Early FIDE Titles

A few weeks ago on my World Chess Championship Blog, after uploading the latest Zonal Index Update I decided to look into FIDE's early efforts to award titles like GM and IM. My first stop was Marcel Berman's four-part memoirs, 'Mes Souvenirs des Congrès de 1946 à 1958' (My Memories of [FIDE] Congresses), published during 1960 and 1961 in the FIDE Review.

Berman's accounts cover the high points of 13 consecutive postwar FIDE Congresses, when the federation laid the groundwork for world class chess initiatives that are still in force today. I collected paragraphs discussing FIDE titles (all in French) into a single page in my World Chess Championship Zonal directory, under the name FIDE Titles.

The new page is only an outline, but it does indicate where further research might bear fruit. I have a few other clippings to add to the Berman material and will do so as time and priorities allow.