FRANKFURT. “Bliss” and “Ossian”: these are the two keywords outlining the thematic areas explored by the two scholars who have won the Klaus Heyne Award for Research in German Romanticism at Goethe University Frankfurt in 2026. The philosopher and theologian Dr Kirill Chepurin receives the award for his monograph “Bliss against the World: Schelling, Theodicy, and the Crisis of Modernity” (published with Oxford University Press in 2024), while the art historian Dr Elisabeth Ansel receives the award for her essay, “Ossianic images and visual translation processes in J.M.W. Turner and Carl Gustav Carus” (published with Manchester University Press in 2025 in a volume entitled “Picturing the Romantic: New Perspectives on European Romanticism(s) in the Visual Arts”).
The year 2026 marks the third presentation of the Klaus Heyne Award, which was endowed to Goethe University Frankfurt by the paediatrician and Romanticism enthusiast Prof. Dr Klaus Heyne (1937–2017) who worked in Kiel. Heyne’s principal goal was to promote outstanding young scholars and their contributions to research in German Romanticism. In 2026, the award, worth a total of 15,000 euros, is given out in two categories for the first time: for a monograph, which comes with a prize of 4,000 euros and 10,000 euros for the organisation of a conference at Goethe University, and for an essay, which carries a prize of 1,000 euros.
Chepurin’s monograph, based on his doctoral thesis defended in 2022 at HU Berlin, deals with a hitherto neglected concept of the arguably best-known Romantic philosopher in the German-speaking world: Friedrich Wilhelm Joseph Schelling (1775–1854). “Bliss” (“Seligkeit”), Chepurin argues, rather than “happiness” (“Glück-Seligkeit”), can be regarded as a key concept in Schelling’s thinking at the crisis-ridden threshold to modernity – from Schelling’s early texts on natural philosophy right through to his later metaphysical writings. Chepurin develops “bliss” as a concept that is relevant to Schelling in terms of his theory of freedom and natural philosophy: In its dual antagonism towards modernity and Christianity, “bliss” unfolds the vision of a dissolution of the “unblissful” present that is central to Romanticism – a state of undivided immanence, absolute indifference, a being in freedom that knows no hierarchies, ownership, appropriations or imperatives.
According to the jury of the Heyne Award, i.e. Prof. Dr Roland Borgards (Institute for German Literature and its Didactics, Goethe University), Prof. Dr Mechthild Fend (Institute of Art History, Goethe University), Dr Aurelio Fichter (Benvenuto Cellini Society), Dr Mareike Hennig (Freies Deutsches Hochstift Frankfurt), Prof. Dr Heidi Lucja Liedke (Institute of English and American Studies, Goethe University) and Prof. Dr Frederike Middelhoff (Institute for German Literature and its Didactics, Goethe University), Chepurin breaks new ground in several respects: First, the book demonstrates Schelling’s continuous engagement with the concept of “bliss”, thereby challenging the periodisation commonly employed in Schelling scholarship (the “early” vs. the “late” Schelling); second, Chepurin highlights the hitherto overlooked significance of “Schellingian bliss” for Romantic theories and modes of thought; third, the monograph is the first to engage in a nuanced examination of Schelling’s reproduction of racist and colonialist ideologies, which are closely linked to his conception of “bliss”.
The jury emphasises: “This is a highly original work that not only proposes a reinterpretation of Romanticism by illustrating how strongly “bliss” – which around 1800 was discussed within the semantic field of “blessing” and “salvation” – shaped Schelling’s philosophy and Romantic thought more generally. The study also examines the concept of “bliss” in terms of its relevance to ethical questions and visionary concepts of our present day.” Chepurin also intends to explore these perspectives and contemporary connections at the international conference he will organise in 2027 at Goethe University, with the support of the Heyne Award.
Chepurin studied mathematics and mathematical logic in Moscow, where he took up doctoral
and lecturer position in the history of philosophy in 2012. In 2022, he came to Berlin and received his PhD from the Faculty of Theology and the Institute of Philosophy at Humboldt University in May 2022. Fellowships and research stays have taken him to Berlin, Hamburg and Berkeley. He is currently a Research Fellow at the Institute for Cultural Inquiry in Berlin. In September 2026, he is taking up a post as Assistant Professor of the Humanities at Bilkent-University in Ankara.
Dr Elisabeth Ansels’ art-historical article, which has been awarded the Heyne Award for outstanding essays, examines how the English painter William Turner (1775–1851) and the German physician, natural philosopher and painter Carl Gustav Carus (1789–1869) shaped the Ossian myth through their paintings and drawings. The fictional Ossian and his Old Gaelic song texts, which the Scottish writer James Macpherson published in the 1760s as “rediscovered” Fragments of Ancient Poetry, generated an international resonance at the end of the 18th century previously known only from the writings of William Shakespeare. And although it was disputed from an early stage that these were authentic documents of “ancient” songs, the fascinating surrounding the Scottish bard and his “romantic” songs continued unabated. Ansel now distances herself from a purely national reading of paintings such as “Staffa, Fingal’s Cave” (by Turner, 1831/32) and “Insel Staffa” (by Carus, before 1846). Rather than interpreting the images as examples of German or British Romanticism, Ansel employs a comparative lens to outline how material on Ossian was translated into different cultural contexts and made productive in the visual arts. Ansel interprets Turner’s and Carus’ visual approaches to the “Ossianic” Hebridean Island of Staffa within the framework of a transnational romanticization of the Ossian myth or “Ossianic culture”. The jury of the Heyne Award agreed that her essay demonstrates the great potential of art-historical Romanticism research that focuses on processes of circulation, transmission and adaptation beyond the national logics of “schools”. What becomes apparent from this transnational perspective is what can only be described as “hybrid” or “pluriform” Romanticism.
Ansel studied Classics in Dublin, Law in Leipzig, and Art History, Sociology and Law at Technische Universität Dresden. In 2021, she was awarded a PhD in Art History there with a thesis on Jack B. Yeats and Irish Modernism (summa cum laude). Scholarships and fellowships took her to Cork, Dublin, Greifswald, New Haven and New York. She is currently a postdoctoral research associate at the Centre for European Romanticism at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena.
Both winners will be granted the Klaus Heyne Award during a ceremony at Goethe University on 22 June 2026.