The City of the Future in the novels by V.F. Odoevsky "Russian Nights" and "The 4338th year

Chzhao Yao Staff, Shenzhen MSU-BIT University 518100, China, Guangdong Province, Shenzhen, Da Yun str., 1 278250417@qq.com

In the Russian literature of the first third of the nineteenth century, texts containing artistic pictures of the future occupy a significant place. Among them are "European Letters" by V.G. Kuchelbecker (1820), "Plausible tall tales, or travels around the world in the twenty-ninth century" by F.V. Bulgarin (1824), the novel by A.F. Veltman "MMMCDXLVIII 3448: The Manuscript of Martin-Zadek", published in 1833, as well as many others. Against the presented literary background, the unfinished novel by V.F. Odoevsky "The 4338th year" does not seem to be an exception, as indicated by the name itself - rearranged figures from Veltman's novel "the year 3448". Nevertheless, Odoevsky's novel differs significantly from the works of his contemporaries.

"Odoevsky's vision extended for a whole century ahead!" exclaimed V.V. Rozanov in the article "Chaadaev and the Book. Odoevsky" ^[6]. A.G. Gacheva argues, not without reason, that Odoevsky's texts have a "powerful futurological component" and seek to draw development vectors not only for the people and not for some part of humanity divided into nationalities, but for the world in its unity" ^[1]. Russians Russian cosmism As it has been repeatedly pointed out, Odoevsky's ideas, set out in the novels "Russian Nights" and "4338th year", formed the basis of "Russian cosmism" ^[5] and had predictive value ^[9]: many later technical inventions (such as: telephone, partly Internet, cameras, air transport, systems heating, carbonated drinks and others) were successfully predicted by Odoevsky. But the novel "4338th year" is not limited only to a technical forecast. It embodies a critical assessment of modern Russian culture and the socio-philosophical concept of V.F. Odoevsky. Another text by Odoevsky, "Russian Nights", will serve as a productive aid in interpreting the novel "4338", in which one can find samples of negative utopia (dystopia) in the short stories "The City without a Name" and "The Last Suicide". Some of the dystopian features of them are included in the imaginary idyllic picture of the future in the novel "4338th year".

Odoevsky's work has a syncretic character: the romantic-fantastic beginning of his prose includes distinct scientific and technical ideas. In this regard, Odoevsky's futurological models, combining the romantic and the pragmatic, are verified by scientific data (which is confirmed by Odoevsky's broad, encyclopedic knowledge of the natural sciences of Modern times and the Middle Ages). Thus, the picture of the future in Odoevsky's texts can, on the one hand, turn to the present and contain criticism of modern secular society in a romantic manner (for example, in the novels "Ball" and "Brigadier" from "Russian Nights"), on the other hand, turn to the future, that is, to design and define the model of proper, in the author's opinion, the development of public relations, based on this criticism. Odoevsky writes that a person "should not know one future, forgetting about the present": in other words, the future must be determined through the present. The novel "4338th" assumes exactly such a synthesis from the present and the future, scientific and fantastic, romantic satire and scientific modeling, however embodied in a single artistic structure.

The novel "4338th year" was published in 1840, several years before the publication of "Russian Nights". For a long time, the Year 4338 had a reputation as a utopian novel. According to the utopian interpretation, the social model, scientific and technical equipment and the political situation in the novel fully realize the ideals of the author himself. This interpretation was first put forward in P.N.'s article. Sakulin's "Russian Ikaria" for 1912 became canonical when studying Odoevsky's text. It was she who underwent revision in some recent scientific works, especially in the work of V.V. Serbinenko "Philosophical prose of V.F. Odoevsky: 4338" ^[6]. In interpreting the novel, Serbinenko's research, unlike previous critical works, takes into account the satirical experience of "Russian Nights", as a result of which the utopian character of "4338" is called into question.

