He is particularly remembered for his match against American Bobby Fischer in 1972 – right in the middle of the Cold War.
The symbolic duel has been depicted in several books, documentaries, and films.
Spassky was the world champion since 1969 and represented a Soviet Union that dominated the chess world. The party started well for Spassky, but Fischer managed to turn it around. The American won and ended an unbroken row of Soviet world champions since 1948.
The loss was an enormous setback for Moscow. But Spassky admitted several decades later that it was a relief for him personally to be rid of the "colossal responsibility".
I could breathe more easily, he said.
Boris Spassky was born in St. Petersburg, then Leningrad, in 1937. He became junior world champion and the youngest grandmaster in history at the age of 18.
A few years after the bitter loss to Fischer, he moved to France, got married, and became a French citizen in 1978.
Spassky returned to his homeland for the first time in 2012, which both his wife and sister advised against. Marked by a stroke and in poor health, he spent his last years in Moscow.
