Tatiana Lvovna Davydova () (, in Kamianka, Chigirinsky uyezd, Kiev province, Russian Empire – or , St. Petersburg, Russian Empire) was the niece of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky. She is the elder sister of Vladimir and Yuri Davydovs.
Tchaikovsky's biographer Valery Sokolov distinguished two periods in Tatyana Davydova's life — the fortunate (until 1879) and the "dramatic" (1879–1887).
Tatiana was the eldest daughter of the composer's sister Alexandra and her husband Lev Davydov. Tchaikovsky was close to his niece, dedicating Six Vocal Duets (Op. 46) to her, and when she became pregnant by pianist Stanislav Blumenfeld in 1883, the composer and his brother Modest took Tatiana to Paris and arranged for her to give birth. After she gave birth to a boy, the composer himself registered the child's birth, arranged for his baptism, and provided financial support. Tchaikovsky participated in his adoption by his older brother Nikolai. Valery Sokolov wrote: "The niece was destined to become one of the deep wounds in Pyotr Ilyich's soul, the scars of which remained for a very long time". Tatiana Davydova died, probably of a morphine overdose, in St. Petersburg at the age of 25. She was buried in the cemetery of the Alexander Nevsky Lavra, but the place of her burial has not been preserved".
In 2021 the Russian composer and music historian Valery Sokolov dedicated to Tatiana Davydova a large (110 pages) article Tatiana Davydova in the life of P. I. Tchaikovsky in the collection of scientific publications St. Petersburg Musical Archive, published under the auspices of the Tchaikovsky Society. In it he reconstructed the biography of the girl and tried to determine the role of her problems in the life and work of the composer.
Biography
Childhood and youth
Tatiana Lvovna Davydova (Tchaikovsky called her Tanya, Tanyusha, Tanyurka, Tanka in his letters and diaries) was born on September 6 , 1861, in the estate Kamianka in the Chigirinsky district of Kiev province, where her parents, Alexandra Ilinichna (Tchaikovsky's sister) and Lev Vasilyevich Davydov,The Davydovs' children, in order of seniority, were Tatiana, Vera, Anna, Natalia (called Tasia by her family), Dmitry (known as Mitya), Vladimir (referred to as Bob), and Yuri. lived permanently. Pyotr Ilyich responded to this event with a poem of his own composition, which included the line: "Let's celebrate, great Tatiana! Rejoice, all Russia".
In early childhood, Tatiana demonstrated remarkable abilities. By the age of four, she had already learned to read and spoke fluent French. At the same time, the girl, under the guidance of her mother, began piano lessons and already performed four-handed with Alexandra Davydova Red Sarafan by Aleksandr Varlamov, Chizhik-Pyzhik, and "the first scale" . For some time, Alexandra Davydova noted great successes in her daughter's mastery of the instrument, but in 1868, a new governess, who had a musical education, criticized the girl's musical skills and forced her to return to the scales and engage in musical theory.
In the summer of 1870, Tatiana and her mother visited St. Petersburg for the first time. Returning to Kamianka, in January 1872, the girl began studying English. In letters to Tchaikovsky, Alexandra Davydova asked him to send the notes of complex etudes for piano to Tatiana and her sisters but noted the emergence of difficulties in their upbringing — "it is a pity to look at yawning girls".
David Brown, a British researcher of Tchaikovsky's work, claimed that the origins of the idea for the ballet Swan Lake date back to 1871, when the family of Alexandra Davydova, with the active participation of the composer himself, staged an amateur production of this very plot in the estate of Kamianka. Pyotr Ilyich acted as stage director and ballet master, as well as providing musical accompaniment ("Uncle Pyotr, with a flushed face, wet with sweat, when he sang the melody, presented quite an amusing spectacle"). His younger brother Modest danced the Prince, and little Tatiana Davydova performed the role of Odette. Also, with the active assistance of Tchaikovsky, and with Tatiana's participation, were staged the plays the Misanthrope by Molière and Marriage by Nikolai Gogol.
In the fall of 1873, Alexandra Davydova and her children moved to Switzerland, where the Davydovs lived first in one of the main centers of the Swiss Riviera — the city of Vevey (1873–1874), and then in Geneva (1874–1876). Only then did the mother think about the need for the systematic education of her elder daughters in a private or public school.
The 12-year-old Tatiana Davydova was assigned to a school of the highest level (French école supérieure) in Vevey. Before that, Pyotr Ilyich went there to find out the possibilities of boarding schooling for his sister's two older daughters. Tatiana studied well, but the music teacher, "a certain Rotzenberg," a graduate of the Stuttgart Conservatory, "irritable and strict," inspired fear in the girl. He taught according to the "Rubinstein method" and charged 5 francs per hour. As a punishment for poor playing, he strongly beat Tatiana on her hands. Her mother, in a letter to her brother Modest, noted that Tatiana was a "windy" and "spoiled" girl, with a "fastidiousness of character". Alexandra Davydova wrote: "Her innocent pranks are endless, and she has become such a master of making fun that I tolerate, tolerate, yes, and rashohochuchuchuchatu. This difficult child only now began to get along with everyone and please me". That Tatiana was a difficult child in her early years was also noted in the memoirs of her niece, Galina von Meck. Tatiana took lessons in dancing and physics, which she noted as the most interesting in her letter, and practiced the Russian language.
