Hagop Baronian (1843-1891) was an outstanding Armenian literary figure, whose satire reflected the political and social realities of Western Armenian life in the 1870s and the 1880s. This thesis is the first systematic attempt to study his social and political views. No such studies exist in the West, and the attempts of Armenian writers are on the whole hasty, incomplete, and restricted in scope. For this thesis, extensive research has been made into the political and social realities of Armenian life in the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century in order to analyse and evaluate Barcnian's political and social ideas in their proper context. Chapter I sketches Baronian's biography. Chapters II, III, IV and V form the first part of this thesis and deal, in chronological order, with Baronian's political views which, hitherto, have been given little attention. Chapter II is devoted to the study of Baronian's view of the Armenian Constitution which he initially supported for having introduced a large degree of secularisation and democracy to the government of the community. However, Baronian soon came to realise that the Constitution was an inadequate tool. This led him to join forces with some Armenian leaders to propose substantial amendments for the document, which was however never in fact revised. The Polozhenie (Statute) which regulated the affairs of the Armenian Church in Russia is also discussed in Chapter II. Baronian was bitterly critical of the document as restricting the rights of the Armenian community and of the Armenian Church, and bringing the latter under strict control of the Russian government. Chapter III analyses Baronian's criticism of Ottoman internal policy which he held responsible for misgovernment in Armenia. It emerges from Baronian's criticism that oppression in the Armenian provinces was due to two cardinal reasons: the legal status of the Armenians as second-class citizens, and the failure of the Ottoman authorities to preserve law and order. Baronian held that the only way of rectifying the situation was by way of peaceful reform. However, he contended that the Ottoman government was at once unwilling to introduce reform in Armenia and incapable of it. Baronian also maintained that the empire lacked the expertise and financial resources to initiate an extensive programme of reorganisation. All this led Baronian to believe that only external pressure would compel the Porte to review its internal policy (Chapter IV). Baronian expected such pressure from Europe, which, as he saw it, should also provide the Empire with the technical expertise and subsidies to modernise itself. The outbreak of hostilities in the Balkans and the subsequent reform plans for the area were regarded by Baronian as a precious opportunity to force an overall programme of reform on the Porte. However, in Baronian's view, the conflicting interests of the Powers and their self-centred ambitions prevented them from exerting effective pressure on the intransigent Ottoman administration. Baronian dissected the activities of the Armenian leadership in his Armenian Big-Wigs, which is analysed in Chapter V. Baronian criticised most of the Armenian leaders for their lack of what he considered as the basic qualities of public leaders, namely competence, dedication, audacity and integrity. Baronian also censured the Armenian priesthood. While some prelates harrassed their flock by an excess of incompetent activities, many other priests declined to assume any office in the provinces and, residing idly in Constantinople, pursued ecclesiastical preferment or other vain ambitions. Some of the leaders of the so-called anti-Hasunist movement within the Catholic Armenian Community were also depicted by Baronian. Since they claimed a voice for lay elements in governing the Catholic community, Baronian sympathised with their cause but found that the movement was doomed to failure, most of these leaders being motivated by personal ambitions or impractical ideas. Part II (Chapters VI, VII and VIII) of this thesis is devoted to the study of Baronian's social views. In Chapter VI Baronian's comic characters are analysed and the social problems he raised in his comedies and his satirical novel are discussed. In his novel (The Most Honourable Beggars) Baronian dismissed many of the Armenian intelligentsia as parasites and poured contempt on the wealthy for their apathy towards culture. In his comedies Baronian illustrated the old adage concerning the limits to men's capabilities (A Servant of Two Masters) and castigated the vice of sycophancy (The Flatterer). He demonstrated that marriage uniting couples of incompatible ages resulted in immorality and the destruction of the family (The Oriental Dentist). Baronian held that the incompetence of the Armenian Judicial Council, which handled questions of marriage, was a contributory factor to the decrease in the number of marriages among Armenians. He also criticised the rigid approach of the Judicial Council (and therefore