Schlechter, Maroczy, Vidmar, Teichmann, and Duras declined their invitation to Petersburg, 1914.

<

...

He got to know chess himself while he was still a pupil at the Gatchina Orphanage. He was taught by his schoolteacher, while his first serious teacher was the well-known chess player Schiffers.

Chigorin never worked and only contributed to a few newspapers and journals. When he was offered a job in one of the St. Petersburg banks he turned it down due to being overloaded with chess work. He personally considered it unacceptable to receive a salary for only being formally employed, although the Chigorins’ material situation wasn’t particularly brilliant. It was rumoured that my father made a fortune from tournaments, but that was a fairy tale.

...

His talent was at its peak in the years 1891-95. Being a very nervous man, my father could never stand any smells and particularly the smell of cigars, while such serious opponents as Lasker, Steinitz and others wouldn’t let a cigar leave their mouths while they were playing. They enveloped my father in cigar smoke, which he couldn’t stand. He became stressed and made blunders. Someone wrote: there was the impression that Chigorin was almost too lazy to “seize the crown”. He wasn’t lazy, but given his nervousness the cigar smoke simply prevented him from concentrating in the manner required to work out combinations.

...

Painfully sensitive, he had a “fever” for chess, while in the rest of his life he sought silence.

...

Chigorin’s internal makeup was of a man with a good heart and crystalline honesty, but with a difficult character. The defining feature of his nature was his anecdotal absent-mindedness: talking to someone he would often unexpectedly list some chess moves, which would confuse his interlocutor. He frequently looked for a missing piece which he turned out to be gripping in his own hand.

From my earliest years I was told to look after him: had he forgotten to put on his tie, did he take someone else’s hat, and during a downpour did he take a walking stick instead of an umbrella? He often tried to put on two starched shirts at the same time, and not being able to fasten both collars he was all blood and thunder towards the washerwomen. Putting on two waistcoats was a common occurrence for him. Leaving the house with an umbrella he would rarely return with it, having lost it somewhere along the way, though soon afterwards he would bring five of them and put them all down carefully in the correct corner.

...>

My impression is that it's believable (look at the details). But a level of skepticism is both healthy, and necessary, in such matters.

If you care to contribute any research...

* * * * *

Here's a little snippet about Chigorin's editorial days:

<Instead of the Shakmatny Listok, which appeared at St. Petersburg for six years under the editorship of Mr. Tschigorin, and died at the end of last year of inanition—a malady, unfortunately, not foreign with Chess periodicals—a new Russian Chess paper—Shakmatny Journal—is started at Moscow by Herr Hellwig. The contents of the first number, July, promise well—Editorial introduction, budget of Chess news from Russia and abroad, six games, two of them being the tie games Steinitz-Winawer, the other four home-made, and eight Problems by Russian composers. Two pages and a half out of the sixteen are devoted to Russian draughts.>

C-M v4 (Oct(?) 1882) p41

<inanition>

1) lack of mental or spiritual vigor and enthusiasm.

>

* * * * *

A nice version of a Chigorin blindfold simul:

https://zanchess.wordpress.com/2018...

<Chigorin quickest defeat?>

[Event "27-board simultaneous display"]
[Date "1901.09.24"]
[White "Bostandjoglo, M N."]
[Black "Chigorin, Mikhail Ivanovich"]
[Result "1-0"]
[ECO "C65"]
[PlyCount "25"]

1. e4 e5 2. Nf3 Nc6 3. Bb5 Nf6 4. O-O Be7 5. Nc3 d6 6. d4 Nd7 7. dxe5 dxe5 8. Qd5 O-O 9. Bxc6 bxc6 10. Qxc6 Nb6 11. Nd5 Bd6 12. Nxb6 cxb6 13. Qxa8 1-0 resigns.

Source: Wiener Schach-Zeitung 1902, p. 16.