The novel "The 4338th year" presents the distant Russia of the future. It achieves political, technical and cultural superiority over other countries in Odoevsky's alternative picture, although, paradoxically, it possesses features not inherent in Russia. It is opposed to China, which lags behind Russia in technical and cultural development, but in this lag it is China that more closely resembles Russia, while the latter embodies, rather, the West, perceived from the Russian optics of the 1840s: "Of course, we Chinese have now hit the opposite extreme – Russian Russian imitation; everything is in the Russian manner: dress, customs, and literature; one thing we do not have is Russian acumen, but we will acquire it over time" ^{[3, p. 422]}. The mention of the "great Hong-gin" further, the ruler who "finally awakened China from its age-old sleep" and introduced the Chinese state into the "common family of educated peoples", may indirectly indicate Peter I and the famous turn of the Russian state towards European enlightenment ^{[3, p. 422]}.

The duality of Russia's position and success is reinforced by the fact that the social and technical achievements of the Russian state are presented by an exalted Chinese student, that is, according to Serginenko's correct remark, they are presented as a "provincial" view of the "capital" ^[6]. Consequently, they distort the reliable public picture.

Thus, in Odoevsky's novel we find a rare technique for science fiction literature: the writer introduces an "unreliable narrator" into a pseudo-utopian novel and thus bifurcates the image of the city into a utopian one (the point of view of Hippolytus Tsungiev, a Chinese student) and a non-utopian one (the author's point of view). In this perspective, most of Tsungiev's observations lose their former persuasiveness and require careful reading. For example, the admiration of the people of the future for the "wisdom of the ancients", which are called the "founders" of the 1840s (apparently of the Gogol type), is obviously passed through the author's irony. The word "mayor" for people in 4338, due to the loss of information about the past, remains unknown and is confused with words such as "mayor" and "military commander" ^{[3, p. 437]}. Such a distortion of words and archaic (in the optics of the future) phenomena is reflected in a certain way on the other observations indicated in the text.

So, among the various innovations, the experiments of "animal magnetism" deserve attention ^[8]. They represent a "salon fun", which consists in the fact that several people stand around a "magnetic bath", take a "snook" stretched out from it and plunge into a "somnambulistic sleep" ^{[3, pp. 431-432]}. During it, the participants utter their "secret thoughts", hidden fears and unspoken desires, which, in general, partly corresponds to Odoevsky's ideal of a kind of communication when the "lie" is overcome and the "thought is expressed", despite various social and linguistic barriers (as the author writes in the "Epilogue" the novel "Russian Nights"). However, in the vicinity of the use of special psychedelic "stimulating gases", these entertainments acquire a contradictory character and resemble the planned use of psychotropic drugs ("soma") in the novel "Brave New World" by O. Huxley. Moreover, the rejection of "animal magnetism" is taboo in the society of the future and is assessed as a "vicious inclination": those who do not participate in this are criticized for hiding "hostile thoughts" ^{[3, p. 433]}. In other words, hypnotic sessions and gas consumption, despite the apparent innovation, reveal the ambiguity of the author's assessment.

Of course, the technical development of society in Odoevsky's novel cannot be questioned. People move over huge distances in a short time with the help of "galvanostats" (airships), synthetic materials, new musical instruments ("hydrophones") and things made of "elastic glass" are produced, other planets are being mastered, severe climatic conditions are being overcome by a new heat supply system described in detail and predicted by Odoevsky, horse-drawn transport disappears so horses turn from a means of transportation into small decorative animals. The problem lies precisely in the fact that many of the innovations in "4338" acquire decorative value and become only external elements of everyday life. For example, women at a ball in the city of the future are constructing hats made of elastic glass ? la com?te in honor of the coming catastrophe. Thus, even the apocalypse is absorbed by salon culture and turns into a decorative accessory. Despite the tangible external leap, the moral and philosophical significance of many technical improvements remains uncertain.

