The image of a German musician in stories by Vladimir Odoyevsky

The paper describes images of German musicians created by the famous Russian writer Vladimir Odoyevsky in his stories "Beethoven's Last Concert" and "Sebastian Bach" from the viewpoint of literary imagology. These images are associated with the conceptualization of Germanness in Russian culture in two ways. On the one hand, the image of an artist in Russian literature is notably inspired by knowing the German tradition. The author emphasizes the influence of images created by W.H. Wackenroder, Novalis and E.Th.A. Hoffmann on the images of musicians in Odoyevsky's stories. The special focus of the paper is on the literary 'dialogue' between Wackenroder and the Russian writer on the basis of representing artists in their works. On the other hand, it is worth noting that the generalized Russian conceptualization of the German nation had influence on Odoyevsky's images. What is meant here is the conception of 'speculativeness' of Germans living strictly according to a plan or an idee fixe. In the frame of literary works, it means dividing the space of German characters into the world of philistines destined for a recurrence of the same actions, emotions and words, and the world of geniuses who only think about their art. It also corresponds to the conception of the Romantic bi-worldness. There is a similar dichotomy in the stories by Odoyevsky. The world of musical philistines is represented both by generalized personages (musical instruments manufacturers, instrumentalists, vocalists, music scholars-theorists) and by characters that are described relatively in detail, for example, Sebastian Bach's elder brother Christoph Bach, the organ builder Bandeler with his daughter Annchen. Some of these characters (Christoph Bach, music theorist and composer Gottfried Weber) have their prototypes in reality, but in general 'real' images undergo an essential transformation in the space of the stories. The typical features of 'musical' philistines are traditionalism, pedantry, rationality and pragmatism as well as rigorism verging on cruelty. Their world is hierarchically structured and achronic. The world of musical geniuses is a world of music, and their lives are dedicated to serving it. Thus, Odoyevsky associates the image of music with the motif of obsession. Sebastian Bach is obsessed with his fugues. In the image of Beethoven, the borderland between genius and insanity is blurred. The motif of 'musical' obsession is also typical for the images of Bach's wife Magdalina and her father, organ builder Albrecht. These characters show passion for novelty, changes. Conversely, the image of Bach is ambivalent. The motives of recurrence and rationalism unite it with the philistine world, which is expressed by the motif of human soul 'remaking' in the text. The world of philistine Germans is described as antagonistic to geniuses, and it tries to make the latter follow the crowd.

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