Ksawery Tartakower (also known as Savielly Tartakower in English, 22nd February, 1887 – 4th February, 1956) was a Polish-French chess Grandmaster, chess journalist and author in the 1920s and 1930s whose books are also popular today.

He was born in Rostov-on-Don, Russia, into an Austrian-Jewish family. His parents were killed in an anti-Semitic riot in 1911. Tartakower stayed in Austria and completed his law degrees at the universities of Vienna and Geneva. In the course of his studies, he became interested in chess and attended chess meetings in several cafés in Vienna. During this period he met famous chess players, like Carl Schlechter, Géza Maróczy, Milan Vidmar, and Richard Réti. His first notable success was the first place at the Nuremberg Tournament in 1906. Three years later he finished second in Vienna, behind Réti.

During World War I, he was conscripted into the Austrian-Hungarian army, where he served as a staff officer.

After the war he emigrated to France and settled in Paris. Although he didn’t speak Polish, after Poland had gained its independence in 1918, he obtained the Polish citizenship. Tartakower was the captain and trainer of the Polish Chess Team in six international tournaments and won a gold medal for Poland at the Hamburg Olympiad in 1930.

In France, he decided to become a professional chess player. He cooperated with several chess magazines, wrote books and released articles connected with chess. One of his famous works, Die Hypermoderne Schachpartie ("The Hypermodernist Chess Game") was published in 1924; since then it has been released in almost one hundred editions.

He played in many important tournaments of the period, in 1927 and 1928 he won two events in Hastings and tied for the first with Aron Nimzowitsch in London. Later he beat such great players as Frank Marshall, Milan Vidmar and Efim Bogolyubov. In 1930, Liege, he won a tournament by beating Mir Sultan Khan. Furthermore, he overtook, among others, Akiba Rubinstein, Nimzowitsch, and Marshall.

He won the Polish championship twice, represented the Polish National Team in six chess olympiads in the1930s. He won three individual medals (one gold and two bronze) and five further medals in team (one gold, two silver and two bronze medals.)

In 1939, at the outbreak of the World War II he played in the 8th Chess Olympiad in Buenos Aires. He represented the Polish team that included Miguel Najdorf. Najdorf always referred to Tartakower as "my teacher".

After he had stayed in Argentina for a short time, he finally decided to return to Europe. In 1940, he arrived shortly before the fall of France and joined the forces of de Gaulle under the pseudonym Cartier.