Prince Vladimir Fyodorovich Odoyevsky (russian: Влади́мир Фёдорович Одо́евский, p=ɐˈdojɪfskʲɪj; Владимир Федорович Одоевский. Библиографический указатель. Энциклопедия Хоронос//http://hrono.ru/biograf/bio_o/odoevski_vf.php – ) was a prominent

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-ei ...

n Imperial

philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φιλόσοφος, , translit=philosophos, meaning 'lover of wisdom'. The coining of the term has been attributed to the Greek th ...

, writer,

music critic '' The Oxford Companion to Music'' defines music criticism as "the intellectual activity of formulating judgments on the value and degree of excellence of individual works of music, or whole groups or genres". In this sense, it is a branch of mu ...

philanthropist Philanthropy is a form of altruism that consists of "private initiatives, for the public good, focusing on quality of life". Philanthropy contrasts with business initiatives, which are private initiatives for private good, focusing on material ...

and

pedagogue Pedagogy (), most commonly understood as the approach to teaching, is the theory and practice of learning, and how this process influences, and is influenced by, the social, political and psychological development of learners. Pedagogy, taken ...

. He became known as the "Russian Hoffmann" and even the "Russian

Faust Faust is the protagonist of a classic German legend based on the historical Johann Georg Faust ( 1480–1540). The erudite Faust is highly successful yet dissatisfied with his life, which leads him to make a pact with the Devil at a crossroa ...

" on account of his keen interest in phantasmagoric tales and musical criticism.

Biography

The last member of the princely House of Odoyev, he was genealogically the most senior member of the

House of Rurik The Rurik dynasty ( be, Ру́рыкавічы, Rúrykavichy; russian: Рю́риковичи, Ryúrikovichi, ; uk, Рю́риковичі, Riúrykovychi, ; literally "sons/scions of Rurik"), also known as the Rurikid dynasty or Rurikids, was ...

. He was born to Prince Fyodor Sergeevich Odoyevsky (1771–1808), a state councillor (''statsky sovietnik''). His father started out as an adjutant of Prince Grigory Potyomkin, then, in 1798 he entered civil service as the director of the Moscow Assignant bank. According to one version, his mother, Ekaterina Alekseevna Filippova, was a serf, however, this version has been proven wrong, and it was found out that his mother was a daughter of a

praporschik ( rus, Пра́порщик, 3=ˈprapərɕːɪk, ) is a rank used by the Russian Armed Forces and a number of former communist states. The rank is a non-commissioned officer's and is equivalent to in navies. It is usually equivalent to Warrant ...

. His widow, Avdotya Petrovna, had a house on the Prechistenka street in

Moscow Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 million ...

, several servants and a small fortune from her husband.Лукьянова Ирина. Блаженны чистые сердцем./Журнал “Русский мир.ru” / 2014 / Август//https://russkiymir.ru/media/magazines/article/146967/ His mother was a well-educated young lady; she could speak French and play the piano. However, the Odoyevsky family regarded this marriage as misalliance. And after his father's death in 1808, his mother was married twice. Part of his childhood was spent with his grandfather, colonel Prince Sergey Ivanovich Odoyevsky, but when he died, his estate in Kostroma Governorate ended up in the hands of an acquaintance of Vladimir's maternal grandmother, the widow of a general, Agrafena Glazova, who took over the properties. In 1812 his mother's house in Moscow was burned down in fire, and he and his mother lived at the estate of Drokovo in Ryazan Governorate, which she took over. While her son was away studying at a boarding school, in 1818–1819 she married sub-porutchik Pavel Sechenov, and having given custody of her son to Agrafena Glazova, settled at Drokovo with her new husband. P. Sechenov turned out to be an abusive husband. Vladimir ended up owing much debt to Glazova, and having settled liabilities, he moved to his grandfather's estate being almost completely broke. Considered by his contemporaries as a typical Muscovite, he was educated at the Nobility School of the

Moscow University M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University (MSU; russian: Московский государственный университет имени М. В. Ломоносова) is a public research university in Moscow, Russia and the most prestigious ...

in 1816-22. In the mid-1820s, Odoyevsky presided over the Lyubomudry Society, where he and his fellow students met to discuss the ideas of

Friedrich Schelling Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (; 27 January 1775 – 20 August 1854), later (after 1812) von Schelling, was a German philosopher. Standard histories of philosophy make him the midpoint in the development of German idealism, situating him be ...

