or place in a succession box. Peter Ballard (talk) 00:09, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I'm glad that you found the book chapter question helpful, and I fully agree that both answers are possible and reasonable (separate chapter for interregnum or combined with 1948 tournament). When I posed it I did have in mind that combining with the 1948 tournament is probably a better fit for our needs, both for readers (to put the information where they will expect to find it) and for editors (to reduce duplication of material). To echo what Peter said about how we allocate space in an article, take a look at World Chess Championship 1963. There are exactly two sentences in that article that talk about the Petrosian v. Botvinnik match. This is an extreme case since our coverage of the championship match is deficient—we really need to put in a little more detail about the match itself. Still, the most interesting parts of that cycle comprise the bulk of the article. We do have enough material to make the interregnum a short to medium-short stand-alone article as we have now, but I think it really belongs together with our description of the 1948 WC tournament. You have brought up the question of linking. I can't think of any case where we would want to link to interregnum where we wouldn't also want to link to the 1948 WC tournament itself. Do you have any specific examples in mind? Quale (talk) 01:54, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the articles that most need to refer to the Interregnum in some way are: Alekhine and Botvinnik, especially the succession links at the bottom of each; 1948 Championship Tournament; FIDE, where there's scope to add a lot of material on other issues (the late 1930s muddle; Soviet bullying after WW II; Fischer; Kasparov and Short break-away and the alternative chess "governing bodies"; its current precarious position as the fief of Ilyumzhinov).
I think the FIDE article with these expansions will become quite long (it doesn't mention that FIDE existed in the 1930s!), and adding a detailed account of the Interregnum would make it even longer.
A fair % of World Chess Championship 1948 is a summary of the Interregnum. I don't think there is much risk that the rest of the article will expand much; for example giving more detail about the Botvinnik-Keres controversy while complying with WP:NPOV would make that part over twice as long as the whole of World Chess Championship 1948 is at present (see the cited articles by Taylor Kingston). So in terms of space Interregnum in its present form would fit comfortably into World Chess Championship 1948. In that case summary of the Interregnum which is currently in World Chess Championship 1948 should be moved to FIDE.
That would leave the question of the succession links in the Alekhine and Botvinnik articles. If Interregnum is merged with World Chess Championship 1948, I suggest the succession links should say "(no champion 1946-1948: see World Chess Championship 1948)". Philcha (talk) 14:04, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
Right—the interregnum needs mention in several places, but I think each of those places could just as well link to World Chess Championship 1948. As far as the Interregnum swamping the discussion of the 1948 tournament, as Peter said, I don't think that would be a problem if it happened. Also there are sources on the tournament we haven't tapped for the article yet. Yanofsky, Horowitz, and Kmoch wrote a round-by-round account of the 1948 tournament in the April through August issues of Chess Review, reprinted in Pandolfini's The Best of Chess Life and Review, Volume 1, pp. 368–403. I should be able to use that to bolster the tournament coverage which currently is only four sentences plus the crosstable. (As Peter also noted, we haven't fully utilized Horowitz yet either. The World Chess Championship: A History has a 27 page chapter devoted to the 1948 tournament, with about 15 pages discussing the play. We haven't used any material from those 15 pages yet.) I don't think there's any danger that the FIDE article will become too long—it's less than 9000 bytes now and has had "please expand" on it for quite a while. It does need expansion, but if your planned additions (which would be excellent, by the way) make it too long, I'll help trim it. The list of FIDE Federations can be split into a separate list and most of the See also section could go away. Until it gets about four times larger than it is now there are no worries (WP:SIZE). As you point out, detailed discussion of the Interregnum and the 1948 championship tournament can stay in a separate article. We should be able to find a way to break other large controversies out of the FIDE article summary style as well. We have a World Chess Championship 1993 article, but it needs work. You may be able to improve it. For the succession links I think Peter's suggestion of "vacant, then Mikhail Botvinnik" makes sense. The succession boxes in the bios cover champions, not matches. We don't mention the 1886 Zukertort match that made Steinitz the first champion, so mention of a 1948 tournament in a bio succession box would seem out of place to me. Anything tricky in a succession box should be explained in the text. That's caused a lot of trouble at Garry Kasparov where it's much harder to explain what happened (at least to a general reader not familiar with chess politics of the last couple of decades). Of course a really well done 1993 WC article might remedy that....Quale (talk) 18:14, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I think the succession boxes should make it clear that for about 2 years nobody held the title of champion. Making the succession boxes link directly between Alekhine and Botvinnik would hide this gap and therefore would be misleading. That's why I prefer that the succession links should say "(no champion 1946-1948: see [whatever describes the Interregnum])". That implies that whichever article describes the Interregnum in detail should have a succession box in which the predecessor is Alekhine and the successor is Botvinnik, in order to keep the succession links running continuously.
You are now suggesting that quite a lot of material could usefully be added to World Chess Championship 1948. I think it would be sensible to see how much larger that makes World Chess Championship 1948 before deciding whether to merge Interregnum into it. I don't have the sources you mentioned (Yanofsky, Horowitz, and Kmoch in Chess Review, reprinted in Pandolfini's The Best of Chess Life and Review, Volume 1) but I've managed to get the refs I needed for my chess-related edits by searching the Web. I'd be happy to work with you on developing World Chess Championship 1948 so that we can then resolve the fate of Interregnum as quickly as possible. At that point I would not be categorically opposed to merging Interregnum into World Chess Championship 1948 provided the result is not too large and the succesion links make it clear that there was a gap and point the reader to how that problem was resolved.
In the meantime I'll look at how FIDE could cover the additional topics we've discussed (late-1930s muddle ... over-dependence on Ilyumzhinov). Philcha (talk) 19:08, 5 January 2008 (UTC)
I've completed the 1st draft of the relevant parts of FIDE (up to end of 1948 World Chess Championship tournament). Please review and post comments at Talk:Fédération Internationale des Échecs. Once we've got FIDE and World Chess Championship 1948 beefed up we'll be in a good position to resolve the fate of Interregnum. Philcha (talk) 14:03, 6 January 2008 (UTC)
Oppose merge On 15 Mar 2008 Quale suggested at Talk:Alexander Alekhine that Template:s-vac should be used for the end of Alekhine's reign. I like that suggestion a lot, as it would make it plain there was no champion and still provide an opportunity to link both to the next champion and to what happened before the accession of the next champion. The example (monarchs of England) given at Template:s-vac shows "Vacant" and a links to both English Civil War and Charles II of England.
The next question would be whether "what happened in between" should be The Interregnum or World Chess Championship 1948. I think "Interregnum of World Chess Champions" or "two years with no champion" or whatever would be the more logical text to put in the template: there was a gap until the result of World Chess Championship 1948 was officially announced, and World Chess Championship 1948 did not fill all of the 2-year gap.
Whatever article the template links to should have a title that is recognisably similar to what's in the template. I'm happy with "Interregnum ..." because that term is used by the 2 chess historians (winter and Weeks) we seem to use most for this period. I'd be equally happy with "Gap in World Chess Championship 1946-1948" because that's the plain English for it, and would perhaps translate more easily into other languages.
Looking at it the other way, if a reader is looking for "World Chess Championship 1948" he / she won't want to see "Interregnum of World Chess Champions" or "two years with no champion" or whatever. So I'd also oppose a reverse merge of "World Chess Championship 1948" into "Interregnum of World Chess Champions" or whatever its' eventually called. Philcha (talk) 18:18, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I'm removing the "merge proposed tag", as there's been no discussion of the proposal for 6 weeks. Philcha (talk) 11:41, 29 May 2008 (UTC)