Crowning or Reincarnation?

Source: Shachmat, vol. 2 nos. 11-12 (June-July 1964), p. 29.

We have often noted in this blog the issue the matter of chess terms in Hebrew (see. e.g., "chess terms" or Shaul Hon's obituary.) One issue was how to translated "promotion". The committee by H. N. Biyalik in 1932 for Hebrew chess terms preferred gilgul, "reincarnation," while Shaul Hon later suggested hachtara, "crowning." (See "Minuach Ivri Be’shachmat" [Hebrew Terminology in Chess], Shachmat, vol. 2 no. 8 (March 1964), pp. 3-4, 3.) 

The above is a a reply to Hon, arguing for gilgul instead of hachtara, in the end of the problems section (pp. 23-29) of the June-July issue: 

A terminological point: the reader surely noted that we used here the term "reincarnation" and not "crowning" as Shaul Hon suggests... we problem composers believe that one can crown a pawn into a queen, but not to a rook, bishop or knight, since promotion to the officer's rank [i.e., from pawn to piece - A. P.] does not require a royal act like crowning. The term "crowning" comes, apparently, from the prejudice of "pure" players for whom every pawn on the seventh rank is a potential queen and any other reincarnation is unmentionable! In the world of composition, such "forbidden" reincarnations are a matter of course. 

The term "reincarnation" - as opposed to some other term like a literal translation of "promotion" (kidum) - probably occurred to Biyalik since he looked at the pawn as if it "died" and was "reborn" as a new piece. Perhaps the terms also harks back to the fact that the promoted piece is usually also one which was previously "killed" (i.e., captured).