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Impostors, antichrists, and satanists: Textual strategies of the central and eastern European fin de siecle
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Impostors, antichrists, and satanists: Textual strategies of the central and eastern European fin de siecle
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IMPOSTORS, ANTICHRISTS, AND SATANISTS: TEXTUAL STRATEGIES OF THE CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN FIN DE SffiCLE by Peter Michael Huk A Dissertation Presented to the FACULTY OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (COMPARATIVE LITERATURE) August 2003 Copyright © 2003 Peter M ichael Huk Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UMI Number: 3116715 INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3116715 Copyright 2004 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA THE GRADUATE SCHOOL UNIVERSITY PARK LOS ANGELES, CALIFORNIA 90089-1695 This dissertation, written by Peter Michael Huk under the direction o f h l s dissertation committee, and approved by all its members, has been presented to and accepted by the Director o f Graduate and Professional Programs, in partial fulfillment o f the requirements fo r the degree o f )R OF PHILOSOPHY Director Dissertation Committee Chair Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I am grateful to numerous individuals who have provided support during the research and writing of this dissertation, especially the members of my defense committee - Jenifer Presto, who offered encouraging guidance throughout the endless drafting process; Kirill Postoutenko, who shared his wide breadth of knowledge of Russian Decadence and Symbolism and European philosophy at the turn of the century; and Roberto Diaz, who encouraged me to consider the comparative and theoretical dimensions of the project. I am especially grateful for their good-humored nature and their rigorous readings. I am also grateful to the following organizations for providing funding in the form of dissertation fellowships; University of Southern California School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences; the Josephine de Karman Fellowship Trust; and the M arta Feuchtwanger Foundation. Peter Starr, Greg Thalmann, and Lauralynn Smith of the Comparative Literature Department contributed significantly with administrative support that assured my academic success and financial survival throughout the past several years. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. iii I also thank others who provided support throughout the latter part of my graduate years. Members of my qualifying committee, Peggy Kamuf, Thomas Seifrid, and M aria Harley, encouraged me to develop an early version of this project, which centered on the burgeoning genre of philosophical essayism in Slavic Decadence and Symbolism. Michael Heim and Petr Holman shared their passion of the Czech tradition and contributed greatly to my knowledge of the language and literature of Bohemia and Moravia. Arnold Heidsieck provided a comfortable forum in his seminars for the discussion of ideas stemming from the reading of Kant, Hegel, Nietzsche, and Heidegger. Many colleagues and friends were highly instrumental in bringing about a sense of joy in the stages of researching and writing. Chris Peterson shared many of his own musings concerning theory and provided a handy sounding board when it came to developing my ideas. Tom Rebold added dimensions to our discussions about culture and irony. The brothers Noguerola, Alexander and Thomas, provided welcomed support, challenge, and resistance of ideas, Nietzschean and cultural, during the entire process. Jay Dubb and Julia Verkholantsev offered many practical suggestions to challenges that came up concerning the Slavic cultural realm and that of Los Angeles. Vincent Roppolo shared interesting ideas concerning contemporary culture and the bridge between the 1890s and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. the 1990s. Robyn Cohen provided much-appreciated practical support. Denize Cain and Lionel Habas relayed many fine personal experiences concerning teaching, writing, and living that worked their way into my practices. My wife Beverly Raff, who looked to the final typing of the last word of this dissertation, lovingly demonstrated that interpretation is an unfinished process. Finally, I acknowledge the conversations begun on different topics with Rick Lee and Michael Brewer over the past decade that continue to resonate with their good friendship; and I thank, but not in the same vein, our contemporary cultural impostors, who prove over and over again that this project is not simply a study of the past. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ii Abstract vi Introduction: Demonophobia and "Demonic Literature": M oralist Readings and Inventions of the Fin de Siecle 1 Chapter 1: Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy o f Morality. an Anti-Decadent Guide to the Style, Ethics, and Historiography of a Decadent Age 71 Chapter 2: Vladimir Solov'ev's Three Conversations'. An Answer to the Threat of Imposture 138 Chapter 3: Dmitrii M erezhkovskii's Christ and Antichrist: Synthesis and the Failure of Representation 231 Chapter 4: Stanislaw Przybyszewski's Homo sapiens: Contradictions of the Satanist Aesthetic 300 Conclusion: Nietzsche and the "Demon" Texts of the Fin de Siecle 369 Bibliography 388 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. vi ABSTRACT IMPOSTORS, ANTICHRIST, AND SATANISTS: TEXTUAL STRATEGIES OF THE CENTRAL AND EASTERN EUROPEAN FIN DE SIECLE The creation of an ethics during the 1890s based on a persona of the Antichrist or Satan has met with disapprobation by scholars, intent on categorically dismissing the Decadent period in literary history as immoral. The act of casting dispersion on the demonic literature of this period, however, betrays their failure, as moralists, to grasp the philosophical and rhetorical dimensions of Decadence. The tendentious dismissal of literary works that propose a fundamental opposition to the Judeo-Christian tradition - constructed around the Christ/Antichrist dichotomy by Decadent writers, such as the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the Russian philosopher and poet Vladimir Solov'ev, the Russian historical novelist Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, and the Polish essayist and novelist Stanislaw Przybyszewski - signals a fundamentalist reproach against possible viable critiques of the "impostor" element in culture. As a symbol of a wider cultural dissatisfaction with the state of nineteenth-century philosophy, religion, and science, the fin-de-siecle Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. v ii Antichrist is often confused with diabolical aspirations on the part of Decadent writers. Close readings of pivotal texts, however, demonstrate that an elaborate fin-de-siecle aesthetic - based on the Kantian ethical tradition and a complex rhetorical practice - underlies the Antichrist texts and that a Nietzschean reevaluation of values is effected. Furthermore, rhetorical inversions of the Lebenskunst aesthetic of Decadence - including those based on self-contradiction, irony, and self-effacement - appear to mirror the anxieties of the turn of the century and reflect the aspirations of the controversial sovereign individual ideal. The "demonic" aspect of Decadence proves that the writers' search for a new epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics cannot be grasped through a literalist or moralist reading and that a consideration of the textual and philosophical strategies at hand must be employed. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 Introduction Demonophobia and "Demonic Literature": Moralist Readings and Inventions of the Fin de Siecle A preoccupation with "demonic literature" has been one of the distinguishing marks of the Decadent aesthetic of 1890s Central and Eastern Europe and the subject of scholarly disagreements since the early 1900s. Recent moralistic scholarship relies on the classification of "demonic literature" to implicate the literature as the product of a morally corrupt culture, in which writers blindly or knowingly misled their readership. One particular Russian Decadent, Dmitrii M erezhkovskii, even provides fodder for this view. In the foreword to his 1914 publication of the historical trilogy Christ and Antichrist (Khristos i Antikhrist, 1894-1905) Merezhkovskii apologized for attempting to synthesize Christian and pagan Roman culture; a Decadent admitting to writing from a fundamental moral flaw only confounds the issue further. The Decadent period, understood as a bridge between Romanticism and Symbolism, is purported to be an ongoing trend of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 twentieth century. W hether Decadence is indeed an aberration - an isolated reaction against morality, rationalism, and empiricism - or a valid attempt to recreate culture and enliven philosophy, it is nonetheless closely associated with immoralism and the occult and marked by a preoccupation with demons, antichrists, satanists, dandies, impostors, and the question of evil. In this study I will identify advocates of Decadence within Central and Eastern Europe who propose the annihilation of the institutions of religion, philosophy, and culture via the coming of an Antichrist or the formation of a satanist aesthetic, and who devalue these institutions as "impostors." The rhetorical and tropic functions underlying the figures of the antichrists, satanists, and impostors will become evident in the analyses of the textual strategies as Decadent attempts - that are closely based on the philosophical inquiries of Immanuel Kant and Friedrich Nietzsche, the Lebenskunst aesthetic, and the rhetorical practices of contradiction, paradox, irony, and literary play - to signal a new ethics and a new aesthetics at the turn of the century. Allusions to these philosophers and the reliance on such elements of rhetorical resourcefulness suggest that these advocates may represent a progressive, and innately performative, aspect of Decadence rather than a strictly immoralist aesthetic. Furthermore, the textual incorporation of the anxieties of the turn of the century suggest a complex philosophical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 dialogue across cultural boundaries that is far more significant than the seemingly irrational emotionalism and shock-value expressed in the works of the period. The present study will stress, then, the interconnectedness of Decadence with the systematic German philosophical tradition, stemming from the rationalism of Kant to the cultural critique of Nietzsche, and the writers' provocative demand for a transformation of epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics.1 The premise here is that the cultural fascination with the occult by Decadent writers of Central and Eastern Europe must be understood as 1 An anxiety-ridden rhetoric reflects the social and cultural concerns of the Decadent fin de siecle. In this sense the "turn" of the century incurs a double meaning in this study. I emphasize the notion of trope as "turn" - a turn of phrase, rhetoric, and philosophy. The "turn" is telling because it reveals the philosophical nature of these writers’ projects. I propose that the "turn" of the century and the Antichrist trope are evidenced in grammar as the philosophical problem of representation among others. This means that the writers express their philosophical aims - to overcome tradition and convention not only in the expository manners available to philosophical and fictional discourse, but also - in performative manners. They perform “turns” in thought and in concept. That their prose is challenging and confusing and their characterizations and plots are troubling indicates where the insight and revolutionary aspects of their prose lie. The "turn" is characterized by ambiguity and the consciously derisive means by which these writers seek to shake up positivist and rationalist worldviews. Furthermore, I take this “turn” of the century to refer to millenarian and apocalyptical thinking and the expectation of doom. I also understand it as a physical turn, in the image of the spiral, and as a literal trope, which is nothing more than a turn of speech - whether located in irony, oxymoron, self- contradiction, or any of the possible rhetorical and philosophical moves that we will find in Nietzsche. In Nietzsche the "turn" also turns into a "return" that is eternal in nature - the "eternal recurrence" of the same, although marked in difference. In either use of the expression, a circularity is evoked. I hypothesize that the anxiety before the turn marks and flavors the rhetorical choices of the writers discussed. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 based on a viable philosophical and rhetorical practice of cultural critique. In the case of "demonic literature" this critique includes the personae of Satan, the Antichrist, pagan demons of peasant folklore, and other beings of anti-Christian predisposition. Because the 1890s Decadents and Symbolists seek to invoke a new morality, ethical subjectivity, and aesthetic commitment by emphasizing decay and "turning" things on their heads, they critique the Church by stirring up "demons" and privilege them as purveyors of the "new" ethics. This gesture of stirring and turning things onto their figurative heads is enacted rhetorically through the use of literary turns, expressions that posit and negate simultaneously, and thematically through sensational plots and characters. In the works of the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, the Russian religious philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev, the Russian historical novelist Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, and the Polish essayist Stanislaw Przybyszewski, which span the years 1887 to 1900, we will detect elaborate schemes of textual strategies that are based on the Antichrist, the impostor, or Satan. The Antichrist represents an alternative to the historical, institutional "Christ," whereas Satan represents life-affirmation and the glorification of the physiological drives.2 Finally, the impostor provides a basis upon which 2 These drives can be represented not only by Nietzsche's "love of fate" (amor fati) and will to power (Wille zur Macht), but also by Henri Bergson’s philosophy Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5 to critique the rationalist, positivist, and empiricist epistemologies as pretenders to a absolute "truth." These philosophically strategic aspects of Decadence cannot be understood through a literalist or moralist lens for obvious reasons. A reconceptualization of Decadence, however, is necessitated in order to perceive the underlying elements of Decadence and to assert their precedence over any thematic or ideological issues that may otherwise arise. Liz Constable, Dennis Denisoff, and Matthew Potolsky, as editors of Perennial Decay: On the Aesthetics and Politics o f Decadence, engage the complexities of the trend in their introduction to a collection of articles and characterize Decadence in the following ways: as expressed by the socially perceived image of Oscar Wilde, "a diverse collection of cultural anxieties and biases that were not, of course, to be dispatched with one individual" (1); as "a concept whose analysis yields a very broad set of resonances and associations" today as it was in the nineteenth century; as a of the elan vital, and Sigmund Freud's formulation of the unconscious drives (Triebe). Furthermore, they are represented by certain Decadents of the late nineteenth century in the guise of demonic figures for the purpose of political protest and life-affirmation, simultaneously. The Bohemian Czech social anarchists of Prague of the 1890s and early 1900s, for example, prided themselves on their satanic, and inherently political, association. Satanist aesthetes of Central and Eastern Europe include the Czechs Karel Hlavacek, Stanislav Kostka Neumann, and Jin Karasek ze Lvovic, the Germans associated with the mystical circle of Stefan George, the Poles Stanislaw Przybyszewski and Tadeusz Micinski, and the Russians Fedor Sologub and Zinaida Gippius. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6 trend that "poses serious literary, political, and historical questions" and that "should not be confined to its traditional association with, for example, morbidity, a cult of artificiality, exoticism, or sexual nonconformism" (2). The editors claim that these "transgressive themes" by which Decadence is often identified arise from a literalist reading and from ideological biases imposed by the earliest criticism of Decadence, that of Max Nordau's Entartung (Degeneration, 1892), a biologism that has spawned later psychologistic readings. Nordau, whom they refer to as unreflectively syncretistic, sensationalistic, and hostile, reduces literary and cultural decadence, including literary strategies, to "biological degeneration" (3). The editors refer humorously to this influence in criticism as "Nordau sprawl." Aside from the literary definition of Decadence, which signifies "decline, decay, and the loss of traditional values," the editors find that "the study of decadence has seemed strangely and almost compulsively occupied with reinstating values by introducing, cataloguing, and presenting an object it deems already defined or hopelessly undefinable." The focus by academics has been to "survey, summarize, and taxonomize their topic" and the assumptions that underlie decadence have gone unnoticed or have been ignored. Having completed the present study, I fully agree with the editors' finding that "where a departure from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 7 traditional values can suggest innovation and experimentation, rather than decline, criticism on decadence is almost wholly literalist in its implicit reassertion of the very values dismantled by decadent texts" (2). As concerns Decadent style, the editors claim that it "is so notoriously challenging that an entire critical cottage industry has sprung up to confront its near 'unreadability,' and the combination of sexuality, violence, and esoteric thought that constitutes the thematic texture of decadence renders it foreboding to even the most patient and receptive of contemporary readers" (3). This statement clearly applies to philosophical texts and philosophically informed fictional texts. Although Nietzsche's writing poses a threat of "unreadability," the texts of Solov'ev, Merezhkovskii, and Przybyszewski, appearing as far more "readable," contain textual and philosophical strategies that - unnoticed - have led readers astray. (Merezhkovskii, in his 1911 "re-reading" of Christ and Antichrist, had apparently already become infected with an anti-decadent bias and condemned his works as morally inept.)3 3 Other characterizations to be found in Perennial Decay that I find applicable to Central and Eastern European Decadence and the works analyzed here are the following: the scholar Vladimir Jankelevitch, in his respected 1950 essay "La Decadence," notes that there is a "tendency of decadent writing to turn in upon itself, to replace the 'fecundity of synthesis' with the 'sterile and feverish delights of self analysis'"(6). 