Pyotr Illyich Tchaikovsky is one of the most talented and celebrated composers of all time. He was an interesting man who among other things always struggled with the question of his sexuality. Many conspiracy theories have been written about his life, including the Russian government murdering him so a gay man wouldn’t represent their country’s music, yet many people believe that to cover up his homosexuality a marriage was organized.
Tchaikovsky married Antonia Ivanova Miliukova who was perhaps the strangest choice for a celebrated composer. Before being married Tchaikovsky wrote that she was simple and came from a backward family. She attended the Moscow Music Conservatory for a short time where Tchaikovsky was her professor and was constantly called stupid before dropping out. When she was 28, which was an extremely old age to be married at the time, the two wed for one of the most disastrous marriages in history.
They were together for only six weeks before he left her and never met with her again. His brother described her as “a crazed half-wit,” who didn’t understand Tchaikovsky’s sexual preference.
Biographers now believe that Tchaikovsky thought she understood that he was gay and wanted a celibate marriage or that he told her and she simply didn’t understand what he was saying. After their separation, he often referred to her as “The Reptile” instead of her name, which begs the question of why they married in the first place?
In the end, it is almost unanimously agreed that it was simply a cover up to dispel rumors of homosexuality and stay in good graces with the government!