and other German philosophers. At that period, he came to know many future

Slavophile Slavophilia (russian: Славянофильство) was an intellectual movement originating from the 19th century that wanted the Russian Empire to be developed on the basis of values and institutions derived from Russia's early history. Slavoph ...

s and

Westernizer Westernizers (; russian: За́падник, Západnik, p=ˈzapədnʲɪk) were a group of 19th-century intellectuals who believed that Russia's development depended upon the adoption of Western European technology and liberal government. In their ...

s, but refused to identify himself with any of these movements. Since 1824, Odoyevsky was active as a literary critic and journalist. In 1824 he and

Wilhelm Küchelbecker Wilhelm Ludwig von Küchelbecker ( rus, Вильге́льм Ка́рлович Кюхельбе́кер, p=kʲʉxʲɪlʲˈbʲekʲɪr, tr. ; in St. Petersburg – in Tobolsk) was a Russian Romantic poet and Decembrist revolutionary of Ger ...

founded the short-lived Moscow literary magazine ''

Mnemozina ''Mnemozina'' ( rus, Мнемозина, p=mnʲɪmɐˈzʲinə) was a quarterly literary almanac, published in Moscow from 1824 to 1825. The full title in the Russian language is ''Мнемозина, собрание сочинений в стих ...

''. Perhaps most famously, he co-edited the ''

Sovremennik ''Sovremennik'' ( rus, «Современник», p=səvrʲɪˈmʲenʲːɪk, a=Ru-современник.ogg, "The Contemporary") was a Russian literary, social and political magazine, published in Saint Petersburg in 1836–1866. It came out ...

'' with

Alexander Pushkin Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (; rus, links=no, Александр Сергеевич ПушкинIn pre-Revolutionary script, his name was written ., r=Aleksandr Sergeyevich Pushkin, p=ɐlʲɪkˈsandr sʲɪrˈɡʲe(j)ɪvʲɪtɕ ˈpuʂkʲɪn, ...

in the mid-1830s. In 1826, he moved to

St Petersburg Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...

, where he joined the staff of the Imperial Public Library. Two decades later, he was put in charge of the Rumyantsev Museum. Odoyevsky finally returned to Moscow in 1861 but continued to serve as a

senator A senate is a deliberative assembly, often the upper house or chamber of a bicameral legislature. The name comes from the ancient Roman Senate (Latin: ''Senatus''), so-called as an assembly of the senior (Latin: ''senex'' meaning "the el ...

until his death. He is buried in the

Donskoy monastery Donskoy Monastery (russian: Донско́й монасты́рь) is a major monastery in Moscow, founded in 1591 in commemoration of Moscow's deliverance from the threat of an invasion by the Crimean Khan Kazy-Girey. Commanding a highway to ...

necropolis.

Short stories

Aspiring to imitate

Ludwig Tieck Johann Ludwig Tieck (; ; 31 May 177328 April 1853) was a German poet, fiction writer, translator, and critic. He was one of the founding fathers of the Romantic movement in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. Early life Tieck was born in B ...

and

Novalis Georg Philipp Friedrich Freiherr von Hardenberg (2 May 1772 – 25 March 1801), pen name Novalis (), was a German polymath who was a writer, philosopher, poet, aristocrat and mystic. He is regarded as an idiosyncratic and influential figure o ...

, Odoyevsky published a number of tales for children (e.g., "The Snuff-Box Town") and fantastical stories for adults (e.g., "Cosmorama" and "Salamandra") imbued with the vague

mysticism Mysticism is popularly known as becoming one with God or the Absolute, but may refer to any kind of ecstasy or altered state of consciousness which is given a religious or spiritual meaning. It may also refer to the attainment of insight in ...

in the vein of Jakob Boehme and Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin. Following the success of Pushkin's '' The Queen of Spades'', Odoyevsky wrote a number of similar stories on the dissipated life of the Russian aristocracy (e.g., ''Princess Mimi'' and ''Princess Zizi''). On account of his many short stories from the 1820s and 1830s, Odoyevsky should be listed among the pioneers of the impressionistic short story in Europe. His most mature book was the collection of essays and novellas entitled '' Russian Nights'' (1844). Loosely patterned after the '' Noctes Atticae'', the book took two decades to complete. It contains some of Odoyevsky's best known fiction, including the

dystopia A dystopia (from Ancient Greek δυσ- "bad, hard" and τόπος "place"; alternatively cacotopiaCacotopia (from κακός ''kakos'' "bad") was the term used by Jeremy Bentham in his 1818 Plan of Parliamentary Reform (Works, vol. 3, p. 493). ...

n novellas ''The Last Suicide'' and ''The Town with No Name''. The stories are interlaced with philosophic conversations redolent of the French Encyclopedists.

