There is one person from Tchaikovsky's genealogy in who I am exremely curious.
It appeared in my mind when I was reading the recent post on forum also concerning
the Tchaikovsky's genealogy. This person is Vladimir L'vovich Davydov also
known as "Bob". I know very little about his life. First I was shocked by
the information that he comitted suicide, and shocked more when I read that
it was in composer's house! I cannot find some closer informations about this
incident on the internet. Why there is so little written about composer's
beloved Bob? Can be any connection with his suicide and composer's unresolved
question about death? If the composer did not comitted suicide Bob could be
still inspired by Tchaikovsky's attempt to get deadly disease (walking into
the water to get pneumonia in unhappy marriage). What was the Bob's relation
to Tchaikovsky? Did he like his music? Did he appreciate the 6th symphony
dedication? I am sorry for the numerous questions but I am very curious.
Marcel in Slovakia
Vladimir Davidov, or "Bob" as he was known to his family, was the son of
Tchaikovsky's sister Aleksandra, and her husband Lev Davydov. Bob was always
the composer's favourite nephew, and he received the dedication of Tchaikovsky's Children's Album in 1878 and
the Symphony No. 6 (Pathétique)
in 1893.
After Aleksandra's death in 1891, and Lev Davydov's remarriage the following
year to her cousin (which caused a split within the family), Tchaikovsky seems
to have felt extra resonsibilities towards the 20-year-old Bob, in many ways
regarding him as the son he would never have.
In 1897, four years after the composer's death, Bob resigned his commission
in the Preobrazhenskii Regiment, and moved with his uncle Modest into Tchaikovsky's
house at
Klin, which was then being converted into a museum in memory of the
composer. In his book Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man (1991),
Alexander Poznansky explained what happened next:
"... the great hopes that Tchaikovsky had once had for his favourite nephew
were never fulfilled. Bob never developed into the outstanding personality
that his uncle saw in him, and while endowed with certain musical and artistic
gifts, he never became more than a dilettante. His presence at the deathbed
agony of his beloved uncle seems to have severely traumatized his own psyche,
and he soon lost all interest not only in success in life, but even in life
itself. There have been rumours of morphine addiction, not at all surprising
given the fate of his mother and his elder sister, with whom he had become
particularly close in the last years of her life. Continuous awareness of
his role in his uncle's life and of the fact that he must inevitably live
in his uncle's shadow may have further contributed to his deterioration. Throughout
his life Bob suffered agonizing headaches that drove him to despair—and,
according to his brother Yury, to suicide. While such an explanation is obviously
shaky, until new documentary evidence is brought to light we shall not know
the direct cause and circumstances of Bob Davydov's death. in 1906, at the
age of thirty-four, Bob shot himself in an apparent fit of depression."
From: Tchaikovsky: The Quest for the Inner Man
(1991),
pp. 610–611. Copyright (c) 1991 Alexander Poznansky
Brett Langston