Paul Keres and the Methodology of History

My activities concerning the biography of the Estonian chess player Paul Keres have been the following.

In the years 2014–2015, I wrote in Estonian Wikipedia a comprehensive survey of Keres’s war years and the Hague-Moscow 1948 tournament:

“1948. aasta male maailmameistrivõistlused”¹
Vikipeedia

Then, based on my studies, I wrote a more concise paper that I offered as a scientific paper to the Estonian journal Akadeemia.

I published an even shorter and a popular science article in the newspaper devoted to Estonian chess life:

Eintalu, J. (2019)
“Paul Keres propagandavankri ees”²
Eesti maleelu, March 10 (1/19), p 10.

Years after writing my scientific paper, I discovered that the Estonian journal Akadeemia had neither published nor informed me that they would not publish it.

Initially, I made the wrong accusation that Jaan Kangilaski had not forwarded my paper to the editorial.

Finally, however, it turned out that the editorial had decided not to publish my paper, but they “forgot” to inform me about it. The editorial announced that they “could not” publish it but did not explain in what sense and why they could not.

Among other things, my paper claimed that in the collection of essays Paul Keres: Mälestusi, materjale, kirju (2015)³, the most crucial essay of critical American author Taylor Kingston was dropped out, while from his other paper, the essential sections had been dropped out without informing the reader.⁴

Thus, in the context of discussing the history, that collection was a forgery.

Then, I published my essay, which was not published in Akadeemia, on the internet, including the platform Academia:

Eintalu, J. (2021)
“Mida me ei tea Paul Keresest 1938–1948”⁵
Academia

I have not dealt with this topic anymore.

KARJAKIN, CARLSEN AND VOLTAIRE

The international chess federation FIDE banned outstanding grandmaster Karjakin from participating in FIDE tournaments for 6 months because Karjakin publicly justified the Russian invasion of Ukraine. 

The world champion Carlsen has taken a stance concerning Karjakin's attitude and also FIDE's ban. Among other things, Carlsen said: 

"Obviously, I don't agree with Karjakin in anything, but is it correct to ban people for opinions we don't tolerate?"

Tarjei Svensen, 

Carlsen on Karjakin: “These types of attitudes can't be accepted”, 

Chess24, 5 April 2022

As a philosopher, I strongly support Carlsen's attitude.

Voltaire was one of those philosophers who defended freedom of speech. Often, the following sentence is attributed to Voltaire:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

This quotation is in good accordance with Voltaire's views. Unfortunately, it was not Voltaire who said so. It was someone else. — It was Evelyn Beatrice Hall in the 1906 book The Friends of Voltaire by S. G. Tallentyre which was the pseudonym of historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall. See, for example: 

Quoteinvestigator, "Voltaire". 

Thus, some of Carlsen's attitudes are similar to Voltaire's attitudes. 

CARLSEN KARJAKINI MÄNGUKEELUST

Carlseni arvates pole Karjakinil Ukraina sõja küsimuses õigus, ent sellest hoolimata polnud õige ka FIDE otsus keelata Karjakinil võistlustel osalemine sel põhjusel, et Karjakin väljendas oma vaateid Ukraina sõja kohta. 

Tarjei Svensen 

Carlsen on Karjakin: “These types of attitudes can't be accepted” 

Chess24, 5 April 2022 

Filosoofina ma tugevalt toetan Carlseni hoiakut. 

Carlseni hoiak on sarnane filosoof Voltaire'i hoiakule. Sõnavabadus tuleb jätta ka neile, kelle arvamus meile ei meeldi.

KARJAKIN's APPEAL DISMISSED

"Sergey Karjakin's Appeal Dismissed", FIDE, 06 May 2022 

Thus, Karjakin still cannot play in the candidates' tournament because he publicly approved the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Karjakin, in turn, writes (in Russian on his Telegram channel "Карякин. Zа спорт!") as a response that he is proud that his grandfather was a great soldier, and he complains that there are Nazis in Ukraine.

Karjakin criticises Kasparov.

Kasparov demands that Russian chess players who want to play in international tournaments should publicly disapprove Russian invasion of Ukraine.

https://t.me/karjakinchess/351

https://t.me/karjakinchess/361

ACCOUNT CHESS/Male SUSPENDS ITS ACTIVITIES

On March 03, 2022, I decided to stop writing posts to my chess blog CHESS/Male on Facebook. 

Not only has Facebook turned out to be technically highly uncomfortable to sustain a chess blog. 

Facebook as such has the severest censorship among the social media platforms. It also spies on the users and sells their data. 

Facebook's censorship, however, is not neutral, and it does not consistently and universally apply some fixed rules. 

Quite to the contrary. Facebook's censorship is selective; it is biased and ideologically/politically motivated. It is not a platform for moderated free speech — indeed, it is a political weaponization of the internet. 

Innocent poetry is censored. References to the articles of outstanding epidemiologists, published in the best medical journals, are censored. Nevertheless, hate speech has always been allowed on Facebook, if it serves particular political interests. 

Surprisingly, soon after I made that decision, it became public that Facebook's official policy is to allow hate speech if politically suitable. 

To my mind, it is not up to some social media platform or company (Facebook or META) to decide who is right and who is wrong concerning the biolabs, pandemic, and mandatory vaccinations. It is not their business to judge who is committing the war crimes and who is not, whose information is accurate and whose statement is false. 

As a supporter of liberalism, freedom of thought, speech, and journalism, I cannot maintain my chess blog on the platform that mocks people's rights. At best, I can defend freedom of speech on Facebook's platform but not develop a chess blog like an advertisement to that's platform's dubious policies. 

Unfortunately, recently it has become clear that Google also maintains strong and politically biased censorship. Concerning the current unfortunate war in Ukraine, such policy may lead to hiding the war crimes of one side of the conflict while exaggerating the war crimes of the other side. 

Therefore, I am forced to abandon my chess blog on Google Blogger too. 

BIG TECH is weaponizing its platforms for political purposes. Therefore, presenting one's chess on such media amounts to the political weaponizing of chess.