Alexey Ivanovich Sofronov (; 1859 – 1925) was a servant and close friend of Russian composer Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky from 1871 until his death in 1893.
American researcher Roland John Wiley calls him the composer's “chief servant” and “household manager”. According to some researchers, Sofronov was Tchaikovsky's constant lover.V. S. Sokolov, a researcher of Tchaikovsky's biography, noted that the solution to the problem of the composer's sexual orientation is connected with a huge number of his unstudied letters. Some of them, for censorship reasons, were published in the Russian Empire and in Soviet times with abbreviations, and in some of the originals, whole “paragraphs [were] thickly obscured by later ‘well-wishers”. After the death of his employer, a significant part of his estate went to Alexey Sofronov by will. After the composer's death, he took part in the creation of the Tchaikovsky Memorial Museum in Klin.Aleksey Sofronov. Tchaikovsky Research (27 April 2019). Дата обращения: 20 August 2019. Archive: 20 August 2019.Белявский М. Т. Работа в музеях и с историческими памятниками при изучении истории СССР: (с древнейших времен до 1917 г.): учебное пособие для студентов вузов, обучающихся по специальности «История». — М.: Высшая школа, 1978. p. 180.Государственный дом-музей П. И. Чайковского в Клину. Путеводитель. Составители К. Ю. Давыдова, С. С. Кутомина, И. Ю. Соколинская, М. В. Суторихина [The State House Museum of P. Tchaikovsky in Klin. Guidebook] (in Russian). М.: Музыка. 1974. p. 15.
117 letters from the composer to Alexey Sofronov, written from 1875 to 1893, have been preserved. 130 letters from Alexey Sofronov to Tchaikovsky, dated 1877–1893, are kept in the archive of the composer's Klin house-museum. He is repeatedly mentioned in diary entries, letters, and memoirs of Tchaikovsky's friends and relatives as Alyosha and Lyonya. Sofronov is a character in movies about the composer and fictional literary works about his life. Alexey Sofronov became the main character in the book The House in Klin by Soviet local historian and biographer Vladimir Kholodkovsky, dedicated to the creation of the Tchaikovsky House-Museum.
Biography Alexey Sofronov was born in 1859 into a peasant family in a village in Klin uyezd, Moscow Governorate. In 1871, at the age of twelve,There are other dates: 1874 and 1873. N. D. Kashkin claimed in his memoirs that Alexei entered the composer's service only after his older brother's dismissal, i.e. in 1877, Anthony Holden believed that Alexei first served the composer in the summer, when his older brother left the service for a while to return to the village. Later they began to work together throughout the year. Alexey followed his older brother MikhailMikhail Ivanovich Sofronov (1848, Klin, Moscow Province, Russian Empire - 1932) was a servant of the Czech violinist and composer Ferdinand Laub, a teacher at the Moscow Conservatory in 1871, and entered Tchaikovsky's service shortly before his younger brother. N. D. Kashkin describes his work in the composer's household: "Pyotr Ilyich was employed by a village boy, who himself prepared dinner for himself and the barin, which always consisted of soup and buckwheat porridge; the servant's culinary skills, it seems, did not go further, and the barin, who at that time was very unpretentious about the table, was satisfied with it".Mikhail Sofronov. Tchaikovsky Research (8 March 2019). Дата обращения: 20 August 2019. Archive: 20 August 2019. into the service of Tchaikovsky. By that time, he had no experience in such work. Pauline Weidman, a doctor of art history, has suggested that the “all sorts of scribbles and inept drawings” that appear on the composer's archival documents from the first half of the 1870s were left by his “dabbling” teenage servant.This hypothesis was first proposed by the pianist Anna Alexandrova-Levenson in October 1914 on the basis of an analysis of the composer's draft manuscript in her possession. Komarov analyzes these scribbles in detail in his article. He attributes to them the entries on the sketches of opus 19, 21, 22, on the sketches of the opera Kuznets Vakula and on pp. 99-103 of volume 2 of Tate's book on L. van Beethoven, the scribbles are not made with a simple pencil, which Tchaikovsky usually used, but with an ink of dusty purple color. Tchaikovsky got used to the boy, and he became, in the words of the composer's American biographer, “the only person he invariably needed”.
After Tchaikovsky got married in 1877, Mikhail Sofronov left the composer's service.According to Poznansky, he was fired by the composer. Anthony Holden saw the reason for the dismissal in the composer's rapidly deteriorating financial situation after his marriage; he was no longer able to pay the salaries of two servants. V.S. Sokolov in his book Antonina Tchaikovskaya. The Story of a Forgotten Life came to the same conclusion. B. S. Nikitin in his book about the composer mentions that Tchaikovsky's wife "in October 1877... invented all sorts of fantastic explanations [for Peter Ilyich's indifference to her after the wedding], like the fact that Tchaikovsky's servant, who lost his place because of his marriage, went to a sorceress who put hatred for her into Peter Ilyich's heart".N. D. Kashkin, a close friend of the composer, reported in his memoirs that Mikhail became a coachman. However, Alexey continued to serve Tchaikovsky in Moscow. In the 1870s, Alexey is often mentioned in the composer's correspondence with Modest Tchaikovsky (for example, the procedure of “scratching the composer's head” by the young servant is repeatedly referenced). Tchaikovsky, in a letter to his brother Anatoly, described one of his quarrels with Sofronov at this time:“I suddenly became furious, tore my tie, my shirt, broke my chair, etc. As I indulged in these strange gymnastic exercises, I suddenly met his eyes. He looked so frightened, pitifully pale, and lost, saying, ‘What's wrong with you? Calm down,’ etc., that I immediately calmed down”.In March 1878, Aleksey Sofronov began an affair with a certain Marie, who worked as a maid at the Villa Richelieu in Clarens, Switzerland, on the shores of lake Geneva, where the composer was living at the time. Roland John Wiley and Anthony Holden noted that, because of this, “his relationship with Tchaikovsky deteriorated”. In June 1879, an illegitimate child was born, with Sofronov declared to be the father.
