Etymology, definition and usage.

In the 19th century, many scientists subscribed to the belief that the human population can be divided into races. The term "racism" is a noun describing the state of being racist, i.e., subscribing to the belief that the human population can or should be classified into races with differential abilities and dispositions, which in turn may motivate a political ideology in which rights and privileges are differentially distributed based on racial categories. The origin of the root word "race" is not clear. Linguists generally agree that it came to the English language from Middle French, but there is no such agreement on how it generally came into Latin-based languages. A recent proposal is that it derives from the Arabic "ra's", which means "head, beginning, origin" or the Hebrew "rosh", which has a similar meaning. Early race theorists generally held the view that some races were inferior to others and they consequently believed that the differential treatment of races was fully justified. These early theories guided pseudo-scientific research assumptions; the collective endeavors to adequately define and form hypotheses about racial differences are generally termed scientific racism, though this term is a misnomer, due to the lack of any actual science backing the claims.  Today, most biologists, anthropologists, and sociologists reject a taxonomy of races in favor of more specific and/or empirically verifiable criteria, such as geography, ethnicity, or a history of endogamy. To date, there is little evidence in human genome research which indicates that race can be defined in such a way as to be useful in determining a genetic classification of humans.  An entry in the "Oxford English Dictionary" (2008) defines racialism as "[a]n earlier term than racism, but now largely superseded by it", and cites the term "racialism" in a 1902 quote. The revised Oxford English Dictionary cites the shortened term "racism" in a quote from the following year, 1903. It was first defined by the Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edition, 1989) as "[t]he theory that distinctive human characteristics and abilities are determined by race"; the same dictionary termed "racism" a synonym of "racialism": "belief in the superiority of a particular race". By the end of World War II, "racism" had acquired the same supremacist connotations formerly associated with "racialism": "racism" now implied racial discrimination, racial supremacism, and a harmful intent. (The term "race hatred" had also been used by sociologist Frederick Hertz in the late 1920s.)  As its history indicates, the popular use of the word "racism" is relatively recent. The word came into widespread usage in the Western world in the 1930s, when it was used to describe the social and political ideology of Nazism, which treated "race" as a naturally given political unit. It is commonly agreed that racism existed before the coinage of the word, but there is not a wide agreement on a single definition of what racism is and what it is not. Today, some scholars of racism prefer to use the concept in the plural "racisms", in order to emphasize its many different forms that do not easily fall under a single definition. They also argue that different forms of racism have characterized different historical periods and geographical areas. Garner (2009: p. 11) summarizes different existing definitions of racism and identifies three common elements contained in those definitions of racism. First, a historical, hierarchical power relationship between groups; second, a set of ideas (an ideology) about racial differences; and, third, discriminatory actions (practices).

Aspects.

The ideology underlying racism can manifest in many aspects of social life. Such aspects are described in this section, although the list is not exhaustive.

Aversive racism.

Aversive racism is a form of implicit racism, in which a person's unconscious negative evaluations of racial or ethnic minorities are realized by a persistent avoidance of interaction with other racial and ethnic groups. As opposed to traditional, overt racism, which is characterized by overt hatred for and explicit discrimination against racial/ethnic minorities, aversive racism is characterized by more complex, ambivalent expressions and attitudes. Aversive racism is similar in implications to the concept of symbolic or modern racism (described below), which is also a form of implicit, unconscious,

Color blindness.

In relation to racism, color blindness is the disregard of racial characteristics in social interaction, for example in the rejection of affirmative action, as a way to address the results of past patterns of discrimination. Critics of this attitude argue that by refusing to attend to racial disparities, racial color blindness in fact unconsciously perpetuates the patterns that produce racial inequality.

Cultural.

Cultural racism manifests as societal beliefs and customs that promote the assumption that the products of a given culture, including the language and traditions of that culture, are superior to those of other cultures. It shares a great deal with xenophobia, which is often characterised by fear of, or aggression

Economic.

Historical economic or social disparity is alleged to be a form of discrimination caused by past racism and historical reasons, affecting the present generation through deficits in the formal education and kinds of preparation in previous generations, and through primarily unconscious racist attitudes and actions on members of the general population.  In 2011, Bank of America agreed to pay $335 million

Institutional.

Institutional racism (also known as structural racism, state racism or systemic racism) is racial discrimination by governments, corporations, religions, or educational institutions or other large organizations with the power to influence the lives of many individuals. Stokely Carmichael is credited for coining the phrase "institutional racism" in the late 1960s. He defined the term as "the

Othering.

Othering is the term used by some to describe a system of discrimination whereby the characteristics of a group are used to distinguish them as separate from the norm.  Othering plays a fundamental role in the history and continuation of racism. To objectify a culture as something different, exotic or underdeveloped is to generalize that it is not like 'normal' society. Europe's colonial attitude towards the Orientals exemplifies

Racial discrimination.

Racial discrimination refers to discrimination

Racial segregation.

Racial segregation is the separation of humans into socially-constructed racial groups in daily life. It may apply to activities such as eating in a restaurant, drinking from a water fountain, using a

Supremacism.

Centuries of European colonialism in the Americas, Africa and Asia were often justified by white supremacist attitudes. During the early 20th century, the phrase "The White Man's Burden" was widely used to justify an imperialist policy as a noble enterprise. A justification for the policy of conquest and subjugation of Native Americans emanated from the stereotyped perceptions of the indigenous people as "merciless Indian savages" (as described

Symbolic/modern.

Some scholars argue that in the US, earlier violent and aggressive forms of racism have evolved into a more subtle form of prejudice in the late 20th century. This new form of racism is sometimes referred to as "modern racism" and it is characterized by outwardly acting unprejudiced while inwardly maintaining prejudiced attitudes, displaying subtle prejudiced behaviors such as actions informed by attributing qualities to others based on racial stereotypes, and evaluating the same behavior differently based on the race of the person being evaluated. This view is

Subconscious biases.

Recent research has shown that individuals who consciously claim to reject racism may still exhibit race-based subconscious biases in their

International law and racial discrimination.

In 1919, a proposal to include a racial equality provision in the Covenant of the League of Nations was supported by a majority, but not adopted in the Paris Peace Conference in 1919. In 1943, Japan and its allies declared work for the abolition of racial discrimination to be their aim at the Greater East Asia Conference. Article 1 of the 1945 UN Charter includes "promoting and encouraging respect for human rights and for fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race" as UN purpose.  In 1950, UNESCO suggested in "The Race Question" – a statement signed by 21 scholars such as Ashley Montagu, Claude Lévi-Strauss, Gunnar Myrdal, Julian Huxley, etc. – to "drop the term "race" altogether and instead speak of ethnic groups". The statement condemned scientific racism theories that had played a role in the Holocaust. It aimed both at debunking scientific racist theories, by popularizing modern knowledge concerning "the race question", and morally condemned racism as contrary to the

Ideology.

Racism existed during the 19th century as "scientific racism", which attempted to provide a racial classification of humanity. In 1775 Johann Blumenbach divided the world's population into five groups according to skin color (Caucasians, Mongols, etc.), positing the view that the non-Caucasians had arisen through a process of degeneration. Another early view in scientific racism was the polygenist view, which held that the different races had been separately created. Polygenist Christoph Meiners for example, split mankind into two divisions which he labeled the "beautiful White race" and the "ugly Black race". In Meiners' book, "The Outline of History of Mankind", he claimed that a main characteristic of race is either beauty or ugliness. He viewed only the white race as beautiful. He considered ugly races to be inferior, immoral and animal-like.  Anders Retzius demonstrated that neither Europeans nor others are one "pure race", but of mixed origins. While discredited, derivations of Blumenbach's taxonomy are still widely used for the classification of the population in the United States. Hans Peder Steensby, while strongly emphasizing that all humans today are of mixed origins, in 1907 claimed that the origins of human differences must be traced extraordinarily far back in time, and conjectured that the "purest race" today would be the Australian Aboriginals. Scientific racism fell strongly out of favor in the early 20th century, but the origins of fundamental human and societal differences are still researched within academia, in fields such as human genetics including paleogenetics, social anthropology, comparative politics, history of religions, history of ideas, prehistory, history, ethics, and psychiatry. There is widespread rejection of any methodology based on anything similar to Blumenbach's races. It is more unclear

Ethnicity and ethnic conflicts.