2) Decadence is often marginalized, according to the logic of the "other," as a lesser form of its preceding or following movements of influence, such as Romanticism and Symbolism (7-8). The editors quote Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8 Jankelevitch, who states that decadence is "the non-creative imitation of a preceding and superior literary expression" whose writers' "creative faculties have been impaired through hyperanalysis and sterile erudition" (8). Decadence takes on the character of a "hybrid" and a "self-consciously transitional" movement, which I agree is to the detriment of an understanding of the complexity of decadence. They propose that decadence is more than a "collection of themes, tropes, and stock characters that critics have largely focused upon. Instead, decadent textual strategies interfere with the boundaries and borders (national, sexual, definitional, historical to name but a few) that criticism normally relies upon to make its judgments" (11). For this reason they propose the use of the term "perennial decay" to demarcate the actual state of those "boundaries and borders" and the need to perceive the "particular textual means, strategies, and procedures" that govern decadent culture. They propose that decadence in the traditional academic outlook is "decadent," that is, that it is perceived as "fundamentally limited by its deviance (wilful or not) from some cultural, political, biological, ethical, or artistic norm" (12). However, if decadence is perceived, rather, as a challenge to the types of assumptions and judgments that underlie the traditional summation of the "movement," then it becomes clear that the instability and ambiguity of decadent writers' strategies render these summations and judgments. The "series of inversions, displacements, and qualifications" in decadent writing undermine scholars' judgments thus far. "This textual strategy throws into relief not the decadence of a work, an author, or a character but the theoretical assumptions that underlie any attempt to make such a determination" (13). Highlighting Nietzsche's definition, equally a confession, that a decadent is merely a "dissimulator" as an example, they foreground the "disarming interpretive abyss" that is posed by decadent writers. There is no easy way to accept or to reject this "confession" (15). To do the first, an acceptance, is to discount the "movement," albeit in a way that sides with the writer to be discounted and, thereby, to give some justification to the sentiment expressed; to reject it is to reject equally the assumption upon which the confession is based. "The decadent text here becomes something like a two- way mirror, in which the reader's effort to see through this glass - an effort seemingly encouraged by the text's themes and style - is frustrated by the persistence of his or her own reflection. The very tool that allows one to identify and understand decadence - here the metaphorical conflation of text and symptom [the organic, historical, and aesthetic metaphors by which decadence is understood] - necessarily blocks that understanding" (16-17). Ellis Hanson in Decadence and Catholicism accepts a definition of decadence as a marker from which to critique the connection of the "religious, the aesthetic, and the erotic" in decadent writing (1). I refer to his work because the present study bears a similar focus. He characterizes decadence as the "fin de siecle fascination with cultural degeneration, the persistent and highly influential myth that religion, sexuality, art, even language itself, had fallen at last into an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9 inevitable decay" and states that, if not a movement, the word decadence "conjures" certain works with particular "thematic and stylistic preoccupations" and names Charles Baudelaire, J.-K. Huysmans, Rachilde, Walter Pater, Oscar Wilde, and George Moore (2). He refers to the vagueness and heterogeneity of the "literary category" of decadence and to the stylistic and historical overlap of decadence with "naturalism, romanticism, aestheticism, Pre-Raphaelitism, symbolism, impressionism, and modernism" (2). It is characterized by "an elaborate, highly artificial, highly ornamented, often tortuous style; it delights in strange and obscure words, sumptuous exoticism, exquisite sensations, and improbable juxtapositions; it is fraught with disruption, fragmentation, and paradox; it has a tendency to vague and mystical language, a longing to wring from words an enigmatic symbolism or a perverse irony." Decadents are those who "cultivated a fascination with all that was commonly perceived as unnatural or degenerate, with sexual perversity, nervous illness, crime, and disease, all presented in a highly aestheticized context calculated to subvert or, at any rate, to shock conventional morality. Both stylistically and thematically, decadence is an aesthetic in which failure and decay are regarded as seductive, mystical, or beautiful" (3). Hanson also points out that "Roman Catholicism is central to both the stylistic peculiarities and the thematic preoccupations of the decadents. When they defined their own styles, whether they spoke of aestheticism, symbolism, euphuism, or mystical realism, the decadents often emphasized Christianity and the spiritual quality of language" (5). This statement becomes especially relevant in reference to Decadent Satanists such as the Czech Stanislav Kostka Neumann and the modeling of his satanist poetry of the mid-1890s on Church liturgy. Hanson later refers to the Bible and to its near-decadent style: "the very style of the Bible can, in some of its books, be described as decadent, especially the Canticles and Apocalypse, with their erotic spectacles, their strange profusion of symbols, their demonization of nature, and their mesmerizing repetitions. Even decadent satanism, when it is a mystical indulgence in evil and abjection that would be sheer nonsense apart from the moral authority of the Church" (7). He equates the paradox of Catholicism and the Church to the aesthetic of paradox of the decadents. Like the editors of Perennial Decay, Hanson laments the derisive criticism that decadence has sustained since its Nordauean inception. He continues juxtaposing decadence to Catholicism. "Until recently, the decadents have not had many sympathetic critics, though they have had many avid readers. The mixture of elitism, homosexuality, misogyny, Satanism, and 'art for art's sake' proved, for the most part, lethal in academic circles, and decadence was declared shallow, adolescent, purple, and pathological - a failure rather than an aesthetic of failure. From this perspective, the satanism and occultism of the period made sense, but the decadent critique of faith, is often trivialized as a mere trend, a cultural aberration, or bad theater. It is said to be a heretical or insincere 'perversion' of Catholicism. There is also a redemptive tendency to regard Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10 W ithin this revisited theoretical framework of Decadence - as opposed to the literalist and moralist models - the writers' intentions in conceptualizing the Antichrist or Satan can be perceived in the philosophical implications of the gestures of "advocation" and "admonition." These "comings" and "callings" suggest not only a sense of fascination, but also an attraction to the Antichrist in the gesture of "admonition." Sympathy for the Antichrist, Satan, and the demon on the part of these writers conveys an ironic attraction and admiration for the "fallen one" while evoking simultaneously a philosophical interrogation of the notions of identity and meaning of historical personae.4 Furthermore, the rhetoric allows the Decadents to perform a rethinking of the cultural assumptions behind the concept of evil and, more specifically, the moralistic thinking that stifles and endangers individual sovereignty, a conversion as an antidote to decadence, despite the evidence of decadent styles and themes in the post-conversion work of writers such as Verlaine, Huymans, Johnson, and Gray" (14). This particular aspect of Hanson's scholarship is of direct relevance to any scholar working on Merezhkovskii and Przybyszewski (to a lesser extent), as the Church and the Bible figure dominantly in their works. 4 Bernard McGinn, in Antichrist: Two Thousand Years o f the Human Fascination with Evil refers to Carl Jung’s notion of a "devil within" that must be acknowledged and recognized as an inherent part of human nature (the "dark side") so that it is not projected outward and perceived as a phenomenon external to the beholder (274). This Jungian notion suggests that, perhaps, sympathy could be afforded to a "known" devil. But, the question for the Decadents remains, Can the otherness of this traditionally absolute Other be subsumed into sameness and oneness? This question forms a unifying context upon which the various texts to be analyzed can be understood as incontrovertibly linked and their rhetorical play of irony, contradiction, and paradox as philosophically significant. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11 concept that links the influence of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy o f M orality (1887) directly to these writers. Coupled with the cultural anxiety, the rhetoric expressed in their works points to the dangers of tradition and convention, that is, dangers posed to the vital and dynamic elements of culture by the hypostasized conceptualizations of truth and value. In this manner Decadent works comprise a project that can be characterized as simultaneously philosophical, phenomenological, and vitalistic and all appeals to the occult and to demonic elements can be read as a return to a Kantian project of bridging reason, ethics, and aesthetics. In particular, the sublime, as theorized by Kant in his Critique o f Judgment (1790), the aesthetic element that creates within human consciousness a sense of awe at the disproportionate, yet simultaneous, threat of an imposing danger to one's being and one's ability to master comprehension of this "incomprehensibility" and thereby to conceive of the formidable stature of one's consciousness before grave danger, finds development in the "demonic" aesthetic. The "demonic," as an unknowable sphere, poses a risk to one's consciousness and, simultaneously, evokes the feeling of one being able to overcome any present adversity. The incomprehensible diabolical nature of the "demon" is welcomed in Decadence as that which threatens and assures an overcoming of morality and the restoration of the instincts and sovereignty to the individual. The writers resort to German Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12 Romantic depictions of devastating natural forces, images of the vortex and the spiral, negative theology and mysticism, elements that have an occult overtone.5 It is by way of the sublime element of aesthetics that 5 The Decadent age of the Antichrist (1890-1915) - characterized by a double sense of "resting on" and "resisting" a logic that is based on Western philosophy and Judeo-Christian culture - is a period of thinking that is marked by heavy strains of contradiction, irony, self-deprecation, and conversely, self-creation. It is marked by turns in thought and action, by spirals reminiscent of Romantic art and mysticism, and by the puzzling, evasive, and ambiguous "eternal return." The German Romantic "eternal feminine" (ewig Weibliche) appears alongside the Russian "Divine Sophia" and the "woman wrapped in stars." For Vladimir Solov'ev's conception of the Sophia, as connected to Godmanhood, as constituting the "active principle of the divine-human organism" (84), and as differentiated from the conceptions of Sophia held by Sergei Bulgakov and Pavel Florenskii, see Frederick Copleston’s Russian Religious Philosophy: Selected Aspects (especially "The Concept of Sophia" 81-99). For a broader overview of the Sophia within Russian culture see Kristi Groberg's "The Feminine Occult Sophia in the Russian Religious Renaissance: A Bibliographical Essay." Movements of the occult adopt a "returning" figure of Satan. Emanations of this demonic form are apostrophized as if they were genres of a liturgy that recall the prominence of Christ and his company of saints in Church liturgies. There is a sense of the old, the original, and the authentic being invoked in response to an age of threatening institutionalization and hypostatization marked by a perceived stagnancy in philosophy, religion, and the arts. The aesthetic sentiment marked by this age expresses that the path of history be rewritten; and so there is equally a development in the form of the historical and social novels wherein the call for a new type of historiography takes philosophy and religion to task. Nietzsche's On the Genealogy o f Morality figures as a frontispiece for such activity. Once configured as the initial installment in a planned trilogy on morality under the overall heading of The Antichrist, it remains Nietzsche's pivotal work in this area while his final works, The Twilight o f the Gods, the shorter and highly polemical The Antichrist, and the autobiographical Ecce Homo, diverge from such a plan, arguably because of their excessively polemical nature and stylistic flair. In connection with "returns" see Ira Livingston's Arrow of Chaos: Romanticism and Postmodernity for a challenging and insightful, if not equally "chaotic" view, of what Livingston considers "a study of chaos as a logic at work in epistemological processes" about time periods that "name the blurry beginnings and ends of a modernity that is forever chasing its own tail" replete with illustrations (vii). Of relevance to my study are his chapters and sections on Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13 Decadents are able to consider the unthinkable things of the "demonic" aesthetic. W ithin this philosophical context my objective is to conduct a transnational analysis of the recurring fin-de-siecle Antichrist and satanist trope in Central and Eastern European culture6 and to engage in the "Reversal, Turning Inside Out, Horizontalization," "Fractal Logics of Romanticism: Concentricity and Eccentricity," and "Irony: A Vortex amid Vortices." Connected to the vortex and the spiral is the notion of a verticality of narrative. David M. Bethea in "Petersburg: The Apocalyptic Horseman, the Unicom, and the Verticality of Narrative," The Shape of Apocalypse in Modern Russian Fiction, analyzes such a verticality as it relates to Andrei Belyi’s novel Petersburg. Bethea points out the influence on Belyi of Solov'ev's Three Conversations (113-115) and he delves into the notion of verticality of narrative in relation to philosophical and occult influences (119-125). Bethea attributes to Solov'ev a thought system based on an "essential verticality of narrative discourse" in relation to the telling of the historical plot as opposed to the horizontality of the Marxist model - to be worked out in the Socialist Realist mode. The Solov'evian model is based on a transcendental realm (governed by God) whereas the Marxist model is based on immanent laws that determine reality. The spiral represents a Hegelian, Romantic, Neo-Platonic, and Christian "line" of history, a movement toward unity and ever-increasing consciousness (118-20). This unity incorporates change and flux, which hints at a degree of incorporated contradiction, whereas the Marxist mode insists on an unnegotiable linearity. 6 The Decadence of Central and Eastern Europe differs from that of Western Europe in that the East expresses a decadence from its "thirst," while the West expresses it "satiatedness." Although simplistic in conception, this differentiation, as formulated by Robert Pynsent in Julius Zeyer: The Path to Decadence and Questions o f Identitity: Czech and Slovak Ideas o f Nationality and Personality, provides an initially adequate reasoning for distinguishing the particularities of 1890s Slavic Decadence from that of the earlier Western European Decadence. Concerning the transnational barrier, there are several factors to consider within the scope of this study. Although there are general differences between the Slavs, the Slavic Decadent writers relate to Nietzsche in a similar manner. Their literature deals with the obsolescence of Western philosophy and with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14 dialogue of the writers with the philosophical tradition of German Rationalism and Romanticism by stressing the tension they create with the n juxtaposition of Kantian and Nietzschean elements in their texts. In this elements deriving from German Romantic philosophy. As Neo-Romantics, the Decadents address the Kantian problems of reason, ethics, and the sublime; they attempt to express, practice, and theorize their findings in their fictional and philosophical texts. The writers referred to in this study represent Russia and Poland specifically, and Bohemia and Moravia in occasional references. Although these lands have a common Slavic root, their separate traditions date back one thousand years. These differences, however, are given less notice at the turn of the century under the terms of a syncretistic Decadent and Symbolist worldview than they would during periods of greater nationalist leaning. (A rigorous study of national differences would take into consideration the political and aesthetic orientation of the peoples of these lands, the varying historical, political, and economic developments within these eastern and western Slavic regions, and the question of nationhood. These further separate the peoples' concerns under the influence of Russophilism, Westernization, Austroslavism, and Panslavism.) French Decadence, understood as generally influential on the Slavic Decadents, and German Romanticism, seen as mainly influential on the Slavic Symbolists, lend an air of universality to the aesthetic projects of these Slavic writers. The philosophical traditions stemming from the beginning of the nineteenth century and the course that a national aesthetics takes in each land are markedly different, although each has its groups of Kantians, Neo-Kantians, Hegelians, and post-Hegelians: for example, Russia is heavily under the sway of its orthodox Byzantine heritage and Slavophilism, Populist, and Westemist conflicts; by the end of the 1790s and until 1917 predominantly Catholic Poland is partitioned thrice wherein its political statehood is obliterated and a philosophical tradition of Romantic Messianism bent toward German idealism springs forth; and Bohemia and Moravia under Austrian rule show a proclivity toward Austrian Positivist philosophy and psychology. Naturally the aesthetic sensitivity differs in each setting as it is conditioned under different political and nationalist circumstances. 