Сломанная игрушка, или Потерянный рай: «Косморама» В. Ф. Одоевского как история грехопадения
The Broken Toy, or Paradise Lost: Vladimir Odoevsky’s “Cosmorama” as a Story of the Fall

Summary/Abstract: The article offers an interpretation of V. F. Odoevsky’s short novel “Cosmorama” as a parable about the fall. As a child, the hero, driven by a forbidden curiosity, looks into the “alluring box” and thereby unwittingly tastes the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. Vladimir is a rational “man of the 19th century.” He has lost his faith and strives for earthly pleasures. But because of mystical events, he becomes increasingly aware of the irrational nature of existence and the impossibility of explaining human actions from the point of view of common sense and “earthly” logic. Vladimir comprehends the duality of human actions and motives, the deceptiveness of earthly causeand-effect relationships. The world depicted in “Cosmorama” is twofold, a mystical essence emerges behind earthly objects and buildings. Things become symbols, for example: little Volodya’s toys, auntie’s three-story house, a dovecote, a moon in the living room, a steep staircase that leads to the sun from a cave, a huge clock. The cosmorama itself represents a model of the universe. The box can be disassembled and examined (as scientists do with nature), but at the same time its mystical essence will remain unchanged and incomprehensible to the naturalist. Other “tools” are needed to study it: spiritual vision, faith, and tearful prayer. Vladimir unwittingly opens a connection with another world and desires to sever this link, but in vain. The only path to salvation for the hero is his turn toward God, following the wise virgin Sophia.

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