“Objectification” as a cycle-forming constant in the motley tales of prince V. F. Odoevsky

Motley Tales (1833) is one of the completed cycles by V. F. Odoevsky. The writer wished to create a number of cycles, but did not complete a significant number. The article substantiates the importance of viewing Motley Tales as an aesthetically integrated whole due to the order of their arrangement, and common themes and motifs, and despite their “motley” nature. The author discusses the diversity of subject matter in fairy tales, but focuses on only one motif - that of “objectification”. It is important for the entire corpus of work by Odoevsky. The author substantiates the cyclical nature of this motif in the Motley Tales . The term “objectification” is understood in the article in accordance with the concept put forth by M. M. Bakhtin. This scientist called “objectification” of various transformations of a person into an object, or the reduction of a person to an object. The “objectification” motif will be vital for F. M. Dostoevsky, and will already emerge in N. V. Gogol's work, but even before that - in V. F. Odoevsky's Motley Tales . “Objectification” is immediately mentioned in the prefaces by the publisher and the writer. Subsequently, this motif manifests itself in all the fairy tales, whose characters are either inclined to objectify others, or are themselves subjected to objectification. Sometimes they do not notice it or even find pleasure in it, yet at other times they recognize their position with horror. The motif of revival is also present in the cycle: a person throws the death veil off his soul, while objects proclaim their humanity. On the whole, however, the deadness of the world in Motley Tales remains unresolved. Inert captivity fetters objects and people who are increasingly more immersed in everyday life. At the same time, the bleak state of the ethically tense world of characters is overcome in its own way in the cycle's aesthetic reality. Awareness of materiality, its humorous play upon it, conviction in the inexhaustibility of the eternal poetry of being, open up a scintillating opportunity for the resurrection of “living life.”