7 Although I contend that Nietzsche does provide the paradigm and logic of "sovereignty" for the Decadent position, I emphasize that the Decadent position still comprises a paradox that eludes simple comparison or summation to Nietzschean philosophy and style. The eclectic and syncretistic Decadent school of thought equally encompasses the influences of Schopenhauer and Eastern philosophy, and the occult practices of the fin-de-siecle period. The present study with a focus on the "Nietzsche" of the Genealogy, on the later Solov'ev, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 15 and the writings of Merezhkovskii and Przybyszewski, who throughout the 1890s were both avid disciples in their own ways of Nietzschean philosophy, fulfills my goal of clarifying the Nietzschean paradigm and logic of Antichrist. As a result of this strategy, I can offer a glimpse of the pre-turn and millenarian anxiety that marks the need for the genealogy and for a new historiography by these writers of the turn of the century. The period of Decadence is often referred to as a minor literary movement and depicted as an earlier phase of Symbolism, and as a form of Neo- Romanticism that relies on and revisits the movement of Romanticism of the 1800s for its criticism, theurgy, and art-for-art’s sake aesthetics. The Neo- Romantic literary traditions of the Central Eastern European lands of Russia, Poland, and the Czech lands together form what can be considered a transnational and transcultural movement in relation to one dominant strain of German philosophical thought. Many Neo-Romantic writers philosophically drew on Kantian thought, equally in gestures of opposition to his categorical Reason and in acceptance of strains of neo-Kantianism. That Kant served as a philosophical basis is important because his lack of resolution in defining a clear bridge between knowledge and morality in the form of aesthetic judgment resurfaces in the Decadents' concerns; it remains a challenge for the Neo- Romantics (as it did for the Romantics) in their quest to define the modem self in an atmosphere of revolutionary activity and epistemological chaos. The link of Neo-Romanticism to early German Romanticism also resurfaces in the theorizing of the symbol and of representation, which continues today in the current renewed debates surrounding the notion of a philosophical sublime and the act of representation. (Two integral elements of this philosophical pursuit include theorizing on the nature of mysticism and negative theology in art and politics; these issues will be brought to light in the analyses on the individual texts below.) Neo-Romantic artists also put into practice a theory grounded by the Athenaeum journal project of the early German Romantic movement (1795- 1808). The focus and manner of the literary expression of Neo-Romanticism shift from that of Romanticism, yet the plan remains the same. This plan, according to Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe and Jean-Luc Nancy in The Literary Absolute: The Theory o f Literature in German Romanticism is to posit a "System-Subject," that is, to ground a notion of subjectivity in the act of self reflection and to situate a modem quest for self-knowledge (How and through what type of mediation may I reflect my actions and my agency back to myself?). At stake in self-reflection is the question of representation and the status of the symbol in linguistic practice. The practices in which the Jena Romantics indulged included collective anonymous effort, a realization of infinity conditioned by the notion of imperfection (the movement of "infinite perfectibility"), a proclivity toward mysticism ("the inexpressible"), expression through the fragment, and the recourse to self-irony. The trajectory of this thought followed through Schopenhauer and Nietzsche to the Neo-Romantics. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16 The initial project of self-cognition was eventually merged with and subsumed into a project of self-creation. The early German Romantics (namely Friedrich Schlegel and Novalis) in their attempt at a "universal progressive poetry" and as it governed Neo- Romanticism issued a philosophical paradigm for the philosophical and essayistic element within fiction and poetry. The essay, an "attempt" or "assaying," constitutes a problematic genre. It, furthermore, betrays the "infinite perfectibility" or always becoming of the "System-Subject" and approximates the mode of writing most innovative to Jena Romanticism, the fragment. This brings to the fore the above-mentioned Kantian problematic concerning limits of representation and will lead to an examination of the related problematic of self creation in life and art in Merezhkovskii and Przybyszewski. Several studies of interest in the connection of Rationalism and German Romanticism to Neo-Romanticism are: Martha B. Heifer, The Retreat of Representation: The Concept o f Darstellung in German Critical Discourse', Jacob Rogozinski, "It Makes Us Wrong: Kant and Radical Evil" in Radical Evil, and the collection Beyond Representation: Philosophy and Poetic Imagination, in particular: Azade Seyhan, "Fractal contours: chaos and system in the Romantic fragment" (133-150); Stanley Bates, "The mind’s horizon" (151-174); and Richard Eldridge, "Kant, Holderlin, and the experience of longing" (175-196). See also Azade Seyhan, Representation and Its Discontents: The Critical Legacy o f German Romanticism. The Slavic traditions at the turn of the century (1892-1910), whether they are generally referred to as Neo-Romanticism or early literary Modernism, signal a break from the "scientific" methodology of Positivism and a return to the mystical, mythical, and subjectivist trends of Romanticism. (For a study of strands of mysticism, occultism, and Satanism in Russia see Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal's The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture.) The trends are variously considered Symbolism in Russia, Young Poland in Poland, and the Czech Modern in the Czech lands. In each case this Neo-Romantic trend, as a philosophical ideology, traces back to the epistemological inquiries concerning the autonomy of art and aesthetics initiated by Immanuel Kant’s Critique o f Judgment (1790) and advanced by the philosophical and literary practices of the early German Romantics of Jena (1795-1808). Several monographs and articles from as early as 1930 treat the difficulty of assigning a specific name to this movement as early Modernism contains various literary strands, from late Realism to Impressionism, Symbolism, and Anarchism. The name generally given to the movement differs in national contexts: in Russia Decadence-Symbolism prevails; in Poland, Mloda Polska (Young Poland); in Germany, Jugend Deutschland or Jugendstil, in Austria, Secession', in the Czech lands, simply Ceska Moderna (Czech Modern)', and in Croatia, Hrvatska Moderna (Croatian Modem). Depending on the focus of the literary scholar, variations do exist. Jan Krzyzanowski chooses the more Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17 manner the indebtedness of Decadent writers in their aesthetic depictions of the Antichrist to rhetorical strategies that underlie the ethical and aesthetic strands of German philosophical thought will be asserted. The rhetorical usage of the tropes of the Antichrist and of evil involves Kantian ethics and the sublime and the Nietzschean elements of individual sovereignty, the constitution of the modern subject through grammar, and the “destruction” of the Judeo-Christian tradition (as theorized most systematically in On the Genealogy o f Morality). Furthermore, elements of mysticism, the new religious consciousness, and negative theology will be shown to be relevant to the Kantian and Nietzschean projects that appear in the texts to be analyzed. A reading of the novels of Dmitrii M erezhkovskii and the Stanislaw Przybyszewski will portray the movement of focus away from a philosophically based Antichrist to an aesthetically enticing satanic force. This implies a movement from the abstract and conceptual to the worldly and seductive lure of the instincts. inclusive term Neo-Romanticism to address the philosophical orientation of the movement in Neoromantyzm polski 1890-1918. However, Semen A. Vengerov, already in the 1910s, decided on an appropriate term. In his introductory essay "Etapy neo-romanticheskoi dvizheniia," he claims to address the integral "literary psychology" of the period (ix): "Neo-romanticism" captures the “organic connection” between the various elements of the fin-de-siecle aesthetic. Vengerov claims that Russian Decadents refute the label of Decadence when applied to them for they perceive "decadence" as an "external" and "superficial" label. However, he mentions that the term Symbolism is met with pride while Modernism, as a general term, delineates the particularities of manner, plot, and devices and demarcates a “modernist” style (16). Neo-romanticism, on the other hand, captures the “psychological spirit” of this epoch (18). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18 However, this latter movement in the eyes of moralistically inclined scholars often implicates the writers in the transgression of moral conduct rather than in a highly sensitive awareness of the potential injustices of all moral codes. One of the other problems that is ignored in scholarship or given continuous currency is the ongoing mystification of this period by a reliance on a "spirit" of the period. This attitude in scholarship compounds the problem of literalizing, or imposing a literalization, on any given "literary" evidence with a metaphysical quality. In reference to Decadence it is as problematical as the insistence on a moralistic reading because ambiguities are often misread and misjudged. W hen it comes to Nietzsche and the Decadents, there are no close readings of which I am aware. Yet, it is in an analysis of Nietzsche's way of thinking and the Decadents' way of implementing his critiques that the pitfalls of this trust in "literal-ness" are demonstrated. Whereas the Decadent influences across Central and Eastern European boundaries have been treated in scholarship, the Decadent "demon" rarely receives a sustained focus. Furthermore, while the strong dialogue and camaraderie within the Slavic lands receive little attention, the facts of the popularity and influence of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19 o Nietzsche on Slavic writers has already been well established. It is within these parameters that this study fills a void: the rigorous reading of Decadent texts that rely on the Antichrist and Satan in relation to the fin- de-siecle anxiety concerning imposturous forces in culture. In scholarship on Slavic Decadence the biases of moralism and literalism are evident. The most recent scholarly works that address elements of "demonic literature", the Antichrist, and the fascination with the occult are Pamela Davidson's Russian Literature and its Demons, Adam W einer's By Authors Possessed: The Demonic Novel in Russia, and Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal's The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture. Pamela Davidson serves the editor for Russian Literature and its Demons, a chronologically wide array of articles that are divided into two parts, one on "Traditions and Contexts" and the other on "Literary Demons." Davidson points out that her work arises from an interest in "demonism, as a field of academic enquiry, [which] is alive and burgeoning [. . .][as an] 8 A selective list would include: Karen Evans-Romaine, Boris Pasternak and the Tradition o f German Romanticism', Walter Schamschula, Geschichte der tschechischen Literatur. Band II: Von der Romantik bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg; Ben Heilman, Poets o f Hope and Despair: The Russian Symbolists in War and Revolution (1914-1918)', Magnus Ljunggren, The Russian Mephisto: A Study of the Life and Work ofEmilii Medtner, Avril Pyman, A History o f Russian Symbolism', Robert Pynsent, Questions o f Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas of Nationality and Personality', Michael Wachtel, Russian Symbolism and Literary Tradition: Goethe, Novalis, and the Poetics of Vyacheslav Ivanov, Urs Heftrich, Otokar Brezina: Zur Rezeption Schopenhauers und Nietzsches im tschechischen Symbolismus', and Boris Gasparov and Robert P. Hughes, eds., Cultural Mythologies of Russian Modernism: From the Golden Age to the Silver Age. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20 intriguing strand of Russian cultural tradition" (xiv). In her introduction to Adam W einer's article on Merezhkovskii's trilogy, "The Demonomania of Sorcerers: Satanism in the Russian Symbolist Novel," she states the following: "Weiner demonstrates that symbolist fiction in its chronological development reveals not only a progressive demonization of the authorial personae (protagonists, narrator, and implied author), but also an increasingly disorientating use of narrative point of view" (10). In contrast I hold the point of view that philosophical expressiveness governs the narrative more than a possible "demonization" of the text. It would certainly be interesting to view literary works as acts of a ghoulish nature by the writers. Davidson continues to comment that this progressive demonization "points towards the infiltration of the theme of demonic possession into the very form, manner, and style of its literary expression." This viewpoint comprises a fixation on the thematic governance of a piece of literature. However, because Decadence and Symbolism are accepted as literary movements driven by an aesthetic of Lebenskunst, I believe that it would serve our understanding of the field to broaden our scope to include the thought that drives the narrative.9 Finally, when Davidson 9 The aesthetic of Lebenskunst essentially refers to the merging of life and art. For an overview of particular issues within the Russian variant of Lebenskunst, zhiznetvorchestvo (life-creation), see Irina Papemo and Joan Delaney Grossman, eds., Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia o f Russian Modernism. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21 ends her consideration of Weiner's piece, she states that "it would be interesting to speculate on which came first: was the loss of ethical absolutes a cause or an indirect consequence of the fragmented viewpoint of the modernist aesthetic which gradually took hold in Russia?" Interesting? Perhaps. However, speculation is not altogether necessary here. W e simply need to distance ourselves from the "demonization" of literature and examine the writers' motives, influences, and practical endeavors, the expressions of which arise in their philosophical statements. Challenging ethical absolutes and creating works of fragmentation were already purposeful aims within the Romantic aesthetic For a broader range of articles see Schamma Schahadat, ed., Lebenskunst - Kunstleben: Zhiznetvorchestvo v russkoi kul’ ture XVIII- W vv. Schamma Schahadat in "Das Leben zur Kunst machen" (15-47) considers three modes of Lebenskunst: ritual as a model for a theurgical Lebenskunst, theatrical Lebenskunst, and an authentic Lebenskunst. These modes have their proponents in Andrei Belyi, who represents the theurgical aspect (zhiznetvorchestvo); Nikolai Evreinov, who represents the theatrical aspect (teatralizatsiia); and Nikolai Chuzhak, who represents the anti-theatrical or authentic aspect (zhiznestroenie) (16). Within the scheme of this article Schahadat considers the notion of "text" and translation as significant to Lebenskunst, in that translation provides a process of staging and transforming the "text" into a stage performance. Schahadat also foregrounds this study of Lebenskunst by introducing Oscar Wilde, "die reale Kunstfigur," and Kierkegaard’s "Tagebuch des Verfiihrers" as manifestations of Lebenskunst phenomena that are caught between the real and poetic worlds, where boundaries have been lifted (15). Joseph Zajda also treats Lebenskunst in "The Russian Symbolists' Cult of Beauty-Truth." He considers the difference in aestheticism between that of the Decadents and that of the Symbolists. He calls the "contemplative aestheticism" that favors "treating life 'in the sprit of art'" metaphysical aestheticism and claims that it is based on a notion of "transcendental Beauty" that derives from Kant and Schopenhauer. The significance for Lebenskunst is in the idea that "beauty transforms reality" (72). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22 a century earlier and clearly typify Nietzsche's aims in philosophy already into the 1870s. By ignoring or dismissing the fundamental philosophical thrust of the period, we are left to speculate. W einer's main insight, unfortunately, comes from a moralistic judgment; he notes that Merezhkovskii's intention concerning the synthesis that he was pursuing implies "irresponsibility from a moral point of view" for having misled readers (380). This insight, gained in 1911, seven years after the publication of the last work of the trilogy, may characterize Merezhkovskii's sentiment in 1911 about his "failed" synthesis of the "Christ" and "Antichrist," but it has little scholarly thrust in disclosing the ethical and aesthetic debate of the 1890s or even of the 1910s. It actually serves to dismiss the Decadent period as a "demonic" chapter in history.1 0 W einer states: "Still, this sort of shift is fairly typical of the symbolists' demonic art, of a literature lacking a unified, consistent ethical center and whose moral sense and creative origin the author him self may, with luck, come to understand only through the creative act itself" (380).1 1 This 1 0 It is tantamount to using Tolstoi's condemnation of his works Anna Karenina and War and Peace in order to dismiss not only the aristocratic triviality depicted in the realist tomes but the entire aesthetic as well. 1 1 My analyses suggest that each work considered in this study contains a "unified, consistent ethical center" and a particular "moral" sense and "creative origin" that are foundational for the creative output and not simply arbitrarily discovered after the fact, as Weiner intimates. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23 particular sentiment precludes an incisive and rigorous study of the period 1 9 as it is ridden with intolerance and bias. Although I have referred to the classification of "demonic literature" as proposed by Davidson and W einmer, I resist the use of this classification and any attempts at the definition of evil as pertains to Decadence for the assumptions underlying these terms are themselves In his book-length study By Authors Possessed: The Demonic Novel in Russia, Weiner limits his task in the following way: "to investigate those novels in which the demonic theme interacts suggestively with the novel's images of its author. This study is devoted to the ethically "anxious" novel; that is, the book whose moral viewpoint is compromised by the deviltry of which it tells, as well as the book whose author-deity tries to cast out its demons. The story of this anxiety, possession, and exorcism is one that has not yet been told, but it is well worth the telling, and the telling has never been so timely as now" (x). Weiner warned the reader earlier that in an age of apocalyptic fear, in which good and evil battle each other and the outcome is unknown, there is a need to study the "Devil's relation to Russian literature" (x). Although his undertaking may be noteworthy to some, the overbearing moralism throughout the book discolors its scholarly aim. To suggest a "crack in the moral base" of an author who publishes a "demonic novel" is to contaminate one's scholarship with personal misgivings. Weiner ultimately flounders, if not prematurely, because in his premise he fails to weigh the ethical and aesthetic choices of the author while imposing his own moralistic prejudices. Ironically, the Decadent aesthetic arose in large part to battle fundamentalist tendencies. In the 1890s critics and scholars like Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso labeled all that was socially challenging as "degenerative" because it failed to meet nineteenth century mores; Weiner seems to have imbibed their convictions and continues their tradition. 