Yuliya N. Sytina, PhD in Philology, Associate Professor of the Russian and Foreign Literature Department, State University of Education, Fridrikh Engels Street, 21/3, 105005, Moscow, Russia. ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6334-4722
The article analyzes the genre and artistic unity of V. Odoevsky’s Russian Nights. It is the main cycle of the writer. Odoevsky called it a drama, modern literary criticism calls it a philosophical novel. This definition was proposed by E.A. Maimin. Odoevsky wrote and published fragments from Russian Nights throughout the 1830 s. The writer insisted on the philosophical unity of the work. Researchers often destroy the integrity of the Russian Nights when studying and republishing it. This article continues to reflect on the genre of Russian Nights and shows the philosophical unity of this work using the example of The Fourth Night. The Fourth Night includes six excerpts (The Brigadier, The Ball, The Avenger, The Mockery of a Corpse, The Last Suicide and Cecilia). Odoevsky attributes their authorship to a certain Economist. The writer wanted these passages to be read as a single text, the story of the death of a man who renounced faith and love. Odoevsky in the image of an Economist precedes the “superfluous people” of I. Turgenev and A. Herzen, the “Russian boys” of F. Dostoevsky and the truth-seekers of L. Tolstoy.
V. Odoevsky; Russian Nights; artistic unity; philosophical novel; cycle.
13.06.2024
20.07.2024
Sytina, Yu. N. “The Fourth Night or the Writings of The Economist: on the Question of the Genre and Artistic Unity of V. Odoevsky’s Russian Nights”. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 4(66), 2024, pp. 9–28. (In Russ.)
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