Vancura Position

The position is named after Josef Vancura, a Czech (Czechoslovak) endgame composer born 18 August 1898 in Smichov and died 19 November 1921, aged 23, who worked as a scrivener or public notary and lived in Prague. He composed his studies in a very brief career, and the drawing method now bearing his name was published posthumously in 1924, three years after his death. Wikipedia states plainly that the rook-and-pawn drawing setup was studied by Josef Vancura (1898-1921) and published in 1924. Edward Winter's dedicated Chess Notes feature warns that the trail is thinner than usually claimed: Winter reports Vancura's death in 1921 from the February 1922 issue of Casopis Ceskoslovenskych Sachistu, notes that in the mid-1920s that magazine reprinted many of his compositions posthumously from the Czech newspaper 28. Rijen, and states that he has not been able to show the Vancura position in a 1924 source. Winter also traces the related rook-endgame theory to Tarrasch's appendix Neue Untersuchungen ueber Turmendspiele in Der Schachwettkampf Lasker-Tarrasch (Leipzig, 1908), pages 125-148, translated in the British Chess Magazine in 1909.

First documented: 1924 (posthumous publication, per Wikipedia and ARVES; Winter notes he cannot verify a 1924 printing directly) — Posthumous 1924 publication of Vancura's study; Winter cites mid-1920s reprints in Casopis Ceskoslovenskych Sachistu from the newspaper 28. Rijen