The chessboard in literature has transformed into a battlefield, a model of fate, and a trap for the mind. Historian Tatyana Ivanovskaya will trace the path of this image from medieval poems to Nabokov and Zweig, explain the structure of "Alice in the Looking Glass," and discuss why writers have long been drawn to a game without chance. In chess, the result cannot be explained by a lucky throw or a random turn of events. Each piece moves according to known rules, and the consequences of decisions can be traced several moves ahead. This is why writers have used the board for centuries as a model of a world where freedom collides with order, man with fate, and calculation with forces that cannot be fully controlled. Tatyana Ivanovskaya will show how the literary meaning of chess has changed with the ages. In medieval texts, a game could depict social hierarchy, war, or romantic confrontation. Later, the game became a sign of intellectual superiority and a way to reveal a character's nature. Through pieces and moves, authors created plots about power, choice, temptation, and the cost of victory. A separate discussion will be dedicated to "Alice in the Looking Glass." Lewis Carroll constructed the fairy tale's space based on the principle of a chess game: the heroine starts her journey as a pawn and moves to the last rank to become a queen. In 20th-century literature, the image becomes more unsettling. In the works of Vladimir Nabokov and Stefan Zweig, chess captivates the consciousness, displacing ordinary life and transforming into a closed system from which the hero finds it difficult to escape. The poster for St. Petersburg is available on KUDAGO.