11 January 1938(1938-01-11) (aged 48) Leningrad, Russian SFSR, USSR
Arvid Kubbel (12 September 1889 – 11 January 1938) was a chess player and composer of chess problems and endgame studies from the Soviet Union.[1] He was a brother of Evgeny and Leonid Kubbel (one of the best-known chess composers); their father was born in Latvia, of Baltic German descent. He played in relatively few tournaments, but was among the stronger players of the early Soviet Union.
On 21 November 1937 he was arrested and charged under Article 58 1a (treason) of the RSFSR penal code. According to Huffington Post chess columnist Lubomir Kavalek, this was for sending his compositions to foreign newspapers.[4] He was executed shortly afterwards.[5][6]
^Lubomir Kavalek (15 November 2010). "Chess Puzzles: A Disappearing Act". Huffington Post (chess column). New York City. Retrieved 26 March 2013. Arvid Kubbel (1889-1938), an older brother of the well-known composer Leonid Kubbel, was sent to Soviet gulag for sending his compositions to foreign "bourgeois" newspapers. He died a year later.
^Y. Z. Rachinsky, ed. (2007). Жертвы политического террора в СССР [Victims of political terror in the USSR] (in Russian). Moscow: Memorial. Retrieved 26 March 2013. Kubbel Arvid I. Born in 1889 in Leningrad, Latvian, nonpartisan, accountant with the sports society "Spartak." Lived: Leningrad... (address given) Arrested: 21 November 1937 Trial: Commission of the NKVD and the USSR Prosecutor's Office January 3, 1938; charged under Article 58-1a-9 RSFSR Criminal Code. Sentence: shot by firing squad, January 11, 1938. Place of burial - Leningrad. Source: Leningrad Martyrology: 1937-1938