the Armenian Church) to divorce, which, Baronian contended, should be granted on valid grounds (Uncle Balthazar). Baronian, who almost exclusively reflected the social realities of the Armenian community of Constantinople, found that this society was in rapid decline (Chapter VII). He was concerned with the institution of marriage because the family, together with morality, religion and education constituted the main pillars of a prosperous society. Despite advocating equality in marriage, Baronian manifested strong patriarchal tendencies, and held that a woman's primary role, designed by nature, was motherhood. In Baronian's view money profoundly affected human relations and the moral cast of men who abandoned human virtues in pursuit of material gain and vain ambition. Baronian noted that men's religious zeal was also in decline due to their materialistic approach. However, the Armenian priesthood was equally to blame. The failure of many priests in their pastoral duties and their often impious conduct greatly affected the religious feelings of the congregation. Finally, Baronian maintained that the Armenians were still backward in the field of education. The national authorities failed to allocate sufficient funds and the community was reluctant to support the educational network financially. For Baronian theatre and literature played a vital role in transforming a society in that they combined the aesthetically beautiful with the socially useful (Chapter VII). Advocating socially conscious literature he emphasised the need for a local and up to date repertoire, and criticised the romantic authors of the time, whose works failed to satisfy his aesthetic and social principles. The conclusion to the thesis sums up Baronian's social and political ideas. Baronian believed that the well-adjusted individual was the basis for social progress, also envisaging a principal role for the family, religion and education. He recognised man as the source of legislative and political power and advocated parliamentary democracy. He illustrated the consequences of the inequal Ottoman political system with the plight of the Armenians and maintained that substantial and peaceful reform was the only way of redressing the situation.

There is remarkably little research on the history of the Russian literary ballad or on its principal practitioner, V.A. Zhukovsky. This thesis is an attempt to rectify the situation: it follows the development of the ballad genre in Russian literature from its emergence in the 179Os to its demise in the 1840s. It has been decided to concentrate on the style of the ballads as the most original feature of the Russian genre, and in particular on the epithets in Zhukovsky's ballads as his most important contribution to the development of Russian poetic style. Consequently there will be no discussion of metrics, and only occasional remarks on syntax. Chapter I treats the relationship of the Russian literary ballad to the traditional folk genre, to the "ballad revival" in late eighteenth-century European literature, and to late eighteenth- century "pre-romantic" developments in Russian literature. The traditional folk ballad is defined in terms of its narrative unit, method, and attitude, and in terms of its intangible "world" or "code". Attempts by Russian collectors and critics to characterise the popular genre are also considered. Two examples of Russian folk ballads are analysed in order to demonstrate the constant features of the genre. The literary ballad is defined in terms of these same features, and its aesthetic principles are shown to be completely antithetical to those of the traditional genre. The impetus for the emergence of the Russian literary ballad was provided not by a desire to imitate the traditional genre, but rather by the Western European ballad revival. The English revival is traced froa the change in attitudes towards the folk genre as expressed by Sidney and Addison, to Prior's early literary imitation, to Percy's collection of texts, and finally to the literary ballads of Scott and Southey. Other authors which had some influence on the Russian movement (Thompson, Young, Gray, Macpherson's Ossian) are considered briefly. The German revival is similarly surveyed: Bürger's Lenore, Herder's pronouncements on folklore, and the literary ballads of Goethe, Schiller, and Uhland. The chapter concludes with a section on Russian "pre- romanticism", including anthologies of Russian superstitions, traditions, and skazki. as well as collections and imitations of folk songs and related genres - all of which influenced the development of the ballad. Chapter II, after a brief bibliography of the Russian literary ballad, examines several ballads published anonymously during the 1790s, including two written by Anna Turchaninova , and then analyses the literary ballads of M.N. Murav'ev, N.N. Karamzin, A.F. Merzlyakov, and I.I. Dmitriev. This analysis is followed by some general conclusions on the ballads of the 179Os. The literary ballad developed