Published on: 2026-08-17
Source: Peter the Great St. Petersburg Polytechnic University –
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On August 17, 1911, in the village of Kuokkala, in a family of dentists, was born the sixth world chess champion in history and the first Soviet world champion, international grandmaster, six-time USSR champion, scientist, author of inventions patented in many countries, and Polytech graduate Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik.
Today, August 17, 2026, 115 years after his birth, we have a good reason to remember what kind of person our outstanding alumnus was.
At the age of 12, Mikhail Botvinnik learned to play chess, joined the Petrograd Chess Club, and began participating in tournaments.
At the age of 14, Mikhail defeated the reigning world champion José Raúl Capablanca. The great Cuban chess player held a simultaneous exhibition in Leningrad, and in one of the games acknowledged defeat against the young opponent.
At the age of 16, Botvinnik made his debut in the USSR championship as the youngest participant, finished in 5th–6th place, and was awarded the title of Master of Sport.
In September 1928, Mikhail enrolled at Leningrad State University, but already in January 1929, he transferred to the Electromechanical Faculty of the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute.
At the age of 20, Botvinnik became the USSR chess champion for the first time.
On August 13, 1932, Botvinnik graduated from the Leningrad Electromechanical Institute (from 1930 to 1934, the Polytechnic was divided into sectoral institutes) specializing in “High Voltage Engineering,” receiving the qualification of electrical engineer.
In March 1935, while a postgraduate student at the Leningrad Industrial Institute (as the Polytechnic was called at that time), Botvinnik was awarded a personalized watch as a gift from the management of the LII and the Scientists’ Club in Lesnoy for his victory in an international chess tournament in Moscow, and a passenger car from the People’s Commissar of Heavy Industry Sergo Ordzhonikidze.
In 1936, at the Nottingham chess tournament, 25-year-old Botvinnik tied for 1st–2nd place with Capablanca and also received the prize for the most beautiful game.
In June 1937, M. M. Botvinnik defended his Candidate’s thesis on “The influence of excitation voltage fluctuations on small oscillations of the rotor of a synchronous machine” under the supervision of Professor of Electrical Engineering A. A. Gorev, the holder of the first diploma from Politekh.
At the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, Mikhail Moiseevich submitted an application to the military commissariat, but he was not accepted into the army due to poor eyesight. Before the blockade began, he evacuated with the Leningrad Opera and Ballet Theatre, where his wife, ballerina Gayane Ananova, worked. Before leaving, Botvinnik donated a car and family gold jewelry to the defense fund.
In Perm (at the time — the city of Molotov) Botvinnik worked as an engineer at a defense factory and gave simultaneous chess exhibitions in hospitals. In 1943, M. M. Botvinnik was called to work in Moscow, at the People’s Commissariat of the Electrical Industry. Later, Botvinnik worked in the Technical Department of the Ministry of Power Plants and simultaneously at the Central Scientific Research Electrotechnical Laboratory.
From March 2 to May 18, 1948, Mikhail Botvinnik, among six of the strongest chess players, participated in the World Championship match-tournament and won it brilliantly, becoming the sixth in history and the first Soviet world champion.
From 1948 to 1951, Mikhail Moiseevich did not participate in chess tournaments, dedicating his time entirely to writing his doctoral dissertation. Continuing his research, he created a new scientific field — the theory of strong excitation regulation of synchronous machines. Under his guidance, a regulator prototype was developed, and experiments were conducted on models that confirmed his conclusions. The theory of strong excitation regulation of generators, published in 1950, became the subject of Botvinnik’s doctoral dissertation, which he defended in 1951.
In 1955, Botvinnik proposed the idea and developed the foundations of the theory of a new type of electric machines — with longitudinal-transverse excitation, which were called “asynchronized.”
Mikhail Botvinnik played his last match in 1970, after which he focused on scientific work.
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