Chess Goddesses

Ludmilla Vladmirovna Rudenko

After Vera Menchik's death in 1944, the Women's Championship title lay vacant until the aftermath of World War II. During the winter of 1949-50, FIDE set up a world championship match in Moscow. Sixteen players from twelve countries attended, but it was the four entrants from the Soviet Union who took the first four places. The winner was Ludmilla Vladmirovna Rudenko (IM, WIM) (7/27/04-3/4/86). Mrs. Rudenko held the title until 1953, when she lost it to her countrywoman, Elizaveta Bykova.

Mrs. Rudenko had a career as an economic planner, but her avocation was chess. Her father taught her to play when she was ten, and she was active in tournaments from 1926 onward.

Today, with the demise of the Iron Curtain and Cold War, it is difficult to imagine under what conditions Mrs. Rudenko played. John Graham pointed out in Women in Chess, at page 12:

"[I]n the D. J. Richards book, Soviet Chess, [h]e shows that after the 1917 [Russian] Revolution emphasis was placed on the game by the authorities. In a report of the organizing committee of the third All-Union Congress for the Organization of Chess, the authorities suggest that chess be used "as a political weapon which must be used in order: (a) to give the working masses, tired after their daily labour, a rational leisure activity, and (b) to exploit the educational significance of chess in order with its help to give a new impetus to the growth of intellectual culture and to the training of the mind among the labouring masses."

"Under this influence, chess became an intellectual cause celebre in the Soviet Union. Success in the game was an important demonstration of the success of the Revolution, inside and outside the country. Chess masters became intellectual ambassadors, and it was nationally important that they be perceived as successful. Under this impetus, it was natural that schools were set up to train chess professionals who were given special considerations and every facility to ensure that they be successful in international events. This background was extended not only to men, but also to women. In the new society, women were far closer to being equal to men than they were in the societies of the West."

Again, quoting from Women in Chess, at page 22:

"Grandmaster Nikolai Krogius, on behalf of the Soviet chess federation, wouldn't allow questions to be asked of their women players regarding their creative strengths, whether they be imaginative or based on technique."

Mrs. Rudenko and the other Soviet women players may not have been "allowed" to answer questions from inquisitive reporters; but they nonetheless spoke to the entire world through the quality and strength of their games. Unfortunately, there is, a dearth of information on Mrs. Rudenko on the World Wide Web (and, in fact, on the prior generations of women chessplayers in general). However, the last half of a 1946 game played over radio with an English opponent can be found at

http://www.freespeech.org/chessdate/events/lruden.html ; Grandmaster Krogius would be proud! Move 13: Bxh6! Information on Ludmilla Vladmirovna Rudenko obtained from Women in Chess, Players of the Modern Age, John Graham, (McFarland & Company, Inc., 1987) and from Chessdate Events, http://www.freespeech.org/chessdate/events/lruden.html