ABSTRACT
This chapter looks at an intricate web of complexities and contradictions that made up Andre Tchaikowsky’s uneasy existence to determine if, and how, cosmopolitanism and cosmopolitan values manifested themselves in his life and creative output. Tchaikowsky, when he was able to make connections, made them despite difference because he could not easily, if at all, connect through identity. To understand Tchaikowsky, one must understand the first lesson he learned in his childhood: he had no right to live, he belonged to a people who were exiled, persecuted, and exterminated, and his survival was as traumatic as the death of his mother at the hands of Nazis. Perhaps the famous skull donation shows that Tchaikowsky never really made peace with himself, and never recovered from the trauma related to his survival.