Odoevsky writes in the preface to the novel "4338th year": "... people will always remain people, as it has been since the beginning of the world: all the same passions, all the same motives will remain; on the other hand, the forms of their thoughts and feelings, and especially their physical life, must change significantly" ^{[3, p. 417]}. It is this idea that is demonstrated in the novel. The external way of life and "forms of thought" in 4338, indeed, radically change against the background of the social reality of 1840, when the text was written. However, much of the reality of the 1840s remains unchanged. Secular society and the artificiality of life, which became the target of romantic satire in the first third of the nineteenth century, is reflected in Odoevsky's works, occupies a significant place in Russian Nights and in the novel 4338. Thus, the satirical depiction of secular society has similar features in the novella "The Ball" and the novel "4338": the insert novella begins with exclamations about a historical battle, "ten thousand dead" are called, it is announced that "banners splattered with blood and brains have been brought," however — in contrast — in the ballroom, according to the narrator, "everyone is having fun, singing and dancing..." ^{[4, p. 45]}. In the same way, the news of an approaching comet and a planetary catastrophe does not change the ordinary order of things in the novel "4338."

The title of the novel, as you know, was chosen in connection with eschatological expectations: a devastating collision with a comet was predicted for 4339, which, it seems, was supposed to be an impulse to rethink life or at least cause the strongest unrest in society. Nevertheless, if you look at the social reality of "4338", the salon culture in it, even before the disaster, does not change the ritual at all. In many ways, the salon entertainment of "4338" resembles the vulgar small talk in the living room of Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the eve of the Patriotic War of 1812 in the novel "War and Peace" by L.N. Tolstoy: "I was surprised to notice from conversations that in high society our fatal comet aroused much less attention than it should be it was expected" ^{[3, p. 429]}.

In the value system of V.F. Odoevsky, formulated in "Russian Nights", complete, final satiety and satisfaction of physiological needs cannot be considered a historical goal for all mankind: "In all such cases, the body suffers like a plant without water or too watered" ^{[4, p. 180]}. In other words, a technical breakthrough should not be thought of as an end in itself and limited to everyday functions. Human labor must always have before its eyes a certain metaphysical horizon, where its efforts will be directed; if what was considered a means turns out to be an end, then humanity finds itself in a dead end. He writes in The Third Night that "the full consequence of such a useful, convenient and prudent life is an irresistible, unbearable longing" ^{[4, p. 36]}. Odoevsky also speaks about this through the mouth of Faust (his alter ego) when comparing alchemy and modern European chemistry. He points out that modern natural science is limited to the range of "pure experience" and the narrow (special) tasks that it sets for itself, while alchemy, no matter how curious the limit of its expectations ("discovery of the philosopher's stone") may seem at a modern glance, has always been aimed at a metaphysical goal located beyond beyond science. Therefore, in Faust's opinion, it was unified, integral and significant in its tasks. She could not stop at the discoveries she had made, because alchemy does not end there, and she could not limit herself to the inventions that these discoveries could entail, because she was turned to a transcendent goal and its embodiment on earth by reasonable means. In this case, the sciences were united in striving for a "common cause": "That is why," Faust argues, "the alchemists discovered, incidentally, everything that we cannot move without now, and we are just screws and wheels for paper caps..." ^{[4, p. 162]}.

Odoevsky sets a similar integrating metaphysical task for humanity in his futurological works. His transcendent ideal, unlike the Romantics of his time, is located not outside the world, but inside them and, to be more precise, in the future, where the integration of human knowledge and the last creative regulation of the natural elements will be carried out. Odoevsky's ideal, like Solovyevsky and Fedorovsky, exists in order to implement it on earth by scientific and creative means: as an active-creative limit, rather than a passive-contemplative one. Hence Odoevsky's need to design artistic models based on the type of the novel "4338". However, despite his optimistic aspirations, the future world presented in his texts contains many contradictions.

