Two centuries of the Russian classics Two centuries of the Russian classics 2686-7494 IWL RAS https://doi.org/10.22455/2686-7494-2026-8-3-50-65 Research Article Articles “To Search and Not to Find”: The Fate of a 19th-Century Man in V. F. Odoevsky’s “The Sylph” Sytina Yuliya N. red@rusklassika.ru 25 09 2026 8 3 50 65 V. F. Odoevsky “The Sylph ” romanticism realism mysticism religion cultural and historical context Copyright © 2026, IWL RAS 2026 The works of V. F. Odoevsky are interpreted primarily from the philosophical and aesthetic principles of Romanticism. This view, while valid, sometimes obscures and narrows the deeper meanings of the writer’s work, who sought to understand not only human nature as such, but also to reveal the state of mind, skepticism, and despondency of his contemporaries. This article examines the story “The Sylph” within the central concerns of 19th-century Russian literature and within the context of Odoevsky’s work, which emphasized the harm of one- sidedness, including the complete rejection of everyday life (even in the name of art). This approach presents the hero of “The Sylph” not as an exceptional individual whose escape into dreamland demonstrates the apotheosis of Romantic rejection of banal reality in the name of a sublime dreamworld, but as self-delusion and the abandonment of human duty. Odoevsky saw the way out of the spiritual impasse into which the man of the 19th century, led by both materialistic and mystical ideas, had wandered in the traditional religion for Russia and in active work for the good of the fatherland and other people. 1. Andreeva, V. G. O natsional’nom svoeobrazii russkogo romana vtoroi poloviny XIX veka [On the National Distinctiveness of the Russian Novel in the Second Half of the 19th Century]. Kostroma, Kostroma State University Publ., 2016. 492 p. (In Russ.) 2. Baritskii, D. S. “Khristianskie korni pessimizma v povestiakh I. S. Turgeneva ʽPrizraki’ (1864) i ʽDovol’no’ (1865)” [“Christian Roots of Pessimism in I. S. Turgenev’s Novellas ʽGhosts’ (1864) and ʽEnough’ (1865)”]. Vestnik Voronezhskogo gosudarstvennogo universiteta. Seriia: Filologiia. Zhurnalistika, no. 4, 2017, pp. 14–18. (In Russ.) 3. Bakhtin, M. M. Problemy poetiki Dostoevskogo [Problems of Dostoevsky’s Poetics]. St. Petersburg, Azbuka, Azbuka-Attikus Publ., 2017. 416 p. (In Russ.) 4. Vinogradov, I. A. “ʽRomantik’ Poprishchin: istoriia zamysla povesti N. V. Gogolia ʽZapiski sumasshedshego’. Chast’ 1” [“ʽRomantic’ Poprishchin: The History of Nikolai Gogol’s Story ʽNotes of a Madman’. Part 1”]. Stephanos, no. 3 (65), 2024a, pp. 34–70. https://doi.org/10.24249/2309-9917-2024-65-3-34-70 (In Russ.) 5. Vinogradov, I. A. “ʽRomantik’ Poprishchin: istoriia zamysla povesti N. V. Gogolia ʽZapiski sumasshedshego’. Chast’ 2” [“ʽRomantic’ Poprishchin: The History of Nikolai Gogol’s Novel ʽNotes of a Madman’. Part 2”]. Stephanos, no. 4 (66), 2024b, pp. 40–75. https://doi.org/10.24249/2309-9917-2024-66-4-40-75 (In Russ.) 6. Medovoi, M. I. “Izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo v tvorchestve V. F. Odoevskogo” [“Fine Art in the Works of V. F. Odoevsky”]. Russkaia literatura i izobrazitel’noe iskusstvo XVIII — nachala XX veka [Russian Literature and Fine Arts of the 18th — Early 20th Centuries]. Leningrad, Nauka Publ., 1988, pp. 84–95. (In Russ.) 7. Nazirov, R. G. Russkaia klassicheskaia literatura: sravnitel’no-istoricheskii podkhod: issled. raznykh let [Russian Classical Literature: A Comparative-Historical Approach: Research of Different Years]. Ufa, Bashkir State University Publ., 2005. 207 p. (In Russ.) 8. Romanova, E. A., and N. A. Parshukova. “ʽNet! Ne vse vzdor v retseptakh moego diadiushki’ (mistiko-okkul’tnyi aspekt povesti V. F. Odoevskogo ʽSil’fida’.”) [“ʽNo! Not Everything in My Uncle’s Recipes Is Nonsense’ (The Mystical and Occult Aspect of V. F. Odoevsky’s Story ʽThe Sylph’)”]. Vestnik Syktyvkarskogo universiteta. Seriia gumanitarnykh nauk, no. 2 (18), 2021, pp. 31–41. (In Russ.) 9. Sytina, Iu. N. “ʽNoch’ chetvertaia’ ili sochineniia Ekonomista: k voprosu o zhanre i khudozhestvennom edinstve ʽRusskikh nochei’ V. F. Odoevskogo” [“ʽNight Four’ or the Economist’s Writings: On the Genre and Artistic Unity of V. F. Odoevsky’s ʽRussian Nights’.”]. Literaturovedcheskii zhurnal, no. 4 (66), 2024, pp. 9–28. https://doi.org/10.31249/lit-zhur/2024.66.01 (In Russ.) 10. Sytina, Iu. N. “ʽPortret’ N. V. Gogolia i ʽOpere del cavaliere Giambattista Piranesi’ V. F. Odoevskogo: etika, estetika, poetika” [“N. V. Gogol’s ʽPortrait’ and V. F. Odoevsky’s ʽOpere del cavaliere Giambattista Piranesi’: Ethics, Aesthetics, Poetics”]. Dva veka russkoi klassiki, vol. 7, no. 1, 2025, pp. 162–181. https://doi.org/10.22455/2686-7494-2025-7-1-162-181 (In Russ.) 11. Sytina, Iu. N. Tvorchestvo V. F. Odoevskogo v bol’shom vremeni russkoi kul’tury [The Works of V. F. Odoevsky in the Great Time of Russian Culture]. St. Petersburg, Russian Christian Humanitarian Academy Publ., 2022. 336 p. (In Russ.)