Peter Petrovich Saburov

Peter Petrovich Saburov (Sabouroff) (14 January [O.S. 2 January] 1880, Saint Petersburg – 26 March 1932, Geneva) was a Russian chess master and organizer.

He was a son of Peter Alexandrovich Saburov, a diplomat and chess organizer. The November 1911 American Chess Bulletin wrote: "Peter Petrovich Saburov, President of the far-famed St Petersburg Chess Club was born in St Petersburg on 2 (14) January 1880. At the age of 20 he had completed his course at the Imperial Alexander Lyceum at the age of 20. Three years, 1901-04, were spent in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and the next two in the office of the chancellor of state. The title of Gentleman of the Chamber at the court of H.I.M., the Emperor of Russia, was bestowed upon him in 1905. A year later, he retired from the state service with the title of Collegiate Assessor. At this writing, Mr Saburov is studying musical composition at the Saint Petersburg Conservatory, which he entered in 1909." (...) Mr Saburov was a member of the committees of the second and third tournaments held at Ostend in 1906 and 1907, and of the fifth national held at Lodz in 1907.^[1]

At the beginning of the 20th century, he played in several tournaments in St Petersburg, as well as in the preliminary stage of Ostend 1906 and Nuremberg 1906 (the 15th DSB Congress, Hauptturnier C).^[2]

P.P. Saburov, together with Boris E. Maliutin, O. Sossnitzky, V. Tschudowski, S.A. Znosko-Borovsky and Eugene A. Znosko-Borovsky, organized an international tournament at St Petersburg 1909. He, along with his father P.A. Saburov, B.E. Maliutin and Y.O. Sossnitsky, was one of the organizers of the St Petersburg international tournament in April–May 1914 (Emanuel Lasker won, ahead of José Raúl Capablanca).^[3]

In July/August 1914, he participated in Mannheim (the 19th DSB Congress), which was interrupted by the outbreak of World War I.^[4] After the declaration of war against Russia, eleven "Russian" players (Alekhine, Bogoljubow, Bogatyrchuk, Flamberg, Koppelman, Maliutin, Rabinovich, Romanovsky, Saburov, Selezniev, Weinstein) from the Mannheim tournament were interned in Rastatt. In September, four of them (Alekhine, Bogatyrchuk, Saburov, and Koppelman) were freed and allowed, via Switzerland, to return home.^[5]

In 1918, P.P. Saburov, the President of the Russian Chess Association, was still in Russia, but because of Bolsheviks policy, he fled to Switzerland. Saburov composed a “Love Symphony” for orchestra, which was played for the first time on 6 May 1925 in the “Concert Classique” at Monte Carlo and proved a success. The Scherzo (third part) of the symphony is called “Simultaneous Games of Chess”.^[6]

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