DANIELIAN
Chess Grandmaster • Team Armenia
Elina Danielian
The strongest woman in Armenian chess history — a full Grandmaster and two-decade first board of the national team, in the country where chess is homework.
The strongest woman in Armenian chess history — a full Grandmaster and two-decade first board of the national team, in the country where chess is homework.
Elina Danielian, born in Baku in 1978 and raised in Armenia, is the strongest woman in Armenian chess history — a full Grandmaster in a country that treats the title like knighthood, and for decades the first board of Armenia's national women's team.
A prodigy who took medals in world youth championships, she won the Armenian women's championship repeatedly and earned the men's Grandmaster title — placing her among the few dozen women in history to do so. Her breakthrough years brought victories in elite women's events, including a triumphant run in the FIDE Women's Grand Prix, and a place among the world's top ten women players.
Leading Armenia's women's team across two decades of Olympiads and European championships, she has been to Armenian girls what Aronian was to the boys: proof that the school-of-chess nation makes champions of everyone.
In the country that put chess on the school curriculum, she is the woman every chess-playing girl grew up studying.
— On Elina DanielianDanielian extends Armenia's chess dynasty into the women's game, mentoring the generation now rising through the school chess programs. Her Grandmaster title remains the benchmark for every Armenian girl who learns the Sicilian in second grade.
Discover the culture, history, and community behind figures like Elina Danielian.
Heritage Month Explore Armenian Culture