This article accompanies
Alice's Mirrors



The Death of Tchaikovsky

Aside from the mysterious death of Jesus Christ, it's hard to think of another figure whose death has been so controversial or so colorful. Whether it was an accidental death from cholera, or suicide via arsenic, theories abound. Tchaikovsky's homosexuality and his supposed insecurity about it are usually given as an explanation for the suicide theory. The most colorful of these claims he was given an ultimatum to kill himself or risk public ridicule.

The photo below - moody, wistful, taken not long before his death in 1893 - catches him better than the official photos and portraits.

But I have my doubts about the suicide theory, not least because he seems to have feared death. Even his earlier suicide attempt seems more like a cry to be rescued. Not that the cholera story is much better. So I'm willing to accept that he died from a severe infection, possibly cholera, and that this was caused by what these days we euphemistically call "unsafe sex," since there is no doubt he was sexually active. This then was covered up by the cholera-in-the-glass-of-water story. Sometimes the simplest explanations are the truest.

Tchaikovsky traveled restlessly for much of his life, keeping in touch with his network of friends and family via letter-writing. In the late 1880's he settled down in this house (now a Tchaikovsky museum) in the town of Klin, NW of Moscow.

For his ballets, here