![]() The first was written after Shipov beat Magnus Carlsen to first place at the 2006 Midnight Sun Chess Challenge in Tromsø, Norway. One person I’ve seen “accused” of popularising calling Magnus “the Kid” is Sergey Shipov, so perhaps it’s worth ending with a couple of his longer pieces, which also give a picture of the development of the chess phenomenon. When Carlsen beat Vladimir Kramnik in the first round of the London Chess Classic last year the most popular Russian daily newspaper ran with the headline, “Carlsen upset ‘the kid’ Kramnik”. On the 34th move it was as if he said to Topalov’s face: “No buns for you today, fly away…”. Topalov committed the decisive mistake and practically lost in one move. ![]() As the author explained here Topalov was the gluttonous Karlson: For example, when Veselin Topalov blundered into mate in the game Carlsen – Topalov, Morelia-Linares 2008, an article in was entitled, “Topalov was left without buns”. As this perhaps suggests it’s never quite clear who the real-life Carlsen is, the Kid or the mischievous roof-dweller. For instance, in April this year the popular Ogoniok magazine ran a front-page profile of Carlsen with the headline “The Kid Carlsen” (the similarity of Magnus to the Russian Malysh may also be a factor). The Kid and Karlson on a Russian stamp | photo: short, despite the many different spellings of the Scandinavian surname, Magnus Carlsen couldn’t help but be associated with the children’s character. Suddenly the Russian press coverage of the rising star makes a lot more sense. It has English subtitles and Part II should be visible in the related videos when Part I ends : The small, portly Karlson (in his “prime”, as he puts it) has a sweet tooth, an unshakeable belief in his own abilities and a mischievous nature, which makes him the perfect friend and partner-in-crime for the lonely young boy.Įven if cartoons in foreign languages aren’t usually your thing, the original cartoon below (from 1968) is utterly charming. They tell the story of a very ordinary 7-year-old boy (the Kid), who lives in an ordinary house in an ordinary Stockholm street with an ordinary family… except for the extraordinary fact that a man called Karlson lives in a small house on their roof. This man also has, for reasons left unexplained, a propeller on his back operated by a button on his belly that allows him to fly. It’s based on the “Karlson on the Roof” ( Karlsson på taket) series of children’s books by the famous Swedish author, Astrid Lindgren. The real-life Magnus Carlsen never had a chance! The culprit, as some readers might already have guessed (or known), is a Soviet cartoon called Malysh i Karlson, or, in translation, “The Kid and Karlson” (or “Junior and Karlson”, but I’ll stick with Kid!). ![]() What made the Norwegian special? Well, apart from his phenomenal talent, it turns out that for anyone who’s had a Soviet childhood his surname is indelibly linked to an iconic cartoon character. After all, Carlsen was a boy who looked his age when he shot to fame, so why not call him “the Kid”? It seemed natural, if a little surprising that none of the other chess child prodigies had acquired it first. Previously I hadn’t given the nickname much thought. While translating Sergey Shipov’s commentary on the recent tournament in Bilbao, Colin McGourty came up against a minor problem – how best to convey Magnus Carlsen’s Russian nickname, “Malysh”? He went with “the Kid”, but his uncertainty was picked up by a Russian reader who wrote in to explain the surprising story behind it.
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