Les « Allemands imaginaires » d’Osip Senkovskij et Vladimir Odoevskij : un exemple d’imitation romantique [The ‘Imaginary Germans’ of Osip Senkovskij and Vladimir Odoevskij : A Case Study of Romantic Imitation]

The ‘ Imaginary Germans’ of Osip Senkovsky and Vladimir Odoevskij A Case Study of Romantic Imitation This paper explores the question of the influence of German literature and thought on two prose writers of the romantic period in Russia, Osip Senkovskij and Vladimir Odoevskij. Besides the strong intellectual influence of Germany which, as it has been often argued, constitutes the core of Russian romanticism, the article investigates the importance of being germanophile or germanophobiac in the modes of representation of the literary society during the 1820’ s to the 1840’ s. The point is to insist on the significance of the German reference not only as a sign of intimate knowledge of a foreign culture from the part of the educated society, but also as a way of expressing literary moods and transcending them. This shift in conception allows us to stress that German allusions also take the form of non serious, mundane imitations, which is used both as an instrument of distinction and as a common ground for dialogue.