Antonina miliukova biography samples

They reveal a woman devoted to the memory of her husband, an appreciation of his greatness and the vague feeling of an enormous misunderstanding having taken place between them. On the contrary, the genuineness of the intonation, the idiosyncratic style, and the wealth of detail all attest its authenticity. I think I might be the first to admit that the sort of reticence which prevents a man from exploiting his own personality is really an inverted sort of egotism.

It is impossible to deny that she had a very negative effect on the composer's psychological and physical state, a fact that is confirmed by Tchaikovsky's own statements in his letters and diaries. Tchaikovsky called his wife a "terrible wound" — he felt heavily burdened by his legal bind and sometimes even afraid of possible "disclosures" by her concerning his homosexual preferences.

Antonina's own recollections, which present her side of the story, have been labelled the product of a rash and insane woman, and therefore ignored. Recent archival studies have made it possible to clarify several key details relating to Antonina's origins, and the history of the couple's acquaintance, marriage, further relationship and her life after their separation.

Antonina Milyukova was born into a family of the hereditary gentry that resided outside Moscow in the Klin region. The family traced its ancestry to the 14th century. Antonina 's parents, Ivan Milyukov and his wife Olga , separated in , and her childhood was spent in an unfavourable emotional environment. She was brought up in a private Moscow boarding school under the supervision of her mother —55 , and then at her father's Klin estate — Together with her older brothers Aleksandr and Mikhail, and her elder sister Yelizaveta Adel , she received a standard home education, including the study of two foreign languages.

From an early age Antonina enjoyed music her father Ivan Milyukov kept a peasant orchestra. She continued her education at the Moscow Institute of Saint Elizabeth, completing the full course of study from to Here, apart from the required subjects, she took piano and voice lessons. After leaving school, Antonina pursued a career in pedagogy, giving private lessons in Moscow in the s, and then teaching at a school attached to the Kronstadt House of Industry in On several occasions, Antonina unsuccessfully attempted to become a teacher in various other educational institutions.

Antonina later admitted, both in her letters to Tchaikovsky s and in her recollections , that this first meeting made an indelible impression on her, resulting in a profound affection that lasted for many years. She lent special meaning to the fact that her love arose from her attraction to Tchaikovsky's appearance and purely human qualities, and that she was utterly ignorant of his music and growing fame in cultural circles.

Their relationship, however, did not develop in the years after their first meeting, and it was only during Antonina's studies at the conservatory that they briefly saw each other within the walls of this institution. As Antonina later wrote, she loved Tchaikovsky "secretly" for over four years. In late , Antonina received a small inheritance due to the division of the family estate.

This potential "dowry" was apparently the immediate incentive for taking active steps towards renewing her acquaintance with the composer. Both she and Tchaikovsky testified that they "began a correspondence", as a result of which the composer received her offer "of hand and heart" already in the early days of May An analysis of her surviving letters suggests that in all likelihood their personal meeting was initiated by the composer himself.

The threat of suicide, made in the last letter she wrote before their meeting, cannot be considered a serious factor in Tchaikovsky's eventual decision; in the context of the entire letter, this "threat" seems to be no more than a device in the tradition of sentimental models from so-called "letter books", which were popular at the time and which contained samples of fictional letters for all occasions.

The meeting occurred in the house where Antonina was renting a room, on the corner of Tverskaya Street and Maly Gnezdnikovsky Lane in Moscow. But Tchaikovsky chose not to mention this meeting in his letter to Modest , written on the same day. Instead he sought to explain his cooling off with regard to Kotek , and even began to see the manifestations of Providence in various coincidences that had recently happened:.

For Tchaikovsky, the relationship would always be fraternal. By having relationships with other men, Antonina went down in history as a nymphomaniac. Not quite true. Coming from a dysfunctional family, she spent her childhood in an unfavorable emotional environment. When she resumed contact with her future husband, in March , it was immediately with a confessional love letter.

The fact that at the time this all happened the composer was working on the opera Onegin , one of his classics, to this day generates speculation that life imitated art. Be that as it may, he married without thinking and regretted it immediately. Even 20 days later, the marriage was still not consummated. He even asked his brother, Anatoly , and his friend, the composer Nikolai Rubinstein , to inform his wife that their separation was permanent.

In fact, Nina has always seen herself as the victim of a family conspiracy that has always rejected her. Anatoly followed Rubinstein out the door as soon as he could. He headed back to St. Petersburg and made arrangements to take his brother on a prolonged tour of Western Europe. Kashkin, in his retelling of the incident, characterized Antonina's behavior as indicative of mental imbalance.

Modest treated it similarly in his biography. Antonina believed she was the victim of a family conspiracy to end the marriage. She wrote, "We were separated by constant whispering to Pyotr Ilyich that family life would kill his talent. At first, he paid no attention to this talk, but then he began somewhat to listen to it more and more attentively To lose his talent was for him the most dreadful thing of all.

He began to believe their slanders and became dull and gloomy. She also believed that Tchaikovsky's collapse, which immediately preceded their separation, was caused by stress from his obligations to her and his music.

Antonina miliukova biography samples

She accompanied him to the railway station on the last day of their union. I accompanied him to the mail train; his eyes were wandering, he was nervous, but I was so far in my thoughts from any trouble already hanging over my head. Before the first bell he had a spasm in his throat and went alone with jerky irregular steps to the station to drink some water.

Then we entered the car, he looked at me plaintively, without lowering his eyes […] He never came back to me. On 5 October , Tchaikovsky wired his brother Anatoly, telling him to wire a summons to St. Anatoly settled his brother in St. He then traveled to Moscow, accompanied by Nikolai Rubinstein, to ask Antonina to consent to a divorce. Although she did not consent, Tchaikovsky and Antonina never lived together again.

After finding Tchaikovsky verging on a nervous breakdown, Anatoly summoned a mental specialist. The specialist told Tchaikovsky not to cohabit or see his wife again. Due to laws regarding divorce in Imperial Russia , the two remained legally married until Tchaikovsky's death. This did not prevent further attempts at divorce in and The only legal ground for divorce was adultery, which Antonina refused to admit.

A 10, ruble incentive from von Meck to accept the divorce was also rejected. This sum would have been payable through his publisher, P. Jurgenson , once a divorce had been finalized. Antonina may have helped fuel Tchaikovsky's fear of public exposure by her unpredictable behavior. During her stay at Kamenka immediately following their separation, she wrote him letters that unsettled him.

She responded, "Why didn't you start with yourself, telling […] about your own terrible vice? In March , Antonina gave birth to a child out of wedlock. Although Tchaikovsky now had legal grounds for divorce, he did not act. He might have thought that legal action would drag up matters he hoped were forgotten or at least buried. He continued to send her a regular allowance, which may have helped buy her silence.

Divorce would have meant Tchaikovsky's freedom from any further financial responsibility for her. She surrendered all of them to foundling hospitals.