Debates over the origins of racism often suffer from a lack of clarity over the term. Many use the term "racism" to refer to more general phenomena, such as xenophobia and ethnocentrism, although scholars attempt to clearly distinguish those phenomena from racism as an ideology or from scientific racism, which has little to do with ordinary xenophobia. Others conflate recent forms of racism with earlier forms of ethnic and national conflict. In most cases, ethno-national conflict seems to owe itself to conflict over land and strategic resources. In some cases, ethnicity and nationalism were harnessed in order to rally combatants in wars between great religious empires (for example, the Muslim Turks and the Catholic Austro-Hungarians).  Notions of race and racism have often played central roles in ethnic conflicts. Throughout history, when an adversary is identified as "other" based on notions of race or ethnicity (in particular when "other" is interpreted to mean "inferior"), the means employed by the self-presumed "superior" party to appropriate territory, human chattel, or material wealth often have been more ruthless, more brutal, and less constrained by moral or ethical considerations. According to historian Daniel Richter, Pontiac's Rebellion saw the emergence on both sides of the conflict of "the novel idea that all Native people were 'Indians,' that all Euro-Americans were 'Whites,' and that all on one side must unite to destroy the other". Basil Davidson states in his documentary, "Africa: Different but Equal", that racism, in fact, only just recently surfaced as late as the 19th century, due to the need for a justification for slavery in the Americas.  Historically, racism was a major driving force behind the Transatlantic slave trade. It was also a major force behind racial segregation, especially in the United States in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and South Africa under apartheid; 19th and 20th century racism in the Western world is particularly well documented and constitutes a reference point in studies and discourses about racism. Racism has played a role in genocides such as the Armenian genocide, and the Holocaust, and colonial projects like the European colonization of the Americas, Africa, and Asia. Indigenous peoples have been – and are – often subject to racist attitudes. Practices and ideologies of racism are condemned by the United Nations in the Declaration of Human Rights.

Ethnic and racial nationalism.

After the Napoleonic Wars, Europe was confronted with the new "nationalities question", leading to reconfigurations of the European map, on which the frontiers between the states had been delineated during the 1648 Peace of Westphalia. Nationalism had made its first appearance with the invention of the "levée en masse" by the French Revolutionaries, thus inventing mass conscription in order to be able to defend the newly founded Republic against the "Ancien Régime" order represented by the European monarchies. This led to the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and then to the conquests of Napoleon, and to the subsequent European-wide debates on the concepts and realities of nations, and in particular of nation-states. The Westphalia Treaty had divided Europe into various empires and kingdoms (such as the Ottoman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Swedish

History.

Ethnocentrism and proto-racism.

Bernard Lewis has cited the Greek philosopher Aristotle who, in his discussion of slavery, stated that while Greeks are free by nature, "barbarians" (non-Greeks) are slaves by nature, in that it is in their nature to be more willing to submit to a despotic government. Though Aristotle does not specify any particular races, he argues that people from nations outside Greece are more prone to the burden of slavery than those from Greece. While Aristotle makes remarks about the most natural slaves being those with strong bodies and slave souls (unfit for rule, unintelligent) which would seem to imply a physical basis for discrimination, he also explicitly states that the right kind of

"Limpieza de sangre".

With the Umayyad Caliphate's conquest of Hispania, Muslim Arabs and Berbers overthrew the previous Visigothic rulers and created Al-Andalus, which contributed to the Golden age of Jewish culture, and lasted for six centuries. It was followed by the centuries-long "Reconquista", terminated under the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand V and Isabella I. The legacy Catholic Spaniards then formulated the "Cleanliness of blood" doctrine. It was during this time in history that the Western concept of aristocratic "blue blood" emerged in a racialized, religious and feudal context, so as to stem the upward social mobility of the converted New Christians. Robert Lacey explains: It was the Spaniards who gave the world the notion that an aristocrat's blood is not red but blue. The Spanish nobility started taking shape around the ninth century in classic military fashion, occupying land as warriors on horseback. They were to continue the process for more than five

19th century.

While 19th-century racism became closely intertwined with nationalism, leading to the ethnic nationalist discourse that identified the "race" with the "folk", leading to such movements as pan-Germanism, pan-Turkism, pan-Arabism, and pan-Slavism, medieval racism precisely divided the nation into various non-biological "races", which were thought to be the consequence of historical conquests and social conflicts. Michel Foucault traced the genealogy of modern racism to this medieval "historical and political discourse of race struggle". According to him, it divided itself in the 19th century according to two rival lines: on one hand, it was incorporated by racists, biologists and eugenicists, who gave it the modern sense of "race", and they also transformed this popular discourse into a "state racism" (e.g., Nazism). On the other hand, Marxism also seized this discourse founded on the assumption of a political struggle that provided the real engine of history and continued to act underneath the apparent peace. Thus, Marxists

20th century.

The Nazi party, which seized power in the 1933 German elections and maintained a dictatorship over much of Europe until the End of World War II on the European continent, deemed the Germans to be part of an Aryan "master race" ("Herrenvolk"), who therefore had the right to expand their territory and enslave or kill members of other races deemed inferior.  The racial ideology conceived by the Nazis graded humans on a scale of pure Aryan to non-Aryan, with the latter viewed as subhuman. At the top of the scale of pure Aryans were Germans and other Germanic peoples including the Dutch, Scandinavians, and the English as well as other peoples such as some northern Italians and the French, who were said to have a suitable admixture of Germanic blood. Nazi policies labeled Romani people, people of color, and Slavs (mainly Poles, Serbs, Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians and Czechs) as inferior non-Aryan subhumans. Jews were at the bottom of the hierarchy, considered inhuman and thus unworthy of

Contemporary.

During the Congo Civil War (1998–2003), Pygmy people were hunted down like game animals and eaten. Both sides in the war regarded them as "subhuman" and some say their flesh can confer magical powers. UN human rights activists reported in 2003 that rebels had carried out acts of cannibalism. Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of the Mbuti pygmies, has asked the UN Security Council to recognise cannibalism as both a crime against humanity and an act of genocide. A report released by the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination condemns Botswana's treatment of the 'Bushmen' as racist. In 2008, the tribunal of the

Scientific racism.

The modern biological definition of race developed in the 19th century with scientific racist theories. The term "scientific racism" refers to the use of science to justify and support racist beliefs, which goes back to the early 18th century, though it gained most of its influence in the mid-19th century, during the New Imperialism period. Also known as academic racism, such theories first needed to overcome the Church's resistance to positivist accounts of history and its support of monogenism, the concept that all human beings were originated from the same ancestors, in accordance with creationist accounts of history.  These racist theories put forth on scientific hypothesis were combined with unilineal theories of social progress, which postulated the superiority of the European civilization over the rest of the world. Furthermore, they frequently made use of the idea of "survival of the fittest", a term coined by Herbert Spencer in 1864, associated with ideas of competition, which were named social Darwinism in the 1940s. Charles Darwin himself opposed the idea of rigid racial differences in "The Descent of Man" (1871), in which he argued that humans were all of one species, sharing common descent. He recognised racial differences as varieties of humanity, and emphasised the close similarities between people of all races in mental faculties, tastes, dispositions and habits, while still contrasting the culture of the "lowest savages" with European civilization.  At the end of the 19th century, proponents of scientific racism intertwined themselves with eugenics discourses of "degeneration of the race" and "blood heredity". Henceforth, scientific racist discourses could be defined as the combination of polygenism, unilinealism, social Darwinism, and eugenism. They found their scientific legitimacy on physical anthropology, anthropometry, craniometry, phrenology, physiognomy, and others now discredited disciplines in order to formulate racist prejudices.  Before being disqualified in the 20th century by the American school of cultural anthropology (Franz Boas, etc.), the British school of social anthropology (Bronisław Malinowski, Alfred Radcliffe-Brown, etc.), the French school of ethnology (Claude Lévi-Strauss, etc.), as well as the discovery of the neo-Darwinian synthesis, such sciences, in particular anthropometry, were used to deduce behaviours and psychological characteristics from outward, physical appearances.  The neo-Darwinian synthesis, first developed in the 1930s, eventually led to a gene-centered view of evolution in the 1960s. According to the Human Genome Project, the most complete mapping of human DNA to date indicates that there is no clear genetic basis to racial groups. While some genes are more common in certain populations, there are no genes that exist in all members of one population and no members of any other.

Theories about the origins of racism.

Evolutionary psychologists John Tooby and Leda Cosmides were puzzled by the fact that in the US, race is one of the three characteristics most often used in brief descriptions of individuals (the others are age and sex). They reasoned that natural selection would not have favoured the evolution of an instinct for using race as a classification, because for most of human history, humans almost never encountered members of other races. Tooby and Cosmides hypothesized that modern people use race as a proxy (rough-and-ready indicator) for coalition membership, since a better-than-random guess about "which side" another person is on will be helpful if one does not actually know in advance.  Their colleague Robert Kurzban designed an experiment whose results appeared to support this hypothesis. Using the Memory confusion protocol, they presented subjects with pictures of individuals and sentences, allegedly spoken by these individuals, which presented two sides of a debate. The errors that the subjects made in recalling who said what indicated that they sometimes mis-attributed a statement to a speaker of the same race as the "correct" speaker, although they also sometimes mis-attributed a statement to a speaker "on the same side" as the "correct" speaker. In a second run of the experiment, the team also distinguished the "sides" in the debate by clothing of similar colors; and in this case the effect of racial similarity in causing mistakes almost vanished,

State-sponsored racism.

