O doevsky, V ladimir

Abstract

Vladimir (or V. F.) Odoevsky (stressed “Odóevsky,” as opposed to “Dostoévsky”) (1804?–69) was a central figure in nineteenth‐century Russian culture for nearly half a century. From something of an “angry young man” in the early 1820s, coediting the thrusting almanac Mnemozina ( Mnemosyne ), he experienced a flourishing period as a leading Romantic writer of mystical and Gothic leanings, before maturing into an overconscientious public servant and an indefatigable philanthropist. At the end of his life he was a Moscow senator, a leading musicologist, a keen amateur scientist, and a would‐be court historian. Earlier, he had also been a theorist of Romantic aesthetics, a cultural thinker, an important music critic, a prominent popular educator, and even a culinary columnist. Despite his aristocratic lineage (as a “prince,” or kniaz , his family was traceable back to Rurik), he depended financially on his government salary and publishing royalties. Commentators have dubbed him “the Russian Hoffmann,” “the philosopher‐prince,” “a Russian Faust,” and even “the Russian Goethe.”