Klasyczni romantycy? Wolfgang A. Mozart, Aleksander Puszkin, Don Juan i „Szaleństwo katalogowania”

This article aims to indicate the lines connecting these two eminent artists. For it seems interesting to draw parallels between their creative fates or to highlight the directions of the composer’s and poet’s artistic aspirations and their participation in the artistic discourse of their times. This seemingly paradoxical juxtaposition of the profiles of the two artists, who belonged to two different generations and represented different fields of art, should serve for general reflection on art at the turn of the 18th and 19th centuries. Regarded as a classicist, Mozart exhibited characteristics that could be attributed to the first Romantics (especially in his last works). His work, although deeply rooted in classical forms, carried innovative elements. Mozart’s ‘romanticism’ is supported by the fact that he was probably the first composer in history whose works were, at least in part, misunderstood by his contemporaries. Pushkin, on the other hand, a classic of Russian literature, explored themes that were new, yet constantly polemicised against what had shaped him as a poet. The cultural phenomenon presented in the above argument can be summarised by the following statement: in many respects, Mozart was the first Romantic among the Classics, and Pushkin the last Classic among the Romantics.