State racism – that is, the institutions and practices of a nation-state that are grounded in racist ideology – has played a major role in all instances of settler colonialism, from the United States to Australia. It also played a prominent role in the Nazi German regime, in fascist regimes throughout Europe, and during the early years of Japan's Shōwa period. These governments advocated and implemented ideologies and policies that were racist, xenophobic, and, in the case of Nazism, genocidal.  The Nuremberg Race Laws of 1935 prohibited sexual relations between any Aryan and Jew, considering it "Rassenschande", "racial pollution". The Nuremberg Laws stripped all Jews, even quarter- and half-Jews (second and first degree "Mischlings"), of their German citizenship. This meant that they had no basic citizens' rights, e.g., the right to vote. In 1936, Jews were banned from all professional jobs, effectively preventing them from having any influence in education, politics, higher education, and industry. On 15 November 1938, Jewish children were banned from going

Anti-racism.

Anti-racism includes beliefs, actions, movements, and policies which are adopted or developed in order to oppose racism. In general, it promotes an egalitarian society in which people are not discriminated against on the basis of race. Movements such as the civil rights movement and the Anti-Apartheid Movement were examples of anti-racist movements. Nonviolent resistance is sometimes embraced as an element of anti-racist movements, although this was not always the case. Hate crime laws, affirmative action, and bans on racist speech are also examples of government policy which is intended to suppress racism.

Racism is the belief that groups of humans possess different behavioral traits corresponding to physical appearance and can be divided based on the superiority of one race over another. It may also mean prejudice, discrimination, or antagonism directed against other people because they are of a different race or ethnicity. Modern variants of racism are often based in social perceptions of biological differences between peoples. These views can take the form of social actions, practices or beliefs, or political systems in which different races are ranked as inherently superior or inferior to each other, based on presumed shared inheritable traits, abilities, or qualities.

Le racisme est une idéologie qui, partant du postulat de l'existence de races au sein de l'espèce humaine, considère que certaines catégories de personnes sont intrinsèquement supérieures à d'autres. Il se différencie ainsi du racialisme qui, partant du même postulat, ne considère pas les races comme inégales. Cette idéologie peut amener à privilégier une catégorie donnée de personnes par rapport à d'autres. "Le Petit Larousse" a deux définitions du racisme, au sens strict du terme, comme « idéologie fondée sur la croyance qu'il existe une hiérarchie entre les groupes humains, les « races » ; comportement inspiré par cette idéologie », et au sens large du terme, comme « une attitude d’hostilité répétée voire systématique à l’égard d’une catégorie déterminée de personnes ».


Origin of "Yucatán".

The name Yucatán, also assigned to the peninsula, came from early explorations of the Conquistadors from Europe. Three different explanations for the origin of the name have been proposed.  The first is that the name resulted from confusion between the Mayan inhabitants and the first Spanish explorers around 1517:  Probably the first person to propose the "I do not understand" version was the friar Toribio de Benavente Motolinia. In his book "Historia de los indios de la Nueva España" ("History of the Indians of New Spain") he says because talking with those Indians of the coast, whatever the Spanish asked the Indians responded: "Tectetán, Tectetán" which means "I don't understand you, I don't understand you"; they corrupted the word, and not understanding what the Indians said, they said: "Yucatán is the name of this land"; and the same happened in a place, a cape, which they also called Cape Cotoch; and "Cotoch" in that language means "house".  The second proposed explanation comes from Bernal Díaz del Castillo. In his book Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España ("True History of the Conquest of New Spain"), he says "Yucatá" means "land of yucas", a plant that was cultivated by the Maya and was an important food source for them.  A third explanation is that the name derived from the Maya people who inhabited the region. Today the people are referred to by their Aztec name, the Chontal, but the Chontal Maya people refer to themselves as the Yokot'anob or the Yokot'an, meaning "the speakers of Yoko ochoco".

History.

Pre-Columbian era.

The origin of the first settlements has not been scientifically confirmed, although the presence of first humans in the area dates from the late Pleistocene or ice age (about 10,000–12,000 years), according to the findings in the Loltún caves and caverns of Tulum (Women of the Palms).  The first Maya moved to the Peninsula circa 250 CE, from the Petén (today northern Guatemala), to settle the southeastern peninsula in the modern Bacalar, Quintana Roo. In 525, the Chanés (Mayan tribe that preceded the Itza), moved to the east of the peninsula, founding Chichén Itzá, Izamal, Motul, Ek' Balam, Ichcaanzihó (modern Mérida) and Champotón. Later, Tutul xiúes, Toltec descent, who came from the coast of the Gulf of Mexico, settled in the region causing displacement of the Itza and Cocomes—a diversified branch of Itzá—and finally, after years and many battles, was formed Mayapán League (composed of the Itza, the Xiús and Cocomes), that eventually disintegrated circa 1194, giving way to a period of anarchy and fragmentation into small domains which the Spanish conquistadors found in the 16th century.

Exploration by Spanish soldiers.

In 1513, Juan Ponce de León had already conquered the island of Borinquén (now Puerto Rico) and had discovered Florida. Antón de Alaminos, who was with Ponce de León on this latest discovery, suspected that west of Cuba they could find new land. Under their influence, Diego Velázquez de Cuéllar, supported by the governor of Cuba, organized an expedition commanded by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba to explore the seas west of the island.  This expedition sailed from port of Ajaruco on February 8, 1517, to La Habana and after circling the island and sailing southwest by what is now known as the Yucatán Channel, the expedition made landfall at the Yucatán Peninsula on March 1. There are discrepancies about where the first explorers arrived. Some say it was in Isla Mujeres. Bernal Díaz del Castillo places it at Cabo Catoche where they saw a great city which they named the «Gran Cairo».

Spanish conquest.

The conquest of Yucatán was completed two decades after the conquest of Mexico; by Francisco de Montejo "el Adelantado", his son Francisco de Montejo y León "el Mozo" and his nephew, Francisco de Montejo "el Sobrino". "El Adelantado" was in the expedition of Juan de Grijalva and was with Hernán Cortés in the third expedition that eventually became the Conquest of Mexico. He was subsequently appointed for the conquest of the Maya of Yucatán, but failed in his first attempt in 1527–28. In 1529 he was appointed Governor of Tabasco, with the order to pacify Tabasco and conquer Yucatán and Cozumel.  From Tabasco, Montejo led a new campaign to Yucatán from the west (1531–35) and failed again in his attempt. Circa 1535, after many bloody battles with the natives, he reached the complete pacification of the Province of Tabasco and began planning his new foray to Yucatán.  "El Adelantado" was appointed governor of Honduras and then of Chiapas. Therefore, he gave his son "El Mozo", the mission to consummate the conquest of Yucatán. Francisco de Montejo y León "el Mozo" founded the cities of San Francisco de Campeche on October 4, 1540, and Mérida on January 6, 1542 (in honor of Mérida, Extremadura). The city of Mérida was founded over the ruins of the Mayan city of Ichkanzihóo (T'ho) and the stones of old Mayan pyramids were used for the new buildings. Later, government powers were changed from "Santa María de la Victoria", Tabasco, to Mérida on June 11, 1542. The newly founded Mérida was besieged by the Mayan troops of Nachi Cocom (overlord or 'Halach uinik' in Mayan language). It was a definitive battle for the Conquest of Yucatán. With that victory, the Spaniards consolidated their control of the western part of the peninsula.  Francisco de Montejo "El Adelantado" appointed his nephew, Francisco de Montejo "el Sobrino", to head the conquest of the eastern Yucatán, which was achieved after many bloody battles, ending with the foundation of the city of Valladolid on May 28, 1543.

Canek rebellion, during the colonial Yucatán.

Oppressive policies of inequality and prejudice were imposed on the native Mayans by the Spanish colonial government. In November 1761, Jacinto Canek, a Mayan from the town of Cisteil (now located in Yaxcabá Municipality), led an armed uprising against the government, which was quickly put down. Captured insurgents were taken to Mérida, where they were tried and tortured. As a warning to the population against rebellion, Cisteil was burned and covered with salt.  This abortive rebellion was not of great consequence to the colonial regime, but it marked the history of the peninsula and clearly delineated anti-colonial tensions in the region. The uprising was a precursor to the social upheaval that would explode less than a century later, as the Caste War. The Canek rebellion is remembered today as a symbol of the racial and social conflict that predominated for centuries in the Spanish colonies.

Yucatán in independent Mexico.

Because of its geographical remoteness from the center of New Spain, especially from Mexico City, Yucatán was not militarily affected by the Mexican War of Independence, but the war influenced the enlightened people of Yucatán. In 1820 Lorenzo de Zavala, member of Sanjuanistas (a group of creoles who met at the church of San Juan in downtown Mérida), created the "Patriotic Confederation", which eventually divided into two groups: the supporters of the Spanish government under the Cádiz Constitution and another led by Zavala, which sought outright independence from Spain. Mariano Carrillo Albornoz then Governor of Yucatán, sent Zavala and Manuel García Sosa as deputies of the Cádiz Cortes to Madrid, while the other liberals were imprisoned. While this was happening in Yucatán, the Plan of Iguala was proclaimed in the current state of Guerrero (at that time part of the Intendency of Mexico).  On September 15, 1821, in the Hall of Councils of the City of Mérida, Yucatán declares its independence from Spain, almost immediately, Governor Juan María Echeverri sent two representatives to negotiate the incorporation of Yucatán to the Mexican Empire. The incorporation to the Mexican Empire was on November 2, 1821.

