Modalità fantastica e riflessione filosofica nel "Morto vivente" di Vladimir Odoevskij

In the narrative frame of a nightmare, "Živoj mertvec" ("The Live Corpse", 1844) depicts a motif repeatedly used by Vladimir Odoevskij in his literary work, namely that of the deceased who confronts himself with the world of the living. The story highlights an ontological problem which is central in the Russian writer's thought and which is announced in the epigraph, where the definition of a universal "psychological law" is given, "solidarity" (solidarnost'), a term with which Odoevskij intends the close interrelationship that characterizes every aspect of human life and at the same time responsibility for the consequences that every human action, even the most infinitesimal, implies. Actually represented through the vicissitudes of the deceased employee, the narrator-protagonist Vasili Kuz'mič Aristidov, the reflection on solidarity is intertwined with that on the meaning of death, which highlights the influence on Odoevsky's thought of the mystical-esoteric doctrines developed in Russia by Freemasonry. Two years after the story was released, Dostoevsky chose a fragment of the ending of "The Live Corpse" as an epigraph to his first novel, "Bednye ljudi" ("Poor Folk", 1846), a tribute that testifies to the great consideration that the young novelist had for Odoevsky's thought and work and at the same time indicates the convergence between the two authors regarding an idea of literature which, also through the fantastic modality, intends to shed light on the "mystery of man".