as a genre independent of folk poetry; the earliest Russian ballads were translations of English and German sources or reworkings of common European motifs. Love is the most common subject of the ballads, and the emphasis centres on the conventionally depicted characters, in particular on the psychology of the heroine. The settings are generalised, and parallels are often drawn between nature and the psychology of the characters. Attempts at local colour are minimal and unsuccessful. The structure of the ballads is relatively simple; authors frequently intrude into the action to comment on its significance. The style of the ballads of the 179Os is characterized by emotionalism in the form of hyperbole, exclamatory and interrogative syntax, and the frequency and choice of epithets. While eighteenth-century vocabulary and syntax tend to be used for the narrative, both the setting and psychology of the characters are usually described in "pre-romantic" language. Both Karamzin's Alina (179Os) and Merzlyakov's Milon (1797) contain a striking contrast between idyll and ballad, between classical and "pre-romantic" styles. Chapter III begins with a bibliographical sketch of biographical and critical studies on Zhukovsky, and with a note on the various editions of his work. It then examines Zhukovsky's theoretical statements about the ballad and compares them with contemporary descriptions of the genre. Both in his own opinion and in the testimony of his contemporaries, Zhukovsky was virtually identified as a balladnik. His choice of the literary ballad is attributed to the genre's popularity in Western European literature, and to the novelty of its exotic world. Zhukovsky's views on translation as expressed in his articles and letters are summarized: the translator is a creator, inspired by what he considers to be the ideal of the source, and seeking to create an effect on the reader equivalent to that produced by the original. As an example of this theory put into practice, Zhukovsky's ballad Rybak (1818) is compared with its source, Goethe's Der Fischer (1778). The sources of Zhukovsky's forty literary ballads are then enumerated, after which eight representative ballads are examined with reference to their subject, characters, setting, theme, and style. Lyudmila (18O8) established the pattern for Zhukovsky's ballads and introduced Bürger's theme into Russian literature; Svetlana (18O8-12) was written as a parody of Lyudmila; in Adel'stan (1813) Southey's ballad was given an original conclusion and a setting which became typical for all Zhukcvsky's ballads; in Ivikovy zhuravli (1813) Zhukovsky transformed Schiller's classical theme and created a mood of profound suspense; Eolova arfa (1814) combined the poet's favourite verbal motifs of youth, silence, and despondency; Gromoboi and Vadim (Dvenadtsat' spyashchikh dev) (1810-17) were written as a great parable of suffering and remorse, aspiration and fulfilment; finally, in Zamok Smal'gol'm (1822) Zhukovsky turned Scott's imitation of a popular ballad into a successful literary ballad. Throughout his career Zhukovsky never altered his choice of sources, his method of transforming European themes, or his individual Russian style. While the events of the original ballad source were usually retained in outline form, the characters were metamorphised into romantic heroes and heroines, whose speech was identical with that of the narrator. The settings were generalised and details of local colour were eliminated or Russianized. Zhukovsky's real theme always remained the same: his own experience of melancholy, anxiety, despair, love, fear, or resignation. The style which expressed this theme was always "literary": its originality resided in the alternating intonations, in the negative constructions, in the syntactical parallelism, and, more significantly, in the frequency, choice, and meaning of his epithets. In Chapter IV the epithets in Zhukovsky's ballads are studied. It begins with a summary of previous definitions of the epithet from Quintilian to the Russian Formalists. A definition is accepted which includes all purely descriptive words under the term "epithet", and allows for a distinction in usage or function. A.V. Isachenko's grammatical classification of adjectival epithets is adopted. After an evaluation of previous research on the epithet in Russian folk poetry, in English and German literary ballads, and in eighteenth-century Russian poetry, the following conclusions are drawn: firstly, there is little variety and no complexity in the epithets of Russian folk ballads - indeed, the range and use of the epithet is very limited; secondly, epithets in folk ballads differ fundamentally from those in literary ballads: the concrete, unambiguous epithets of the former are replaced in the latter by emotional, connotative epithets; thirdly, from its relatively insignificant role in the classical style of Lomonosov and Sumarokov, the epithet increases in importance in Russian poetry during the late eighteenth century.

