In 1851, Kieseritzky travelled to London for the first major international chess tournament, held during the Great Exhibition. He went there as the leading French player of the time. The event was not a great success for him, but his name would remain forever in the annals of chess thanks to the so-called “Immortal Game” played against Anderssen on the sidelines of the tournament.
Kieseritzky arrived in Folkestone on 24 May 1851.
His nationality is recorded as Russian, but he was in possession of a passport issued by the French government.
The London tournament took place from 27 May 1851 to 15 June 1851.
On 1 August 1851, Kieseritzky returned to London, arriving from Boulogne.
It is amusing to note that his occupation is listed as gentleman.
The journal La Régence, of which he was the editor, ceased publication in December 1851.
I then find his name again in an English newspaper, the Western Courier and West of England Conservative, dated 26 May 1852. Still energetic, Kieseritzky was attempting to organise a correspondence match between London and Paris, nearly twenty years after the famous encounter of 1834–1836 initiated by La Bourdonnais.
British Newspaper Archive.
Western Courier West of England Conservative
newspaper of 26 May 1852
Western Courier West of England Conservative
newspaper of 26 May 1852
transcription of the article
THE CONTEST BETWEEN FRANCE AND ENGLAND
BY CORRESPONDENCE, AND THROUGH THE
MEDIUM OF THE ELECTRIC TELEGRAPH.
In a short time, a contest in Chess will take place between the Club of Paris and the St. George’s Club, of London, the match to consist of two games by the Electric Telegraph, and two games by correspondence in the usual way.
Mr. Staunton has addressed himself to Mr. Kieseritzky, and proposed that himself, Mr. Wyvill, and Captain Kennedy shall conduct the match on the part of the St. George’s Club, and wishes Mr. K. to arrange with Mr. Laroche and the other French amateurs; the prize of the contest to be fifty guineas, the surplus remaining of the subscription for the Grand Tournament.
Deprived of the co-operation of Mr. Laroche, through his private affairs at Bayonne, and believing the contest would prove highly interesting, Mr. Kieseritzky proposed it to the Cercle of La Régence, which has accepted the proposal, and named a Committee of the following gentlemen:—Messrs. Devink (President), Crampell (Secretary), Chamouillet, Delannoy, Garcia, Journaux, Kieseritzky and Séguin, to settle the conditions of the match.
The Cercle, having arranged with the Electric Telegraph Company, proposes to the English players that two games shall be played through that medium, so that each party may have the first move, and at the same time offers an additional prize of 1,250 francs to the winners.
I doubt that it actually took place.
Did Kieseritzky experience health problems around June 1852?
This is quite possible.
A letter dated a few months later, from the collector Camille Théodore Frédéric Alliey to Tassilo von Heydebrand und der Lasa, indicates that…
During my short recent stay in Paris, Mr. Kieseritzky was always so ill that I was unable to have the passages from the Schachzeitung translated for me which, as you quite rightly say, would be indispensable for my bibliography.
And it is here that we enter the final months of Lionel Kieseritzky’s life.
The archives of the AP-HP (Assistance Publique – Hôpitaux de Paris) make it possible, with a little patience (and the consultation of dozens of pages), to uncover essential information.
I eventually came across a register mentioning Lionel Kieseritzky at the Hôpital de la Charité in Paris, a hospital that no longer exists today.
The page on which the record of Lionel Kieseritzky’s stay at the Hôpital de la Charité appears.
Population registers.
A hospital for the indigent, the marginalized, foreigners, and others.
Population registers.
A hospital for the indigent, the marginalized, foreigners, and others.
Kieseritzky is listed as a mathematics teacher, with an address on rue Dauphine in the 10th arrondissement of Paris (according to the former numbering of the Paris arrondissements). Moreover, the number 18 is incorrect: Kieseritzky lived at number 24, rue Dauphine.
His place of birth is then given as Dorbath (Dorpat) in Lyvonia (sic), today the city of Tartu in Estonia.
His place of birth is then given as Dorbath (Dorpat) in Lyvonia (sic), today the city of Tartu in Estonia.
The mention “Garçon” indicates that he was unmarried.
We then learn that he was suffering from hemiplegia (paralysis of one side of the body) and that he occupied bed no. 14 in the (Saint) Michel ward.
One must imagine a large ward with around forty beds and very little privacy.
