Alexander Alekhine was one of the Sports and recreation good articles, but it has been removed from the list. There are suggestions below for improving the article to meet the good article criteria. Once these issues have been addressed, the article can be renominated. Editors may also seek a reassessment of the decision if they believe there was a mistake.
Article milestones Date Process Result August 22, 2007 WikiProject A-class review Not approved May 28, 2008 Good article nominee Listed April 17, 2025 Good article reassessment Delisted
Current status: Delisted good article

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According to the article, Alekhine wasn't an antisemite, wasn't really a nazi, was only one of many top players to play in Nazi organized tournaments, didn't make up games, didn't take credit for other players' ideas, was mostly a teetotaler, that it was Casablanca's fault that they didn't play a rematch, that he was loyal and protective of his (fourth!) wife, and that he was murdered by the Soviets.

Most of these views are false, the others are highly speculative, and some are so ridiculous as to shock the conscience.

This article is an example of why so many academics bar their students from using Wikipedia. Fielding99 (talk) 11:38, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Are there particular statements, or omissions, that you find problematic? Most of the statements on these topics are dutifully supported by citations of sources that are considered reliable. Bruce leverett (talk) 14:25, 22 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not sure if we're reading the same article. I think the article paints a fair picture. Yes Alekhine did say and write some vile anti-Semitic things, but he didn't necessarily hate Jewish people personally. It is also factually correct that many top players including Keres, Bogoljubow, Stoltz and Foltys played in Nazi-sponsored tournaments. The Soviet murder theory is presented as speculation, as is appropriate. The article doesn't gloss over Alekhine's generally unlikeable personality. MaxBrowne2 (talk) 05:01, 23 June 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Alekhine went to great lengths to indicate that the views shared in the articles that he "wrote" were completely contrary to what he truly believed. There are numerous accounts of his having close friendships with Jewish people. I honestly do not agree that these two articles that he allegedly wrote (and which he subsequently completely disavowed) are enough evidence to classify him as being antisemitic. On the contrary, there is a large amount of evidence that indicates he did not author the antisemitic sections of the articles that he wrote, but that they were edited by Nazis before publication. Alekhine made totally clear after the liberation of Paris that these articles had been edited without his knowledge, and it was clearly dangerous for him to suggest otherwise before Paris had been liberated.

Additionally, the articles contained numerous spelling mistakes of chess masters whom Alekhine knew intimately – the implication of which is that a German typesetter had misspelled the names. As detailed in the bottom of the section suggesting that Alekhine was antisemitic, there is a wealth of evidence to indicate that he was not antisemitic, including his collaboration with Jewish chess players during match preparation, his use of the Jewish player Salo Landau as his second in his match against Max Euwe, his very generous treatment of Arnold Denker, and various other associations with Jewish people on the chess scene.

In short, there simply isn't enough concrete evidence to support the claim that Alekhine was antisemitic, and there is an abundance of evidence to indicate that he was in fact on friendly terms with many Jewish people. The claims against him – beyond the two aforementioned articles – are purely speculative and/or based on hearsay, and I don't believe it is worthwhile or relevant to have a section on his page dedicated to such ill-founded and tenuous claims. I suggest the entire section is reworked and retitled along the lines of the controversy and confusion that ensued when – in Alekhine's own words – he was required by the German authorities to write a couple of articles about chess players, which were subsequently heavily edited by those German authorities. It's completely unfair to label him as an antisemite given the evidence mentioned, and his subsequent outright rejection of the claims that he allegedly made in those articles – that is not the behavior of a genuine antisemite. SeanG007 (talk) 00:24, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Our role as editors does not include rendering our own opinion on Alekhine's character, as you seem to be doing. Wikipedia should only cite reliable sources. If they disagree with one another on an important point, we should mention that. Bruce leverett (talk) 21:00, 20 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Sure, the point I'm making is that there is not enough concrete evidence to support a section on Alekhine's page regarding accusations of antisemitism - the section should give a more balanced and factual take on that episode. Rather than having the title "Accusations of antisemitism" it should be changed to something more accurate like "Controversy over Pariser Zeitung articles" - as that is what the whole issue is centered around. Some important things to note:

1. There are no primary sources given for the articles - showing them in full would be enormously useful.
2. More emphasis should be placed on the context in which the articles were produced - in a nazi-run newspaper in occupied France in 1941, where Alekhine said he faced coercion and had to write the articles to secure an exit visa from Nazi-controlled Paris.
3. Alekhine's own denials: After the war, he disavowed the articles multiple times, claiming that any "racial" framing was inserted by the Germans, and that his original writings were merely technical chess content.
4. Conflicting testimonies: notably, Jacques Le Monnier claims to have seen Alekhine’s notebooks in 1958 containing the antisemitic text in his handwriting. But Le Monnier later wrote (in his 1973 book 75 parties d'Alekhine) that it was impossible to know whether Alekhine had authored the pieces or if the Nazi editors manipulated the content. The implication is of course that handwritten copies of the articles in Alekhine's handwriting do not prove anything about his beliefs. They could, for example, simply be copies that he made for his own records.
5. There is no documented evidence of personal antisemitic behavior on the part of Alekhine. On the contrary, there are numerous accounts of his having positive interactions with many Jewish people - for example, his use of the Jewish player Salo Landau as his second in his match against Max Euwe, his very generous treatment of Arnold Denker, and the possibility that his fourth wife had some Jewish ancestry.

SeanG007 (talk) 10:47, 22 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Would be nice to have because of how commonly mispronounced it is. Kaotao (talk) 14:32, 28 December 2024 (UTC)[reply]

I made a mistake when editing and there is now a reference error listed on the page - and I don't know how to fix it. Sorry. SeanG007 (talk) 09:45, 19 July 2025 (UTC)[reply]