Author Biography
Vladimir Odoevskii (1804-1869) was a philosopher, writer, music critic, and a philanthropist, an of outstanding exponent of Russian Romanticism. He studied at the Nobility College of the Moscow University (1816-1822). In the 1820s he founded and presided over the Society of the Science lovers, where he and his fellow students met to discuss the ideas of German philosophers. In that period, he came to know many future Slavophiles and Westernizers, though refusing to identify himself with any of these movements. Since 1824, Odoevskii was active as a literary critic and journalist, and with Vil’gelm Kiukhel’beker founded the short-lived Moscow literary magazine “Mnemozina”. In 1826, he moved to St. Petersburg, where he joined the staff of the Imperial Public Library and served as a senator of the Russian Empire. In the mid-1830s, he co-edited the journal “Sovremennik” (“The Contemporary”) with Aleksandr Pushkin. Years later, he was put in charge of the Rumiantsev Museum: he returned to Moscow, but continued to serve as a public functionary, while taking an active role in the literary and cultural debates.