In the 1950s, Mark Taimanov played it with some success, though it remained a sideline, as it has to this day. This defence has been known since the 1880s and was reintroduced in 1901 by Carl Schlechter. The Norwegian connection was first introduced by Svein Johannessen who played the line from 1957 and later strengthened when Simen Agdestein and some other Norwegian players adopted the variation. In 1995 Jonathan Tisdall published the article "Ruy Lopez. The Norwegian Variation" in New in Chess "Yearbook" 37.