Firstly, the inhabitants of the future society do not change or enrich themselves internally at all: they care about external trifles more than such ontological events as the apocalypse and the collapse of the world. Secondly, the society in the novel "4338" is divorced from the past, which, according to Odoevsky, is no less a flaw than the inner emptiness. It is noteworthy that Faust in Russian Nights is working on an essay designed to "remind of forgotten knowledge, something like Pantsirol's composition De rebus deperditis ("About lost things")" ^{[4, p. 158]}. Thirdly, the importance of technical inventions in the society of 4338 is limited to utilitarian and consumer needs that drive humanity to a dead end: dresses made of "elastic glass" and ingenious heat storage facilities will cease to be felt by residents in the same way as stoves and frames in the ballroom at the beginning of the "Russian Nights", that is, they will disappear from perception at that moment the moment when the basic needs will be closed. Thus, technology should not be limited to a utilitarian function and providing comfort, but should become a means of active, creative transformation of the world and be directed towards a distant goal. Negative pictures in Odoevsky's prose, when society, despite its apparent socio-technical success, falls apart and then disappears without a trace, are presented in dystopian novels from "Russian Nights", one of which can be compared with excerpts from the novel "4338th year". In the novel "The City without a Name" we will find a more definite statement about the future of society and find out the fundamental flaws of modern social theories for Odoevsky.

"The City without a Name" appears as one of the insert novels from "Russian Nights". The meaning of the novel is explained by Faust:. "For my spiritualists, the fact was a symbolic epiphany in the occurrence of such an epoch, which, according to the natural course of things, would certainly have been formed if good providence had not deprived people of the ability to fully carry out their thoughts" ^{[4, p. 72]}. Such a "thought" in the "City without a Name" is Bentham's teaching, which was very popular during Odoevsky's time. Faust likens the popularity of this teaching to La Fontaine's textbook fable "The Dragonfly and the Ant", in which diligence and utilitarianism are rated higher than the "repentance and the possibility of forgiveness" of someone who allowed himself to do something useless ^{[4, p. 101]}.

In general, the picture of the future in the "City without a Name", which Faust calls "Benthamia", can be considered a forerunner of further utilitarian arguments by D.I. Pisarev and their parodic embodiment in Dostoevsky's texts. Exclamations from "Russian Nights": "What is useless is harmful, what is useful is allowed. This is the only solid foundation of society!" ^{[4, p. 63]} are equivalent to the slogans of Peter Verkhovensky from the "Demons": "Only the necessary is necessary — this is the motto of the globe!" ^{[2, p. 392]}.

In addition, the preaching of personal benefit and profit, which became the basis of public life in Benthamia, is repeatedly challenged by Dostoevsky in "Notes from the Underground" and "Crime and Punishment". Luzhin's statements in Raskolnikov's room reproduce the postulates of the Bentham society almost verbatim. The idea that "public benefit is nothing else than one's own benefit" ^{[4, p. 60]} and that there is a direct relationship between private and universal benefit lies at the heart of the well-known theory of the "whole caftan", which Luzhin preaches on the pages of Crime and Punishment. But if in the case of Dostoevsky the idea is embodied in a typical hero, embracing all representatives of the egoistic utilitarianism of the 1860s, then Odoevsky brings this idea to the point of absurdity, as if it had fully entered into force and determined the face of society.

Every resident of Benthamia has in mind only his own benefit in his actions and is guided by the principle that every action should derive personal benefit. Based on Bentham's utilitarian philosophy, people decide to carry out a social experiment and establish a state on a desert island. "Imbued with gratitude" to the thinker, the residents erected "a colossal statue of Bentham and inscribed on the pedestal in golden letters: benefit" ^{[4, p. 64]}. In accordance with the utilitarian principle, the internal and foreign policy of Benthamia is organized. When a proposal to build a temple is debated in the city, it is met with the question: "Is it useful?". Residents come to the conclusion that the construction of a temple will be useful, but only on condition that the temple "reminds the inhabitants that benefit is the only basis of morality and the only law for all human actions" ^{[4, p. 64]}. Similarly, the construction of a theater is approved by the city administration only on condition that "all performances on it will have the purpose to prove that benefit is the source of all virtues and that useless is the main fault of all the disasters of mankind" ^{[4, p. 65]}. Thus, even "mother's cradles" were denied in the city due to their uselessness, so that every "natural poetic element" was erased by "selfish calculations of benefit" ^{[4, p. 68]}.