Military service Sofronov's work for the composer was temporarily interrupted in 1880, as the young man had to do military service (he was assigned to the Ekaterinoslav 1st Life-Grenadier Regiment stationed in Moscow). A certificate issued by the composer to his servant for submission to the enlistment office has been preserved. Tchaikovsky noted in it Sofronov's “impeccable honesty, integrity, diligence”, and “impeccable” behavior, expressed to him in writing as “the liveliest gratitude”. The term of service was reduced to four years as a result of the exam passed, but Sofronov was unlucky with his lot, which could have delayed the draft itself. Tchaikovsky took the parting with him hard: “I imagine how some stranger to me would have laughed when reading these lines; how surprised he would have been that one could yearn and suffer for a footman. But what to do, if this footman was at the same time my friend and at the same time so loyal and loving!” — he wrote. In February 1883, Aleksey fell seriously ill with pneumonia (the initial diagnosis of typhoid fever turned out to be a medical error), and after recovery, received a long (annual) leave. During his service, Sofronov rose to the rank of lieutenant.
Organization of Tchaikovsky's daily life In his biography of Pyotr Ilyich, the composer's brother Modest asserted that “the latter, being a naive institute student in all practical matters of existence... could not personally supervise the arrangement of his small household and entrusted it to his servant, Sofronov.” He himself only acquired “completely superfluous things (he bought a pair of horses, which soon he did not know how to get rid of, and an old English clock, which turned out to be unusable), or books and sheet music for his library”. The master “completely surrendered to the arbitrariness of his servant, who, knowing the habits and predilections of his barin, managed to arrange everything, not chasing the requirements of taste and elegance, but only consistent with ‘what the barin liked’”. As a young man, Sofronov accompanied the composer on trips. In recent years, when Tchaikovsky settled in the Moscow region, Aleksey maintained exemplary order in the house, performed household and business errands, played the role of butler and housekeeper, and protected the creative solitude and peace of the composer.
N. V. Tumanina noted that in 1885, a servant hired for his master in the village of Maidanovo near Klin to rent the bar house of the ruined landowner Novikova “which stood on the high bank of the Sestra river in a dense, overgrown park with old tilia trees, colorful flower beds, and ponds”.Дом-музей П. И. Чайковского в Клину. Путеводитель [Tchaikovsky House-Museum in Klin. Guidebook] (in Russian). М.: Государственное музыкальное издательство (Музгиз). 1956. p. 5.Справочник по административно-территориальному делению Московской области 1929—2004 гг. М.: Кучково поле, 2011. p. 226. 1500 экз. It is known that the composer was disappointed with the estate; he wrote to his brother Modest: “What seemed luxurious and magnificent to Alyosha, seemed to me motley, tasteless, shabby, and dirty”. In 1888, Aleksey Sofronov hired a house (in the village of Frolovskoe)Letter 3539 (Письмо П. И. Чайковского М. И. Чайковскому (Тбилиси, 28 March 1888). Tchaikovsky Research (7 March 2019). Дата обращения: 2 September 2019. Archive: 2 September 2019. surrounded by a large garden in the absence of his master, again on his instructions. The composer praised the ability of his servant to create a cozy home: “Aleksey wonderfully arranged my new dwelling”.Государственный дом-музей П. И. Чайковского в Клину. Путеводитель. Составители К. Ю. Давыдова, С. С. Кутомина, И. Ю. Соколинская, М. В. Суторихина [The State House Museum of P. Tchaikovsky in Klin. Guidebook] (in Russian). М.: Музыка. 1974. p. 6. Tchaikovsky lived here for about three years.
The cellist Julian Poplavsky, who visited Tchaikovsky in Klin in 1892, noted to himself with amazement that the composer occupied only the upper floor and used only three rooms in the large building (the hall, dining room, and bedroom; from his point of view, of these, only the hall “resembled the dwelling of the most popular Russian composer”), while all other rooms, except for two or three intended for guests, were at the disposal of Aleksey Sofrononv.Alexei Sofronov's arrangement of the daily life and routine in Tchaikovsky's last residence in Klin is described in the Y. L. Davydov's book.
According to the recollections of Klin residents, Sofronov said in private conversations that Tchaikovsky paid him 600 rubles a year. According to one of the residents of Klin, the composer bought Aleksey a small estate near the village of Strokino in Troitskaya volost, but the servant lived in his master's house and never visited Strokino (the author of the notes to the memoirs of Z. P. Kopenkin takes the information about the purchase of the estate as an error). In Klin, Sofronov was perceived by local residents as a confidant of Tchaikovsky, not a lackey.Клинчане вспоминают Чайковского. Публикация З. П. Копёнкиной // П. И. Чайковский. Забытое и новое. Составители П. Е. Вайдман, Г. И. Белонович [Klin's citizens remembering Tchaikovsky. Publication by Z.P. Kopyonkina] (in Russian). М.: Министерство культуры Московской области / Государственный дом-музей П. И. Чайковского в Клину, ООО «Интерграф Сервис». 2003. pp. 383.
Aleksey Sofronov and music