This thesis examines the major works of two outstanding European poets, Lord Byron and Alexander Pushkin, with a view to estimating the extent of their literary and personal affinity. The study begins with a survey of biographical highlights which are relevant to the interpretation of the works of the two poets. Next, the thesis demonstrates that Byron's "Oriental Tales" and Pushkin's "Southern Poems," as well as their major works, play a prominent role in the comparison of their poetic characterizations. In the examination of style, attention is limited to Byron's Don Juan and Pushkin's Evgeny Onegin, since they are regarded as the masterpieces of their respective authors. An appraisal of the continuing fame of both poets closes the study.

Painted in 1937 as part of the centenary celebration of the death of Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Ulyanov's A. S. Pushkin and his Wife, N. N. Pushkina at the Imperial Ball has been lauded as the quintessential example of Soviet history painting. Modern scholars have followed the lead of Soviet critics, who praised the painting for its insight into the psychology of the brilliant poet repressed by the tyrannical tsarist regime. According to this interpretation, Soviet viewers in the 1930s were to ponder on the tragedy of Pushkin's demise and rejoice that the victory of Socialism had freed them from such repression. However, this thesis suggests that Ulyanov embedded a secondary, subversive message in his masterpiece. Through careful manipulation of Pushkin's complex semiotic significance, Socialist Realist dialectics, and the Aesopian method, Ulyanov crafted an image that could be celebrated for its adherence to Soviet ideology, while simultaneously suggesting to those who detected his clues that artistic repression had not ended with the revolution. In this subversive reading, Ulyanov's masterwork becomes a psychological self-portrait of an artist living under Stalinist oppression during the Great Terror.

Diese Arbeit untersucht den Begriff der Liebe interdisziplinär in der Literatur und in der Musik in Deutschland und Russland in der Epoche der Romantik. Ausgegangen wird von der antiken Rede des Sokrates über Liebe und seiner Definition von ihr, welche Platon in seinem „Symposion“ nach Sokrates aufschreibt. Diese wird in die Zeit der Romantik zuerst in die deutsche und russische Literatur und später auf die Musik übertragen und untersucht. Welche Veränderungen treten im Verständnis des Begriffes auf? Welche Unterschiede oder möglichen Parallelen in den zwei auf den ersten Blick unterschiedlichen Kulturen und Mentalitäten sind vorhanden? Welchen Einfluss nehmen die Persönlichkeiten der Künstler auf diese Veränderungen? Die Ergebnisse werden auf einzelne Werke der Schriftsteller, A. Puschkin und E.T.A. Hoffmann, und auf die Vertonungen dieser Werke der Komponisten, P. Tschaikowski und R. Schumann, übertragen. Diese, in erster Linie literaturwissenschaftliche Untersuchung stellt den Begriff der Liebe in den Vordergrund, noch vor der Person oder dem Werk des Künstlers. Somit ist das vorrangige Ziel der Arbeit, der Rezeption der platonischen Liebestheorie während der Epoche der Romantik nachzugehen. Der Gedanke der eigenen Wandelbarkeit und der Entwicklung des Schönen und der Liebe als Stufenweg korrespondiert mit der Erkenntnisphilosophie der Romantiker. Das Thema der Liebe hat auch in der heutigen Zeit eine wichtige Bedeutung, vor allem weil die Medien immer öfter von einer Krise der moralischen Werte sprechen. Die Liebe ist transmedial, sie durchwandert das subjektive Leben des Menschen, die objektiven äußeren Voraussetzungen, die Kultur und die Mentalität, die Literatur und die Musik und sie bleibt eine Sehnsucht, ein Streben, eine Idee. Sie ist aktiv und überbrückt jegliche Schranken als Kommunikationscode oder als höchster Versuch, den die Natur macht, um das Individuum aus sich heraus und zu dem anderen hinzuführen. / This work examines the expression of Love in an interdisciplinary approach to literature and music in Germany and Russia during the Romantic Period. The starting point is Socrates’ classical discourse about Love and his definition of it, which Plato recorded in his Symposium. This will be applied to and examined in the Romantic Period, first in German and Russian literature and later in Music. What changes occur in the reception of this term? What differences or possible parallels can be determined in the two cultures and mentalities that are different at first sight? What is the influence of the respective artists on these changes? The results will be applied to the individual works of the writers A. Pushkin and E.T.A. Hoffmann as well as the musical settings of these works by the composers P. Tchaikovsky and R. Schumann. This examination, which is based primarily on literature and literary criticism, places the concept of Love in the foreground, even above the person or the work of the respective artist. Therefore, the primary goal of this work is to follow the reception of Plato’s “theory of love” during the Romantic Period. The concepts of one’s own inconstancy, the development of beauty, and the path of love correspond with the metacognitive philosophy of the Romantics. The subject of love has particular significance today because of the media’s frequent discussions about the crisis of moral values. Love is transmedial. It transcends the subjective lives of humans, the objective external conditions, culture and mentality, literature and music; and it remains a desire, an ambition, an idea. Love is active and bridges every boundary as a communicational code or as nature’s utmost attempt to lead an individual out of himself and to another.