Tchaikovsky's Last Days: A Documentary Study - Hardcover

Poznansky, Alexander

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 019816596X ISBN 13: 9780198165965

Publisher: Clarendon Press, 1996

Synopsis

Tchaikovsky's death in October 1893 in St. Petersburg, shortly after the first performance of his masterpiece, the Pathétique symphony, is one of the most thoroughly documented deaths of a prominent cultural figure in modern times. He was treated by no fewer than four physicians and surrounded by a group of relatives and friends. The official account of his death was that he died from cholera. But almost since the day of his passing there have been rumors that it was not accidental. It is alleged that Tchaikovsky was forced to commit suicide in order to avoid the scandal and disgrace of being unmasked as a homosexual.

Alexander Poznansky is the first Western scholar to have access to the Tchaikovsky archives in Klin, Russia. In this fascinating new book, the product of five years' research, he provides a definitive account of the circumstances preceding the composer's death. On the basis of much previously unknown material, including diaries, letters, memoirs, and newspaper reports, he traces in minute detail the composer's activities during the last weeks of his life and finds no evidence to support the notion that Tchaikovsky's death was brought about by nything other than cholera.

About this title

Review

What or who killed the famous Russian composer Peter Ilych Tchaikovsky? Was it cholera, as his doctors recorded at his death in 1893 and most historians have since believed? Or was it self-administered poison, the enforced exit from a scandalous homosexual affair with a member of the Russian royal family? Versions of this latter account, which began as a swirl of rumors immediately after the composer's death, have had a long and curious afterlife, through the Czarist and Soviet periods into the heated sexual-political debates of our own time.

In an attempt to get to the bottom of the mystery, Alexander Poznansky's Tchaikovsky's Last Days shifts carefully through a wealth of documentary evidence, including Russian archival material formerly inaccessible to scholars. His conclusion comes by way of a fascinating look at the sexual life of 19th-century Russia and a reflected glance at the sexual mythmaking impulses of the present.

From the Back Cover

Tchaikovsky's death in October 1893 in St Petersburg, shortly after the premiere of his sixth symphony, The Pathetique, is one of the most thoroughly documented deaths of a prominent cultural figure in modern times. He was treated by no fewer than four physicians and surrounded by a group of relatives and friends. The official account of the circumstances of his death was that he died from cholera, possibly by drinking infected water. But almost since the day of his death there have been rumours that it was not accidental. It is alleged that Tchaikovsky was forced to commit suicide in order to avoid the scandal and disgrace of being unmasked as a homosexual. Alexander Poznansky is the first Western scholar to have gained access to the Tchaikovsky archives in Klin, Russia. He here provides much hitherto unknown documentary material - memoirs, diary entries, letters, and newspaper reports - and adds his own commentary on the status of homosexuality in nineteenth-century Russia and on various conspiracy theories that have been advanced to account for Tchaikovsky's death. His conclusion is that there is no factual evidence to support the notion that Tchaikovsky's death was brought about by anything other than cholera.

Edition details

• Publisher: Clarendon Press
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 019816596X
• ISBN 13: 9780198165965
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 254