Often described as a mixture of forms, or more specifically a frame-tale novel, Vladimir Odoevsky’s literary swan song Russkie nochi [Russian Nights] was already a decade or so late, when published in 1844, in not pandering to the growing Russian preference for realist fiction. Moreover, all of the tales within the collection, apart from “Poslednee samoubiistvo” [“The Last Suicide”], had already been published. One might almost say that it never truly recovered from the negative effects of changing literary fashion. Largely a closet drama of ideas, it sits on that ambiguous line dividing literature from philosophy, implicitly questioning the existence of accepted categories and the very concept of genre. Perhaps because o

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Published 25 November 2004

Citation: Sucur, Slobodan. "Russkie nochi [Russian Nights]". The Literary Encyclopedia. 25 November 2004.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=16247, accessed 20 November 2009.]