Like any novel in "Russian Nights", the dystopia "City without a Name" hypertrophs some side of human activity and brings it to the point of absurdity: "One-sidedness is the poison of current societies and the secret cause of all complaints, troubles and perplexities; when one branch lives at the expense of a whole tree, the tree withers out" ^{[4, p. 35]}. In the case of Benthamia, utilitarianism "lives" at the expense of the entire "tree", which is placed at the center, damaging all other branches of human life.

Bentham's society is consistently brought by Odoevsky to a state of disintegration in order to refute the basic syllogism, based on which one's own benefit is the only condition for universal benefit. However, according to the writer, a society in which no one is able to sacrifice their own benefit is doomed to perish. "Opposite benefits meet" and provoke internecine strife. Desires divide and turn people against each other, showing a central logical error in Bentham's theory. The personal satisfaction of each does not mean the satisfaction of all, the whole cannot be assembled from isolated atoms, since the whole is a synthesis and mutual arrangement of each to each, overcoming egocentrism and all singularity.

The various estates in the "City without a Name" are changing power: first, the "merchants", then the "artisans" and "landowners" take the reins of government, but are overthrown one by one, because each time society turns only one side and reveals its narrowness. The estate thinks of itself as the only one and destroys everything that it is not. It is easy to see that various social models of the coming twentieth century were based on the same single, "absolute", dogmatic principle, which was based on racial, class or other differences. The principle assumed an absolute character in relation to other branches of human life and excluded them, which led to the monstrous catastrophes of the twentieth century. Such, for example, was the ideological optics of Soviet Marxism in Russia, which excluded other branches of human knowledge. Odoevsky, "symbolically foreseeing the future," discovers the root of a mistake that will indeed become a social mode and entail serious historical consequences in socialist utopias. Russian Russian Nights, for example, Rozanov believed that "on the basis of Bentham's theories, all the "advanced" journalism of the 60s was built, with a "Contemporary" and a "Russian Word" at the head" and that Chernyshevsky, if he had read "Russian Nights", "would have folded his wings and put down his pen" ^[6].

So, in both cases, Odoevsky paints a picture of the future. As Serbinenko correctly points out, the dystopian narrative in "The City without a Name" comprehends other people's popular socio-economic ones, while in the novel "4338" Odoevsky subjects his own socio-philosophical views to artistic verification ^{[7, pp. 117-135]}. Despite the fact that from the outside, the reality of "4338" may resemble a utopia, upon closer examination, those fundamental imperfections that indicate the inferiority of the embodiment of the writer's future aspirations are recognized: the absence of a metaphysical horizon, oblivion of the past, the transformation of scientific discoveries into decorative accessories — all this certainly could not satisfy the "moral sense" the writer.

The novel "4338th year" contains features characteristic of the future dystopia "The City without a name". Mainly, the cities of the future in both texts are similar in their attitude to technical inventions, since in these societies the metaphysical purpose of scientific and technical revolutions is lost in the ordinary automatic application of certain discoveries (devices, techniques, systems). Technology exists only to satisfy private selfish needs. In addition, the "City without a Name" seems to anticipate the cultural nihilism of the 1860s, when any non-utilitarian activity was persecuted and stigmatized in the press, and with it the cultural heritage was "revised". However, the most important thing in the two texts about the future remains the shallowness of man or what can be called the "oblivion of the tragic." In the dystopia from "Russian Nights", a person is so busy with his own benefit that the rest will not fall into his horizons; however, on the contrary, in the novel "4338" any catastrophes are so regulated that a person forgets spiritual needs, he runs out in the sense that every catastrophic event for him loses its ontological content.

In other words, the novel "4338", despite its incompleteness, is successfully integrated into Odoevsky's worldview system and is part of his literary heritage. The novel remains stamped with other works of the writer, one way or another meaningfully included in this quasi-utopian picture. So, in our opinion, it is impossible to study "4338" without paying attention to "Russian Nights", which in this case can serve as a kind of key to the content of the novel.