Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky was born in Votkinsk, a small town in Vyatka Governorate (present-day Udmurtia) in the Russian Empire. His family had a long line of military service. His father, Ilya Petrovich Tchaikovsky, was an engineer who served as a lieutenant colonel in the Department of Mines. He was mostly of Russian ethnicity, though his ancestors were Ukrainian Cossacks[1] and manager of the Kamsko-Votkinsk Ironworks. His grandfather, Petro Fedorovych Chaika, received medical training in Saint Petersburg and served as a physician’s assistant in the army before becoming city governor of Glazov in Viatka. His great-grandfather, a Cossack named Fyodor Chaika, distinguished himself under Peter the Great at the Battle of Poltava in 1709.[2] His mother, Alexandra Andreyevna nee d’Assier, the second of Ilya’s three wives, was 18 years her husband’s junior and of French ancestry on her father’s side.[3] Both of Tchaikovsky’s parents were trained in the arts, including music. This was considered a necessity as a posting to a remote area of Russia was always possible, bringing with it a need for entertainment, both private and at social gatherings.[4]
Tchaikovsky had four brothers (Nikolai, Ippolit, and twins Anatoly and Modest), a sister, Alexandra and a half-sister Zinaida from his father’s first marriage.[5] He was particularly close to Alexandra and the twins. Anatoly later had a prominent legal career, while Modest became a dramatist, librettist, and translator.[6] Alexandra married Lev Davydov[7] and had seven children, one of whom, Vladimir Davydov, became very close to the composer, who nicknamed him ‘Bob’.[8] The Davydovs provided the only real family life Tchaikovsky knew as an adult,[9] and their estate in Kamenka (now Kamianka, Cherkasy Oblast, part of Ukraine) became a welcome refuge for him during his years of wandering.[9]
In 1843 the family hired Fanny Durbach, a 22-year-old French governess, to look after the children and teach Tchaikovsky’s elder…