" Friedrich Ludwig Balthasar Amelung (Russia/Estonia, 23.03.1842 - 22.03.1909)

Chess composer

Known historian of chess and chess composer born near Dorpat, who was director of a great mirror factory founded by his grandfather
Amelung, wrote the monumental work of more than a thousand pages on local chess "Baltische Schachblatter" (1879-1901),
and among others, one of his specialty, as a composer • Schachstudien "published in Reval in 1880.
Amelung created studies with large proportion of miniatures with clear solutions.
At the age of twenty, in Berlin he had occasion to measure himself with Neumann, Anderssen
and Mayer achieving a decent equivalent result, which gives an idea of their chess.

Friedrich Ludwig Balthasar Amelung (23 March [O.S. 11 March] 1842 – 20 March [O.S. 7 March] 1909) was a Baltic German cultural historian, businessman and chess endgame composer.

Amelung was born at Võisiku (German: Woiseck) manor in Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire (present-day Jõgeva County in Estonia). 1862–1864 he studied philosophy and chemistry at the University of Dorpat. From 1864 to 1879 and from 1885 to 1902 he was the director of the Rõika-Meleski mirror factory, which he inherited from his father. Amelung published writings about the culture and history of Estonian localities such as Viljandi, Tallinn, and Põltsamaa.

Amelung was known as a chess player and a famous chess quiz author. From 1879 to 1885 he lived in Reval (now Tallinn) and studied the chess history of the Baltics. Between 1888 and 1908 he edited the chess magazine Baltic Chess Sheets. In 1898 he established the Baltic Chess Society. Amelung published about 230 endgame studies, making him the first chess historian in the Baltic States.

He played a few games with Adolf Anderssen, Gustav Neumann, Carl Mayet, Emil Schallopp, Andreas Acharin, and Emanuel Schiffers.

He died in 1909 in Riga and is buried at the Kolga-Jaani cemetery in Estonia."  wikipedia.org

Source: arves.org

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