Screenwriter Questions Whether Tchaikovsky Was Gay, Sparking Furor in Russia

MOSCOW â€" A prominent Russian screenwriter working on a film of Tchaikovsky’s life that has just received state funding set off a firestorm this week by saying that the biopic will not focus on the composer’s homosexuality because “it is far from a fact that Tchaikovsky was a homosexual.”

“Only philistines think this,” Yuri Arabov told the newspaper Izvestia of the commonly accepted view of the composer’s sexual orientation. “What philistines believe, should not be shown in films.”

Mr. Arabov, who is known for his screenplays for films by Alexander Sokurov about the inner lives of Lenin, Hitler and Emperor Hirohito, told the newspaper in an interview published on August 20 that the movie, which is called “Tchaikovsky” and scheduled for release in 2015, would show Russia’s most revered and ubiquitous composer as a man who “is marked by rumors and suffers greatly from this.”

Contemporary scholars still debate how Tchaikovsky died, with some claiming that he was driven to suicide out of torment over his sexuality. For decades, the cause of death was reported as cholera.

Mr. Arabov’s comments come as Russia continues to be embroiled in controversy over anti-gay legislation passed recently that has prompted calls for boycotts against Russian goods and for the 2014 Winter Olympics to be relocated. The Games are scheduled to open in the Russian resort city of Sochi in February 2014.

In an open letter addressed to British Prime Minister David Cameron and the International Olympic Committee earlier this month, the British actor Stephen Fry compared Russia to Nazi Germany and claimed that referring to Tchaikovsky as gay is regarded as a crime in Russia.

“Any statement, for example, that Tchaikovsky was gay and that his art and life reflects this sexuality and are an inspiration to other gay artists would be punishable by imprisonment,” he wrote.

Earlier this week, Wentworth Miller, who starred on Fox television’s “Prison Break,” turned down an invitation to a film festival in St. Petersburg, writing to the festival’s director that he cannot participate in an event in “a country where people like myself are being systematically denied their basic right to live and love openly.”

Mr. Arabov told Izvestia that he would “not sign my name to a film that advertises homosexuality.” He said his aversion “is not because I don’t have a gay friend, but because this is outside the sphere of art.”

“Tchaikovsky” is being directed by Kirill Serebrennikov, one of post-Soviet Russia’s most successful theater and film directors, who has so far managed to both criticize the government and secure state funding.

Last month, Russia’s culture ministry included the film among those to receive state funding. At the same time, the ministry has also stressed that it is interested in patriotic films that will help Russia’s image, and infuriated some liberals by turning down a World War II-themed film by Alexander Mindadze, a veteran film director. On Friday, a historian who serves on a military advisory board to the ministry told the Interfax news agency that Mr. Mindadze had been persuaded to shift the film’s chronology to avoid historical inaccuracies.

On Wednesday, Mr Serebrennikov posted what he described as a synopsis of a film about Tchaikovsky, describing it as “the true story of the tragic love and death of the brilliant Russian composer,” in which he runs into his first love at a ball, only to find that she is married. When she finally leaves her husband, the composer dies of cholera with her at his side.

One commentator noted, correctly, that Mr. Serebrennikov had, in fact, posted the synopsis of “Es War eine Rauschende Ballnacht,” a 1939 German film about Tchaikovsky. In English, the title reads “It Was a Gay Ballnight.”