Biography of Tchaikovsky Poznansky

There are several reasons for this.

One of the most important is the need to overcome the established cliches caused by a deliberate concealment of many facts of his biography. These false representations are still firmly sitting in the reader consciousness both in Russia and in the West, which is easily explained by the influence of ideology, fashion and prejudices. Often they contradict each other to such an extent that it is not easy to find another example of a commensurate cultural non -political significance.

In Russia, the composer’s popular image began to form his relatives, primarily by his brother Moddest, the author of the three -volume biography of Peter Ilyich, published at the beginning of the 20th century and based on carefully selected materials and by silence, which could even in a distant extent - compromise a great person in the eyes of the then society.

In the Soviet period, this trend was brought to the point of absurdity, up to stopping, when publishing his letters in the complete collected works of such words as “Gadin”, about his wife hated by him. We add to this the ideological requirements, according to which a popularly beloved composer had to belong to the "progressive-democratic Russian intelligentsia." Accordingly, his sincere monarchical beliefs, religious searches and fierce anti -communism were completely ignored.

The result was almost the icon -painting image of the author of the sixth symphony, completely devoid of any reprehensible characteristics. At the same time, it was forgotten that great artists who are not able to experience moral torment or remorse, does not happen [1]. The situation outside of Russia turned out to be different. Ignorance of many biographical facts combined with various rumors about the “pathological” inclinations of the composer led to the emergence of an image that has long dominated in Western culture.

Tchaikovsky appeared before the readers as a suffering loner in a world, devoid of understanding and tolerance, in the best minutes - melancholic misanthropus, in the worst - being on the verge of insanity or indulging in hysterical self -flagellations due to the inability to live “like everyone else”, and finally, obsessed with suicidal ideas and even sinful self -natives on the basis of a certain, often not called, often not called a certain Aloud, ineffective guilt.

Both the stereotype of the stereotype of both the novel by Klaus Mann “Pathetic Symphony”, and the eccentric neurotic from Ken's Music Lovers, are reduced to this stereotype. Such a picture corresponded to the primitive concepts of many people in the West about the “mysterious Russian soul”, generated by a very superficial reading of Dostoevsky. The exception was only the novel-biography of Nina Berberova “Tchaikovsky.

The story of a lonely life ”, published in the year in Berlin. However, this book has more literary than scientific value. If, until the middle of the last century, the Russian composer was considered mainly as a “clinical case”, then in recent decades they see a predominantly “sexual martyr”, a victim of a “patriarchal” autocratic system. Both are far from the truth. Such perverted performances were reflected even on the style and technique of Tchaikovsky’s music, and only recently the situation began to change.

The culmination of the myth -making process was the spread and even the adoption by some specialists of wild fantasy, proceeding from the circles of the Soviet near the musical subculture, about the “conspiracy of lawyers” who allegedly organized the “court of honor” and sentenced a person who was the subject of national pride, to suicide for the “desecration of the uniform”.

Here, the Soviet myth overlap the Western myth-not only about Tchaikovsky, but also about imperial Russia, where-according to the supporters of this, to put it mildly, “versions”, there were orders more reminiscent of secret medieval courts or Ku-Kluksklan [2]. One of the tasks of this book is the demifologization of the composer’s appearance, as well as the country, for which he created.

An important ethical problem that any biographer is faced with is the right - or the absence of it - on an unpleasant image of the protagonist of the narrative, which suggests, among other things, the research in the field of personal life, often called “shakes of dirty linen”. In the one -up and significant part of the last century, it was considered unacceptable to invade the intimate spheres, at best it was possible to touch them around.

Preference was given to the mitigation of negative features of the character and behavior of a biographical subject. Nowadays, on the contrary, by virtue of the triumph of the sexual revolution and the general crisis of values, it is fashionable to focus on these aspects of life, thereby contributing to the self -affirmation of both the authors of biographies and their readers. Such an attitude towards a negative, often caused by the lack of sympathy for whom we are talking about, and sometimes by considerations of the market order, implicitly means the deprivation of an outstanding person of a special status, traditionally entrenched in him.In other words, the conclusion suggests itself that those who were revered great, in fact, are no different from you and me.

This can flatter our pride, but - as everyone knows deep down - has nothing to do with the truth. Both misconceptions - “idealization” and “debunking” - are equally harmful, especially taking into account the situation that has developed in modern Russian culture. On the one hand, our tradition and psychology until recently was inherent in the “cult of genius”, due to which, as insignificant, actions or statements of recognized people, in the case of ordinary mortals, fraught with moral protest, were discarded.

This, however, was violated - and in the field of politics a fatal way - one of the most important commandments: “Do not create an idol for yourself! For the adequate resolution of this dilemma, the moral imperfection of human nature as such should be deeper. This truth, which optimistic liberalism is inclined not to notice, is proclaimed - albeit in various terms - both religion and science: from the point of view of Christian theology, the dark dimension of our soul is the product of original sin; From the point of view of psychoanalysis-a manifestation of the forces of the subconscious, rooted in the libidenic-aggressive principle of pleasure.

The above is fair in relation to all, without exception, representatives of the human race, regardless of their innate talents or the achievements of cf.