Odessa City (pop., 2001: 1,029,000), southwestern Ukraine. A Tatar fortress was established in Odessa in the 14th century. The city was ceded to Russia in 1791 and became its second most important port after Saint Petersburg, with grain as its principal export. It was a centre of revolu¬ tionary activity in 1905 (see Russian Revolution of 1905), and it suffered heavy damage in World War II. Odessa is a major seaport and industrial centre, with shipbuilding, engineering, and oil refineries. It is also a cul¬ tural centre, with a university, museums, and theatres.
Odets \o-'dets\, Clifford (b. July 18, 1906, Philadelphia, Pa., U.S.—d. Aug. 14, 1963, Hollywood, Calif.) U.S. playwright. He acted with rep¬ ertory companies in 1923-28 and joined the Group Theatre in 1931. His first play, the social-protest drama Waiting for Lefty (1935), helped estab¬ lish his and the company’s reputation. He followed it with Awake and Sing! (1935) and Golden Boy (1937). In the late 1930s he moved to Hol¬ lywood, where he wrote screenplays and directed the movies None but the Lonely Heart (1944) and The Story on Page One (1959). His later plays include The Big Knife (1949), The Country Girl (1950), and The Flowering Peach (1954).
odeum \o-'de-9m\ Comparatively small, often semicircular roofed the¬ ater of ancient Greece and Rome used for musical performances. One still in use was built by Herodes Atticus at the base of the Athenian Acropolis (ad 161). Odea were constructed in most cities of the Roman empire for use as assembly halls as well as for performances. See also amphitheater.
Odin Vo-din\ or Wotan \'vo-,tan\ One of the principal Norse gods. A war god from earliest times, Odin appeared in Scandinavian heroic lit¬ erature as the protector of heroes. Fallen warriors were believed to join him in Valhalla. Odin was the great magician among the gods and was associated with runic writing. His eight-legged horse, Sleipnir, could gal¬ lop through the air and over the sea. Odin was usually depicted as a tall old man with a flowing beard and only one eye (the other he gave in exchange for wisdom); he wore a cloak and a wide-brimmed hat and car¬ ried a spear. The wolf and the raven were dedicated to him.
Odo of Bayeux \ , o-do...ba- , yce\ or Earl of Kent (b. c. 1036—d. Feb¬ ruary 1097, Palermo) Bishop of Bayeux, Normandy, and half brother of William I (the Conqueror). He fought in the Battle of Hastings and probably commissioned the Bayeux Tapestry. Made earl of Kent in 1067, he guarded southeastern England and ruled (with others) in William’s absence. Will¬ iam imprisoned him (1082-87) for raising troops without royal permission,
and he later joined a rebellion in support of Robert II. He helped organize the First Crusade and died on his way to the Holy Land.
Odoacer \,o-do-'a-s9r\ or Odovacar N.o-do-'va-korX (b. c. 433—d. March 15, 493, Ravenna) First barbarian king of Italy (476^193). A Ger¬ man warrior in the Roman army, he led a revolt against the usurper Orestes (475). He was proclaimed king by his troops in 476, the date that tradi¬ tionally marks the end of the Western Roman Empire. Odoacer paid hom¬ age to the Eastern emperor, Zeno, but asserted his own right to rule Italy. He conquered Dalmatia (482), defeated the Rugi (487-488), and retook Sicily from the Vandals. By attacking the Eastern Empire, he alienated Zeno, who encouraged the Ostrogothic king Theodoric to invade Italy (489). Theodoric captured almost the entire peninsula and killed Odoacer after inviting him to a banquet.
Odra River See Oder River
Odum, Howard W(ashington) (b. May 24, 1884, near Bethlehem, Ga., U.S.—d. Nov. 8, 1954, Chapel Hill, N.C.) U.S. sociologist. In 1920 Odum joined the faculty of the University of North Carolina, where he established its departments of sociology and public welfare and founded the journal Social Forces (1922). His scholarly focus was folk sociology, particularly of Southern blacks, for whom he urged equal opportunity. His books include Southern Regions of the United States (1936) and Ameri¬ can Regionalism (1938, with Harry Moore).
