ODÓEVSKII, Vladímir (Fëdorovich) (Prince)

Nationality: Russian. Born: Moscow, 30 July 1804. Education: Educated in Moscow, 1816-22. Family: Married Ol'ga Stepanovna Lanskaia in 1826. Career: Amateur composer and musicologist; publisher and co-editor, Mnemozina, 1824-25; moved to St. Petersburg, 1826; editor, writer, and critic, from 1826; librarian, St. Petersburg Public Library, from 1846; director, Rumiantsev Museum, from 1846; appointed to Moscow Senate, 1862; co-founder, Society of Wisdom Lovers, (president, 1823-25). Member: Free Society of Amateurs of Russian Letters. Died: 27 February 1869.

Publications

Collections

Povesti [Novellas]. 3 vols., 1890.

Povesti i rasskazy [Novellas and Stories], edited by E. Iu. Khin. 1959.

Povesti [Novellas], edited by V. I. Sakharov. 1977.

Sochineniia v dvukh tomakh [Works]. 2 vols., 1981.

Short Stories

Pestrye skazki s krasnym slovtsom sobrannye Irineem Modestovichem Gomozeikoiu, magistrom filosofi i chlenom raznykh uchonykh obshchestv, izdannye V. Bezglasnym [Motley Fairy Tales]. 1833.

Kniazhna Mimi; domashnie razgovory [Princess Mimi; HomeConversation]. 1834(?).

Russkie nochi. 1844; as Russian Nights, edited by Ralph Matlaw, 1965.

Romanticheskie povesti [Romantic Novels], edited by OrestTsekhnovitser. 1929.

Deviat' povestei [Nine Novellas]. 1954.

Novel

4338 god: Fantasticheskii roman [The Year 4338. Letters from Petersburg (1835 and 1840)], edited by Orest Tsekhnovitser. 1926.

Fiction for children

Detskaia knizhka dlia voskresnykh dnei [A Child's Book forSundays]. 1833.

Gorodok v tabakerke. Detskaia skazka dedushki Irineia [The LittleTown in the Snuffbox. Children's Fairy Tale of Grandfather Irinei]. 1834.

Detskie Skazki dedushki Irineia [Children's Tales of GrandfatherIrinei]. 1840.

Skazki i povesti dlia detei Dedushki Irineia [Fairy Tales and Stories of Grandfather Irinei for Children]. 1841.

Sbornik detskikh pesen Dedushki Irineia [A Book of GrandfatherIrinei's Songs for Children] (verse). 1847.

Dedushki Irineia skazki i sochineniia dlia detei [GrandfatherIrinei's Fairy Tales and Selections for Children]. 1871.

Skazki i rasskazy dedushki Irineia [Fairy Tales and Stories of Grandfather Irinei]. 1889.

Other

Chetyre apologa [Four Apologies]. 1824.

Sochineniia kniazia [Works]. 3 vols., 1844.

Lettre et plaidoyer en faveur de l'abonné russe. 1857.

Nedovol'no [Not Good Enough]. 1867.

Publichnye lektsii professora Liubimova [Public Lectures of the Professor of Love]. 1868.

Izbrannye muzykal'no-kriticheskie stat'i [Collection of MusicalCritical Articles]. 1951.

Stat'i o M. I. Glinke [Articles on M. I. Glinke]. 1953.

Izbrannye pedagogicheskie sochineniia, edited by V. Ia. Struminskii. 1955.

Muzykal'no-literaturnoe nasledie [Musical Literary Heritage], edited by G. Bernandt. 1956.

Editor, with A. P. Zablotskii, Sel'skoe chtenie. 4 vols., 1863.

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Critical Studies:

Introduction to Russian Nights by Ralph Matlaw, 1965; "A Hollow Shape: The Philosophical Tales of Prince Odóevsky" by Simon Karlinsky, Studies in Romanticism 5, 1966; "Odóevsky's Russian Nights," in Essays in Poetics 8, 1983, and The Life, Times, and Milieu of Odóevsky 1804-1869, 1986, both by Neil Cornwell; Vladimir Odóevsky and Romantic Poets: Collected Essays, 1998.

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Named the "Russian Faust" after one of his own characters, Vladímir Odóevskii demonstrated an unusually deep knowledge of a wide range of subjects: music, bibliography, education, literature, science, economics, and philosophy, especially of the German idealists. He fell under the spell of German romantic philosophy while being educated in Moscow, his native city. There Odóevskii founded the Obshchestvo liubomudriia (Society of Wisdom Lovers), which debated philosophical problems put forth by Kant, Fichte, Spinoza, and Schilling. With his friend Wilhelm Kiukhelbeker he published and edited the literary almanac Mnemozina (1824-25) dedicated to the ideals of the liubomudrii group.

In 1826 Odóevskii moved to St. Petersburg where he entered the civil service in the Ministry of Justice; he continued his career in service as the director of the Rumiantsev Museum and of its most important library. A man of seemingly endless activity, Odóevskii became a writer, scholar, and music critic; he also engaged in the field of publishing. He was a beloved literary figure, and his salon became a forum for the best artists and minds of his day. But his fame rests mainly on the popularity of his short stories.

Odóevskii's fiction explored a number of themes, mainly gleaned from German romanticism. In his stories he tried to imbue reality with a sense of the ideal and the transcendental. He also expressed in them his dissatisfaction with the compartmentalization of knowledge and people's total reliance either on the materialistic side of existence or on the poetic ideal. Because his own proclivities tended toward aesthetic needs, much of his work deals with the role of art in society, the qualities that make up the artist, and the ramifications of creative ecstasy with its close proximity to madness and insanity. He also pondered the utopian ideal. In addition his interests included speculation on religion, government, and the fundamental meaning of human existence.

