Russian Nights

Russian Nights, Vladimir Fedorovich Odoevsky's major work, is of great importance in Russian intellectual history. This captivating novel is the summation of Odoevsky's views and interests in many fields: Gothic literature, romanticism, mysticism, the occult, social responsibility, Westernization, utopia and anti-utopia. Compared variously to The Decameron, to Hoffman's Serapion Brethren, and the Platonic dialogues, Russian Nights is a mixture of genres — a series of romantic and society tales framed by Odoevsky's musings on the main strands of Russian thought of the 1820s and 1830s. This is a unique work of Russian literature, and a key sourcebook for Russian romanticism and Russian social and aesthetic thought of its epoch.