Republic of Yucatán.

The Mexican Empire was quickly overthrown under the Plan of Casa Mata, the provinces of the empire became independent states. The first Republic of Yucatán, declared on May 29, 1823, joined the Federal Republic of the United Mexican States as the Federated Republic of Yucatán on December 23, 1823.  The second Republic of Yucatán emerged when the federal pact signed by Yucatán and endorsed in the Constitution of Yucatán of 1825 was broken by the centralist government of Mexico since 1835. In 1841 the state of Tabasco decreed its separation from Mexico and Miguel Barbachano, then governor of Yucatán, sent a commission headed by Justo Sierra O'Reilly to meet with Tabasco authorities to propose the creation of an independent federal republic from Mexico formed by the two states. The idea failed when Tabasco rejoined Mexico in 1842.  On August 22, 1846, Mexican interim president José Mariano Salas restored the 1824 constitution and the federalism. Two years later, during the government of president José Joaquín de Herrera, Miguel Barbachano ordered the reinstatement of Yucatán to Mexico under the Constitution of Yucatán of 1825. A decisive factor for the reinstatement was the Caste War, which forced Yucatán to seek outside help. In 1852 due to internal struggles between opposing political factions, was created the "Territory of Campeche". On April 29, 1863, during the government of Benito Juárez, Campeche gained its current status as an independent state.

Flag of Yucatán.

The flag of Yucatán was raised on March 16, 1841. The period of the Republic of Yucatán was the only one in which the banner was officially used by the authorities of Yucatán.  Rodolfo Menéndez de la Peña, historian, describes the flag of Yucatán: "The flag of Yucatán was divided into two parts: green on left, the right, with three divisions, red up and down and white in the middle. In the green field highlighted, five stars, symbolizing the five departments that Yucatan was divided by decree of November 30, 1840: Mérida, Izamal, Valladolid, Tekax and Campeche."  The flag doesn't have official recognition in the state, however, it has a strong recognition among the people of the state. "De facto" state flag, in any case, according to a convention led by former president Ernesto Zedillo, is a white flag with the shield of the state in the middle.

Caste War.

The Caste War of Yucatán was a conflict that lasted from 1847 to 1901. It began with the revolt of native Maya people led by Maya chiefs Jacinto Pat and Cecilio Chi, against the population of European descent called "Yucatecos", who had political and economic control. A lengthy war ensued between the Yucateco forces in the north-west of the Yucatán and the independent Maya in the south-east. It officially ended with the occupation of the Maya capital of Chan Santa Cruz by the Mexican army in 1901, although skirmishes with villages and small settlements that refused to acknowledge Mexican control continued for over another decade.  Adam Jones wrote: "This ferocious race war featured genocidal atrocities on both sides, with up to 200,000 killed."  Because of the conflict, on November 24, 1902, Yucatán had a second territorial division when Porfirio Díaz decreed the creation of the Federal Territory of Quintana Roo, with capital in the port of "Payo Obispo" (today Chetumal). In little more than half a century, Yucatán lost more than two thirds of its original territory.

The henequen industry.

In the late 19th century, the henequen industry grew to unprecedented power in the Yucatan. The henequen grown in the Yucatan was used around the world for rope and twine, and became known as sisal rope, named after the seaside town of Sisal, from where the rope was shipped. Today Sisal is a sleepy fishing village, being rediscovered by locals and visitors as a beach location for vacation homes. The henequen industry provided financial autonomy to the isolated Yucatán. The fiber of Henequén plant (known as "sosquil" (maya: sos kí)) was manufactured into twine and rope, used in riggings, string, sacks, rugs, and many other items. It became the chief export item of the Yucatán, making many local families very wealthy. That wealth is today evident in the architecture of the colonial city of Mérida, as well as in the more than 150 haciendas that are spread throughout the Yucatán Peninsula.  Korean immigration to Mexico began in 1905. The first Korean migrants settled in Yucatán as workers in henequen plantations. Labour brokers began advertising in newspapers in the Korean port city of Incheon in 1904 for workers willing to go to Mexico to work on henequen plantations for four- or five-year contracts. A total of more than one thousand were recruited and departed from Incheon on board a British cargo ship on 4 April 1905, despite efforts by the Korean government to block their departure. Once their contracts were up, most settled in Mexico, either continuing to work on henequen plantations or moving to various cities in the country.  Hundreds of prosperous haciendas abounded in the state until the advent of synthetic products after World War II, the cultivation of Henequén in other parts of the world and the self-serving actions of some of the leading henequen-growing families led to the gradual decline of the Yucatan's monopoly on the industry.  The incredible influx of wealth during that period from the henequen industry focused mainly on Mérida, the capital of Yucatán State. It allowed the city of Mérida to install street lights and a tram system even before Mexico City. It is said that in the early 20th century, the city had the largest number of millionaires per capita in the world. Today, Paseo de Montejo (inspired by the Parisian avenue Champs-Élysées), is lined with the elegant houses built during that time. These houses are mostly now renovated and serve as everything from private homes to banks, hotels and restaurants. Many of the haciendas today have also been renovated and now serve as private homes, event venues and upscale luxury hotels.

Late 20th century.

Until the mid-20th century most of Yucatán's contact with the outside world was by sea; trade with the US and Cuba, as well as Europe and other Caribbean islands, was more significant than that with the rest of Mexico. In the 1950s Yucatán was linked to the rest of Mexico by railway, followed by highway in the 1960s, ending the region's comparative isolation. Today Yucatán still demonstrates a unique culture from the rest of Mexico, including its own style of food.  Commercial jet airplanes began arriving in Mérida in the 1960s, and additional international airports were built first in Cozumel and then in the new planned resort community of Cancún in the 1980s, making tourism a major force in the economy of the Yucatán Peninsula.  The first Maya governor of Yucatán, Francisco Luna Kan, was elected in 1976.  Today, the Yucatán Peninsula is a major tourism destination, as well as home to one of the largest indigenous populations in Mexico, the Maya people.

Geography.

The State of Yucatán is located on the Yucatán Peninsula. It borders the states of Campeche to the southwest, Quintana Roo to the east and southeast, and the Gulf of Mexico to the north and west. As a whole, the state is extremely flat with little or no topographic variation, with the exception of the Puuc hills, located in the southern portion of the state.

Government and politics.

Government.

The Constitution of Yucatán provides that the government of Yucatán, like the government of every other state in Mexico, consists of three powers: the executive, the legislative and the judiciary.  Executive power rests in the governor of Yucatán, who is directly elected by the citizens, using a secret ballot, to a six-year term with no possibility of reelection. Legislative power rests in the Congress of Yucatán which is a unicameral legislature composed of 25 deputies. Judicial power is invested in the High Court of Justice of Yucatán and its district courts.

Municipalities.

The State of Yucatán is divided into 106 municipalities, each headed by a municipal president (mayor). Usually municipalities are named after the city that serves as municipal seat; e.g. the municipal seat of the Municipality of Mérida is the City of Mérida.

Politics.

The most recent local election in Yucatán was held on June 7, 2015.

Demography.

Languages.

The most widespread indigenous language of Yucatán is Yucatec Maya, spoken natively by approximately 800,000 people in Yucatán and adjacent Quintana Roo and Campeche, especially in rural areas. The Spanish spoken in Yucatán has lexical and some phonological borrowing from Mayan and employs many words of Mayan origin, such as "purux" ("fat"), "tuch" ("navel") and "wixar" ("urinate").

Korean immigration.

In 1905, 1,003 Korean immigrants, which included 802 men and 231 women and children, departed from the port of Chemulpo, Incheon aboard the ship "Ilford" to Salina Cruz, Oaxaca, Mexico. The journey took 45 days, after which they took a train to Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz. In the Veracruz port, another boat was taken to the port of Progreso with the final destination being the capital city of Mérida, Yucatan. They arrived in May 1905, with previously signed contracts for four years’ work as indentured laborers on the Yucatán henequen haciendas. Many of these Koreans were distributed throughout the Yucatán in 32 henequen haciendas. The town of Motul, Yucatan, located in the heart of the henequen zone, was a destination for many of the Korean immigrants. Subsequently, in 1909, at the end of their contracts, they began a new stage in which they scattered even further. Thus, the majority of those who came were single men who made or remade their family lives with Yucatecan especially Maya women. While Korean girls were much more subject to marriages arranged by Korean parents, males had greater freedom when it came to making a family. This rapid intermarriage by Koreans, coupled with geographic dispersal, prevented the establishment of close social networks among these migrants and therefore provided the basis for Korean descendants among the Yucatan Peninsula. After that 1905 ship, no further entries of Koreans into Mexico were recorded until many years later, leading to a new community of Koreans with completely different characteristics from those who entered in 1905.

Media.

