About the author
Ekaterina E. Dmitrieva, DSc in Philology, Leading Research Fellow, A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia; Professor, Russian State University for the Humanities, Miusskaya 6, 125993 Moscow, Russia.
ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9692-8329
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Abstract
The work is devoted to two subjects of letters of Vladimir Odoyevsky, which globally can be seen as an attempt by the writer to build a dialogue with the Europeans, to encourage them to understand Russia and the Russians, to bridge the gap in the cultural interaction of the countries. The author of the article refers to the pamphlet “About Russian stoves” in the correspondence of Vladimir Odoyevsky with the aunt of Emperor Alexander II, notes Vladimir Odoyevsky’s increased attention to the theme of stove heating and, in general, to the image of the furnace, which repeatedly appears in his artistic work. The work demonstrates the writer’s return to the plot about the interaction of the Russian and the German peoples and the whimsically beaten uptake of the experience of one another in the furnace business. Of great interest is Vladimir Odoyevsky’s controversy with Jean Baptiste Alphonse Karr, which was described in detail in the article and unfolded on the pages of the journal “L’Avenir de Nice”. An analytical study of an acute journalistic dispute allows the author of the article to highlight the central problem of misunderstanding by foreigners of Russia, which permeates not only the artistic and journalistic works of Vladimir Odoyevsky, but also his correspondence with the Grand Duchess Maria Pavlovna, who was constantly between Petersburg and Weimar, and who knew firsthand about the difficulties of Russian interaction and Western Europe.