Fedir Parfenovych Bohatyrchuk (also: Fyodor/Fedor Bogatirchuk/Bogatyrchuk/Bohatyrczuk; Ukrainian Федір Парфенович Богатирчук; Russian Фёдор Парфеньевич Богатырчук; English Fedor Bohatirchuk or Bogatyrchuk; * 14. jul. / November 26, 1892greg. in Kiev, Russian Empire; † September 4, 1984 in Ottawa, Canada) was a Ukrainian-Canadian chess player.

Bohatyrchuk was a radiologist and also distinguished himself as a political activist. However, he became known as a chess player.

Time in the USSR

Fedir Bohatyrchuk learned to play chess at the age of 15. In 1910 he won the Kiev City Championship for the first time, ahead of Efim Bogolyubov. In 1914 he took part in the main tournament A in Mannheim. When the tournament was canceled due to the outbreak of war, he was in 6th-10th place. All Russian participants were temporarily interned.

He took part in six USSR championships (1923, 1924, 1927, 1931, 1933, 1934); one of his greatest successes came in 1927 in Moscow at the 5th USSR Championship. There he took first place together with Pyotr Romanovsky, beating stars such as Mikhail Botvinnik and Fyodor Dus-Khotimirsky. He came 11th at the first international chess tournament in Moscow in 1925. In 1926, he published the first chess textbook in Ukrainian.

At the international tournament in Moscow in 1935, he won a famous game against Botvinnik. As the latter was massively supported by the state as a contender for the world championship title, Bohatyrchuk incurred the displeasure of high officials such as Nikolai Krylenko as a result of this victory. Krylenko threatened Bohatyrchuk: “You will never beat Botvinnik again!”

Second World War

During the Second World War, Bohatyrchuk worked for the Red Cross and also for the German occupying forces. As the Soviet troops advanced westwards, he fled first to Krakow and then to Germany, where he lived for some time and took part in chess tournaments under aliases such as Bogenko and Bogenhols. In 1944/45, he worked for the Russkaya Osvoboditelnaya Armiya (Russian Liberation Army). As a result, he was considered a non-person in the Soviet Union and his name was erased from the chess books.

Canada

He emigrated to Canada in 1948 and became a Canadian citizen in 1949. There he taught at the University of Ottawa. He took part in the Canadian championships in 1949, 1951 and 1955, coming second in 1949. In 1954, he played for Canada at the Chess Olympiad in Amsterdam.[3] In the same year, FIDE awarded him the title of International Master, but he did not receive the title of Grandmaster due to an intervention by the Soviet Chess Federation. He later turned to correspondence chess and also achieved the IM title there in 1967.

With his best historical Elo rating of 2629, he was ranked 15th in the retrospectively calculated world ranking list in October 1927.

Honors

1955: Barclay Medal of the British Radiological Society

1960: Honorary Member of the Canadian Radiological Society

Source: wikipedia.org