It was in Switzerland that Tatiana Davydova's painful condition began to gradually increase: "All these days I have a strong flush to my head, my face is quite blue and a little swollen... nothing helps, and my head hurts a lot". At the same time, she had a growing sense of dissatisfaction with herself: "I lost the last shadows of beauty in me, and I myself am often frightened by the extent to which I am manipulative. I can make friends with anyone and imitate his habits, knowing that it is not good and dishonest. Then I feel that I do not love God enough and do not pray enough".
Since the summer of 1874, Tatiana and her sisters began attending public high school in Geneva. The girl made great strides in playing the zither and became, to her mother's worries, the central figure at the school ball. It was at this time that she first became interested in the works of Pyotr Ilyich and asked to have his works sent to Switzerland. From time to time, Tatiana took piano and harp lessons at the Geneva Conservatory. Alexandra Davydova even wrote in a letter to Modest Tchaikovsky that before leaving Switzerland, Tatiana participated in a certain concours de musique (French for "musical examination", as interpreted by Valery Sokolov) at the conservatory. The composer, who visited the Davydov family in Geneva, noted: "Tania has lost the appearance of an idle young lady here and therefore makes a very pleasant impression".
"At the age of 14–15, Tatiana Lvovna looked like a perfect beauty... Beautiful, intelligent, kind girl, Tatiana Lvovna gained numerous admirers early on. In Switzerland, several students of various colleges quarreled to gain her attention", her younger brother Yuri wrote in his memoirs.
In the spring of 1876, the head of the family decided to return his wife and children to Russia. In July of the same year, Alexandra Davydova and the children returned to her husband's estate. The pianist Stanislav Blumenfeld was invited from Kiev to teach her music. Her mother made plans to enroll the girl in university. At this time, however, Tchaikovsky wrote about Tatiana as his mother's "sore spot" and feared that "the closed sphere of family life is insufficient for her talented personality". In his opinion, "she is already weighed down by her fate".
In 1877, the attention of the Davydov family living in Kamianka turned to the problems of Pyotr Ilyich in connection with his failed marriage and severe mental crisis. Tatiana and Tchaikovsky's wife Antonina Miliukova, who came to Kamianka, became friends. Soon, however, their relationship escalated sharply. When Miliukova said that she wanted to commit suicide, Tatiana sharply replied, "Go now, but do not say it, because it is ridiculous: who wants to commit suicide does not talk about it." Sokolov assumed that the reason for this turn of affairs was Tatiana's impression of her favorite uncle's difficult experiences.
A complete surprise for the mother was the discovery of Tatiana's note shortly after the girl's 16th birthday (with the orthography of the original and the reconstruction of Valery Sokolov's punctuation): "Bury me close to Seryozha, I ask only for a marble slab and on it the name Tatyana, with no cross (?) at the feet[:] 'She did not love life and had no regrets!'" Sokolov assumed that the girl's mental trauma was related to one of her two young teachers, either Blumenfeld or the teacher who prepared her for university, a senior student of the Kiev Theological Academy, Bernatovich.
Adulthood Alexander Poznansky, an American biographer of Tchaikovsky, wrote that even before Tatiana was born, her parents dreamed of a "fabulous future" for their daughter. She was always a family favorite. Under the influence of universal adoration, Tatiana herself believed in her own exceptionalism.
Since the winter of 1878/1879, the Davydovs perceived their daughter as a grown-up young lady: in St. Petersburg, she went to theaters, balls, picnics, flirted, and attracted the attention of secular society. Her participation "in the court ball" and presentation to Emperor Alexander II were planned. Returning to Kamianka, Tatiana tried to continue leading a social life. In 1879, during a trip to Yalta, Tatiana attracted the close attention of two men at once — Prince Alexei Tsereteliev (Tsereteli) and 35-year-old Oryol landowner Koshkarov, who even made her an offer. Tchaikovsky was outraged by the latter fact, writing that Koshkarov was old and ugly, "but very clever and managed to interest Tanya with his uniqueness and authentic personality". Tatiana's new promising young man was Prince Trubetskoy, aged 24, an officer awarded the Cross of St. Georgy, "extremely handsome, kind, and sweet." He also made her a "formal proposal." The composer's niece gave her consent, but subject to the approval of the marriage by the groom's parents. They, who had once lived with their children in Vevey at the same time as the Davydovs, spoke favorably of the marriage but were unable to provide for their son financially. Their attempts to place him in the civil service for this reason postponed the marriage indefinitely.
In the fall of 1880, Tatiana went to Yalta again. She was introduced to Maria Feodorovna, the wife of the throne's successor Alexander Alexandrovich, the future Emperor Alexander III, and met Praskovia Konshina, who later became the wife of the statesman, senator, and Privy Councillor Anatoly Tchaikovsky — the composer's younger brother.
Some time later, Tatiana became close to one of the officers of the Hussar regiment near Kamianka. She wrote: "Glavatsky is in love with me, with me alone, and only with grief from my indifference fell in love with Vera, and told me that he was ready to kiss the whip with which I will beat him or something like that! ... After the ball, Glavatsky spoke to my mother and asked for the hand of both of us!" Valery Sokolov noted the seriousness of the religious, philosophical, and aesthetic issues raised in this letter of a 19-year-old girl (Tatiana discussed the prose of Fyodor Dostoevsky and Sergei Aksakov), but wrote that such topics in her correspondence are almost never found.