Ce travail se propose d’étudier le croisement des poétiques urbaines produit par les voyagesà Paris et à Prague d’artistes ayant contribué à la fondation du surréalisme et par les publications deleurs oeuvres dans chacune des deux villes.Les déplacements des Pragois et des Parisiens dans l’une et l’autre ville sont l’occasion derencontres révélatrices d’affinités artistiques. Ils favorisent les rapprochements esthétiques et leséchanges poétiques entre des artistes fondateurs du surréalisme à Paris et à Prague.Le traitement de chacune des deux capitales dans les transcriptions poétiques de séjours dansune ville étrangère et dans les oeuvres qui dévoilent les possibilités d’aventure au sein d’une villefamilière aux auteurs concourt à une mise en regard des réalités parisiennes et pragoises. L’étudedes oeuvres permet de distinguer la circulation des motifs d’un texte à l’autre et de mettre au jourune sémiotique commune à travers laquelle se dessinent les caractéristiques de la ville surréaliste.Le désir de renouveau des artistes d’avant-garde sous-tend l’exploration de la ville etcontribue à l’élaboration d’une image subversive de la ville. La poésie opère ainsi unbouleversement des représentations et s’inscrit à l’encontre des représentations ordinaires.Simultanément, elle est un révélateur de la richesse du réel. La poésie surréaliste qui dévoile ainsi le réel, tout en proposant une image renouvelée de la ville, rencontre les motifs d’une représentation archétypale de la ville. Aussi interrogeons-nous les procédés littéraires de la fondation de la ville surréaliste qui se constitue à la croisée de Paris et de Prague. / This work aims to study the intersection of urban poetry produced by trips to Paris andPrague of artists who have contributed to the foundation of surrealism and by publication of their works in both cities. The travels of artists from Paris and Prague in each city allow encounters revealing artistic affinities. They promote aesthetic links and poetic exchanges between thefounding artists of surrealism in Paris and Prague. The treatment of each capital through poetic transcriptions of stays in a foreign city and through works that reveals the possibilities of adventure in a familiar ciy leads to a comparaison of realities from Paris and Prague. The study of works makes possible to distinguish subjects from a text to another and to put in light a common semiotic through witch appear features of surrealist city.The revival desire of avant-garde artists underlies that exploration of the city and contributes to the development of a subversive image of the city. Poetry creates a disruption of representations and is an opposition to ordinaries representations. At the same time it reveals the intensity of the real. Surrealist poetry, that uncovers the real while offering a renewed image of city, meets the theme of archetypal representation of the town. So, we question the literary process of the founding of surrealist city that is at the crossroad of Prague and Paris.

Space constitutes one of the main leitmotifs of Czeslaw Milosz's work, both theoretical and poetic. Central in this respect is the notion of imagination as a faculty organizing space, the faculty which, from the times of the Scientific Revolution, has been subject to erosion, especially as far as the religious imagination is concerned. The abolition of the anthropocentric, hierarchical vision of space, threw human beings into a state of alienation, conceptual nowhere. Religion was replaced by the dogmatism of scientific reductionism, the reality of Ulro. Milosz shows the way out of Ulro, the way out of nowhere to the somewhere. This thesis aims to illustrate the conceptual map of the way out of Ulro as portrayed in four selected volumes of poetry and the novel Dolina Issy, anchored in different points of Milosz's biography. The Land of Ulro, the collection of essays which encapsulate Milosz's ideas on space, constitutes a canopy work for the interpretation of the practical realization of those ideas in Milosz's poetic work. Trzy zimy (1936), Swiat, poema naiwne (1943), Miasto bez imienia (1969), and Druga przestrzen (2002) provide the material for the analysis of different aspects of Milosz's conception of space. Subject to analysis is the relationship between object and human subject as regards the formative, childhood experience of the space of the house (manor) and surrounding landscape, the act of building space on the basis of memory and retrospection in the context of distance and exile, and the workings of religious imagination in the context of the realm of second space. Through his conception of space, Milosz defends human existence in its completeness. He shows the way out of Ulro. This thesis aims to retrace Milosz's map out of the land of alienation on the basis of the poet's selected works.

