< Konstantin Mikhailovich Raush (Russian Konstantin Mikhailovich Raush * 1888, Free - † 1976) - Russian and Soviet chess player, theater director and actor. Honored Artist of the Kazakh SSR (1940). Vice-champion of Kazakhstan in chess 1948.
Biography
He was born in a family from the Baltic barons von Traubenberg. Subsequently, the family moved to Grodno (present-day Belarus). He graduated from the real school and entered the law faculty of St. Petersburg University. He started attending the Chess Assembly (then the name of the chess club) in St. Petersburg, took part in the chess life of the city, took 2nd place in the university championship, won the match against Prince Dmitry Urusov. Also interested in art, took skill lessons from actor Vladimir Davydov participated in student protests, for participation in which he was expelled from the university. Among the familiar chess players were the future world chess champion Alexander Alekhin and composer Sergei Prokofiev. In 1910-1911 he spent 2 friendly matches - defeated Sergei Freiman and lost to Grigory Levenfish. In 1912, he took 3rd place at the All-Russian Amateur Tournament in Vilnius, where the strongest amateur chess players of the Russian Empire performed, giving way to Karel Hromadka and Efim Bogolyubov, the first two known places in the future.
In 1914 he was mobilized, passed an accelerated course at the Pavlov Military School, from where he was sent to the Moscow Guards Regiment. Participated in the First World War, fought in Polesie. After the October coup, he served in the Red Army, demobilized in 1922. Since the 1920s he worked in the theatrical sphere, in 1922 he was sent to Slavyansk in the Donbass, where, together with his wife Zinaida Goreva, he directed the local wandering theater. In 1928 he returned to Leningrad, where he worked in the theater and played in chess competitions. In 1937, he shared with Grigory Ravinsky 1-2 places in the All-Union championship of DSO "Art".
Since 1937 he was head of the Karaganda Regional Russian Drama Theater. After the arrival of the specialist, the repertoire of the theater expanded considerably, the works of B. Shaw, J. B. Moliere, L. Tolstoy, P. Beaumarchais, and "Othello" and "Hamlet a" were added for the first time in Kazakhstan. In 1940 he received the title of People's Artist of the Kazakh SSR, his wife Zinaida Goreva, who helped lead the theater, received the same title. Vice-champion of the Kazakh SSR 1948, multiple winner of the Karaganda Championships. The author of the idea, which denied the option of grandmaster Paul Keres in the royal gambit. Despite his venerable age until the last years of his life, he played in chess tournaments.
Literature
Pak V. Shakhmaty in the Mining Territory: The history of chess in the Donbass. - Donetsk: Donbass, 2001. - P. 37-46 >
Kibitzing
