A. Eichenwald’s memories about G. Tukay – memoirs or fantasies?

Abstract

This work belongs to a series of articles about composer Anton Eichenwald. They were published in the journal “Tatarica” in 2022-2023: “The Symphony Orchestra Concert of Oriental Music in Kazan in 1923” (2022, No. 1), “Concerts of Oriental Music in Paris” (2022, No. 2), “Anton Eikhenwald and the Kazan Office of Musical Folklore” (2023, No. 1) and “Folklore Opera ‘The Steppe' in the Perception of Our Contemporaries” (2023, No. 2). The article analyzes two memoirs about composer A. Eichenwald and his contacts with poet G. Tukay. The composer himself was named as the author of the publication “A Passionate Music Lover”, and “Chaliapin and Tukay...” was presented as retold by L. Rubinstein. Serious Tukay scholars ignored these sources. Information about the fictitious meetings of A. Eichenwald and F. Chaliapin with G. Tukay was replicated by writers, literary critics and musicologists who failed to take a critical look at the content of these “pseudo-memories.” Based on our analysis of the content of these articles and using the memoirs of Tukay's contemporaries and other documentary sources, the article proves that this material about the fictitious meetings was created by third-party authors who were ignorant of these major cultural figures' biographies.