Nikolai Grigoriev

Nikalai (Nikolay) Dmitrievich Grigoriev (Russian: Никола́й Дми́триевич Григо́рьев) was a Russian chess player and a composer of endgame studies. He was born on 14 August 1895 in Moscow, and he died there in 1938.

His father, was a professional musician in the Bolshoi Theatre orchestra. At the relatively late age of eighteen, Grigoriev joined the Moscow chess club and played in the Moscow tournament of 1915. There, one of his opponents was the future world champion Alexander Alekhine against whom he lost but later maintained friendly relations.

In 1917, he was drafted into the Imperial Russian army in the First World War and was sent to the front. He was wounded and returned severely ill.

In early October 1937, Grigoriev returned from a trip to the Far East and Siberia, where he gave lectures and played. The NKVD militia on the train arrested him. Grigoriev was frail; he lost consciousness immediately after the use of force, and his throat began to constantly bleed. After an interrogation, the interrogators had to wash down the room. An unexpected illness then confined him to bed. Severe complications required immediate surgery. The patient was severely weakened and died of lung cancer.

Grigoriev was Moscow Champion four times: in 1921, 1922, 1923–24 and 1929. His playing career spanned from 1910 to 1929. He lost games to Alexander Alekhine (1915 and 1919) and Mikhail Botvinnik (1927); both would later become chess world champions.

In the First Soviet Chess Championship (Moscow 4–24 October 1920) Grigoriev took 5-7th place (8 wins, 6 losses, and only one draw), despite undertaking extensive and difficult organizational duties including finding scare food rations for the participants.

Before his departure from Russia in 1921, Alekhine played a match with Grigoriev of 7 games resulting in 2 wins and 5 draws in favour of Alekhine. Analyzing the match, Levenfish said: "In some of the games only exceptional ingenuity saved Alekhine from destruction."

...
Wikipedia