This thesis analyses the persistence of Gothic-fantastic themes and motifs in the literature of Soviet Russia between 1920 and 1940. Nineteenth-century Russian literature was characterized by the almost universal assimilation of Gothic-fantastic themes and motifs, adapted from the fiction of Western writers such as E.T.A. Hoffmann, Ann Radcliffe and Edgar Allen Poe. Writers from Pushkin to Dostoevskii, including the major Symbolists, wrote fiction combining the real with the macabre and supernatural. However, following the inauguration of the Soviet regime and the imposition of Socialist Realism as the official literary style in 1934, most critics assumed that the Gothic-fantastic had been expunged from Russian literature. In Konstantin Fedin's words, the Russian fantastic novel had "умер и закопан в могилу". This thesis argues that Fedin's dismissal was premature, and presents evidence that Gothic-fantastic themes and motifs continued to play a significant role in several genres of Soviet fiction, including science fiction, satire, comedy, adventure novels (prikliuchenskie romany), and seminal Socialist Realist classics. My dissertation identifies five categories of Gothic-fantastic themes, derived jointly from analysis of canonical Gothic novels from the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and from innovative approaches to the genre made by contemporary critics such as Fred Botting, Kelly Hurley, Diane Hoeveler, Elaine Showalter and Eric Naiman (whose book Sex in Public coined the phrase 'NEP Gothic'). Each chapter analyses one of these five Gothic themes or tropes in the context of selected Soviet Russian literary texts. The chronotope of Gothic space, epitomized in the genre as the haunted castle or house, is readdressed by Mikhail Bulgakov as the 'nekhoroshaia kvartira' of Master i Margarita and by Evgenii Zamiatin as the 'drevnyi dom' of his dystopian fantasy My. Gothic gender issues, including the subgenre of Female Gothic, arise in Nikolai Ognev's novels and Aleksandra Kollontai's stories. The Gothic obsession with dying, corpses and the afterlife re-emerges in fictions such as Daniil Kharms' 'Starukha' (whose hero is threatened by an animated corpse) and Nikolai Erdman's banned play Samoubiitsa (the story of a failed suicide). Gothic bodies (deformed or regressive human bodies) are contrasted with Stalinist cultural aspirations to somatic perfection within a utopian society. Typically Gothic monsters - vampires, ghosts, and demon lovers - are evaluated in a separate chapter. Each Gothic trope is integrated with my analysis of the relevant Soviet discourse, including early Communist attitudes to gender and the body and the philosopher Nikolai Federov's utopian belief in the possibility of universal resurrection. As my focus is thematic rather than author-centred, my field of research ranges from well-known writers (Fedor Gladkov, Bulgakov, Zamiatin) to virtual unknowns (Grigorii Grebnev and Vsevolod Valiusinskii, both early 1930s novelists), and recently rediscovered writers (Sigizmund Krzhizhanovskii, Vladimir Zazubrin). Three Soviet authors who explicitly emulated the nineteenth-century Gothic-fantastic tradition in their fiction were Mikhail Bulgakov, Sigizmund Krzhizhanovskii and A.V. Chaianov. Many mainstream Soviet writers also exploited Gothic-fantastic motifs in their work. Fedor Gladkov's Socialist Realist production novel, Tsement, uses the trope of the Gothic castle to dramatise the reclamation of a derelict cement factory by the workers. Nikolai Ognev's Dnevnik Kosti Riabtseva, the diary of an imaginary Communist schoolboy, relies on ghost stories to sustain suspense. Aleksandr Beliaev, the popular science fiction writer, inserted subversive clich's from the Gothic narrative tradition in his deceptively optimistic novels. Gothic-fantastic tropes and motifs were used polemically by dissident writers to subvert the monologic message of Socialist Realism; other writers, such as Gladkov and Marietta Shaginian, exploited the same material to support Communism and attack Russia's enemies. The visceral resonance of Gothic fear lends its metaphors unique political impact. This dissertation aims at an overall survey of Gothic-fantastic narrative elements in early Soviet literature rather than a conclusive analysis of their political significance. However, in conclusion, I speculate that the survival of the Gothic-fantastic genre in the hostile soil of the Stalinist literary apparatus proves that early Soviet literature was more varied, contradictory and self-interrogative than previously assumed.

