Examining the Icon

For Russians, Tchaikovsky is like Pushkin — just another sacred cultural figure — but in the field of music. He was the composer of Russian classical music, the idol of many a pianist and conductor ... His monument is in front of the Moscow Conservatory. His name was given to the world’s most popular musical contest ... And, just like Pushkin, he was a real man, with real weaknesses and passions—some of which did not quite fit into traditional Russian or Soviet moral norms. 

In the early 1990s, when the gates of glasnost burst open, the local press and critical literature was flooded with speculative publications that savored facts about Tchaikovsky’s homosexuality. The authors, often to the detriment of the composer’s musical merits, focused on this hitherto hidden part of his life, speculating on the true causes of his death, etc. 

Now that the archives have been open for a number of years, the dust is beginning to settle and both scholars and popular magazines such as ours can seek out a balanced interpretation of this great Russian’s life, free of hyperbole or hysteria. That task brought us to Klin, where Tchaikovsky resided for the last eight-and-a-half years of his life and where thousands of precious documents are archived. The director of the House-Museum, Galina Belonovich, who has worked there since 1973, has lived through many different periods of “tchaikovskovedeniye” – the study of Tchaikovsky. She agreed to meet with Russian Life Publisher Paul Richardson and Editor Mikhail Ivanov, to answer our questions about Tchaikovsky’s life and work.

“... ü Í äÎËÌÛ, Ò‡Ï Ì Á̇fl ͇Í, Û ÒÌÓ ÔË‚flÁ‡ÎÒfl Ë Ì ÏÓ„Û Ò·fl Ô‰ÒÚ‡‚ËÚ¸ ‚ ‰Û„ÓÏ ÏÂÒÚÂ.”

“... I really don’t know how,  but I have become terribly attached to Klin and can’t imagine myself anywhere else.” 

— Pyotr Tchaikovsky. 

Russian Life: Galina Ivanovna, what place does Klin hold in the life and art of Tchaikovsky?

Galina Belonovich: He spent the last period of his life and art here. At first, he lived in Maidanovo (a district of Klin), then in Frolovskoye, 5 km from Klin. For the last one-and-a-half years of his life, he lived in Klin, where we now have the world-famous museum. It was in Klin district that he composed many of his works, namely the operas Cherevichki and Charodeika and orchestrated The Queen of Spades, which he had written in Italy. There was also Iolanta, the ballet Sleeping Beauty, the Nutcracker, his Fifth and Sixth symphonies, Manfred, a great many romances, chamber music ... so this huge strata of his music is connected with Klin.

RL: Why did he choose Klin?

GB: It is hard to say for sure. In a famous quote [above] he admitted that he could not explain why he was so attached to Klin. I guess it was important that Klin is located not far from Moscow and at the same time far enough from the capital so that no one could interfere with his creativity and work. And then the nature and landscape is very important for him here. Tchaikovsky loved nature and nature played a very important role in his work and art.

RL: What makes this museum different from all similar museums or is it just another house of an illustrious Russian personality?

GB: In fact, the museum is the first memorial musical museum in Russia—the oldest in Russia. Tchaikovsky died in 1893, he left this house to go to St. Petersburg, for the first performance of his Sixth Symphony. And he passed away there. So his brother Modest Ilyich, who by the way also had an anniversary last May—he turned 150 ... decided to leave everything the way it was. This house didn’t belong to Tchaikovsky, he rented it from a local judge, so Modest Ilyich had to do a lot to buy the house. But again, the specialty of our museum is that nothing at all left the house; it was all preserved as it was during Tchaikovsky’s lifetime. So gradually Modest Ilyich bought the house ... together with his nephew buying up all the possessions, which were left here as is, because it was Tchaikovsky’s servant, Alexei Ivanovich Safronov, who inherited [Tchaikovsky’s] possessions. So the museum has existed since December 1894. Why since 1894? Because it was decided that the first inscription in the visitor’s book would be the founding date for the museum ...

RL: What was the attitude of Klin residents towards their great countryman? I mean, not today’s customers of the local McDonald’s we saw downtown, but his contemporaries ... We call them Klinchane, right?

GB: Yes, Klinchane. In fact, his contemporaries often didn’t know he was a great composer and that he was writing music. Well, they knew there was a barin living here, but far from all knew there was a composer living nearby. Now the Klinchane are proud of this; we have huge concert activities here and we are delighted to have full halls at these concerts and to see lots of young people, including entire families with little children ... We try to play mostly Tchaikovsky here ... On the one hand, it would seem that Tchaikovsky is studied inside out, and even students sometimes don’t want to study Tchaikovsky, thinking to themselves: “What else is new in him?!” As a matter of fact, we have here what I could call “the illusion of knowledge”... and we try, through festivals and exhibitions and publications, to spread new knowledge about his life and art, because there a lot of “blank spots” in his biography. We still don’t know a lot of things, some of his works are performed rarely or not performed at all.

