Chess and the Circle by
Mikola Mandelstahm (b.1634, d.1681). What we know of it is only due to the
archaeology of 20th century French
historian Jean-Patrice Lenoir, who worked for many years under the famous
Annales historian
Lucien Febvre. Lenoir's historical
methodology often borrowed from Febvre's emphasis on blending
economic and
technological history as well
Michel Foucault's
genealogical history, not always
linear, sensitive to institutions consolidating
power, and questioning of conceptual
assumptions that might drive the 'normal' (to borrow a
Kuhnian term) practice of history.
In his research on Mandelstahm, Lenoir wrote an essay entitled "Livre Détruit Par Mikola Mandelstahm" ("Mikola Mandelstahm's Lost Book") in which he mentions this lost treatise on chess and God. Lenoir tells us that the book consisted of 4
signatures of 36 pages each, 144 pages in total. The book (if we can call it that) is hardly bound together, but each sown signature is attached to the next with additional threading. There is no
spine or
cover, but the frontpage gives the title and the author, in a form similar to bookcovers of the day. The entire text was written by hand. No copies remain of it today. The frontpage is adorned, as are many pages inside, with a diagram of a
chess position. The illustration on page 37 displays a position from Mandelstahm's historic game against
Grigorii Kotoshikhin, just before Mandelstahm was able to force a
smothered mate. The text is written in black ink, and the illustrations are given in many colors, which Lenoir remarks, "have been sorely faded with the passage of time". We are told that the book gives an appearance of being far older than it could have been.
The book was certainly written sometime after 1664; we know this because Mandelstahm only seriously studied chess after this date. The date of its writing is bordered on the other end by Mandelstahm's death in 1681. Lenoir remarks that it was probably authored sometime in the 1670's, when Mandelstahm was most obsessed with applying the theological notions described in his
Codex Dei Omnibus to other aspects of life. Chess, a hobby of Mandelstahm's, was a natural choice for one such enterprise.
Lenoir tells us that the book is not a
manual of chess. Such manuals are, in any event, certainly
modern conceptions--what we consider a manual of chess was probably first written by the master
Wilhelm Steinitz in the late 19th century. Earlier texts by
Lucena and
Ruy Lopez present the game, certainly, in a different light.
Chess and the Circle is, as suggesetd, an application of Mandelstahm's notion of the 'all-encompassing circular
orbit of
God returning' (Dei Omnibus) to the game of chess. Although the rules of the game are given, and certain techniques for capturing pieces and mating the king are discussed in the book, they are most often put to the service of Mandelstahm's belief in the
infinite of
God and
time, and the
eternal recurrence (or replication) of every moment.
The book includes a number of
chess problems developed by Mandelstahm in which the repeatability of the position is emphasized. One position, Lenoir writes, shows a peculiar form of
stalemate in which a number of pieces remain on the board, but none can make a legal move. Lenoir tell us that Mandelstahm found this a particularly amusing form of
stasis on the board, revealing again the infinitude of the divine: "
Absolute rest implies absolute movement; the position as totally at rest is also thereby pure motion because if no piece can move, all pieces can thereby move as one; as, Mandelstahm speculated, we are simultaneous with God".
Lenoir also tells us that Mandelstahm is fascinated with
Euler's problem of the
Knight's Tour: the
Knight must travel to every square on the board without entering any square more than once while moving as it normally would in a game of chess. As there are 64 squares, the knight will move 64 times. There are many solutions to the problem.
Mandelstahm speculated that perhaps the number of solutions was infinite.
Mathematicians have disputed this, but Lenoir tells us that Mandelstahm did not understand infinite according to modern conceptions, but thought of it more along the lines of
superlative to human understanding, therefore requiring, and demonstrating,
faith in the divine.
Curiously, Mandelstahm expresses frustration at the
Bishop, for it is the only piece that can never, in a legal game, touch every square on the board. Even pawns, once
promoted, can thereby tour each square on the board,
representing in their motion the 'Dei Omnibus'. For this reason, Mandelstahm compared the Bishop to
human beings, who live their entire lives often experiencing only a portion of the reality in which they are immersed. Mandelstahm made the suggestion of eliminating bishops from the game, replacing them with some other piece with different rules of motion. Lenoir quotes the obscure words of Mandelstahm:
"The bishop is imperfect. Like most men, their experience is as monotone, it is partial. Those devoted to the study of faith, to the recitation of Scripture, to holy incantations, experience a multiplicity in life, approaching the circular movement of God as they tend to repeat, with perfection, the fact of their Being."
An enterprise that certainly evades contemporary sensibilities, Mandelstahm's attempt to study God through chess is certainly a fascinating work in faith, if it does not also serve as an introduction to one form of
interdisciplinary devotion.