The Ukrainian national bard Taras Shevchenko constitutes one of the best known lieux de mémoire and symbols of identification in Ukraine. The article engages with the imagining of Shevchenko in the texts of the intellectual Ivan Dzjuba. It focuses mainly upon the essay “Shevchenko forever” from 2008 and the changes evident in this version compared to a previous version from 1989. The article investigates Soviet continuities, as well as transformations in the image of Shevchenko that are connected to the gaining of Ukrainian independence in 1991. It shows how the text preserves its sense of contemporary societal relevance under new cultural conditions.

The focus of this thesis is contemporary Polish playwriting after Poland's accession to the European Union in 2004. From a broad reading of plays by many new writers, four playwrights were selected for study on the basis of prominence and artistic merit: Pawel Demirski, Dorota Maslowska, Malgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk and Przemys law Wojcieszek. Their plays were studied as texts and in performance, and twelve main plays became the focus of closer analysis. The thesis identifies and examines three major concurrent themes in the works of these playwrights. Remembering versus forgetting the past is discussed through the lens of selected aspects of memory studies, including Nora's lieux de mémoire, Hirsch's postmemory and Assman's mnemohistory. The playwrights are shown to share an endorsement of the de-politicisation of collective memory and to advocate a cessation of the passing down of trauma to post-war generations. The human body is highlighted as another concurrent thematic concern and is illuminated by certain tenets of Catholic doctrine as well as Merleau-Ponty's phenomenology. The playwrights' rejection of the tabooisation of the body is demonstrated and the shared notion of the body as both sentient and unifying is exemplified. Social marginalisation is examined as the final concern, with an emphasis on the notion of the 'other', particularly in relation to socio-economic status, sexuality, and religious beliefs. The plays are shown to support and promote a rejection of the myth of homogeneity in favour of openness to diversity. Major dramatic techniques are then closely examined. It is demonstrated that the plays share traits with Lehmann's theory of postdramatic theatre, including a rejection of Aristotelian unities. Key commonalities are evidenced, particularly comedy, bad language, intertextualities with the outside world, and an engagement with Polish social realities. The playwrights' approach to the spectator as a socio-political being is shown to be of paramount importance.

Der Autor nimmt verschiedene Aspekte von Grenzüberschreitungen zwischen Deutschland und Polen anhand deutscher und polnischer Gegenwartsprosa in den Fokus. Am Beispiel von Sabrina Janeschs Katzenberge und Ambra, Andrzej Stasiuks Dojczland sowie Artur Beckers Wodka und Messer. Lied vom Ertrinken wird die gegenseitige Wahrnehmung auf den jeweils anderen untersucht. Theoretische Grundlagen sind die von Magdalena Marszałek und Susi K. Frank 2010 für die deutsche Slavistik vorgestellten Theorien von Geopoetik und Geokulturologie, die ab 2014 auch für die Polonistik in Polen wichtig wurden. Diese Theorien werden mit den Untersuchungen zum Unheimlichen Slaventum – Niesamowita Słowiańszczyzna – gekoppelt, die die Romantikforscherin Maria Janion 2006 vorlegte. Janion legte darin dar, dass das polnische Slaventum seltsam anmutende, weil aus paganen Ursprüngen gespeiste Formen besitzt, die insbesondere die Schriftsteller der Romantik beeinflussten und die ihre Wirksamkeit bis heute nicht eingebüßt haben. Zu Janions Ausführungen gesellt sich seit etwa einem Jahrzehnt die intensive Auseinandersetzung mit dem polnischen Postkolonialismus, insbesondere gegenüber den östlichen Nachbarn Polens – Litauen, Belarus und der Ukraine, der ebenfalls zum Bestandteil der Arbeit gehört. Jenen Postkolonialismus in der Gegenwartsliteratur vertritt in der Untersuchung Ziemowit Szczereks Przyjdzie Mordor i nas zje. Czyli tajna historia Słowian, an welchem sichtbar wird, dass eine Verlagerung des deutsch-polnischen Beziehungssystems auf das polnisch-ukrainische Verhältnis stattfindet. In der Gegenüberstellung deutscher und polnischer Prosatexte untersucht der Autor, wie diese Konzeptionen in diesen Texten (re-)vitalisiert werden und stellt sie kontrastiv gegenüber. Damit sollen die Untersuchungen einen Beitrag dazu leisten, fachliche Grenzgebiete zwischen den Disziplinen der Polonistik und Germanistik genauer zu erhellen und auszuloten.