RL: Could you cite a recent example of such “blank spot” which you have shed light on?

GB: Oh, well, there are quite a few. For example, not so long ago a recording of Tchaikovsky’s voice was discovered ... Then some things related to his biography, his entourage, new names ... 

RL: His voice?!

GB: Yes, the voice of Tchaikovsky was detected from the early 1890s, when a representative of Edison’s firm, Julius Block demonstrated Edison’s wax phonograph in Russia. We know that Tchaikovsky attended these sessions and listened to these recordings, and was a big fan of Edison. We did suppose that, like many other Russian composers, perhaps his voice was recorded as well. But Julius Block’s archive was lost. Later, it turned out that part of the archives were preserved in Pushkin’s house in St. Petersburg, but the archive was not inventoried. I mean, the cases were numbered, that’s it; there was no inventory of specific items. In recent years, the inventory was finally found, and Tchaikovsky’s recorded voice was numbered under #283. We went to the Pushkin house in St. Petersburg to listen to his voice. 

RL: How would you describe the voice of Tchaikovsky?

GB: Well, the recording was, of course, far from perfect, and experts from Pushkin’s house worked a lot to clean it up. In fact, it is a recording of a group of people, and the voice of Pyotr Ilyich distinguishes itself by the stylistic characteristics of his vocabulary. When Tchai-kovsky listened to Edison’s phonograph, he made a laudatory written dedication to Edison. [On the recording] he restated this dedication almost word for word. 

RL: This is a technological blank spot so to speak. But what about his musical heritage, has anything been found of late?

GB: Some works were performed with omissions, for example, when a full collection of Tchaikovsky’s works was prepared. You may know that a new, full academic collection of his works by the Moscow publishing house Muzyka, and the German Publishing House Schott is being prepared—without any deletions or omissions. The previous collection didn’t contain any of his spiritual (i.e. religious) music for the church. There was no such volume in the collection. Can you imagine? As if it didn’t exist.

RL: So we are talking here about ideologically-driven omissions?

GB: Quite obviously. And if you take the volumes with his letters, there are lots of deletions there as well, connected with some peculiarities, for example ... (pause) of his life, his physiology ... And then in old Soviet times the tradition was to lacquer over, to polish Tchaikovsky, to make an icon out of a living man, instead of presenting him as a real man, of flesh and blood. He will not become less interesting as a result, quite to the contrary. 

RL: Since you touched upon this problem yourself, how do you think the Russian research into Tchaikovsky’s life has changed in recent years, comparing to the Soviet times, now that we a reassessing a lot of things?

GB: Like I said, some things were silenced. Some were underscored more than necessary. Recently we have began creating a database on Tchaikovsky and now we are opening some archives, some new manuscripts, some notes ...

RL: And some things you said were underscored more than necessary. His patriotism or what?

GB: No, he has always been a patriot, this since his childhood. What I meant is some of his works were reworked. For example, the solemn 1812 Overture. The finale was replaced by Slavsya (Glory) by Mikhail Glinka, as it was believed it would make it even more solemn. Some really startling things were done.

RL: You said some of his physiological peculiarities were hidden ... 

GB: Well, yes ... Though it was said in the Medical Encyclopedia anywhere Tchaikovsky’s name was mentioned—it wasn’t appropriate to speak about it. Moreover, when we came to work at this museum, and I was just a research fellow in the early 1970s, we even were supposed to deny it ... 

RL: You mean his sexual orientation?

GB: Well, of course. Even when people would ask you questions ... This was unacceptable [to reveal it]. It was in the early 1970s.

RL: And when did they give you the “OK” to tell the truth about this?

GB: Well, I don’t have a fixed date to give you, but it all began with perestroika. With more openness. 

RL: But everybody knew about it, right?

GB: Quite naturally everybody knew, and it was okay. I mean, we love him not just because of this.

RL: But it was no secret for you ?

GB: Of course not. And the fact that this was silenced ... Well, one does not have to write about it in the same fashion as Moskovsky Komsomolets [a popular Russian tabloid] would, right? But then again you must not hide it either, all the more so that, of course, it must have had an impact on his music and his relations with people. Because you then start to understand many things differently, even his relations with people from his biography, when you come to realize why such or such thing happened. 

Of course, of late even we have made some publications [revealing the facts of his homosexuality]. And then there is this American researcher, the émigré historian Alexander Poznansky. He wrote ... in response to these publications by [Alexandra] Orlova ... who wrote The Truth About Tchaikovsky’s Death. This was her article where she said he was murdered. Quite naturally, it was believed [in the west] that she wrote the truth, because she is from Russia, she worked in our archives and who can verify how it was in fact? So Poznansky did a good thing ... commenting “phrase by phrase” and citing authentic documents in parallel. 