1 2 See S.L. Slobodniuk, Devils o f the Silver Age (Ancient Gnosticism and Russian Literature 1880-1930) (D'avoly' 'Serebrianogo' veka [Drevnii gnostitsizm i russkaia literature 1880-1930 ggj), which comes closest to a treatment with which I concur; I disagree with Slobodniuk on the point of the Decadents' creation of an anti-Christian trend on the world trajectory and in the evolution of evil. As we can infer from Nietzsche, the self-proclaimed "anti-Decadent Decadent," little stands to be gained by using labels that carry an institutional import especially with artists who distance themselves (from positions denoted by such labels) while simultaneously embracing the controversial appellations. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24 laced with ambiguity. Unfortunately, "Nietzsche," as a term, belongs to such classifications due to the ambiguities inherent in his philosophy and the subsequent appropriation of his ideas by others.1 3 The persistent trend to measure the influence of Nietzsche from an archival or thematic viewpoint, rather than by engaging the "Nietzsche" in the texts hermeneutically, results in scholarship that gets caught within the ideological "turn" of an anti-Decadent bias.1 4 Nietzsche serves as an exemplar of this turn, yet his tropes are taken literally rather than in their 1 3 The name "Nietzsche" signals attributes and characteristics, a heightening of affect, a widening of appeal already attached to Nietzsche as the philosopher and poet who is active from the 1860s to 1890, and a mass movement or force that is culturally contemporaneous and historically bound. The problem of "Nietzsche" and "Nietzscheanism," then, seems to be one of representation. "Nietzsche" and "Nietzscheanism" express abstracted notions that supposedly exist phenomenally. The "spirit" of this "Nietzsche" and the atmosphere constmcted around "Nietzsche" (to convey a force that pervades a culture) are presumably based on the denoted individual's teachings and gestures; however, they compound a problem in understanding Nietzsche as we see in Kristi Groberg's article. The problem with referring to a "spirit" of Nietzsche or Nietzscheanism is that the application of this term to Nietzsche can refer not only to a wide possibility of definitions, nuanced negatively by prior usage, but that it implies a sense of transcendentalization. In a chapter below we will see that Solov'ev argues against terminology that is subject to such hardened conceptualization; he refers to social and philosophical "impostors" in this manner as he tries to found a spiritual phenomenology. Nietzsche's critiques parody such displacements of meaning as he takes on the imaginary personae of Dionysus and Antichrist. 1 4 For studies that specifically treat Russian and Eastern Central European Nietzscheanism see Edith Clowes, The Revolution o f Moral Consciousness: N ietzsche in Russian Literature 1890-1914; Bemice Glatzer Rosenthal, ed., Nietzsche in Russia; Tomasz Weiss, Fryderyk Nietzsche w pismiennictwie polskim lat 1890-1914; Waclaw Berent, Zrodla i ujscia nietzscheanizmu; and Urs Heftrich, Otokar Bfezina. Zur Rezeption Schopenhauers und Nietzsches im tschechischen Symbolismus, a study of the influence of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on the Czech poet and essayist. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. figurative intent. I contend that the thematization of the inherently rhetorical elements of "Nietzsche," the "demon," and "evil" are trapped within a positivism, a notion perceived to be empirically accurate. The irony is that the rhetoric signaled from within the demarcations of "Nietzsche," "demon," and "evil" renders these thematic studies suspect, that is, the conceptualization of these terms presupposes a destabilization of meaning. W e can thereby sense that the logic by which these scholars determine the existence of "Nietzsche," the "demon," and "evil" to be circular for it is not meant to be literal in the first place. Kristi Groberg’s “The Shade of Lucifer’s Dark W ing,” an article in Rosenthal's collection The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, serves as one example of a historical survey that is limited by an insistence on classifications. Groberg fails to consider the tropological resourcefulness inherent in the aesthetic usage of Satan as she merely skims over the possibility of a rhetorical resource in Satan as trope. Instead, she invokes the name of Nietzsche several times as if it were a catchphrase for all things occult, decadent, and immoral; with Nietzsche too, she fails to identify a rhetorical and textual strategy at play.1 5 1 5 Groberg resorts to a validation of her study in an apologetic manner: In the manner of the French occultist Symbolists who had to prove the existence of Satan worship and the black mass in 1890s Paris, I came across only the spoor of what might have Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26 been Satan worship in Silver Age Russia. If it did indeed exist, we probably will never learn very much about it, because it is a noteworthy paradox that the incidence of references to Satan and explicit images of him seem to be in inverse proportion to the seriousness of the belief in him. To profess certain ideas or practices (or be rumored to have professed them) is not necessarily to hold or manifest them. Serious occultists may not have expressed their spiritual investigations through the arts, possibly to avoid notice (in imperial Russia the threat of arrest loomed) or the trivialization of their ideas. Nonetheless, we need to take account of the fact that perceptions about the existence of satanism, whether or not they reflected actuality, are still valid perceptions. (100) This paragraph, the second of Groberg’s chapter on Russian satanism, provides a starting point for the demasking of Satan and a reconsideration of the tum-of-the- century phenomenon of satanism as well as a consideration of Groberg’s own assumptions as they largely reflect the sentiment of scholarship anchored on "existence" and "valid perceptions." What troubles Groberg from within is the paradox and inverse proportion in which she finds herself. "To profess certain ideas or practices (or be rumored to have professed them) is not necessarily to hold or manifest them." As if assisted or possessed by some demoniacal force that allows her to prod onward, she continues to the "multivalent symbolic imagery" in aesthetic practice. I respond to this gesture by introducing Nietzsche as a rhetorical demon, equipped with a certain logic of contradiction and paradox (played out by the use of italics, polaric coupling, and the negation of extremes in order to demarcate a middle space), with the liquidation of the sense of a unified self, with the genealogy as a genus or genre, and with a prescriptive and performative force. (A reading of the preface to the Genealogy alone shows these rhetorical factors at work. The analysis that I will perform will answer the following question, How does genealogy as an imperative figure into a movement overturning positivism and Judeo-Christianity?) There is a buying-into of "Nietzsche" in Groberg’s article. Before demonstrating it, I would like to pinpoint where and how to perceive Nietzsche in her text. He "occurs," or rather, surfaces, in three places. In the first instance Nietzsche hovers in the background: The symbol was - of course - Satan, the Devil, or any one of an assortment of demons from the biblical to the folkloric; more sophisticated were images (directly related to the popularity of Goethe and Nietzsche) of Mephistopheles, the figure of embodied evil, and of Lucifer, the Romantically tragic fallen angel. (100) Then, Nietzsche becomes an attribute: "The Mephistophelian image, with its Nietzschean overtones, had broad appeal in Russia," she remarks on the cosmetic Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27 As perceived in this scholarship the sublimity of the demonic and the occult is lost in favor of a moralistic response to the evil portrayed by Decadent writers. These scholars miss the "comprehension of incomprehensibility," an attribute with which Kant characterized a subject's perception of the moral law "within" and the marveling of a subject at the ability to perceive something of grandeur and of the sublime. I will offer a consideration of evil and the role of the Antichrist in the value of the "hammering" philosopher (114). Here he receives adjectival force, still tied in to Mephistopheles as if a subordinate of the popular devilish clown. The third and last mentioning of Nietzsche appears several pages later: "In the spirit of Nietzsche, Scriabin envisioned all three figures as archrebels whose defiance of God inspires humanity to become its own Almighty" (126). The preceding reference is to Scriabin’s Prometheus. It is left unclear as to how Nietzsche serves to confer "spirit." The usage of this common idiom points to a certain discrepancy in the making-use of Nietzsche, whether of Nietzsche himself, his spirit, or in the Nietzscheanism that takes content, but not necessarily form, from Nietzsche. In Slavic studies this has been somewhat of a problem, as it has been for Nietzsche elsewhere. The present study is an attempt to identify the problem as it existed in the tum-of-the-century’s appropriation of Nietzshe and how it persists in studies up till today. What is it that Scriabin takes or gets from Nietzsche? A handful of pages more and the article ends with no more mention of the philosopher-poet. Groberg takes too literal a reception of this phenomenon and so has to plea with the reader as if an apology needs to be made for taking in perceptions when lacking otherwise proof of empirical significance. It is precisely such a view which hinders scholarship seeking to make sense and reality of that which does not necessarily meet the criteria for sense and reality. Such a view disavows a Nietzschean perspectivism which, of necessity clouds, and philosophically informs, the "turn" of the century. If we consider the development of millenarianism, we come upon Satan as a trope. The symbol of Satan figures as a trope of the cultural turn itself. In her study Groberg notices that Satan often accompanies the erotic, is merged into a pornography, and manifests in a "disfigured, strange, and shamelessly naked form" (104). He is, therefore, a double-hit, a shock to the bourgeoisie with his satanic and pornographic self, a fortification of human weakness in the reference to his "rulership" over human passions and the bodily element. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28 dialogue of the 1890s where the sublime and specific Nietzschean elements of critique (such as the individual sovereign ideal, the grappling over the meaning of representation, and a piercing look into tradition and convention) predominate. Sensationalism is evident in the rhetoric and in the performative gestures embedded in the literature of these 1890s philosophers and essayists; however, sensationalism and fundamentalism are not the primary purposes of this rhetoric. The external elements of their Satanic stance and appeal to occult elements derive from a philosophical need to define the modem subject and epistemological modes of "knowing" and to develop an ability to transcend mere phenomenal existence by perceiving consciousness as an act of epistemological, ethical, and aesthetic unity. This politicized and aestheticized Satan cannot be understood properly through a literalist or moralist reading. The sentiment underlying a moralist’s reaction against the "demon" invariably presupposes a sense of righteousness that counteracts the demon. This claim presupposes a historically fixed and absolute sense of morality, a claim that will be the focus of the texts to be considered below. This approach consists of a confrontation of the cultural opposition to convention and tradition with an offensive based on what is presumably good. It disavows any alternative and claims victory for the sameness inherently dictated by a Judeo-Christian tradition, for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29 which it straggles, and represents a xenophobic attitude that betrays a provincial and fundamentalist fear of otherness. The irony of the scholarship that engages Decadent texts in this manner is that it becomes caught in the very logic that Decadents are in the process of dismantling. This is why a rigorous reading of the texts and tropes is necessitated. Spurred on by what I consider gross mis-readings, I offer close readings of texts on the Antichrist, Satan, and the impostor that appeared in print - with the exception of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy o f Morality (1887) - between the years 1894 and 1900, the period of Nietzsche's "high" influence in Eastern Europe and of the "high" cultural anxiety before the fin de siecle. Nietzsche in the Genealogy philosophizes the turn against convention and tradition. As a philosopher of genealogy, he seeks to debunk knowledge and epistemology, identifies grammar as a culprit, and establishes the ideal of a sovereign individual who overcomes these lacks in culture. Vladimir Solov'ev in his Theoretical Philosophy (1897) and "Short Story of the Antichrist" (1900) proposes a philosophy of authenticity and against imposture - where imposture stands for the act of turning against one's authenticity through reliance on hypostasized notions. He relies on the Platonic genre of the dialogue to express his phenomenological views. Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, in the first installment of Christ and Antichrist - The Death o f the Gods: Julian the Apostate Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30 (1895) - fictionalizes the transformation and turning of Christian figures and icons into antichristian figures and icons and vice versa. As a historical novelist, he takes on the philosophical task of creating a new historiography that will support his views of a "new religious consciousness." Stanislaw Przybyszewski in Homo Sapiens (1895) fictionalizes an aesthete who turns against conventions and traditions, his women and ultimately himself. Przybyszewski, as an essayistic philosopher, posits the Nietzschean sovereign individual in a discourse that favors the satanic psyche and the historical tensions stemming from the development of philosophy from the rationalism of Kant to the "destruction" of Nietzsche. Additionally, the Czech poet Stanislav Kostka Neumann, who will be treated briefly alongside Przybyszewski, utilizes the Nietzschean aesthetic and the "overturning" of the Church to create a liturgy of Satanism that does not wander far from the sounds, logic, and rhetoric of the Christian liturgy. His liturgy is, therefore, self-effacing as they intentionally establish their movement of resistance on the qualities of the very beliefs that they attack. Przybyszewski echoes Nietzsche wherein M erezhkovskii echoes Solov'ev in their privileging of the sovereign individual and the cultural need for authenticity in the form of a sovereign collective “individual” body, respectively. In Przybyszewski Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31 the individual resists conventions while in Merezhkovskii the individual represents collective forces and attempts a cultural synthesis. M y readings of these writers demonstrate that the conflation of Kantian and Nietzschean ideas provided the stage for thinking the Antichrist, introducing the rhetorical "turn" into ethics and aesthetics, and undermining the absolute values of "good" and "evil."1 6 The specific philosophical issues that will arise in connection with these issues include: the representation of the transcendental, or noumenal, as opposed to the phenomenal; the ethics of the sovereign individual; the dialectic of Christ and Antichrist; the persistence of the German tradition; and the notions of Lebenskunst and individual sovereignty. The commonalities of the Slavic writers include the overwhelming influence of Nietzschean ideas and the 1 6 The use of contradiction and irony by Nietzsche and the Decadents are significant in an examination of the subversion of what would constitute a moral law. The lawless god of darkness and of the lower half of the human being serves as a negation in the Hegelian sense of the word, as an overturning or antithesis of the existing order. Satan as symbol marks out a pathway to the "darkness" of the soul, to the possession by will and unconscious. However, these can only be seen by looking into the logic of the period. As Nietzsche remarked about his anti-Decadent position toward Decadence, there is an abundance of rationalism underlying the irrationalism of these symbols and figures of Decadence and the occult. The Apocalypse, the "end of history," the "Antichrist," and various emanations of Satan figure as a thematic frontispiece for Decadent culture, but as frontispieces they are void of any real or philosophical content in and of themselves. It is my intention to focus on these elements of occult interest and their rationalist foundations, whenever they occur, in order to pierce into the strategic positioning of the apocalyptic aesthetic in considerations of ethical and metaphysical significance. An examination of the culture of the Antichrist via a focus on select literary expressions allows for such a work. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. substratum of Kantian philosophy in their literary works and their adherence to the progressive ideals in Nietzsche's aesthetics and ethics. Likewise their politics is informed by a subtle reading of Nietzsche in contrast to the writers who vulgarize Nietzsche. They profess religious ideals and found either a M odernist Catholicism and Orthodox Christianity or stand opposed altogether to Christianity in favor of a satanism and appeal to mystical ideas that bear heavily on the revaluation of historical Christianity. In their code of ethics they make use of the logic, rhetoric, and hermeneutics popularized by Nietzsche. As a group of Decadents they are responsible for credos and manifestos that inaugurate the movement of Decadence and their writing comprises a philosophical essayism and, to varying extents, a development of a new historiographical prose that incorporates specific Nietzschean ideas in a plan to rewrite history.1 7 1 7 Although the George Kreis is implicated in the allusion to aesthetic circles dealing in mysticism and the occult, I defer treatment of the George Kreis to a future study and limit my consideration here to Nietzsche and Slavic Decadence. Stefan George, a lyric poet who associated with Stephane Mallarme and the Symbolists in Paris and Pre-Raphaelites in London, led a school of Decadent and Symbolist artists in Germany and published the journal Blatter fu r die Kunst from 1892 to 1919. George preached poetic ideals and a return to a language free from materialism and naturalism, and relied on mystical themes in his poetry. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33 Nietzsche and Eastern Europe Central and Eastern European writers were well acquainted with N ietzsche’s works either through their travels to Germany or through translations that were available to them in their home countries. Their form of Nietzscheanism marked neither a mere reception nor an appropriation but rather a heritage of cultic aesthetic practice that encompassed ethics and politics. Their position, although indebted to earlier Kantian thought, stood in opposition to Kant's universalist and rationalist principles and to the nineteenth century fields of Empiricism and Positivism. Nietzsche, through his bold and brash polemicizing and rhetoricizing, lent the Slavs a style of self-identification, which marked him as a guarantor of individual sovereignty. His notions of Ubermensch and the will to power provided a new momentum for understanding the nature of "man" from broader perspectives. This form of anti-Christian thinking characterizes what some scholars consider to be the Decadent 1 f i culture of the Antichrist. However, aside from any inherent political or ethical statements whether philosophical, essayistic, or poetic in nature, 1 8 In his article "The Kingdom of the Antichrist and the Yearning of Lucifer: The Faces of Satan in the Literature of Young Poland" ("Krolestwo Antychrysta i tqsknota Lucyfera. Oblicza szatana w literaturze Mtodej Polski") Wojciech Gutowski refers to the Polish Encyclopedia o f the Church (Encyklopedia Koscielna, 1873) for the conceptualization of the personal immoral anti-God as actual embodiment and the apersonal as anti-Christian cultural tendencies: he mentions Nietzsche’s The Antichrist as an example of the latter. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34 Nietzsche instructs his followers indirectly via his rhetorical expressions and his "destruction" of conventional philosophical language. The Genealogy contains a rhetorical resourcefulness in the uses of phrasing, allusions, and gibes. Additionally, Nietzsche's method of genealogy - the rewriting of history with the project of reevaluating morals, an awareness of the infinitude of perspectives in interpretation, and the need to promote a particular notion of the sovereign individual ideal (an individual being who stands unencumbered by the history of Judeo-Christian values) - gained stature for it provided a model of reevaluation, self-definition, and a new historiography in one highly stylized volume of thought.1 9 The 191 do not suggest that this one particular work, On the Genealogy o f Morality, holds the "secrets" to understanding Nietzscheanism in Central Eastern Europe or that other works were of less importance. The Genealogy is simply the most integral of Nietzsche's works and embodies the pivotal critiques and rhetorical strategies that lead to the self-evocation of the "Antichrist" and the formation of a theory about a "new" historiography. Nietzsche’s later works, those from 1883 to 1888 (Thus Spoke Zarathustra [1883]; Beyond Good and Evil [1886]; On the Genealogy of Morality [1887]; The Twilight o f the Gods [1888]; The Antichrist [1888]; and Ecce Homo [1888]) are all generally significant in this connection. These late works as a whole mark Nietzsche’s relationships to Kant, Schleiermacher, and Schopenhauer and provide for an examination of the extent to which the Slavic writers have a firm grounding in the thought systems of German Rationalism, Hermeneutics, and Idealism. The Genealogy, as a systematic development, serves to demarcate his intellectual relationship to his predecessors and to his Decadent followers in a clearer way than do his earlier aphorisms and shorter essays on the same topics. The earlier works contain kernels of ideas expressed in the Genealogy. As Aaron Ridley, a Nietzsche scholar, remarks in Nietzsche's Conscience: Six Character Studies from the "Genealogy", the typology of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Antichrist represented this sovereign individual insofar as it was seen as the exemplary resistor of the Christian tradition and, consequently, a self creator of a renewed and reevaluated tradition. The main reason why Nietzsche and his Genealogy are important within the context of Decadent and Symbolist culture is that a number of Slavs followed Nietzsche in his critique of the institution and culture of the Church. They, in turn, initiated movements to renew and reform Christianity through the creation of Roman Catholic M odernism within Poland and the Czech lands and a "new religious consciousness" within the Russian Orthodox Church. Certain Slavs strove to reject the possibility of a renewed Christianity altogether. They perceived the contemporary and historical Church as the cause of decay within society and as the cause for the loss of individual sovereignty. They could thereby use Nietzschean genealogy as a method to pierce through the conventional, ossified morality in order to identify the arbitrary biases on which the Church was erected and to critique existing social, economic, Beyond Good and Evil becomes transformed into the genealogical method (7). The philosophical goal remains largely intact and the terminological difference serves, instead of pointing to a diversion in his philosophical plan, to add insight to Nietzsche’s insistence on genus and genealogy as developing from an early insistence on type and typology in his methodology. Furthermore, in the Genealogy Nietzsche’s concepts reach a coherent peak before a descent into the overly polemical and scathing tones of The Twilight o f the Gods and The Antichrist. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36 and political orders connected to it or influenced by it. In many cases aesthetics served as an alternative to Christian morality. Nietzsche, as a Lebensphilosoph ("a philosopher of life"), could even impart a philosophical depth to the Lebenskunst aesthetic of the Decadent and Symbolist movements. His followers relied on his thought and his critique of Kant so heavily that Nietzsche’s logic of sovereignty and Kant's ethics of autonomy resurface in the literature of Decadence and Symbolism. The Slavic writers' aesthetic dialogue in this way pinpoints the viability of German philosophy for Decadent culture and their indebtedness to the Germans in the many serious ethical, hermeneutic, political and aesthetic questions that arose. Although the Decadent writers function in a mode of "turning away" from Empiricist objectivity and a "turning toward" mysticism and subjectivism, they refer to Nietzsche and his German philosophical tradition in a syncretistic worldview that merges aesthetics, epistemology, and ethics into one system. The rise of the Nietzschean Antichrist does not occur until late in the 1880s. In his 1887 critique of Judeo-Christianity Nietzsche issues a command that the "Antichrist and anti-nihilist, this conqueror of God and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37 of nothingness - he must come one day" (7 1).20 This awkward "command" from the work On the Genealogy o f M orality is a proclamation and an apostrophe in the third person; and yet, for Nietzsche it is a declaration in the first person, as echoed later in his last and epitaph like work Ecce Homo, a performative statement wherein Nietzsche establishes him self as the Antichrist (whether an "Antichrist" or the generic anti-Christian is not an issue). The problematical term of Antichrist as it relates to its philosophical usage is of primary importance. This notion of Antichrist in its literal and figurative senses is linked to important themes and rhetorical practices in the Genealogy, which also appear in the fictional and historiographical texts and further establish the meaning for this notion during the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The complexity of the definition of Antichrist can be noted firstly in the mood of the term. Nietzsche’s evocation and annunciation of Antichrist is comparable in its mood of "optimism" and irony to declarations within Satanist poetry composed by writers of Decadence and Symbolism. Decadents and Symbolists do indeed conjoin with Nietzsche to welcome the Antichrist as a force that can overcome the stifling 2 0 This and all subsequent references to the English version of On the Genealogy o f Morality will be to the edition by Keith Ansell-Pearson and the translation by Carol Diethe. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38 dogmatic traditions and institutions of, namely, Judeo-Christianity and the Church. As such, these evocations and annunciations of Antichrist, or any anti-Christian element for that matter, come as a conviction rather than a hopeless tirade or bout of wishful evil thinking as certain simplistic views hold as we can infer from the fundamentalist views or the simplistic summations of portrayals in popular culture that depict the archetypal battle between good and evil. The question that is called forth by this address to the Antichrist is not simply something about "good" or "evil," but rather about the origins of this dichotomy, its stifling ways and abuses by authorities, and how to attempt to base a social and aesthetic life on some alternative approach. This address comprises the kernel of an aesthetic literary and cultural movement and a performative gesture that is philosophically charged and indebted to the German Rationalist and Romantic traditions. W hat is most important here is that this gesture is rationalist at core in its subversion of Rationalist thinking, sublime in its aspiration to provide a radically different perspective to traditional philosophy, contradictory and self-effacing in its rhetorical choices, and initiatory in its heralding of a new phase within Modernism. Furthermore, N ietzsche’s mark of the “destruction” of W estern philosophy inscribed within this gesture of Antichrist (which resonates with the “death of God”) signals the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39 call for the birth of a new ethics and aesthetics that are based on his core concept of the new sovereign individual ideal. Nietzsche's call for and self-identification as the Antichrist, therefore, fuel and enrich the already controversial literary movement. The first step in addressing theses various concerns is to analyze Nietzsche's Genealogy as the initiatory genealogical text of ethics, sovereignty, and self-creation. The super-human or Nietzschean "beyond- of-man" and the literary aspects and the historiography of Nietzsche’s Genealogy are closely identified with and related to the anti-Christian approach to ethics and aesthetics, where they are merged together and called life-affirmation, or similarly life-creation.2 1 Nietzsche-neophytes created their texts based on this text to extol the new man of Antichristian and Nietzschean leaning between the years of 1892 and 1900, the high 2 1 The gesture of life-affirmation is subversive to the preceding philosophical positions (e.g., empiricism, positivism, and the critical philosophy of Kant). The anti-Christian pose is foundational for the antecedents of studies of the unconscious, the irrational, and the extra- or supra-historical and yet is rooted in the German tradition of philosophy of representation, of theorizing a bridge between the noumenal and phenomenal. The early treatises and manifestos of the Decadent Symbolists testify to their beliefs and present a position for aesthetics and ethics to develop therefrom. The metaphysical void of the noumenal focus - in some sense an oxymoron for metaphysics must of necessity remain an empirically unknowable void - is only approached via speculation and never breached by empirical knowledge. This is the Kantian position. The social, ethical message or command remains "groundless" in that with or without an act of metaphysical strain - either faith or some other religious gesture of experience - it is preached by what remains inexorably an act of deceitful cunning or self-deception. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. period of Nietzscheanism in Central and Eastern Europe.22 It was this period, more than any other, that set free the "spirit" of Nietzsche in precisely the innocent manner and sincere course charted out by the writers in their Nietzschean idealism before an eventual fall into despair and scepticism at the words of this "Nietzsche."2 3 I also consider N ietzsche’s Genealogy to be the prototypical work seminal for the thinking of the "turn." It is a triptych, which provides a panorama of philosophical views to writers of Decadence. This work is a pinnacle of "turning" against "Kant," "Christ," and the notion of "crisis" itself. The Genealogy offers a performative enactment of turns, stylistically, rhetorically, and logically and lays the ground for an understanding of the cultural Antichrist of the fin de siecle. The Genealogy is also a polemic, a manifesto, and reads like a cannibalization of its own tradition. Seen in context as part of the whole of philosophy, it is a self-destructive repudiation of its sources, and an enactment of the Antichrist as a literary pretender to the throne, an imposturous work. Although it is an overturning of philosophy, it is in itself a later step of 2 2 Rosenthal justifies the notion of "high Nietzscheanism" in her monograph on Merezhkovskii. 2 3 After the early failed revolutions of the first decade of the twentieth century they assign the "Nietzsche" of Nietzscheanism to a questioning and castigation that extends into the Nazi appropriation of Nietzsche that molds him into further "foreign" service. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41 that philosophy and, many would argue, prone to implosion by the very techniques that Nietzsche utilizes to unmask philosophy as a whole.2 4 Furthermore, Nietzsche's rhetoric is indicative of Decadent intent, whether it itself may be gleaned from the literary and cultural texts or not; it remains, however, a deep-running characteristic throughout the course of the movement. It is my aim to demonstrate that the most extensive of Nietzsche's projects, the genealogy of morality, has its parallel in the world of Slavic Decadence. Therefore, it is useful to separate the substance of the genealogy from the plotting and the rhetoricizing in order to view the structure and movements of Nietzsche's thought and as they are reflected and put into play by the Slavic writers. This dissertation, thenceforth, offers what would amount to summaries and analyses of Nietzsche and of the Nietzschean trajectory. It is my belief that this is the only way to safeguard against the "spirit" of Nietzsche, which offers little insight into the Decadent phenomena of fin-de-siecle culture. It happens that the rhetoric, message, structure of delivery, and the "destructive" allure of the genealogy are intertwined with each other and with the labeling of Nietzsche as Antichrist and his thesis of sovereignty as a basis of and goal for humanity. 2 4 Philosophical and literary anarchists bred on Stimer and Nietzsche formed a significant sub-movement within Czech Decadence. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42 Because the Genealogy constitutes such a text of teachings, a set of performative statements, an instructional text, and a code of "new" ethics that undergoes reevaluation, it is rudimentary to fin-de-siecle "man", that is, "man" that tears away the layers of civilization and institutions to uncover the self and find individual sovereignty there. W ithin this text there is also a key to understanding Lebenskunst, the broadly construed attempt to merge life and art by erasing boundaries. Unlike Nietzsche, who calls "for" the Antichrist, the Russian philosopher Vladimir Solov'ev warns "against" the coming of the Antichrist. Solov'ev shared an equally high degree of influence on writers of Decadence and Symbolism (to the point of being elevated to cult status) when compared to Nietzsche and his influence on Slavic Decadents and Symbolists. As Nietzsche before him, he also announced the Antichrist; however, he did so in 1899 at the cusp of the turn of the century in the Antichrist story located in his final work Three Conversations, and having distanced him self in reputation from Nietzsche. In this act of distancing, Solov'ev also expressed caution and criticism of Nietzsche's notion of the Ubermensch. I stress below that in his writing the need for a new ethics and aesthetics arises in part due to a sense of the burdening of man by institutions and hypostasized concepts, or concepts that have lost "living" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43 validity and have become rigid and "lifeless" cliches. Earlier in his lifetime Solov'ev steadily adhered to an idea of overcoming stifling institutionalized notions within the Slavic world throughout his literary life and before Nietzsche's Antichrist had become popular. He theorized a doctrine of Godmanhood, whereby the merging of God and Man would allow for a higher attunement to a mystical reality and the realization of social harmony in earthly affairs in the 1880s. His future god-man was to embody an ideal of the sovereign individual. Nietzsche’s ideal of Antichrist, similarly arising from a need for the sovereign individual, allows for m an’s attainment to a "physiological" reality. However, scholars purport that Solov'ev experienced a disenchantment several years before his death in 1900 with this possibility of Godmanhood and that he, consequently, expounded less optimistically about the Godman. As a result, this final work supposedly shows that he became preoccupied with a negative cultural force that comes embodied in an individual. He 2 5 For a brief overview of Solov'ev's philosophy within Russian culture see Frederick Copleston's Philosophy in Russia: From Herzen to Lenin and Berdyayev (201-40). However, when it comes to Solov'ev's Antichrist story, Copleston offers a literal reading that offers the reader little more than a consideration of the dire cultural constraints on Solov'ev's worldview (211). This contrasts considerably with the reading that I will offer, that of an intentionally "mis-reading" and punning Solov'ev. In terms of my references to Kant, Copleston does support my reading in the following statement: "Moreover, 'exclusively' theoretical philosophy was for him [Solov'ev] equivalent to rationalism, in the sense of knowledge of the forms of thought as exemplified in the critical philosophy of Kant, with its denial of the possibility of knowing the 'thing in itself "(213). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44 identified this force as the Antichrist. Therefore, while both Nietzsche and Solov'ev looked on the status of their contemporary culture and philosophy in disdain, Nietzsche heralded the Antichrist as a "savior" while Solov'ev seems to have admonished his readers of an inevitable imposturous force, embodied in the term Antichrist. Obviously some contradictions exist here. These, however, remain within their terminology and not in the sentiment experienced by both Nietzsche's and Solov'ev's followers in the movements of Decadence and Symbolism. For this reason I examine Solov'ev as a philosophical voice that responds to "Nietzsche," that is, Nietzsche elevated to the parenthetical Nietzsche, because it appears that Solov'ev was responding to vulgarizations of Nietzche's ideas or was rhetorically "adjusting" them for his own philosophical purposes and reputation. Solov'ev had a growing following, but clearly not to the international degree that Nietzsche had. Although their influences differ quite a bit, the syncretistic Decadents and Symbolists, like Dmitrii M erezhkovskii and Andrei Belyi, embraced both without any apparent difficulties. Although this situation did certainly change later in the literary movements of the twentieth century, in the early phases of Decadence and Symbolism represented in the works that I analyze here, the situation is one of complete acceptance and high optimism. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45 Antichrist Culture The basis for the extreme interest in the Antichrist for the Decadent period is in its ability to represent a broad, cultural force that can equally be personal and apersonal and that can manifest equally as a physical being and a consuming cultural tendency within one concept and one proper name. This Antichrist, therefore, serves as a tool in critiquing the existing social, economic, and political orders and in simultaneously offering an aesthetic alternative while piquing broad attention and concern.26 Disciples of Nietzsche and Solov'ev, the two main proponents 2 6 It is generally accepted that the Nietzschean influence on the Eastern European Decadents and Symbolists was at its highest peak in the decade of the 1890s and the first half of the first decade of the twentieth century. The impression that the statement makes is that Nietzsche steered aspects of culture onto certain individuals who were especially open to his influence. However, I point to the possibility that Nietzsche was simply part of a larger culture that played into a logic and rhetoric of the anticipation of the turn of the century; it was a culture based on the "turn" and on the figure of the "Antichrist," who embodied that turn as a "turning against" and as a "turning" to the flip side of things. As we will see, the "Antichrist" gesture is also a proverbial flip of the coin to the Other side of things. "Heads or tails" is not about a choice between two differing things, but rather two opposing perspectives of the same. This is not to say that Positivism and Rationalism are the "same" as Decadence, but that the most radically perceived gestures of the Decadents stem from the same source. The Decadents tend to self-consciously refer to these traditions in a deprecating manner. The Antichrist is not foreign or Other to Christ, but a "turning" about of Christ and things in general as they appear. What my dissertation does is to address these questions as they arise in Decadence-Symbolism by reading seminal texts of pre- turn anxiety with an eye to the "flip-side" of things. "Heads or tails" equally holds the key to the same coin; likewise, the "heads or tails" or "Same or Other" of the Christ and Antichrist equation holds the key to understanding the literature of the period, and the aesthetic and ethical implications of the Lebenskunst phenomenon within art. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46 of the philosophical Antichrist, accepted these philosophers' teachings (even though Solov'ev distanced him self from N ietzsche’s ideas) without perceiving a discord in terminology. The ability to join two philosophers with many discrepancies between their ideas attests to the generally syncretistic worldview of Decadence. However, these discrepancies arose mainly on the superficial level; the sentiment underlying their ideas proved to be consistent. If we consider the cultural broadness and syncretism of the period, we can then add a focus on the fundamental aspects of "thinking the Antichrist" and the contexts for doing such. There are several implications in the usage of the Antichrist that are rhetorical and tropic in nature. These tropic functions exist in the usage of the Antichrist in the following manner. They connote "coming," "going," "calling," "advocating," "admonishing" - functions of movement to and fro, and also of "turning" (turning things upside down and posing the "anti-" position to the thesis). A fundamental question of the coming of the Antichrist as it concerns this fin-de-siecle culture of Central Eastern Europe is directly related to the question of the role of Nietzsche's call for Antichrist in Central Eastern Europe. Both of these questions raise cultural and aesthetic issues, which stem from the initial rise to importance of the cultural Antichrist. Before these cultural issues can be considered, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47 basic philosophical questions underlying the Antichrist must be addressed, such as the significance, the purpose, and the identity of the Antichrist, if Antichrist indeed specifies a proper name for a representation of an absolute force that is directly opposed to the Christ. These fundamental considerations lead away from preoccupations with plot and characters and into the rudimentary, shaping philosophical debates of the fin de siecle. W alter Kaufmann refers to a confusion when translating "Antichrist” in a footnote to his translation of one of N ietzsche’s works.2 7 The Antichrist can either signify the "anti-" of the Christ or the "anti-" of the generic Christian world. He chooses "anti-Christian" over "Antichrist" in his particular translation to stress the philosophical nuance, but states that a bifurcation remains nonetheless. This strategy in translation can also characterize the Antichrist in its application to the writers of the fin de siecle, for whom the fin-de-siecle Antichrist arises as a sign of rebellion 2 7 See Kaufmann’s translation and edition of Basic Writings o f Nietzsche (585). Kaufmann makes his remark in reference to Essay III, Section 24 of On the Genealogy o f Morality. Michael Tanner, in his introduction to R. J. Holllingdale's translation of Twilight o f the Idols/The Antichrist, takes it one step further. He believes that "Antichrist" signifies either "Antichrist" or "anti- Christian" simultaneously since either is an opponent of Christ. However, according to Tanner the measure of opposition should not be the "Christ," but Dionysus, who has two opponents, the "worthy" Christ and the "unworthy" Christian (14-15). Tanner alludes to Nietzsche’s privileging of the element of life that Dionysus represents over religious concerns. Christ, as a representative of a living philosophy would, therefore, not be the target of the "Antichrist"; the "institutional" Christ and Christian (as moralists) are the targets. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48 against a two-thousand-year-old reign of Christianity, its figurehead, and the culture that has been influenced by Christianity. W e can see how confusion persists due to the anchoring of the Antichrist on the Christ. In the philosophical setting the one cannot obliterate the other as it is founded upon it, as a fractioning or fracturing of the original thesis into its antithesis. This pairing can even imply "prodigality" such as that of the "lost son" whose innocence cannot be recovered but with whom reconciliation is possible. This is partly the relation of the Antichrist to the Christ - the irrecoverable of the same essence stands to be subsumed into the original in order to balance an equation wherein Christ outwardly represents sameness and Antichrist represents absolute otherness. Nietzsche demonstrates this balancing equation when he offers to destroy the tradition off which he feeds. This is the meaning behind his claim to be simultaneously a Decadent and the exemplary anti-Decadent. He takes the theme of the parasitical impostor to an extreme to hint that the impostor may not be altogether disingenuous; this notion of impostor will be explored more fully in the reading of Vladimir Solov'ev and his philosophy of authenticity. Rather than seeking gain and recognition as an adversary and opponent, the impostor may want to heal and cure a sick system by "destroying" it, even if he is implicated by this act. His "anti-" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49 position, as antagonist and antithesis, is a challenge for the protagonist Christ position to come into balance and to correct itself. This way of understanding Antichrist is self-evident if we logically and rhetorically deduce the connection between Christ and Antichrist. Detailed definitions of the Antichrist according to histories of the Antichrist, in dictionaries of demonology or encyclopedias of the Apocalypse, give an altogether different sense.28 However, these broad 2 8 Examples of encyclopedic entries are: Russkii demologicheskii slovar'. The section on the "Antichrist" covers the history of the term in Russia up to its connections with trepidation concerning China and the anticipation of a comet in 1899; Roberto Rusconi's article "Antichrist and Antichrists" in The Encyclopedia o f Apocalypticism, Volume 2: Apocalypticism in Western History and Culture (287-325) covers biblical imagery into the Middle Ages. The Catholic Encyclopedia (Volume 1) offers a definition of the Biblical sense of “Antichrist” and a listing of instances in Ecclesiastical literature as well as Protestant and Catholic summations of Antichrist. Several cultural histories are worth noting for their insight into understanding the Antichrist as a psychological and cultural entity. Robert C. Fuller in Naming the Antichrist: The History o f an American Obsession claims that a people's "attempts to 'name the Antichrist' consequently reveal much about their culture's latent hopes and fears" (5). He goes on to claim: The history of Americans' obsession with naming the Antichrist draws attention to their almost limitless capacity for mythologizing life. With the help of biblical metaphors, many Americans are able to mythologize life by 'seeing' that there are deeper powers at work behind the surface appearance of worldly events. Everyday life is viewed against a cosmic background in which the forces of good are continually embattled by the forces of evil [...] The Antichrist's relationship to Satan is traditionally conceived in an analogy to the relationship between Christ and God: the incarnation into the human world of a son or mediating agent whose purpose is to secure - or thwart - the salvation of souls. Just as Christ works through the Church and other historical agencies to promote God's will on earth, the Antichrist assists Satan by working through various persons and social Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50 movements to spread chaos and to thwart the redemption of souls. (5) Bernard McGinn unfortunately does not consider Nietzsche because he does not fit into his scheme of things in Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil. Bernard McGinn believes that the legend of the Antichrist is not a subject under which Nietzsche can be addressed - moreover that Nietzsche is not an Antichrist, but an antichristian. However, McGinn does spend several pages discussing Soloviev's version of the legend, a considerable amount of space considering that he is surveying 2,000 years within the space of 300 pages. I contend that Nietzsche's gesture of invoking the Antichrist is an act of calling forth 2,000 years of legend and myth. The division of Antichrist and antichristian blurs, rather than clarifies, the issue. McGinn does concur, however, with Fuller "that Antichrist has already come - that is, that the most important message of the Antichrist legend in Western history is what it has to tell us about our past, and perhaps even about our present attitudes toward evil" (xii). McGinn states that other than Solov'ev, there was one other contemporary thinker who saw "Antichrist as essential for the true understanding of evil." He quotes from Carl Jung's Aion: Researches into the Phenomenology o f the Self. "Christian tradition from the outset [...] is filled with intimations of a kind of enantiodromian reversal of dominants. I mean by this the dilemma of Christ and Antichrist" (qtd. in McGinn 273-74). Jung purports that early Christianity allowed for the coexistence of good and evil, or "all-embracing totality that even includes the animal side of man" in the "imago Dei" or "image of God" embodied in Christ. "In the empirical self, light and shadow form a paradoxical unity. In the Christian concept, on the other hand, the archetype is hopelessly split into two irreconcilable halves, leading ultimately to a metaphysical dualism - the final separation of the kingdom of heaven from the fiery world of the damned" (qtd. in McGinn 274). McGinn clarifies Jung's meaning: The split between Christ and Antichrist, at least insofar as the two figures are considered as psychological archetypes, was bound to have unfortunate repercussions in the history of Christianity. Total neglect of Antichrist, or denial of the reality he symbolizes, is psychologically unwise. If Antichrist is not integrated in the world of the psyche, he will project himself outward into culture through the process of 'enantiodromia,' or emergence of an unconscious opposite, which Jung saw beginning with the Renaissance and culminating in the modem world with its anti-Christian spirit that fulfills early Christian expectations of the end (that is, its own end) [...] It is only the reintegration of the two sides of the self symbolized in Christ Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51 historical and cultural perspectives fail to address the Antichrist as a philosophically infused trope. Although Nietzsche’s self-reference to the Antichrist may be familiar to most readers, it would require more explication and analysis than these readymade cultural models offer. (For this reason I will scrutinize the Genealogy for strategies that point toward the need for a fin-de-siecle Antichrist, that is, the historical-literary Antichrist that is steeped in the philosophical underpinnings of the tradition from Kant to Nietzsche and that appears in the literary works of the Slavic Decadents.) Beginning with the thesis of Christ and moving to the antithesis, the Antichrist, the works to be analyzed here consist of acts of synthesis that the Decadent authors perform in order to restore and maintain a balance between the former two, a balance that returns and Antichrist that can allow for psychological wholeness. (274- 75) McGinn clarifies that Christian understanding of Antichrist has been based on a sense of the "absolute and final opposition" between Jesus Christ and the "human" impostor. Jung's claim, however, is that a "higher psychological law of the coincidence of opposites" has been disregarded historically and, according to Thomas J. Altizer, a scholar of William Blake, the goal of the coincidence of opposites is a "positivity beyond current divisions between good and evil: 'An apocalyptic and dialectical coincidence that unites Christ and Antichrist can be nothing less than a total process of cosmic regeneration, a process that in reversing the opposites of fallen history makes possible their final reintegration'" (qtd. in McGinn 275). These ideas are clearly mirrored not only in the themes of the decadents' works analyzed here, but in there styles of paradox and juxtaposition of opposites. Jeffrey Burton Russell, another scholar who presents demonic elements in their historical setting, concurs with the non-moralistic views of Fuller and McGinn mentioned above. The Prince o f Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power o f Good in History is one of several works by him on this vast topic. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52 sovereignty to the individual and casts away the individual’s subordination to an institutional Church and state. These representations of Antichrist differ from those of the historical and religious accounts in that they receive justification and impulse from Nietzsche's literary texts as an anchor for the period. "Nietzsche" is often equated to Antichrist as is "Przybyszewski" to Satan, suggesting that the Decadent Antichrist is based partly on personality-worship. One becomes the other in popular parlance so that the boundaries between author and rhetorical figure are suppressed. W hen these boundaries cease to exist, the aesthetic of Lebenskunst proves successful. W ith this particular aesthetic the philosopher takes on the meaning of the movement based on him as well as acts performed by his followers. To aggravate the situation further, "Nietzsche" becomes a synonym not only with Nietzscheanism, but also with a "spirit" of Nietzsche. Therefore, the aesthetic of Lebenskunst takes on a "life" of its own. The blurring of boundaries is not only by choice of the artist, but also due in part to the progression of a growing cultural perception. Now, this act of positing "Antichrist" partly, if not to a large degree, on Nietzsche's influence (and the growing cultic phenomenon of Nietzscheanism) leads to a secondary group of questions, which concerns the purpose of Nietzscheanism as a movement, its defiance of definition and its fluidity, and the identification of Nietzscheanism as a manifestation Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53 of Antichrist culture.29 I will offer a practical measure by which the writers analyzed here contributed to elevating Nietzsche to Nietzscheanism by incorporating his central ideas into their own texts and how the Nietzschean Antichrist serves as a rhetorical strategy for cultural critique.3 0 One element, which spans the Antichrist thinking of the works analyzed here is the philosophical issue of the sublime. It is part of the larger rhetoric and, perhaps, a governing element in that it underlies epistemology, ethics, and aesthetics. Nietzsche’s preface in the Genealogy serves a particularly interesting role in grounding this issue. In his act of "pre-facing" (fore-wording; Vor-rede) Nietzsche acknowledges the knowledge of the un-knowledged and offers an initial explanatory note of the way things are in W estern culture. Nietzsche literally posits his reader before the figurative abyss of transcendentalized language. This act 2 9 Geoff Waite in Nietzsche's Corps/e: Aesthetics, Politics, or, The Spectacular Technoculture o f Everyday Life tackles the notion of "Nietzsche/anism" and mentions that the relationship between Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism is one in which one term equally implies something of the other while concealing something as well (21-30). This is equally characteristic of the uses of Nietzsche and the phenomenon of Nietzscheanism explored in this study. 