Continuing to the right in this grim record, one can read “softening of the brain” and the date of death, 19 May (1853), after 45 days spent at the Hôpital de la Charité, which places his admission on 4 April 1853.
The fact that he remained there for 45 days means that:
– he was bedridden (hemiplegia),
– he had no one to care for him at home,
– he became a chronic case and then a terminal one.
Hemiplegia, together with the contemporary medical term “softening of the brain,” clearly indicates the pathology from which Lionel Kieseritzky suffered: most probably an ischaemic stroke.
A grim detail: in most cases, if the patient was not claimed, an autopsy was carried out.
This was very probably the case for Lionel Kieseritzky.
The Archives of Paris make it possible to locate the reconstructed death certificate.
It is difficult to find information about his death in French newspapers of the period.
So far, I have not found any mention of his death on Retronews.
However, I did find a reference to it in a British newspaper.
So far, I have not found any mention of his death on Retronews.
However, I did find a reference to it in a British newspaper.
British Newspaper Archive
11 June 1853 — Farmer’s Friend and Freeman’s Journal
DEATH OF KIESERITZKY, THE GREAT CHESS-PLAYER.
— With profound regret we have to record the death of the celebrated Herr Kieseritzki, so long the ornament and pet of the Paris Chess Club, and one of the most brilliant players of the day. From various distressing causes he had for many months previously been obliged to abandon all attendance at the club, his intellect having become affected, till at length his friends deemed it advisable to place him in that receptacle of the afflicted, the Hotel de Dieu, in which he breathed his last on the 18th ult.
11 June 1853 — Farmer’s Friend and Freeman’s Journal
DEATH OF KIESERITZKY, THE GREAT CHESS-PLAYER.
— With profound regret we have to record the death of the celebrated Herr Kieseritzki, so long the ornament and pet of the Paris Chess Club, and one of the most brilliant players of the day. From various distressing causes he had for many months previously been obliged to abandon all attendance at the club, his intellect having become affected, till at length his friends deemed it advisable to place him in that receptacle of the afflicted, the Hotel de Dieu, in which he breathed his last on the 18th ult.
However, it tells us that he had abandoned all activity for many months — probably since the proposal of the correspondence match in May 1852.
One possible scenario would therefore be a first stroke in June 1852, followed by a deterioration (a second stroke?) at the beginning of 1853.
The question of the place of his burial still remained. Once again, it required somewhat painstaking online research. But in the end, it was possible to reach a conclusion thanks to the increasingly extensive digitisation of historical documents.
This time, it was the cemetery registers of Paris that enabled me to discover his place of burial.
Archives of Paris, cemetery registers. I was therefore able to locate him at the Montparnasse Cemetery.
On the left-hand page, it can be read that he was buried on 22 May 1853, at the age of 47.
On the right-hand page, it is stated that he was buried in the common grave of the 6th section of the Montparnasse Cemetery. Once again, this is a marker of his extreme poverty and of the tragic nature of his social condition at the end of his life.
I therefore went to the Montparnasse Cemetery.
In 1853, the Montparnasse Cemetery was smaller than it is today.
A brief investigation showed that the 6th section of the period corresponds to the present-day 8th section. This can be seen by comparing the current plan with an 1865 plan (Astriè – Guide des cimetières).
On the left-hand page, it can be read that he was buried on 22 May 1853, at the age of 47.
On the right-hand page, it is stated that he was buried in the common grave of the 6th section of the Montparnasse Cemetery. Once again, this is a marker of his extreme poverty and of the tragic nature of his social condition at the end of his life.
I therefore went to the Montparnasse Cemetery.
In 1853, the Montparnasse Cemetery was smaller than it is today.
A brief investigation showed that the 6th section of the period corresponds to the present-day 8th section. This can be seen by comparing the current plan with an 1865 plan (Astriè – Guide des cimetières).
However, there is no longer any common grave in the present-day 8th section. Indeed, these gradually disappeared as the available space was taken up by new graves. The contents of the common graves were then transferred to the various ossuaries of the cemetery (galleries located beneath the cemetery; see here an excellent article in French on the subject).
Photograph taken from the website https://www.neverends.net/les-escaliers-de-lossuaire-montparnasse/
In short, there is no longer any trace of a possible burial site for Lionel Kieseritzky at the Montparnasse Cemetery.
As a small historical aside, in the 8th section (formerly the 6th section) lies the grave of the World chess champion: Alexander Alekhine.
The grave of Alexander Alekhine
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