Newspapers of Yucatán include: "Artículo 7", "De Peso (Mérida)", "Diario de Yucatán", "La I Noticias para Mí Mérida", "Milenio Novedades (Antes El Mundo al Día)", and "Por Esto! (Yucatán)."

Food.

Yucatecan food is its own unique style and is very different from what most people would consider Mexican food. It includes influences from the local Mayan culture, as well as Caribbean, European (Spanish), (North) African, and Middle Eastern cultures, as well as influence from the cuisine of other parts of Mexico.  There are many regional dishes. Some of them are:

Safety.

The Yucatán State Police is the law enforcement agency inside the state. The security in the interior of the state was praised multiple times by former president Felipe Calderón Hinojosa, local and foreign businessmen, as well as by governor Ivonne Ortega Pacheco.

Yucatán (,,, ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Yucatán, is one of the 32 states which comprise the Federal Entities of Mexico. It is divided into 106 municipalities, and its capital city is Mérida.

L'État de Yucatán ou Yucatán () est situé au sud-est du Mexique, sur la Péninsule du Yucatán. Il est bordé par le golfe du Mexique au nord et par les États de Campeche au sud-ouest et de Quintana Roo à l'est, qui font tous deux également partie de la péninsule du Yucatán. Cet état, qui s'étend sur et compte 106 municipalités, a pour capitale Mérida.


Early years.

Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik was born on August 17, 1911, in what was then Kuokkala, Vyborg Governorate, Grand Duchy of Finland, but is now the district of Repino in Saint Petersburg. His parents were Russian Jews, his father was a dental technician and his mother a dentist, which allowed the family to live outside the Pale of Settlement to which most Jews in the Russian Empire were restricted at the time. As a result, Mikhail Botvinnik grew up in Saint Petersburg's Nevsky Prospekt. His father forbade the speaking of Yiddish at home, and Mikhail and his older brother Issy attended Soviet schools. Mikhail Botvinnik later said, "They asked me sometime: What do you think of yourself by nationality? I answered: Yes, my situation is complex. I am a Jew by blood, Russian by culture, Soviet by upbringing." On his religious views, Botvinnik called himself an atheist.  In 1920, his mother became ill and his father left the family, but maintained contact with the children, even after his second marriage, to a Russian woman. At about the same time, Mikhail started reading newspapers, and became a committed Communist.  In autumn 1923, at the age of twelve, Mikhail Botvinnik was taught chess by a school friend of his older brother, using a home-made set, and instantly fell in love with the game. He finished in mid-table in the school championship, sought advice from another of his brother's friends, and concluded that for him it was better to think out "concrete concepts" and then derive general principles from these – and went on to beat his brother's friend quite easily. In winter 1924, Botvinnik won his school's championship, and exaggerated his age by three years in order to become a member of the Petrograd Chess Assembly – to which the Assembly's President turned a blind eye. Botvinnik won his first two tournaments organized by the Assembly. Shortly afterwards, Nikolai Krylenko, a devoted chess player and leading member of the Soviet legal system who later organized Joseph Stalin's show trials, began building a huge nationwide chess organization, and the Assembly was replaced by a

Soviet champion.

In 1931, at the age of 20, Botvinnik won his first Soviet Championship in Moscow, scoring 131⁄2 out of 17. He commented that the field was not very strong, as some of the pre-Revolution masters were absent. In late summer 1931, he graduated with a degree in electrical engineering, after completing a practical assignment on temporary transmission lines at the Dnieper Hydroelectric Station. He stayed on at the Leningrad Polytechnical Institute to study for a Candidate of Sciences degree.  In 1933, he repeated his Soviet Championship win, in his home city of Leningrad, with 14/19, describing the results as evidence that Krylenko's plan to develop a new generation of Soviet masters had borne fruit. He and other young masters successfully requested the support of a senior Leningrad Communist Party official in arranging contests involving both Soviet and foreign players, as there had been none since the Moscow 1925 chess tournament. Soon afterwards, Botvinnik was informed that Alexander Ilyin-Genevsky, one of the older Soviet masters and a member of the Soviet embassy in Prague, had arranged a match between Botvinnik and Salo Flohr, a Czech grandmaster who was then regarded as one of the most credible contenders for Alexander Alekhine's World Chess Championship title. The highest-level chess officials in the Soviet Union opposed this on the grounds that Botvinnik stood little chance against such a strong international opponent. In spite of this attempt to dissuade him, Krylenko insisted on staging the match, saying that "We have to know our real strength."  Botvinnik used what he regarded as the first version of his method of preparing for a contest, but fell two games behind by the end of the first six, played in Moscow. However, aided by his old friend Ragozin and coach Abram Model, he leveled the score in Leningrad and the match was drawn. When describing the post-match party, Botvinnik wrote that at the time he danced the foxtrot and Charleston to a professional standard.  In his first tournament outside the USSR, the Hastings 1934–35, Botvinnik achieved only a tie for

World title contender.

In 1938, the world's top eight players met in the Netherlands to compete in the AVRO tournament, whose winner was supposed to get a title match with the World Champion, Alexander Alekhine. Botvinnik placed third, behind Paul Keres and Reuben Fine. According to Botvinnik, Alekhine was most interested in playing an opponent who could raise the funds. After consulting the nearest available Soviet officials, Botvinnik discreetly challenged Alekhine, who promptly accepted, subject to conditions that would enable him to acclimatize in Russia and get some high-quality competitive practice a few months before the match. In Botvinnik's opinion, Alekhine was partly motivated by the desire for a reconciliation with the Soviet authorities, so that he could again visit his homeland. The match, including funding, was authorised at the highest Soviet political level in January 1939; however, a letter of confirmation was only sent two months later – in Botvinnik's opinion, because of opposition by his Soviet rivals, especially those who had become prominent before the Russian Revolution – and the outbreak of World War II prevented a World Championship match. In spring 1939, Botvinnik won the USSR Championship, and his book on the tournament described the approach to preparation which he had been developing since 1933. One striking feature of this was emphasis on opening preparation in order to gain a permanent positional advantage in the middlegame, rather than seeking immediate tactical surprises that could only be used once. Botvinnik took an early lead in the 1940 USSR Championship, but faded badly in the later stages, eventually sharing fifth place. He attributed this to the unaccustomed difficulty of concentrating in a party-like atmosphere filled with noise and tobacco smoke. Botvinnik wrote to a friendly official, commenting that the champion was to be the winner of a match between Igor Bondarevsky and Andor Lilienthal, who had tied for first place, but had no achievements in international competition. The official's efforts led to a tournament for the title of "Absolute Champion of the USSR", whose official aim was to identify a Soviet challenger for Alekhine's title. The contestants were the top six finishers in the Soviet Championship – Bondarevsky, Lilienthal, Paul Keres (whose home country, Estonia, had recently been annexed by the Soviet Union), future World Champion Vasily Smyslov, Isaac Boleslavsky and Botvinnik

World Champion.

Botvinnik strongly influenced the design of the system which would be used for World Championship competition from 1948 to 1963. Viktor Baturinsky wrote: "Now came Botvinnik's turn to defend his title in accordance with the new qualifying system which he himself had outlined in 1946." (This statement referred to Botvinnik's 1951 title defence.)  On the basis of his strong results during and just after World War II, Botvinnik was one of five players to contest the 1948 World Chess Championship, which was held at The Hague and Moscow. He won the 1948 tournament convincingly—with a score of 14/20, three points clear—becoming the sixth World Champion. While he was on vacation in Riga after the tournament, an eleven-year-old boy called Mikhail Tal paid a visit, hoping to play a game against the new champion. Tal was met by Botvinnik's wife, who said the champion was asleep, and that she had made him take a rest from chess.  Botvinnik then held the title, with two brief interruptions, for the next fifteen years, during which he played seven world championship matches. In 1951, he drew with David Bronstein over 24 games in Moscow, +5−5=14, keeping the world title, but it was a struggle for Botvinnik, who won the second-last game and drew the last in order to tie the match. In 1954, he drew with Vasily Smyslov over 24 games in Moscow, +7−7=10, again retaining the title. In 1957, he lost to Smyslov by 91⁄2–121⁄2 in Moscow, but the rules then in force allowed him a rematch without having to go through the Candidates' Tournament, and in 1958 he won

Team tournaments.

Botvinnik was selected for the Soviet Olympiad team from 1954 to 1964 inclusively, and helped his team to gold medal finishes each of those six times. At Amsterdam 1954 he was on board one and won the gold medal with 81⁄2/11. Then at home for Moscow 1956, he was again board one, and scored 91⁄2/13 for the bronze medal. For Munich 1958, he scored 9/12 for the silver medal on board one. At Leipzig 1960, he played board two behind Mikhail Tal, having lost his title to Tal earlier that year, but he won the board two

Late career.

