Google Doodle honors chess master Lyudmila Rudenko

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Google Doodle Friday exalted Soviet chess master Lyudmila Rudenko on the 114th anniversary of her birth – a tribute to “her achievements both on and off the board.”

The doodle adduces 1960s graphic art and posters, said Google, and “reimagines a focused Rudenko’s determination during the world championship game.”

A screenshot of Google

Born in Lubny, Ukraine, Rudenko was introduced to chess by her father at the age of 10. Nonetheless, Rudenko was more focused on competitive swimming and was the vice-champion of Ukraine (breaststroke) in 1925.

The same year she started playing in chess tournaments and won the 1928 Moscow women's chess championship. After moving to Leningrad, Rudenko began training with the eminent chess master Peter Romanovsky in 1929. Despite seeing chess as a predilection, she dedicated to herself as a Soviet Union economic planner.

Rudenko was crowned the Women’s World Chess Champion in 1950 and held the title until 1953. She was awarded the Federation Internationale des Echecs (FIDE) titles of International Master (IM) in 1950, the first woman given that distinction, and inducted into the World Chess Hall of Fame in 2015.

Off the board, the chess champion was commemorated for her humanism during World War II. The almost-900-day Siege of Leningrad led to over 1.1 million civilian deaths due largely to starvation.

Rudenko organized a train journey that helped stranded children to escape from the besieged city. Over 414,000 children were sent to areas such as the Urals, the Volga and Siberia.

The chess master considered the evacuation as the most important thing she had ever done in her life.