The types of stories Odóevskii wrote are as numerous as his themes: satires, fantasies, philosophical sketches, society tales, Künstlernovellen, anti-utopias, and even children's stories. Grandpa Irinei is the delightful narrator of the tales for youngsters, which were informative as well as entertaining. In his desire to inform the masses Odóevskii wrote a series of anthologies for the uneducated. These were basic texts on a variety of subjects. His utopian fantasy is a fragment of another major project he set out to write: a trilogy depicting Russia's past, present, and future.

4338 god: Fantasticheskii roman ("The Year 4338. Letters from Petersburg [1835 and 1840]") describes the world one year before Biela's Comet will collide with the earth and destroy human civilization. On the eve of destruction the world is divided into two camps: the Russian and the Chinese, with the latter sphere acting as disciple of the former. A Chinese student visits Russia's main city, a massive fusion of Moscow and St. Petersburg. In letters to a friend the student describes a world not unlike those envisioned by H. G. Wells and Aldous Huxley. An effective political system, with various ministries of philosophy, fine arts, the air forces, and conciliation, governs a Russia where people with extraordinary talents get special training to help them serve. For relaxation the workers still drink alcohol, but the upper classes inhale special gasses and take "magnetic baths," electronic stimulators that act on a group to free minds from inhibitions, induce heightened sensations, and foster love and friendship. On the whole this literary experiment shows Odóevskii's keen philosophical interest in the future of the world.

His fondness for narrative experimentation led him to create a voluble storyteller, Irinei Modestovich Gomozeiko, Odóevskii's alter-ego, another "Renaissance man" who serves as the unifying element of the Pestrye skazki (Motley Fairy Tales). A compendium of German romanticism, the tales tend to be whimsical, satirical, grotesque, and "supernatural." Probably one of the most well-known pieces of the collection, "A Tale of Why It Is Dangerous for Young Girls to Go Walking in a Group Along Nevsky Prospect," is a fantasy/satire against the pernicious influence of society "mamas" and foreign culture on young Russian girls. In this story Odóevskii takes a homogenized Russian beauty and turns her into a doll under a glass jar. She nods her head along with all of the other dolls in the window of a shop in which objects, foreign and fantastic, are sold. Clearly Odóevskii makes the point that the women of Petersburg have no individuality.

A fantastic story of a much higher intellectual level, "Sil'fida" ("The Sylph"), describes the consequences of being transported to higher realms while still earth bound. Mikhail Platonovich goes to the estate of his late uncle to convalesce after some illness. Bored by lack of reading material, he orders the servants to open boxes of books packed away by his aunt because of their evil influence. He discovers a cache of alchemical and occult books and soon becomes absorbed in their mysteries. He forgets everything, even the fianceé he courts in the country; he loses himself in experiments, one of which yields a perfectly formed miniature woman who initiates him into the mysteries of higher beauty and truth. His friend brings a doctor who successfully cures him of his malaise. But instead of being grateful, Mikhail Platonovich lashes out at his friend for depriving him of the world of perfection the tiny woman revealed to him. In this story we see Odóevskii's frustration at humankind's inability to reconcile real and the ideal.

In contrast to his philosophical stories, Odóevskii wrote a series of society tales, of which the best are "Princess Zizi" and "Princess Mimi" (1834). In the latter he experiments further with narrational technique. Gone is the conventional framing device; "Princess Mimi" begins right in the middle of a ball, one of his favorite targets of satire. Odóevskii displays more narrative self-confidence when he stops the action at the most exciting part and interjects the preface to the story along with a Sternean discourse on the trials of writing novels—a good example of romantic irony and a reminder that we indeed are reading fiction. His use of this device calls to our attention the main theme of the story, appearance versus reality. Princess Mimi, an old maid "guardian of morality" in St. Petersburg beau monde, preserves outward decorum while slandering an innocent victim of her spite. In this story the author lashes out against Petersburg society with its superficial, hypocritical standards of human worth.

A summary of Odóevskii's views on many issues provides the thematic thread that runs through his collection Russkie nochi (Russian Nights). Though the stories appeared at various times, he brought them together with interspersed commentary of four men who debate the merits of scientific empiricism versus mystical idealism. He uses Plato's dialogues as his model for the stories he arranges in an order designed to develop the argument. Faust, Odóevskii's spokesman, argues on the side of idealism with the support of Rostislav who stresses the importance of love and faith. Victor and Vyacheslav become spokesmen for rationalism and utilitarianism. In three nights they tell stories that demonstrate the destructive powers of a materialistic view of the world: "Opere del Cavaliere Giambattista Piranesi," "The Brigadier," "The Ball," "The Avenger," "The Mockery of a Corpse," "The Last Suicide," "Cecelia," and "A City without Name," an indictment of the theories of Malthus and Bentham. The economist who presents these tales becomes disillusioned as he realizes his arguments are inadequate.

The next three nights Faust tells stories dealing with the higher realm of art, which also ultimately proves to be inadequate. The three stories are about artists: Beethoven, who feels frustration with musical instruments that limit the infinite possibilities of music ("Beethoven's Last Quartet"); a poet/improvisor, who sees the component parts of everything so clearly he cannot visualize the entire picture ("The Improvvisatore"); and Sebastian Bach, who sacrificed family and happiness to become perfection in art ("Sebastian Bach"). Unfortunately his art lacks human passion.

Odóevskii's stories about the artist and his role in society rank among his best. They most clearly testify to his status as the foremost disseminator of ideas of the romantic movement in Russia. Of all his contemporaries he best represents his age.

—Christine A. Rydel