Moreover, right after this, a tremendous work was carried out by a microbiologist—the late Professor Nikolai Arestovich Blinov ... using previously closed archives ... he came to the following conclusion: at present, we cannot say 100% what caused Tchaikovsky’s death. Just like with Mozart, for example. Because, from a legal standpoint, there are no documents which would support this or the other version ... There are official documents signed by doctors that he indeed died following aggravations resulting from cholera. [Blinov] studied extensively the cholera aspect — indeed there was an outbreak of cholera at that time, and it was in the contemporaneous papers; he studied a tremendous number of these. And he said that even an exhumation of Tchaikovsky’s remains would not clarify the picture, because his body was impregnated with sulema so that people could approach the body [during the funeral]. And sulema is also a type of a poison ... 

RL: And what kind of new, previously unknown documents did your museum publish?

GB: Some personal letters which contained information about his attitude towards some people—relations which were not quite showcased in the past [by Soviet historians] ...

RL: Of late, there have been different extremes in interpreting the role of his homosexuality in his life and art. And what do you think should the happy medium so to speak? 

GB: Well, you should take it as reality ... But without speculating, and without digging it all up without end to the pettiest detail ...

RL: You mean, you should respect him more as a personality, his privacy in the end, or what? 

GB: Well, that was the man he was, that was his peculiarity. People are different. But he is not made a lesser genius, a lesser a composer because of that.

RL: Could you explain in layman’s terms what is so special about Tchaikovsky’s music? What would world music be without Tchaikovsky?

GB: First and foremost there is the universal human dimension of his music; his humanism is the most important thing. As the famous Russian director Mikhail Kedrov once said, “a classic work grows with time, showing to a new man its new face.” ... The human dimension of Tchaikovsky’s music is here to stay for all time and is close to peoples of all nationalities. Universalism. This is the key word in his music. Not surprisingly, he was also an extraordinary composer, one of the rare few, if not the only one, who wrote music in virtually every genre. It is hard to find a genre where he did not write music: from concerts and symphonies to chamber music and choirs. 

RL: You said he is understood by all peoples. So his music was less national than, say, Glinka’s?

GB: I think, in Tchaikovsky we see a happy combination of both the national and the international. Foreigners believed he was genuinely Russian. And here [in Russia] they considered him a European. And even in those “times of stagnation” [the 1970s] they even thought he was too Occidental, too European, a cosmopolitan. 

RL: You mean, they even stuck this notorious “cosmopolitan” label on Tchaikovsky?!

GB: Exactly. They also called him “zapadnik” [“Westerner”]. . And in the West they called him a “narodnik” [populist]. Of course, he was also one of the first Russian composers with a professional musical education.

RL: And he was the first Russian composer to travel to America ...

GB: Yes, true. So, in this context I would highlight this breadth he had, this simultaneous patriotism and internationalism. He wasn’t limited to just patriotic themes, but was also a fine lyricist, and these lyrical feelings could be grasped by all.

RL: Turning to more mundane problems. We know that Russian culture in general and museums in particular suffered because of the transition to the market. What about yours? 

GB: Of course we are not worse than other museums. We have to come up with new ways to earn money. We have some sponsors, for example, the Klinskoye brewery. They are our general sponsor. 

RL: You mean, they sponsor you in kind or what?

GB: (Laughter) Of course not. I mean, they give money for holding festivals, for some publications. But we still need more funds. For example, the construction of our archive facility has been halted for three years.

RL: Do you note any drop in interest for Tchaikovsky?

GB: No, not really. And this is also a good illustration of Tchaikovsky’s personality. Because, even in the early 1990s, when the whole country was in a shambles, when museums were empty and there was this general apathy all around us, we noticed a certain drop in interest, and registered fewer visitors, than, say, in the 1970s. In the 1990s we had more foreign visitors proportionally than Russians, but this period didn’t last. And still, we had many more Russian visitors than in other museums. So this interest was never exhausted. 

Plus it is the quality of the visit that often counts, not the quantity. Of late, we are very glad to have entire families visiting us, a babushka with her grandson, parents with children. In the 1970s, when we had this museum boom in our country, we even had to impose a quota, a limit on the number of visitors. But there were also a lot of so-called “profsoyuznye” [trade union] visitors; it was like a duty for them, a chore rather than a pleasure. But then even in those “must” visits there was something ...

RL: Something useful? “Initiation to culture often requires violence,” as they say....

GB: Yes ... (Laughter). In some cases a factory’s collective would make plans to go to, say, the Volga for a swimming or fishing tour. But, citing this reason, they couldn’t get the money as easily [from the trade union] for the trip. So they would just process the papers as if it were a tour to the Tchaikovsky museum. They would come by and ask us to put a stamp on their documents, to confirm they had been here, assuring us that they wouldn’t bother us with visiting the museum itself. But now we are more pleased with visitors who come to see us because they are driven simply by their own inquisitiveness.  RL