After losing the world title for the final time, to Tigran Petrosian in Moscow in 1963, Botvinnik withdrew from the following World Championship cycle after FIDE declined, at its annual congress in 1965, to grant a losing champion the automatic right to a rematch. He remained involved with competitive chess, appearing in several highly rated tournaments and continuing to produce memorable games.  He retired from competitive play in 1970, aged 59, preferring instead to occupy himself with the development of computer chess programs and to assist with the training of younger Soviet players, earning him the nickname of "Patriarch of the Soviet Chess School" (see below).  Botvinnik's autobiography, "K Dostizheniyu Tseli", was published

Political controversies.

The Soviet Union regarded chess as a symbol of Communist superiority, and hence the Soviet chess world was extremely politicized. As Botvinnik was the first world-class player produced by the Soviet Union, everything he said or did (or did not say or do) had political repercussions, and there were rumors that Soviet opponents were given hints that they should not beat him.  David Bronstein wrote that Boris Verlinsky had won the 1929 Soviet Championship and was granted the first Soviet Grandmaster title for this achievement, yet he was later stripped of it, when it was thought more politically correct to make Botvinnik the first official Soviet GM (as distinct from the then-nonexistent FIDE grandmaster title).  Botvinnik wrote that before the last round of the 1935 Moscow tournament, Soviet Commissar of Justice Nikolai Krylenko, who was also in charge of Soviet chess, proposed that Ilya Rabinovich should deliberately lose to Botvinnik, to ensure that Botvinnik took first place. Botvinnik refused, saying "... then I will myself put a piece "en prise" and resign". The game was drawn, and Botvinnik shared first place with Salo Flohr.  Botvinnik sent an effusive telegram of thanks to Joseph Stalin after his victory at the great tournament in Nottingham in 1936.  Botvinnik played relatively poorly in the very strong 1940 Soviet Championship, finishing in a tie for fifth/sixth places, with 111⁄2/19, two full points behind Igor Bondarevsky and Andor Lilienthal. With World War II under way by this time, and the strong possibility of little or no chess practice for some time in the future, Botvinnik seems to have prevailed upon the Soviet chess leadership to hold another tournament "in order to clarify the situation". This wound up being the 1941 Absolute Championship of the USSR, which featured the top six finishers from the 1940 event, playing each other four times. After a personal appeal to the defence minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, Botvinnik was exempted from war work for three days a week in order to concentrate on chess preparations. He won this tournament convincingly, and thus reclaimed his position as the USSR's top player.  Bronstein claimed that at the end of the 1946 Groningen tournament, a few months after the death of reigning world champion Alexander Alekhine, Botvinnik personally invited Samuel Reshevsky, Reuben Fine, Max Euwe, Vasily Smyslov, and Paul Keres to join him in a tournament to decide the new world champion, but other evidence suggests that FIDE (the "governing body" of chess), had

Assessment.

Playing strength and style.

Reuben Fine, writing in 1976, observed that Botvinnik was at or near the top of the chess world for thirty years—from 1933, when he drew a match against Flohr, to 1963, when he lost the world championship for the final time, to Petrosian—"a feat equaled historically only by Emanuel Lasker and Wilhelm Steinitz". The statistical rating system used in Raymond Keene and Nathan Divinsky's book "Warriors of the Mind" concludes that Botvinnik was the fourth strongest player of all time: behind Garry Kasparov, Anatoly Karpov and Bobby Fischer but ahead of José Raúl Capablanca, Lasker, Viktor Korchnoi, Boris Spassky, Vasily Smyslov and Tigran Petrosian.

Influence on the game.

Botvinnik's example and teaching established the modern approach to preparing for competitive chess: regular but moderate physical exercise; analysing very thoroughly a relatively narrow repertoire of openings; annotating one's own games, those of past great players and those of competitors; publishing one's annotations so that others can point out any errors; studying strong opponents to discover their strengths and weaknesses; ruthless objectivity about one's own strengths and weaknesses. Botvinnik also played many short training matches against strong grandmasters including Salo Flohr, Yuri Averbakh, Viacheslav Ragozin, and Semion Furman – in noisy or smoky rooms if he

Other achievements.

Electrical engineering.

Engineering was as much of a passion for Botvinnik as chess – at Nottingham in 1936, where he had his first major tournament win outside the USSR, he said "I wish I could do what he's done in electrical engineering" (referring to

Computer chess.

In the 1950s Botvinnik became interested in computers, at first mainly for playing chess but he later also co-authored reports on the possible use of artificial intelligence in managing the Soviet economy. Botvinnik's research on chess-playing programs concentrated on "selective searches", which used general chess principles to decide which moves were worth considering. This was the only feasible approach for the primitive computers available in the Soviet Union in the early 1960s, which were only capable of searching three or four half-moves deep (i.e. A's move, B's move, A's move, B's move) if

Tournament results.

The following table gives Botvinnik's placings and scores in tournaments. The first "Score" column gives the number of points on the total possible. In the second "Score" column, "+" indicates the number of won games, "−" the number of losses, and "=" the number of draws.

Match results.

Here are Botvinnik's results in matches. In the second "Score" column,

Mikhail Moiseyevich Botvinnik (, ; – May 5, 1995) was a Soviet and Russian chess grandmaster and World Chess Champion for most of 1948 to 1963. Working as an electrical engineer and computer scientist at the same time, he was one of the very few players who achieved distinction in another career while playing top-class competitive chess. He was also a pioneer of computer chess.

Mikhaïl Moïsseïevitch Botvinnik (en ) ( à Kuokkala, aujourd'hui Repino, Gouvernement de Vyborg, Grand-duché de Finlande, au nord-ouest de Saint-Pétersbourg, Russie – à Moscou) est un joueur d'échecs soviétique, par ailleurs ingénieur électricien et informaticien.


Early years.

Petrosian was born to Armenian parents on June 17, 1929 in Tiflis, Georgian SSR (modern-day Georgia). As a young boy, Petrosian was an excellent student and enjoyed studying, as did his brother Hmayak and sister Vartoosh. He learned to play chess at the age of 8, though his illiterate father Vartan encouraged him to continue studying, as he thought chess was unlikely to bring his son any success as a career. Petrosian was orphaned during World War II and was forced to sweep streets to earn a living. It was about this time that his hearing began to deteriorate, a problem that afflicted him throughout his life. In a 1969 interview with "Time" magazine, he recalled: He used his rations to buy "Chess Praxis" by Danish grandmaster Aron Nimzowitsch, a book which Petrosian later stated had the greatest influence on him as a chess player. He also purchased "The Art of Sacrifice in Chess" by Rudolf Spielmann. The other player to have had an early effect on Petrosian's chess was José Raúl Capablanca. At age 12 he began training at the Tiflis Palace of Pioneers under the tutelage of Archil Ebralidze. Ebralidze was a supporter of Nimzowitsch and Capablanca, and his scientific approach to chess discouraged wild tactics and dubious combinations. As a result, Petrosian developed a repertoire of solid positional openings, such as the Caro–Kann Defence. After training at the Palace of Pioneers for just one year, he defeated visiting Soviet grandmaster Salo Flohr at a simultaneous exhibition.  By 1946, Petrosian had earned the title of Candidate Master. In that year alone, he drew against Grandmaster Paul Keres at the Georgian Chess Championship, then moved to Yerevan where he won the Armenian Chess Championship and the USSR Junior Chess Championship. Petrosian earned the title of Master during the 1947 USSR Chess Championship, though he failed to qualify for the finals. He set about to improve his game by studying Nimzowitsch's "My System" and by moving to Moscow to seek greater competition.

Grandmaster in Moscow.

After moving to Moscow in 1949, Petrosian's career as a chess player advanced rapidly and his results in Soviet events steadily improved. He placed second in the 1951 Soviet Championship, thereby earning the title of international master. It was in this tournament that Petrosian faced world champion Botvinnik for the first time. Playing White, after obtaining a slightly inferior position from the opening, he defended through two adjournments and eleven total hours of play to obtain a draw. Petrosian's result in this event qualified him for the Interzonal the following year in Stockholm. He earned the title of Grandmaster by coming in second in the Stockholm tournament, and qualified for the 1953 Candidates Tournament.  Petrosian placed fifth in the 1953 Candidates Tournament, a result which marked the beginning of a stagnant period in his career. He seemed content drawing against weaker players and maintaining his title of Grandmaster rather than improving his chess or making an attempt at becoming World Champion. This attitude was illustrated by his result in the 1955 USSR Championship: out of 19 games played, Petrosian was undefeated, but won only four games and drew the rest, with each of the draws lasting twenty moves or less. Although his consistent playing ensured decent tournament results, it was looked down upon by the public and by Soviet chess media and authorities. Near the end of the event, journalist Vasily Panov wrote the following comment about the tournament contenders: "Real chances of victory, besides Botvinnik and Smyslov, up to round 15, are held by Geller, Spassky and Taimanov. I deliberately exclude Petrosian from the group, since from the very first rounds the latter has made it clear that he is playing for an easier, but also honourable conquest—a place in the interzonal quartet."  This period of complacency ended with the 1957 USSR Championship, where out of 21 games played, Petrosian won seven, lost four, and drew the remaining 10. Although this result was only good enough for seventh place in a field of 22 competitors, his more ambitious approach to tournament play was met with great appreciation from the Soviet chess community. He went on to win his first USSR Championship in 1959, and later that year in the Candidates Tournament he defeated Paul Keres with a display of his often-overlooked tactical abilities. Petrosian was awarded the title of Master of Sport of the USSR in 1960, and won a second Soviet title in 1961. His excellent playing continued through 1962 when he qualified for the Candidates Tournament for what would be his first World Championship match.