Odysseus \o-'di-se-9s\ Roman Ulysses \yu-'li-sez\ Hero of Homer’s Odyssey. According to Homer, Odysseus was the king of Ithaca. His shrewdness, resourcefulness, and endurance enabled him to capture Troy (through the device of the Trojan horse) and endure nine years of wan¬ dering and adventures before reaching his home in Ithaca, where his wife, Penelope, and son, Telemachus, awaited him. Classical opinion was divided on whether he was an unscrupulous politician or a wise and honourable statesman. Odysseus has been one of the most frequently por¬ trayed figures in literature, treated by numerous Greek and Roman poets and by later writers such as William Shakespeare ( Troilus and Cressida ), Nikos Kazantzakis ( The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel ), and (metaphorically) by James Joyce ( Ulysses ) and Derek Walcott ( Omeros).
Odysseus slaying the suitors, detail of a red-figure skyphos from Tarquinii, c. 450 bc; in the Staatliche Museen zu Berlin, Ger.
COURTESY OF THE STAATLICHE MUSEEN ZU BERLIN, GER.
Oe \'o-e\ Kenzaburo (b. Jan. 31, 1935, Ehime prefecture, Shikoku, Japan) Japanese novelist. Oe first attracted attention on the literary scene while still a student at the University of Tokyo. His works, written in a rough prose style that at times nearly violates the natural rhythms of Japa¬ nese, reflect his life and epitomize the rebellion of the post-World War II generation. They include A Personal Matter (1964), which uses the birth of an abnormal baby to investigate the problem of culturally disinherited youth; Hiroshima Notes (1965); and The Silent Cry (1967). He received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1994.
OECD See Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development
Oedipus Ve-do-pos, 'e-do-posV In Greek mythology, a king of Thebes who unwittingly killed his father and married his mother. In the most familiar version of the story, Laius, king of Thebes, was warned by an oracle that his son would slay him. When his wife, Jocasta, bore a son, he exposed the baby on a mountainside, but the infant Oedipus was saved by a shep¬ herd and adopted by the king of Corinth. In early manhood, as Oedipus traveled toward Thebes, he met Laius, who provoked a quarrel; in the
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1400 I Oedipus complex ► Ogbomosho
ensuing fracas, Oedipus killed him. He then rid Thebes of the destructive Sphinx by answering her riddle; as a reward he was given the throne of Thebes and the hand of the widowed queen—his mother. They had four children, including Antigone. When at last they learned the truth, Jocasta committed suicide and Oedipus blinded himself and went into exile. Oedi¬ pus has served as the hero of many tragedies, most notably Sophocles’ Oedipus Rex and Oedipus at Colonus.
Oedipus complex In psychoanalytic theory, a desire for sexual involvement with the parent of the opposite sex and a sense of rivalry with the parent of the same sex. The term was introduced by Sigmund Freud in his Interpretation of Dreams (1899) and is derived from the mytho¬ logical Oedipus, who killed his father and married his mother; its female analogue is the Electra complex. Considered a normal stage in the devel¬ opment of children ages three to five, it ends when the child identifies with the parent of the same sex and represses its sexual instincts. Freud believed that the process of overcoming the Oedipus complex gave rise to the SUPEREGO.
Oehlenschlager Vce-lens-.leg-orV Adam Gottlob (b. Nov. 14, 1779, Vesterbro, Den.—d. Jan. 20, 1850, Copenhagen) Danish poet and dramatist, considered the national poet of Denmark. He became the leader of Romanticism in Danish literature with his poem The Golden Horns (1802). Important collections of his poetry, with several lyrical dramas, appeared in 1802 and 1805. His plays drawing on Nordic history and mythology include Earl Haakon the Great (1807). His most significant later work is the poetic epic The Gods of the North (1819), a kind of mod¬ ern Edda.