There has been to date no attempt at a detailed examination of Aleksandr Grin’s philosophical views interpreted on the basis of his literary work. Whilst some critics have noted interesting links between the writer’s oeuvre and a few popular philosophers, this has usually been done in passing and on an ad hoc basis. This thesis aims to fill this gap by reconstructing Grin’s views in relation to the European philosophical tradition. The main body of the thesis consists of three parts built on and named after three essential themes in philosophy: External World, Happiness and Morality. Part One delineates Grin’s views on nature and civilisation: I argue first that his cult of nature makes it possible to conceive of Grin as a pantheistic thinker close to Rousseau and Bergson, and then I reconstruct the author’s criticism of urbanisation and industrialisation. In the second part I assess the place of happiness in Grin’s world-view, indicating its similarities to the philosophy of various thinkers from the Ancients to Schopenhauer and Nietzsche. After sketching a general picture of the concept of happiness in Grin’s works, I discuss the place of material and immaterial factors in the writer’s outlook. I also gather maxims expressed by the protagonists in his fiction that can be taken as recommendations concerning ways of achieving and defending happiness. Finally, I link happiness with the problem of morality in Grin’s oeuvre. In the final part I examine modes of moral behaviour as displayed by the author’s protagonists. Firstly, I argue that in Grin’s works we find numerous examples and themes that allow us to perceive him as an existentialist. Secondly, I indicate Grin’s adherence to rules of conduct commonly associated with chivalric literature. Thirdly, I emphasise the importance of Promethean-like characters in the moral hierarchy of Grin’s protagonists.

This thesis is the first extensive study devoted to the generic originality of Iurii Tynianov’s representation of Pushkin in his two historical novels, Pushkin (1935-1943) and the abandoned The Gannibals (1932). Chapter 1 contextualises Tynianov’s contribution to the current debates on the novel’s demise, ‘large’ form and the worthy protagonist. The conditions giving rise to contemporary interest in the genres of biography and the historical novel are delineated and the critical issues surrounding these are examined; Tynianov’s concern to secularise the rigid monolith of an all but sanctified ‘state-sponsored Pushkin’ and the difficulties of the task are also reviewed. Chapter 2 shifts the examination of Pushkin as a historical novel to its study within the generic framework of the Bildungs, Erziehungs and Künstlerromane with their particular problematics which allowed Tynianov to grapple with a cluster of moral, philosophical and educational issues, and to explore the formative influences on the protagonist’s identity as a poet. Chapter 3 explores the concept of history underlying Tynianov’s interpretation of the characters and events and the historiographical practices he employed in his analyses of the factors that shaped Pushkin’s own historical thinking. Chapter 4 investigates Tynianov’s scepticism about Abram Gannibal’s and A. Pushkin’s mythopoeia which reveals itself in Tynianov’s subversively ironical and playful use of myth in both novels. The Conclusion assesses Tynianov’s contribution to the 20th century fictional Pushkiniana and reflects on his innovative transgeneric historical novel which broke the normative restrictions of the genre, elevated it to the level of ‘serious’ literature and made it conducive to stylistic experimentation.