1963 World Championship.

After playing in the 1962 Interzonal in Stockholm, Petrosian qualified for the Candidates Tournament in Curaçao along with Pal Benko, Miroslav Filip, Bobby Fischer, Efim Geller, Paul Keres, Viktor Korchnoi, and Mikhail Tal. Petrosian, representing the Soviet Union, won the tournament with a final score of 171⁄2 points, followed by fellow Soviets Geller and Keres each with 17 points and the American Fischer with 14. Fischer later accused the Soviet players of arranging draws and having "ganged up" on him to prevent him from winning the tournament. As evidence for this claim, he noted that all 12 games played between Petrosian, Geller, and Keres were draws. Statisticians pointed out that when playing against each other, these Soviet competitors averaged 19 moves per game, as opposed to 39.5 moves when playing against other competitors. Although responses to Fischer's allegations were mixed, FIDE later adjusted the rules and format to try to prevent future collusion in the Candidates matches.  Having won the Candidates Tournament, Petrosian earned the right to challenge Mikhail Botvinnik for the title of World Chess Champion in a 24-game match. In addition to practicing his chess, Petrosian also prepared for the match by skiing for several hours each day. He believed that in such a long match, physical fitness could become a factor in the later games. This advantage was increased by Botvinnik being much older than Petrosian. Whereas a multitude of draws in tournament play could prevent a player from taking first place, draws did not affect the outcome of a one-on-one match. In this regard, Petrosian's cautious playing style was well-suited for match play, as he could simply wait for his opponent to make mistakes and then capitalize on them. Petrosian won the match against Botvinnik with a final score of 5 to 2 with 15 draws, securing the title of World Champion.

Reigning World Champion.

Upon becoming World Champion, Petrosian campaigned for the publication of a chess newspaper for the entire Soviet Union rather than just Moscow. This newspaper became known as "64". Petrosian studied for a degree of Master of Philosophical Science at Yerevan State University; his thesis, dated 1968, was titled "Chess Logic, Some Problems of the Logic of Chess Thought".  In 1966, three years after Petrosian had earned the title of World Chess Champion, he was challenged by Boris Spassky. Petrosian defended his title by winning rather than drawing the match, a feat that had not been accomplished since Alexander Alekhine defeated Efim Bogoljubov in the 1934 World Championship. However, Spassky would defeat Efim Geller, Bent Larsen, and Viktor Korchnoi in the next candidates cycle, earning a rematch with Petrosian, in Moscow in 1969. Spassky won the match by 121⁄2–101⁄2.

Later career.

Along with a number of other Soviet chess champions, he signed a petition condemning the actions of the defector Viktor Korchnoi in 1976. It was the continuation of a bitter feud between the two, dating back at least to their 1974 Candidates semifinal match in which Petrosian withdrew after five games while trailing 31⁄2–11⁄2 (+3−1=1). His match with Korchnoi in 1977 saw the two former colleagues refuse to shake hands or speak to each other. They even demanded separate eating and toilet facilities. Petrosian went on to lose the match and was subsequently fired as editor of Russia's largest chess magazine, "64". His detractors condemned his reluctance to attack and some put it down to a lack of courage. At this point, however, Botvinnik spoke out on his behalf, stating that he only attacked when he felt secure and his greatest strength was in defence.  Some of his late successes included victories at Lone Pine 1976 and in the 1979 Paul Keres Memorial tournament in Tallinn (12/16 without a loss, ahead of Tal, Bronstein, and others). He shared first place (with Portisch and Hübner) in the Rio de Janeiro Interzonal the same year, and won second place in Tilburg in 1981, half a point behind the winner Beliavsky. It was here that he played his last famous victory, a miraculous escape against the young Garry Kasparov.

Personal life and death.

Petrosian lived in Moscow from 1949. In the 1960s and 1970s, he lived at 59 Pyatnitskaya Street. When asked by Anthony Saidy whether he is Russian, Petrosian replied: "Abroad, they call us all Russians. I am a Soviet Armenian."  In 1952, Petrosian married Rona Yakovlevna (née Avinezer, 1923–2005), a Russian Jew born in Kiev, Ukraine. A graduate of the Moscow Institute of Foreign Languages, she was an English teacher and interpreter. She is buried at the Jewish section of the in Moscow. They had two sons: Vartan and Mikhail. The latter was Rona's son from the first marriage.  His hobbies included soccer, backgammon, cross-country skiing, table tennis, and gardening.  Petrosian died of stomach cancer on August 13, 1984, in Moscow and is buried in the Moscow Armenian Cemetery.

Deafness.

Petrosian was partially deaf and wore a hearing aid during his matches, which sometimes led to strange situations. On one occasion he offered a draw to Svetozar Gligorić, which Gligorić initially refused in surprise, but then changed his mind in a few seconds and re-offered the draw. However, Petrosian did not even respond, instead went ahead and won the game. As it later turned out, he switched off his hearing aid, and did not hear when Gligorić re-offered the draw. In 1971, he played a candidates match against Robert Hübner in a noisy area in Seville, which did not disturb him, but frustrated Hübner so much that he finally withdrew from the match.

Recognition and legacy.

In 1987, World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov unveiled a memorial at Petrosian's grave which depicts the laurel wreath of World Champion and an image contained within a crown of the sun shining above the twin peaks of Mount Ararat – the national symbol of Petrosian's Armenian homeland. On July 7, 2006, a monument honouring Petrosian was opened in the Davtashen district of Yerevan, in the street named after Petrosian. Petrosian was also honoured on the Armenian dram, with his image on the 2,000 dram banknote.

Olympiads and team championships.

Petrosian was not selected for the Soviet Olympiad side until 1958; he had already been a Candidate twice by that time. But he then made ten straight Soviet Olympiad teams from 1958 to 1978, won nine team gold medals, one team silver medal, and six individual gold medals. His overall performance in Olympiad play is impressive: +78−1=50 (only one game lost, to Robert Hübner, out of 129 played), for 79.8 per cent, the third all-time best performance after Anatoly Karpov (+43−2=23 for 80.1 per cent) and Mikhail Tal (+65−2=34 for 81.2 per cent). His Olympiad results follow:  Petrosian also made the Soviet team for the first eight European Team Championships (from 1957 to 1983). He won eight team gold medals, and four board gold medals. His totals in Euroteams play, according to olimpbase.org, are (+15−0=37), for 64.4 per cent. His Euroteams results follow:

Playing style.

Petrosian was a conservative, cautious, and highly defensive chess player who was strongly influenced by Aron Nimzowitsch's idea of prophylaxis. He made more effort to prevent his opponent's offensive capabilities than he did to make use of his own. He very rarely went on the offensive unless he felt his position was completely secure. He usually won by playing consistently until his aggressive opponent made a mistake, securing the win by capitalizing upon this mistake without revealing any weaknesses of his own. This style of play often led to draws, especially against other players who preferred to counterattack. Nonetheless, his patience and mastery of defence made him extremely difficult to beat. He was undefeated at the 1952 and 1955 Interzonals, and in 1962 he did not lose a single tournament game. Petrosian's consistent ability to avoid defeat earned him the nickname "Iron Tigran". He was considered to be the hardest player to beat in the history of chess by the authors of a 2004 book.  Petrosian preferred to play openings that did not commit his pieces to any particular plan. As black, Petrosian enjoyed playing the Sicilian Defence, Najdorf Variation and the French Defence. As white, he often played the English Opening. Petrosian would often move the same piece multiple times in a few moves, confusing his opponents in the opening and threatening draws by threefold repetition in the endgame. In a game against Mark Taimanov during the 1955 USSR Chess Championship, Petrosian moved the same rook 6 times in a 24-move game, with 4 of those moves occurring on consecutive turns. He had a strong affinity for knights rather than bishops, a characteristic that is attributed to the influence of Aron Nimzowitsch.  A number of illustrative metaphors have been used to describe Petrosian's style of play. Harold C. Schonberg said that "playing him was like trying to put handcuffs on an eel. There was nothing to grip." He has been described as a centipede lurking in the dark, a tiger looking for the opportunity to pounce, a python who slowly squeezes his victims to death, and as a crocodile who waits for hours to make a decisive strike. Boris Spassky, who succeeded Petrosian as World Chess Champion, described his style of play as such: "Petrosian reminds me of a hedgehog. Just when you think you have caught him, he puts out his quills."  Petrosian's style of play, although highly successful for avoiding defeats, was criticized as being dull. Chess enthusiasts saw his "ultraconservative" style as an unwelcome contrast to the popular image of Soviet chess as "daring" and "indomitable". His 1971 Candidates Tournament match with Viktor Korchnoi featured so many monotonous draws that the Russian press began to complain. However, Svetozar Gligorić described Petrosian as being "very impressive in his incomparable ability to foresee danger on the board and to avoid any risk of defeat." Petrosian responded to his criticisms by saying: "They say my games should be more 'interesting'. I could be more 'interesting'—and also lose." Petrosian was, in the words of future World Champion Vladimir Kramnik, "the first defender with a capital D".  Another consequence of Petrosian's style of play was that he did not score many victories, which in turn meant he seldom won tournaments even though he often finished 2nd or 3rd. However, his style was extremely effective in matches. Petrosian could also occasionally play in an attacking, sacrificial style. In his 1966 match with Spassky, he won Game 7 and Game 10 this way. Boris Spassky subsequently stated: "It is to Petrosian's advantage that his opponents never know when he is suddenly going to play like Mikhail Tal." (Tal was known as the most aggressive attacker of his era.)

