alexmagnus: Googling in Russian language brought at least something.1) This "Benko" isnt' pronounced "Benko" (Russian Бенко) but Ben'ko, with a soft N (Бенько). Which, by the way, excludes any relationship with any of the more famous Benkos - those had all a name of Hungarian origin, which Benko with a soft N is clearly a name of Ukrainian origin.
2) The 18 of the 19 games are <all> of his games played at the <All-Russian Tournament of 1903>. As we can see, he scored 6.5/18, which netted him a 16th place of 19. The tournament was won by Chigorin.
3) Full name: Pavel (Pavlovich) Benko. Born in 1882. Took me some time and googling efforts to find it out :D
4) The man seems to have wandered a lot. The site on which I found the full name (mentioning <P.P. Benko from Kiev>, which is obviously our name given his participation in the Kiev championship), was about chess in... <Irkutsk>. After finding the full name, the first Google result brought me <here>, into a book of victims of communist terror: http://www.uznal.org/book_of_memory...
My translation:
<Benko, Pavel Palvolvich: born in 1882. Place of birth: Kazakh SSR <what kind of anachronizm is that? In 1882 Kazakhstan was part of the Russian Empire - alexmagnus>, Region Semirechensk, city Verny, today Almaty. Director of the division of the railway of Omsk. Residence: Omsk. Arrested: 19.03.1931. Pronounced guilty by the court assembly of the OGPU on 18.07.1931. Sentence: Highest Measure of Punishment <that is, death penalty - alexmagnus>, later changed into 10 years of imprisonment. Rehabilitated 17.02.2000 by the prosecutor of the Omsk region, based on the Law of the Russian Federation. Source: Book of Memory of the Omsk Region>.
5) then this site: http://omskgazeta.ru/ofitsialno/s_s...
The relevant piece:
<Their names tell little to the people of Omsk today, but Pavel Benko of Kiev played in the 3rd All-Russian tournament back in 1903. His placement was humble, in the second dozen, but it was won by Chigorin, fifth became one of the strongest chessplayers of the beginning of the century Rubinstein, and elevenths - the famous Emanuel Schiffers. Later the railway engineer Benko, after some wandering through Siberia, settles down for a short time - first in Omsk, later in Novonikolayervsk (modern Novosibirsk). In the next championship of Siberia he is second, then he moves to Tomsk. There Pavel Pavlovich Benko, in by far not the most frightening year 1931, is senteced to death by shooting, which later gets replaces by ten years of prison camp. We could not determing the date or place of his death>
.
The Siberian championship mentioned is the one from 1922, as seen from the paragraph preceding the one I translated.
6) Here another Irkutsk site, with a somewhat more detailed biography: http://irkutsk.bezformata.ru/listne...
New facts from there: Studied in the Kiev polytech university, interrpted by an army service in 1910-1911. finished the study in 1912, worked as engineer for the railway ministry. Lived in Chelyabinsk, Irkutsk region ("station Zima"), Tomsk. Was married, had a son (born 1905), nothing is known about the fate of either his wife or his son.
Apparently the reason for his arrest was him having been on the wrong side of the Russian Civil war - that is, having fought for the Whites.
Kibitzing