Musical criticism

As a music critic, Odoyevsky set out to propagate the national style of

Mikhail Glinka Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka ( rus, link=no, Михаил Иванович Глинка, Mikhail Ivanovich Glinka., mʲɪxɐˈil ɪˈvanəvʲɪdʑ ˈɡlʲinkə, Ru-Mikhail-Ivanovich-Glinka.ogg; ) was the first Russian composer to gain wide recogni ...

and his followers, denigrating their forebears such as

Dmitri Bortniansky Dmitry Stepanovich Bortniansky ; ; alternative transcriptions of names are ''Dmitri Bortnianskii'', and ''Bortnyansky'', group=n (28 October 1751 – ) was a Russian Imperial composer of Ukrainian Cossack origin. He was a composer, harpsichord ...

. He also wrote a romanticised biography of the Russian violinist

Ivan Khandoshkin Ivan Yevstafyevich Khandoshkin (russian: Иван Евстафьевич Хандошкин, uk, Іван Остапович Хандошко) (1747 – 29 or 30 March 1804) was a Russian Empire violinist and composer of Ukrainian Cossack ...

, whose career he presented as thwarted by the malign influence of such Italian musicians as Giuseppe Sarti. Among his many articles on musical subjects, a treatise about old Russian church singing deserves particular attention, though he expressed strong distaste for ''strochnoy'' (early Russian polyphonic) chant: "No human ear could possibly bear the succession of seconds that are constantly to be encountered."

Johann Sebastian Bach Johann Sebastian Bach (28 July 1750) was a German composer and musician of the late Baroque period. He is known for his orchestral music such as the '' Brandenburg Concertos''; instrumental compositions such as the Cello Suites; keyboard wo ...

and

Beethoven Ludwig van Beethoven (baptised 17 December 177026 March 1827) was a German composer and pianist. Beethoven remains one of the most admired composers in the history of Western music; his works rank amongst the most performed of the classic ...

appear as characters in some of his novellas. Odoyevsky was active in the foundation of the Russian Musical Society,

Moscow Conservatory The Moscow Conservatory, also officially Moscow State Tchaikovsky Conservatory (russian: Московская государственная консерватория им. П. И. Чайковского, link=no) is a musical educational inst ...

, and St. Petersburg Conservatory.

Technology

Odoyevsky took part in development of

electroplating Electroplating, also known as electrochemical deposition or electrodeposition, is a process for producing a metal coating on a solid substrate through the reduction of cations of that metal by means of a direct electric current. The part to be ...

technology, invented by

Moritz von Jacobi Moritz Hermann or Boris Semyonovich (von) Jacobi (russian: Борис Семёнович Якоби; 21 September 1801, Potsdam – 10 March 1874, Saint Petersburg) was a Prussian and Russian Imperial engineer and physicist of Jewish descent. Ja ...

in Russia. In 1844 Odoyevsky wrote a book, ''Galvanism applied in technology'' (''Гальванизм в техническом применении''). He made a number of experiments and developed

cobalt Cobalt is a chemical element with the symbol Co and atomic number 27. As with nickel, cobalt is found in the Earth's crust only in a chemically combined form, save for small deposits found in alloys of natural meteoric iron. The free element, p ...

Works

*'' The Year 4338: Petersburg Letters'' (1835) *'' The Living Corpse'' (1844)

English translations

*''Princess Mimi'', ''The Sylph'', and ''The Live Corpse'', (stories), from ''Russian Romantic Prose: An Anthology'', Translation Press, 1979. *''The Salamander and Other Stories'', (stories), Gerald Duckworth, 1992. *''Two Princesses'', (novel), Hesperus Press, 2010. *''Two Days in the Life of the Terrestrial Globe and Other Stories'', (stories), Ama Classics, 2012.

References

;Sources *

External links