Death of Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky - After The Death

After The Death

Tchaikovsky biographer David Brown argues that even before the doctors' accounts on the composer's death had appeared, what happened at his brother Modest's flat had been totally inconsistent with standard procedures for a death from cholera. Regulations stipulated the corpse was to be removed from the scene of death immediately in a closed coffin. Instead, Tchaikovsky's body was displayed in Modest's flat, and the flat freely opened to visitors wishing to pay their last respects. Among the guests, composer Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov was seemingly bewildered by what he saw: "How strange that, although death had resulted from cholera, still admission to the Mass for the dead was free to all! I remember how Verzhbilovich, totally drunk ... kept kissing the deceased man's head and face."

Rimsky-Korsakov's own comments, however, would seem to conflict with his actions as later told by Sergei Diaghilev. Diaghilev, who would become known as the founder and impresario of the Ballets Russes, was at that time a university student in St. Petersburg and had met and occasionally conversed with the composer, to whom he was distantly related by marriage. On hearing of Tchaikovsky's death, Diaghilev recalls,

In despair I rushed out of the house, and although I realized Tchaikovsky had died of cholera I made straight for Malaya Morskaya, where he lived. The doors were wide open and there was no one to be found.... I heard voices from another room, and on entering I saw Pyotr Ilyich in a black morning coat stretched on a sofa. Rimsky-Korsakov and the singer Nikolay Figner were arranging a table to put him on. We lifted the body of Tchaikovsky, myself holding the feet, and laid it on the table. The three of us were alone in the flat, for after Tchaikovsky's death the whole household had fled....

Poznansky counters Brown's claim with a few of his own. He argues that, despite Rimsky-Korsakov's comment, there was nothing odd about what went on. He writes that despite lingering prejudice, the prevailing medical opinion was that cholera was less contagious than previously supposed. Though public gatherings for cholera victims had previously been discouraged, the Central Medical Council in the spring of 1893 specifically allowed public services and rituals in connection with the funerals of cholera victims. Also, the medical opinion printed by the Petersburg Gazette stated that Tchaikovsky had died from a subsequent blood infection, not from the disease itself. (The disease had reportedly been arrested on Friday, 3 November, three days before the composer's passing.) With the added precaution of constant disinfectant of the lips and nostrils of the body, Poznansky claims, even the drunken cellist kissing the face of the deceased had little cause for worry.

Alexander III volunteered to pay the costs of the composer's funeral himself and instructed the Directorate of the Imperial Theatres to organize the event. According to Poznansky, this action showed the exceptional regard with which the Tsar regarded the composer. Only twice before had a Russian monarch shown such favor toward a fallen artistic or scholarly figure. Nicholas I had written a letter to the dying Alexander Pushkin following the poet's fatal duel. Nicholas also came personally to pay his final respects to historian Nikolay Karamzin on the eve of his burial. Moreover, Alexander III gave special permission for Tchaikovsky's memorial service to be held at Kazan Cathedral.

Tchaikovsky's funeral took place on 9 November 1893 in St. Petersburg. Kazan Cathedral holds 6,000 people, but 60,000 people applied for tickets to attend the service. Finally, 8,000 people were crammed in. The composer was interred in Tikhvin Cemetery at the Alexander Nevsky Monastery, near the graves of fellow-composers Alexander Borodin, Mikhail Glinka and Modest Mussorgsky; eventually Rimsky-Korsakov and Mily Balakirev would be buried nearby, as well.