The positional exchange sacrifice.

Petrosian was known for his use of the "positional exchange sacrifice", where one side sacrifices a rook for the opponent's bishop or knight. Kasparov discussed Petrosian's use of this motif:  One of Petrosian's most famous examples of the positional exchange sacrifice is from his game against Samuel Reshevsky in Zurich 1953 (see diagram). Reshevsky, as White, appears to have an advantage due to his strong, which may become mobile after Bf3 and d4–d5. Petrosian realized he was in a difficult position because of the passive placement of his pieces, relegated to defensive roles. He further understood that White might also advance on the with h2–h4–h5, provoking weaknesses that would make it more difficult to defend later on. Faced with these threats, Petrosian devised a plan to maneuver his knight to the square d5, where it would be prominently placed in the centre, and blockade the advance of White's pawns.  With the rook vacated from e7, the black knight is free to move to d5, where it will be attacking the pawn on c3, and help support an eventual advance of his pawn with...b5–b4.  The game was eventually drawn on move 41.

Contributions to opening theory.

Petrosian was an expert against the King's Indian Defence, and he often played what is now known as the Petrosian System: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 Bg7 4.e4 d6 5.Nf3 0-0 6.Be2 e5 7.d5. This variation closes the centre early in the game. One of the tactical ideas for White is to play Bg5, pinning Black's knight to his queen. Black can respond by either moving his queen (usually...Qe8) or by playing...h6, though the latter move weakens Black's kingside pawn structure. Two of Black's responses to the Petrosian Variation were developed by grandmasters Paul Keres and Leonid Stein. The Keres Variation arises after 7...Nbd7 8.Bg5 h6 9.Bh4 g5 10.Bg3 Nh5 11.h4, and the Stein Variation begins an immediate queenside offensive with 7...a5.  The Queen's Indian Defence also has a variation developed by Petrosian: 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 e6 3.Nf3 b6 4.a3, with the idea of preventing...Bb4+. This system received much attention in 1980 when it was used by the young Garry Kasparov to defeat several grandmasters. Today the Petrosian Variation is still considered the most pressing variation, with the greatest score in Master games.  Other Petrosian variations can be found in the Grünfeld Defence after 1.d4 Nf6 2.c4 g6 3.Nc3 d5 4.Nf3 Bg7 5.Bg5, and the French Defence after 1.e4 e6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 Bb4 4.e5 Qd7. Some authorities refer to a variation of the Caro–Kann Defence with his name, along with former world champion Vassily Smyslov: the Petrosian–Smyslov Variation, 1.e4 c6 2.d4 d5 3.Nc3 dxe4 4.Nxe4 Nd7.

Tigran Vartanovich Petrosian (; ; June 17, 1929 – August 13, 1984) was a Soviet Armenian Grandmaster, and World Chess Champion from 1963 to 1969. He was nicknamed "Iron Tigran" due to his almost impenetrable defensive playing style, which emphasized safety above all else. Petrosian is credited with popularizing chess in Armenia.

Tigran Vartanovitch Petrossian (en, en ), est un joueur d'échecs soviétique né le à Tbilissi, en RSS de Géorgie (URSS), de parents arméniens et mort le à Moscou.


Usage and related terms.

The Oxford Dictionaries define cocktail as "An alcoholic drink consisting of a spirit or spirits mixed with other ingredients, such as fruit juice or cream". A cocktail can contain alcohol, a sugar, and a bitter/citrus. When a mixed drink contains only a distilled spirit and a mixer, such as soda or fruit juice, it is a highball. Many of the International Bartenders Association Official Cocktails are highballs. When a mixed drink contains only a distilled spirit and a liqueur, it is a duo, and when it adds a mixer, it is a trio. Additional ingredients may be sugar, honey, milk, cream, and various herbs.  Mixed drinks without alcohol that resemble cocktails are known as "mocktails" or "virgin cocktails".

Etymology.

The origin of the word cocktail is disputed. The first recorded use of cocktail not referring to a horse is found in "The Morning Post and Gazetteer" in London, England, March 20, 1798:  <poem> Mr. Pitt, two petit vers of "L'huile de Venus" Ditto, one of "perfeit amour" Ditto, "cock-tail" (vulgarly called ginger) </poem>  "The Oxford English Dictionary" cites the word as originating in the U.S. The first recorded use of "cocktail" as a beverage (possibly non-alcoholic) in the United States appears in "The Farmer's Cabinet", April 28, 1803:  The first definition of cocktail known to be an alcoholic beverage appeared in "The Balance and Columbian Repository" (Hudson, New York) May 13, 1806; editor Harry Croswell answered the question, "What is a cocktail?":  Etymologist Anatoly Liberman endorses as "highly probable" the theory advanced by Låftman (1946), which Liberman summarizes as follows:  In his book "Imbibe!" (2007), David Wondrich also speculates that "cocktail" is a reference to a practice for perking up an old horse by means of a ginger suppository so that the animal would "cock its tail up and be frisky."  Several authors have theorized that cocktail may be a corruption of cock ale.

Development.

There is a lack of clarity on the origins of cocktails. Traditionally cocktails were a mixture of spirits, sugar, water, and bitters. By the 1860s, however, a cocktail frequently included a liqueur.  The first publication of a bartenders' guide which included cocktail recipes was in 1862 – "How to Mix Drinks; or, The Bon Vivant's Companion", by "Professor" Jerry Thomas. In addition to recipes for punches, sours, slings, cobblers, shrubs, toddies, flips, and a variety of other mixed drinks were 10 recipes for "cocktails". A key ingredient differentiating cocktails from other drinks in this compendium was the use of bitters. Mixed drinks popular today that conform to this original meaning of "cocktail" include the Old Fashioned whiskey cocktail, the Sazerac cocktail, and the Manhattan cocktail. The ingredients listed (spirits, sugar, water, and bitters) match the ingredients of an Old Fashioned, which originated as a term used by late 19th century bar patrons to distinguish cocktails made the "old-fashioned" way from newer, more complex cocktails.  In the 1869 recipe book "Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks", by William Terrington, cocktails are described as: The term highball appears during the 1890s to distinguish a drink composed only of a distilled spirit and a mixer.  The first "cocktail party" ever thrown was allegedly by Mrs. Julius S. Walsh Jr. of St. Louis, Missouri, in May 1917. Walsh invited 50 guests to her home at noon on a Sunday. The party lasted an hour, until lunch was served at 1 pm. The site of this first cocktail party still stands. In 1924, the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of St. Louis bought the Walsh mansion at 4510 Lindell Boulevard, and it has served as the local archbishop's residence ever since.  During Prohibition in the United States (1920–1933), when alcoholic beverages were illegal, cocktails were still consumed illegally in establishments known as speakeasies. The quality of the liquor available during Prohibition was much worse than previously. There was a shift from whiskey to gin, which does not require aging and is therefore easier to produce illicitly. Honey, fruit juices, and other flavorings served to mask the foul taste of the inferior liquors. Sweet cocktails were easier to drink quickly, an important consideration when the establishment might be raided at any moment. With wine and beer less readily available, liquor-based cocktails took their place, even becoming the centerpiece of the new cocktail party.  Cocktails became less popular in the late 1960s and through the 1970s, until resurging in the 1980s with vodka often substituting the original gin in drinks such as the martini. Traditional cocktails began to make a comeback in the 2000s, and by the mid-2000s there was a renaissance of cocktail culture in a style typically referred to as mixology that draws on traditional cocktails for inspiration but utilizes novel ingredients and often complex flavors.

See also.

Lists Devices for producing and imbibing Media

A cocktail is an alcoholic mixed drink, which is either a combination of spirits, or one or more spirits mixed with other ingredients such as fruit juice, flavored syrup, or cream. There are various types of cocktails, based on the number and kind of ingredients added. The origins of the cocktail are debated.

Un cocktail, pouvant être orthographié coquetel au Québec, est un mélange de boissons et d’éléments aromatiques et décoratifs en quantité variable. Ils contiennent souvent de l'alcool, mais de très nombreuses recettes en sont dépourvues.