Chess Moves

In the autumn of 1981, Anatoli Karpov, representing the Soviet Union, and the Russian exile, Viktor Korchnoi, competed in Meran for the title of World Chess Champion.

To mark this event, the Museum of Tourism organised a three-week exhibition about the Chess Championship and the publicity it brought the town.

The World Chess Championship (held 1.10.-20.11.1981) attracted world-wide interest. The contest, between Karpov, who remained true to the party-line, and Korchnoi, the dissident, seemed to symbolise the East-West conflict itself. About 50,000 newspaper articles were published on the subject of the Championship, resulting in a wealth of publicity for Meran. This duel between Karpov and Korchnoi against the background of the Cold War, inspired the English song writer, Tim Rice, and two former ABBA musicians, Benny Andersson and Björn Ulvaeus, to create the musical "Chess" which was set in Meran and Bangkok. The song "One night in Bangkok" became a world-wide hit. On 22 and 23 October 2001, 20 years after the Chess Championship, the original version of the musical was staged in Meran for the first time.