| NoMoreChess 2004-09-28, 6:49 am |
| ..
I think Mr. Kingston missed the point: when I asked who was the intended
audience, I was not trying to determine the playing ability of any
chessplayers. I was trying to determine whether Lasker wrote his spiel for
German readers, who at the time may well have welcomed his allegedly racist
comments, or if he wrote for, say, an American or British audience, in English.
To illustrate my point, let me give a hypotheitical example of how things
might work in the real world.
Suppose Reshevsky, Evans, Sierawan, or Mednis had been interviewed by an
American reporter. Invariably, the questions would include a few about -- not
the subject at hand -- but Bobby Fischer. The answers would also be *expected*
to include much praise, as well as self-deprecation in terms of any comparison
to Bobby-the-chess-god. Any deviation from this set pattern of expected
behavior could well subject the interviwee to criticism, scorn, even ridicule.
Now let us travel backward in time, to a period before Fischer (B.F.).
At that time, it could be expected that any writing in Germany about almost
any subject, should contain references to the great "master race," to the
Arians. But Lasker was supposedly a Jew, so the inclusion of such comments
arouses suspicions of "editing" by others.
OTOH, the actual wording did not specify "Arians;" it included all "Whites."
To sum up, my question was in regard to which language (and along with it,
which intended audience) did Lasker write this (if in fact, he did write those
exact words) for. TK's vague generalities offer no particular help.
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