Letters

Tchaikovsky Research
Tchaikovsky's Letters
1840s 1848 · 1849
1850s 1850 · 1851 · 1852 · 1854 · 1856
1860s 1861 · 1862 · 1863 · 1864 · 1865 · 1866 · 1867 · 1868 · 1869
1870s 1870 · 1871 · 1872 · 1873 · 1874 · 1875 · 1876 · 1877 · 1878 · 1879
1880s 1880 · 1881 · 1882 · 1883 · 1884 · 1885 · 1886 · 1887 · 1888 · 1889
1890s 1890 · 1891 · 1892 · 1893
Unknown Dates unknown
Lists of Correspondents · Letters with Texts · Letters without Texts
Letters with Translations · Letters with Facsimiles

These pages provide details about all of Tchaikovsky's 5,364 known letters, which were addressed to 379 individual correspondents.

The following information is given for each letter, where available:

  • Date of the letter (in the form old style/new style)
  • The name of the person(s) or organisation to which it was addressed
  • The city or town where it was written
  • The language of the original text
  • The location of the original letter (autograph)
  • First publications of the letters
  • Notes about the letters, including the whereabouts of manuscript copies.

Note that the term "letter" also includes telegrams and notes on visiting cards, as well as items addressed to the editors of newspapers and journals for publication. The numbers are based on those used in the Soviet Complete Collected Works edition of Tchaikovsky's correspondence (published between 1959 and 1981), and in volume 2 of The Tchaikovsky Handbook (Indiana University Press, 2002).

Translation Project

The website currently includes the original texts of 5,321 letters, plus details of a further 43 letters which are known to exist in private or closed archival collections. Our project to translate the texts of all the available letters into English is continuing, with 3,349 letters already having been translated.

If you would like to help with translating Tchaikovsky's letters into English from Russian, French or German, then please contact info@tchaikovsky-research.net for more information.