Leonty Tkachenko
Russian amateur musician (b. 1857; d. 1921), born Leonty Grigoryevich Tkachenko (Леонтий Григорьевич Ткаченко).
In 1880, the 23-year-old Tkachenko wrote to Tchaikovsky seeking encouragement for his aspiration to write music, despite his lack of formal musical education. The composer attempted to provide moral and material assistance, but these proved insufficient to achieve Tkachenko's goal. However, under Tchaikovsky's influence he subsequently became a teacher at a provincial rural school.
Correspondence with Tchaikovsky
19 letters from Tchaikovsky to Leonty Tkachenko have survived, dating from 1880 to 1883, of which those highlighted in bold have been translated into English on this website:
- Letter 1649 – 16/28 December 1880, from Moscow
- Letter 1664 – 10/22 January 1881, from Moscow
- Letter 1665a – January or September 1881 (?), from Moscow
- Letter 1829 – 9/21 or 10/22 August 1881 (?), from Kamenka
- Letter 1841 – 26 August/7 September 1881, from Kamenka
- Letter 1847 – 31 August/12 September–6/18 September 1881, from Kamenka
- Letter 1854a – between 10/22 September and 30 September/10 October 1881 (?) , from Moscow
- Letter 1855a – 14/26 September 1881 (?), from Moscow
- Letter 1898 – 21 November/3 December 1881, from Rome
- Letter 1940 – 19/31 January 1882, from Rome
- Letter 2016 – 6/18 May 1882, from Kamenka
- Letter 2040 – 4/16 June 1882, from Kamenka
- Letter 2047 – 19 June/1 July 1882, from Grankino
- Letter 2068 – 26 July/7 August 1882, from Kamenka
- Letter 2080 – 20 August/1 September 1882, from Kiev
- Letter 2121a – 30 September/12 October 1882, from Kamenka
- Letter 2122 – 1/13 October 1882, from Kamenka
- Letter 2155 – 8/20 November 1882, from Kamenka
- Letter 2199 – 14/26 January 1883, from Paris
26 letters from Tkachenko to the composer, dating from 1879 to 1883, are preserved in the Tchaikovsky State Memorial Musical Museum-Reserve at Klin (a4, Nos. 4289–4314).