3 0 See the following works for scholarship on the influence of Nietzsche throughout Russia and Central Eastern Europe: Bemice Glatzer Rosenthal, ed., Nietzsche in Russia', Alice Freifeld, Peter Bergmann, and Bemice Glatzer Rosenthal, eds., East Europe Reads Nietzsche', and Edith Clowes, The Revolution o f Moral Consciousness: Nietzsche in Russian Literature, 1890-1914. See also Peter Barta, ed., The European Foundations o f Russian Modernism for articles on broader aspects of Nietzsche’s influence on Eastern Europe, especially "A New Word for a New Myth: Nietzsche and Russian Futurism." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54 resounds later in Solov'ev's positing the Roman persona-mask in his Theoretical Philosophy and highlighting the expression in Russian for face (lik-litso-lichina), which I link to the notion of the sublime. W hat is common to all three is the positing of a "known" substance or entity, knowledge or face. W hat we have can be observed and is evident as far as seeing goes. However, taking into consideration the etymological meaning of the sublime, we recognize that we are "before" or "at" (pre- or fore-) the limits and boundaries. The "knowledge" that we, as knowers, do not know and the masks, faces, and personas that harbor equally "unknown" elements or elements that are beyond the limits of our ^ I knowledge pose a question of what is beyond the limit. If the earth is flat, is the point "beyond" the horizon a falling off? Is the Antichrist an indication of a falling-off? Is an experience of the sublime a falling-off the edge into an unknown? Is turning over a mask or looking beyond a person equally a falling-off? Essentially the Decadents deal with the question of what happens when knowledge is discovered to be lacking and 3 1 One manner in which to undertake a study of Decadence is by a focus on the conception of self. Robert Pynsent in Questions of Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas o f Nationality and Personality offers a study of Decadence as the site of a disintegrated, fluid, dissolved, or fragmented self. Pynsent identifies Decadence as a point in time when "the analysis of the self, of the persona of consciousness, becomes the central concern of literature" (102). The word persona, referring to "mask," further foregrounds the fluidity and fragmentation that occurs. Max Nordau, Max Stimer, and Schopenhauer among others offer critiques of the self while Nietzsche and Wilde offer alternatives such as the Ubermensch and the Dandy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55 to be in the inevitable perpetual state of falling-off. To think this way is to think the sublime, for the sublime is there where incomprehensibility is to be grasped by consciousness. The main assumption that I hold in relation to these issues is that the Antichrist is integrated into an experience of the sublime. The Antichrist is emblematic of "turns" in grammar, ethics, and politics; the Antichrist is a trope and of the nature of the sublime, which - in the Kantian sense - means it is inspiring of awe due to our incomprehensibility of it and, yet, our comprehension of this very act of incomprehensibility, which inspires within us awe at our ability to perceive our finiteness at the verge of holding something before us that is beyond comprehension. I refer to Kant's Groundwork fo r the Metaphysic o f M orals (1785) as well as to the Critique o f Judgment (1790) in the invocation of this definition of the sublime. This notion is in fact at the core of Kant's development of practical reason, or ethics, and his analysis of the ability to act according to moral law. The fact that the comprehension of our incomprehensibility should serve as a near-religious impetus to stand in awe of oneself and to follow a categorical imperative is quite telling. This element of the sublime, the comprehension of our incomprehensibility of the "incomprehensible," serves as the missing link between pure and practical reason and aesthetic judgment. In this is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56 rooted radical evil, which appears to be nothing more than the source of the ability to perform action without concern for an imperative and without reverence for the incomprehensibility. There can only be incomprehensibility where something cannot be reduced to a simple formula. Kant, however, takes control of this incomprehensibility by privileging the perceiving subject with an ability to stand objectively over its own lack before the perceived "monstrosity" and to acknowledge a greatness within the subject nonetheless in its ability to comprehend at least the magnitude of "monstrosity" before it. In this choice of power, which is subjectively rooted, is an ethics that bears a potential of destructiveness. The subject can invoke the externally perceived grandeur, magnitude, or monstrosity as if from within; rather than relishing the awe and delighting in a moral law, the subject can assign the grandeur, magnitude, and monstrosity to itself.3 2 W hat Decadent writers do is not to subsume and normalize the threat of the Other in the image of the Antichrist, but embrace this Other, Antichrist, as the "over-turner" of tradition and convention, and expel the 3 2 We can consider the thoughts about the Critique o f Judgment from Rogozinski's article "It Makes Us Wrong: Kant and Radical Evil" (30-45) in reference to the ability to act horrendously, or simply in an "evil" manner. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57 Same of tradition and convention. They perform a "turn" from the expected treatment of threat; in essence they manipulate the sense of the sublime (under or before the limit as Jeffrey Librett points out in his foreward to O f the Sublime), cross over the "limit," but they fail, by standards of literary or canonical success, as novelists. Only Nietzsche and Solov'ev survive the aging process - their thoughts have pertinence and are applicable beyond their time (perhaps because they write from within a category of philosophical writing) - whereas M erezhkovskii and Przybyszewski are locally available and applicable. Their (Merezhkovskii and Przybyszewski) invocations of philosophers and philosophical gestures ("naming," "renaming") outlast their acts of fictionalization. Thus, the performative aspects of their literature hold lasting value and contain more strongly the Lebenskunst aesthetic than do the plots and 331 refer to the notion of "subsuming" and "normalizing" set forth by Kirk Pillow in his book on the sublime, Sublime Understanding: Aesthetic Reflection in Kant and Hegel (2). Pillow studies how Kant "explores the limits of determinately conceptual or representational thinking" and the appeal to cultural tendencies "that would valorize indeterminacy, suspect conceptual unities, and bind all understanding to prediscursive felt contexts of intelligibility, setiments that apply to Neo-romanticism (1-2). In terms of my focus on the evil and the Antichrist of these philosophically informed texts of Neo-romanticism, I find support in the statement that “sublime reflection... provide[s]... a model for a kind of interpretive response to the uncanny Other 'outside' of our conceptual grasp" (2). See Eliane Escoubas, "Kant or the Simplicity of the Sublime" in O f the Sublime: Presence in Question (55-70). Insightful as well in this collection of articles in relation to the Kantian sublime are: Jean-Luc Nancy, "The Sublime Offering" (25-53); Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe, "Sublime Truth" (71-108); Jean- Fran^ois Lyotard, "The Interest of the Sublime" (109-32); and Jacob Rogozinski, "The Gift of the World" (133-56). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58 characterizations. This is where I propose a renewed consideration of Decadent works. Another way in which to understand the sublime dimension of the Antichrist is to consider that the Antichrist functions as an alter-Christ, an Other of the Christ, that is inscribed from within history in order to determine the limits of history from within history. Christ and the Anti- are thus interdependent, so that Antichrist conveys the immanent implosion of the historical course of events stemming from the initiatory Christ, and the built-in mechanism from the time of Christ (the Apocalypse and Revelation giving full imagery to this figure) to check itself in reserve. The Christ may be considered a substantive whereas the Antichrist is qualifier of the substantive, a measure of its success. Indirectly related to the Antichrist (as alter-Christ) and to the sublime is the ideal of the sovereign individual. It arises within the moral history that Nietzsche charts out in his genealogy as part of a plan to inspire a model of historiography of both the individual and the human genus within history. This ideal also seems to influence the historical novel of Decadence as well as a form of the philosophical essay. This particular gesture of the sovereign individual fuels Decadence by forming a call for ethical and aesthetic responses. The sovereign individual is an individual that is free from all restraints having to do with culture, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 59 religion, and history: some "one" akin to the beast of prey, a non-existent being as far as we are concerned. Although Nietzsche professes the need and calls for this individual, he equally decries the possibility of a pure sovereign individual. The founding of individual sovereignty as a legitimate philosophical pursuit by Nietzsche and as a literary quest for the writers in their works and lifestyles as they create their "superman" anti-heroes, reverberates through the literature of this period. It raises the issue of a renewed and activated sense of subjectivity for modem man with the sole aim of restoring something of the primordial and instinctive, pure impulses of a life uninstitutionalized and unideologized, and of a somewhat socially subversive nature. This element and the accompanying idea-movement of Lebenskunst, or life-creation, carry a charge of immorality. As an integral part of Neo-Romantic aesthetics, these practices serve symbolically as if to portray "Antichrist" activity and posit it in contradistinction to the "Christ," the appellation that is ridden with the failings of Humanism, Rationalism, Idealism, Empiricism, Positivism, and Industrialism. Decadent gestures and notions of satanism and Antichrist awareness in philosophy and in the aesthetic practices of life-creation appear as manifestations and implications leading from the call for the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60 creation of this new sovereign man, which can be expressed in numerous ways. The authors to be analyzed here pave the road for new religions (Solov'ev, Merezhkovskii) or cultic aesthetic practices (Przybyszewski). However various their projects and however they may differ in scope from one another, they are linked by a common pursuit of sovereignty and a common logic of the "turn." Essentially, they even promote a culture of personality worship wherein the person shares attributes of polar opposites, light and dark, and his or her actions are full of contradictions. Therefore, significant to this culture of the new sovereign individual is the undercurrent of reversals in thought, logic, expressions, and even in the adherence to ideals. The turn of the century highlights the "turn" itself as a way of life so that turns, whether as in irony or contradiction, become the dominant meta-trope of this aesthetic community. The trope designates a "turn," as a figure of speech; the meta trope refers to the acts and actions that take on similar turns and demarcate Decadent social behavior. Effectively, Decadent culture that aims to "create" life does so by affecting it with art and serving as a channeling device for all these gestures of irony, contradiction, subversion, etc. Therein may be some of the fascination with the occult as a metaphor for the self-conscious philosophical stances of the artists, who channel into Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61 life what serves as a hidden source of power behind empirical data and who establish from this their sense of sovereignty. The artists' Lebenskunst behaviors and literary texts function as aesthetic texts in tandem. This movement of behavior and text toward each other forms an experience of aestheticism that yields an expression of the sublime. Unlike art for art's sake or utilitarianism's utility of art as device, or instrument in the service of life, Decadence moves to accomplish an "otherworldly" experience of this world, yet uncannily "sameworldly," and a transgression and supersession of previous literary movements' dictates. For this reason the "supernatural" and "demonic" are convenient tools. The personalities of the artists "figure" strongly and represent manifesto-like qualities for the literary movement that are as explicit as their literary output. For this reason tropes and figurative language in the hands of the Decadents are raised one notch higher as they move from being figures of speech to "figurings" of behavior; irony and contradictions become tropes of an "action" ethics and the sublime moves from the realm of philosophical contemplation to the actual experiences.3 4 3 4 As Fingieren connotes simulation in German (and fingere in Latin means fashioning or forming), the "figuring" of meaning in speech, the "finger-ing" of such into a semantic mechanism, so too does the turn of speech, as trope, or vrt (the Slavic root) connote a screwing or "turning." See Renate Lachmann's reference to Wolfgang Iser in Memory and Literature: Intertextuality in Russian Modernism (343). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62 The second response, although arising as inextricably linked to the ethical nature of Decadence, is aesthetically inclined. The literary gestures contained in the aesthetic texts and in the personalities of the authors contribute to the aesthetic of Lebenskunst, or life-creation. As a concrete practice (aesthetically and ethically), Lebenskunst points to the abstracted practices of historiography and philosophy. It is by shaping and using these disciplines that the artists gain creative access to the phenomena of changes and to the fixed "beyond" so that their concrete and specific experiences relate to the abstracted principles on which historiography and philosophy are invariably based. We, therefore, have the popularity of the historical novel, the philosophical essay, and the use of mystical poetry in order to enact this life-creation process. The artists appeal to these forms and practice their merging and "turning" of polarities and create an androgynization of dualities. Lebenskunst is, therefore, an act of founding and creating in the present moment, of treating the chaos and rough material and molding it with an intention of investing it with the artists' presence, of making it in Similarly, the crisis experienced (the circle Kreis and the crisis Krisis) demands this "turn" of events. Etymologically, the linguistic and literal experience is fixated on a "screwing" or "turning" of sorts, so that the Romantic image of the spiral is enlivened and synthesized into the rotations, gyrations, recurrences, and the "eternal returns" that gain currency in the Decadent culture of the turn of the century. See also Ira Livingstone's Arrow o f Chaos: Romanticism and Postmodernity on Romantic spirals and vortices. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63 their image (with the Biblical creation and Nietzschean auto-production in scope) and embodying the unshaped with an aesthetic and ethical plan. The resulting work is often rendered as a contradiction in practice for the realization is rarely synchronous with the starting idealization. However, Lebenskunst is synchronous with the various pursuits tied to the bid for sovereignty. Lebenskunst can be termed life-affirmation for it is an act of affirming and positing a certainty concerning one's determination and abilities to form an impression on life. It adheres to Nietzsche's will-to- power, the philosophical treament of which provides a clarification of the intentions and impulses behind the various manifestations of the will-to- power. The reason for contradictions within life-creation practices is self- evident. To assert one's freedom and one's will, one must stand in contrast to what is ordained and demanded by societal constraints and then "create" or "destroy" anew. Nietzsche's aphorism on the necessity of destroying one temple in order to construct another relays the meaning of one construct replacing or superceding another. To Nietzsche this is simply the force of "physiology" in philosophy. The Antichrist contains these elements of life-creation, of an aesthetic text that extends into life and incorporates contradictions. The Antichrist is a trope for history and a trope for the "end of history" so that it conveys a tradition and its overcoming. The writers treated in this study Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64 have substituted a concrete, knowable and thinkable phenomenal Antichrist for the unthinkable, unknowable noumenal end or decline, the imperfection and incompletion of world history. Philosophically, the writers substitute a culturally interesting character for the sublime and unrepresentable Antichrist to which they allude. This life-creation, which revolves around the sublime, can be defined in its Kantian and Burkean senses - depending on the styles and intentions of the writer. This sublime is Kantian in the sense of a perceiving subject's awe displayed toward an unconceivable object, and the same subject's self-satisfaction in being able to actually "conquer" this sublime through contemplation. The sublime is Burkean when the subject expresses tremendous fear at being overpowered by something great and beyond conception.3 5 3 5 The Antichrist is a "sublime" Other representable aesthetically, ethically, psychologically, and physiologically as a liberating force seated in the opposing religious and mythological character to the Christ. This Antichrist receives treatment in literature in several ways: through representation in history, in apostrophe (poetical address), in a "genealogy" of morality and the new historical novel. In the Russian tradition Solov'ev presents the story of the "end of history." Merezhkovskii presents a new history, and Briusov presents a Faustian aesthetic in history. The latter two are Nietzscheans. In the Polish context Przybyszewski presents the idealistic world of aesthetics and ethics; his is a psychology suboordinated to the "satanic" physiological force. Micinski presents a mythological world in his poetic history of the Tatry mountains. Berent’s work is socially based, but modeled on a Nietzschean aesthetic. Przybyszewski and the Czechs Hlavacek, Karasek ze Lvovic, and Neumann address it obliquely from a cult of satanism that bases itself wholly outside of Christianity. Hlavacek, and Karasek ze Lvovic, and Neumann present poetical hymns to the satanic and decadent. Otokar Brezina fashions a poetic philosophical prose to unearth the hidden history of sublimity on earth. They all participate in enriching the textual, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65 The irony in considering Kant a significant source for Antichrist thinking of the 1890s is that Kant poses as a critical marker for the writers of this era. As much as Nietzsche stands for Antichrist, Kant represents the crisis of Kantian philosophy and rationalism itself. There are numerous allusions to Kant and crisis, perhaps as many or more than to Christ and Antichrist, in the works to be analyzed here. Furthermore, the works and activities of the fin de siecle seem to address the traditions of Kant, Christ, and Crisis (at the "turn") as easy and attractive targets of decay. These traditions appear somewhat synonymous because at the confluence at the turn of the century they have reached a critical breaking point (pere-lom, prze-lom, break-through). Thus, the traditions of Kant, Christ, and the Crisis (of representation and of the subject) receive a debunking during a pivotal cultural expression of degeneration and decadence within philosophy and literature. However, within this movement of Decadence negative connotations and denotations of degeneration and decadence refer not to the movement itself but to the effects wrought by previous influences, most notably Rationalism, the Church, and the general biases within many schools of philosophy. The overturning of tradition can also be linked to the "cries" of Antichrist to rhetorical, and tropic function of the Antichrist. In this way they propagate the culture of the Antichrist and give it a literary "life" while developing a sense of the sublime in literature. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 66 overturn tradition as they are voiced by the Kreis (the societies, groups, or cults attaching to the phenomena) and expressed in the crises associated with evocations of a pluralistic thought embodied in the countering of the Christ. The artists of fin-de-siecle culture in this light perform a bridge between their Antichrist (as a "physiologically" real counterpart to the transcendental, absolute, and speculative Other of religious and empirical philosophies) and the stagnant Christ. The Christ functions, then, as a symbol or metaphor for a greater part of culture, civilization, and institutionalization that counteract "life." Decadent writers as a whole move in this direction. Their practices may at times be associated with satanism or Lebenskunst, whereby the parties act in what is perceived to be immoral and unethical behavior, usually involving alcohol and substance abuse, sexual deviance and adulterous behavior, dabbling in the occult, and expressing little regard for social restraint (with suicide even portraying an ultimate act of self-determination). However, literary histories and studies that categorize thematically fail to perceive these literary acts that incite, invoke, provoke or preach the Antichrist, or any related manifestation such as Satan or Lucifer, as philosophically, ethically, aesthetically, and hermeneutically important because of the use of such tropes. These studies of the period often fail to demystify the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67 excesses of the period and scholars even cry out "immoralism" and "demonology." Decadent literature, seen in the light of its tropes, is far more serious, strategic, and developmental along the lines of realist and naturalist thinking evolving through Decadence into avant-garde and absurdist literature and art. Decadent literature, then, accomplishes its anti-decadence. The widespread mythology of the Antichrist, which represents in one symbol, metaphor, or allegory all of Nietzsche's challenges to the Judeo-Christian tradition, remains a myth that is sensualized in Decadence and at times sensationalized in scholarship as "demonology." The following readings of the Decadent-Symbolists point to a Kantian tradition extant within the writers’ literary programs and manifestos. This methodological gesture is not to diminish the importance or influence of other traditions, whether philosophical or literary in nature, but rather to track a distinct line of reasoning from Kant to Nietzsche in these writers’ epistemologies. Vladimir Solov'ev's final work, Three Conversations, attests to many concerns that run parallel to K ant’s philosophy. Although not a Rationalist by any means, Vladimir Solov'ev is certainly a methodical thinker and perhaps closer in sentiment to Kant than to Nietzsche, although the popularity of Nietzscheanism and the anti- Kantian postures of the post-Positivist nineteenth-century thought seem at Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68 the outset to demonstrate otherwise. The German tradition does serve as a broad paradigm against which shifting polarities of thought and philosophizing in the Slavic context can be gauged accurately and more faithfully to the writers’ positions. Solov'ev broods over notions of history, peace, progress and fears threats from an Anti-Christ, a falsity and masquerading of Christian posture, in a manner closer to Kant's appeals to an universalist ethics than to Nietzsche's insistence on rhetorical and physiological issues. Solov'ev touches on themes focal to Kant with the universalist ethical position familiar to Kant, yet with an irrationalism, albeit far less rhetorically and "physiologically" indebted as in Nietzsche. The fictional works considered in this study have to do with "man," the human predicament, and its origin; the titles alone indicate the theses of the works, for example, Julian the Apostate and Homo Sapiens. For Nietzsche the "genealogy of morality" can read simply as the "genealogy of civilized man to date," and the "undoing of man" or "how man has come "not to be"" if we choose to take the lead from Nietzsche’s own subtitles in Ecce Homo (1888). Przybyszewski's Homo sapiens similarly points to the larger aspect, the genus of man, and offers the account of a thinking man's descent throughout the local time of the novel. Merezhkovskii's Julian Apostate takes the opposite route; the individual of the first installment of the Christ and Antichrist trilogy emerges from the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69 title to slowly sink into the conflicts between the gods and the one Christ as waged by his followers. The apostasy attached to his title as emperor functions to weigh him down. In their search for a remedy for the question and problem of sovereignty and for a quarantine of threats to the project of erecting the new sovereignty these authors present several theoretical and philosophical views from varying angles. Nietzsche focuses on historical fallacies and the impossibility of morality as a way of living in freedom. Merezhkovskii focuses on the reconciliation of polar opposites in his tale of Julian. Solov'ev is wary of imposture as he creates a phenomenology by which to make authenticity a possibility in everyday life. Przybyszewski, true to his aestheticist views, professes an aesthetic way of life strewn with vices and the dangers of practicality. His protagonist flounders in a society based on convention while M erezhkovskii’s protagonist fails due to his goal of shifting a society's focus from Christianity back to paganism. These works suggest that the individual may "turn" against larger forces, but that he or she will not endure the challenge or resistance to a larger social and political body. The effort is, in essence, a flip of the coin. The effect lies in the critique of cultural decay and stems largely from a foundation on perceived "decay." This may not reap good news in its link to contemporary culture, unless it is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70 read as a comic reference to the "knowers" who are always of necessity "unknown" to themselves. There is no “essential” sovereign individual to be found and no "essential" life-creation to be experienced, but, as Solov'ev concludes his Antichrist story, there is perhaps no "essential" evil either. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71 Chapter 1: Friedrich Nietzsche's On the Genealogy o f Morality'. An Anti-Decadent Guide to the Style, Ethics, and Historiography of a Decadent Age A quantum of force is just such a quantum of drive, will, action, in fact it is nothing but this driving, willing and acting, and only the seduction of language (and the fundamental errors of reason petrified within it), which construes and misconstrues all actions as conditional upon an agency, a 'subject,' can make it appear otherwise. All concepts in which an entire process is semiotically concentrated defy definition; only something which has no history can be defined. 'You can learn from your mistakes' as the saying goes, but what you learn also makes you bad. Fortunately it often enough makes you stupid. This ascetic priest, this apparent enemy of life, this negative man, - he actually belongs to the really great forces in life which conserve and create the positive. - Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy o f Morality The present chapter offers an analysis of Nietzsche's Genealogy as a theory of morality, as the basis and model for the "new historical" and social novel of Eastern Europe, and as an act of ironic self creation by a Lebensphilosoph ("a philosopher of life") that, I contend, serves as a rhetorical basis for the Lebenskunst practices of the writers of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72 Decadence.1 It is my aim to examine how Nietzsche's Genealogy functions in this manner as a model of thought processes for the "renewed" historiography and the "new" ethics of the sovereign individual of the 1890s and how it thereby has, at least, an indirect impact on the numerous novels, essays, and poems of this era.2 Nietzsche's basic strategy throughout is to present a "known" and to unravel it so that it becomes seen as a less "known"; he intends to distance his audience from 1 Walter Kaufmann in Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist, a work that is sympathetic and appreciative of Nietzsche's complexity, notes that Nietzsche labels Socrates after his own identification as a Lebensphilosoph, that is, a philosopher who desires that life and its passions be recognized and honored (396-99). It is in this sense that the life-creation practices of the Decadents gain their purpose and philosophical justification. See also Wilhelm Schmid's article " Uns Selbt Gestalten: Zur Philosophic der Lebenskunst bei Nietzsche" in this connection and for a consideration of how Nietzsche endeavors to treat practical "life" as an object for our pursuits of knowledge and art. Schmid links this study of "life" with the question of ethics and proposes that Nietzsche's philosophical texts are guidebooks in the formulation of this ethics, which culminates in philosophy as a life-form (Lebensform), a life-art put into practice (praktizierte Lebenskunst), and a reflection of such philosophical activity (Reflexion dieser Praxis) (51). S. Kemal in his article "Nietzsche, Creativity, and the Redundancy of Literary Value" traces how Nietzsche submits moral and cognitive values to aesthetic considerations and thereby tends to blur a traditional distinctiveness assigned to aesthetics. What Nietzsche considers in his early work (particularly in The Birth of Tragedy) "aesthetic necessity" becomes "life" and eventually "the power to act" (69). Kemal's statement about Nietzsche is highly suggestive of the life-creation aesthetic, wherein life and art are merged; however, as his concern is primarily with the notion of "creating values," he does not concern himself with Lebenskunst issues. 2 For the purposes of this dissertation I focus extensively and exclusively on the Genealogy. This should by no means imply that I discount Nietzsche's other works; it simply allows for a more extensive and closer reading of this one particular text. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73 their most cherished concepts.3 In a similar manner the writers of Decadence, in my later analyses, present the Antichrist or a representative figure (who behaves in an anti-Christian, satanist, or demonic manner) only to secure it ironically as an unresolvable entity and open to interpretation. Nietzsche's "defense" of degeneration in the Genealogy is another matter of strategic and rhetorical importance. He realizes the need for an antidote for his era and implements Antichrist thinking; his diagnosis of sickness is, therefore, based on the "physiology" resultant of a culture that has inherited the sickness from ages of the imposition of questionable values. He intends for the Genealogy, then, to be a study of "genus," or "type," with the purpose of tracking the sickness that arises through the inheritance of this "genus" of thought. Distinguishing between "types" as he gives his history of the rise of types, Nietzsche performs his study of "type" to destroy the preliminary polarities and typifications of "good and 3 Keith Ansell-Pearson, in An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker, considers the general parameters of Nietzsche's thinking. In the section "A question of style?" he defines these parameters as the rejection of a correspondence theory of truth (truth cannot be assigned categorically), the fictional quality of categories such as "cause," "effect," "subject," "object," the positing of the "will to power” as reality, the need to revalue all prior values, and his challenge for his readers to ruminate (15-20). Although Ansell-Pearson does not examine Nietzsche's rhetorical style in "A question of style?" he does seem to infer that the style is marked by the above parameters. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74 bad" and "good and evil."4 As he does so, he creates not only a content of thought but a style as well that functions to destroy "types" and to found a "sovereignty" of text as the culmination of his philosophical development that is open to constant re-interpretation. Decadent writers proceed similarly to reshape and recreate types and to stylize a foundation for their new thoughts and new perspectives of culture. I believe that the task of genealogy is tantamount to their practices of Lebenskunst and life-affirmation as a breaking-up of "types" and returning to things as they purportedly are in their "physiology" (rather than to historically imposed meanings and values). Nietzsche, Solov'ev, Merezkhovskii, and Przybyszewski each practice a phenomenology of this sort based on their philosophical predilections with an eye toward diagnosing social "diseases" that arise from historically faulty valuations. W e will see in this analysis that in an attempt to remove "disease," Nietzsche's Genealogy goes so far as to call for a new historiography that gives a view of the world of "man as animal" without the intrusion of secured and developed meanings. W hen Nietzsche expresses m an’s need to will, he equates this drive to the need to posit 4 Aaron Ridley in Nietzsche’ s Conscience: Six Character Studies from the "Genealogy" alerts the reader to the fact that "genealogy" is a method that stems from "typology," Nietzsche’s earlier method established in Beyond Good and Evil (7). Typology becomes genealogy, but etymologically the focus remains on "type" and "genus." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75 transcendence in meaning so that life has some significance as it gains in signification. The "nothingness" that is the final aspiration is all that is non-physiological and the most removed from life. The will to power that is sublimated (or suspended, postponed, and deferred in terms of its meaning for life) is the original instincts that are channeled to "transcendence," a sphere governed by morality and valuation. Nietzsche's Genealogy is divided into three essays.5 My examination of the Genealogy proceeds by viewing simultaneously the style and the development of certain notions and gestures that are important to Decadent culture and the rise of both the sovereign individual and the new historiography. Each essay of the Genealogy functions in a separate mode. The first establishes the ethical milieu of the age of "anti decadent" Decadence: the decay of culture and the self-awareness of this decay. Predominantly about the pairing of "good" and "bad" or "evil," Essay I consists of a nearly exclusive focus on the power of naming ("the seigneurial privilege") and the rise of the subject from grammar in order to establish the descent of current ethics. The tools that Nietzsche highlights are etymology, interpretation, the physiology and physics that underlie grammar and language, and historiography. Nietzsche critiques the 5 Ansell-Pearson points out Nietzsche's division, as cited in Ecce Homo, of the Genealogy into "three decisive preliminary studies by a psychologist for a revaluation of all values" (Political Thinker 128). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76 transcendentalization and abstraction of virtues and qualities that give rise to a culture of ressentiment and "priestly revenge" and presents a brief history of this culture as expressed through Judea. In the second essay Nietzsche presents a reading of the main conflicts of the historical drama of morality and reveals his historical methodology of genealogy. He focuses on the imposition of causality and a future onto humanity in the notion of a "promise." He also looks at the rise of conscience, punishment as revealing of historical processes (the "permanence" of procedure versus the "impermanence" of its signification), the necessity of an invention of gods (and ideals), the arbitrariness of world progress, the problems caused by the suppression of the instincts (signaled by a "bad conscience," the contradictory underlying "ideals" of selflessness and their pervasive nature), and a suggestion to perform a reverse experiment, to save "natural inclinations," and to invoke a "sovereign individual." He then performatively issues a command whereby he proclaims him self the "Antichrist" in an "event" of self- unmasking. In the third essay Nietzsche portrays the "ascetic ideal," gives an implicit call for a Lebenskunst aesthetic, and discusses the need for a new historiography. This last essay largely comprises an analysis of the "ascetic ideal" (synonymous with the "revenge of the priestly caste") and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77 the constant yearning for "nothingness," a transcendental valuation that underlies all endeavors of Western culture and the Judeo-Christian tradition. Nietzsche proposes perspectivism as a necessary alternative to the "one eye" of metaphysical thought. He identifies a "will to truth" within science and atheism that contaminates them with "ascetic" thinking. He then critiques asceticism and identifies the reasons and methods of its existence and proposes an alternative historiography so that "life" may be reflected. Pre-facing (Vor-Rede): Before the Abyss of "Un-Knowing" The preface contains the entirety of the Genealogy in a kernel while the opening line itself characterizes the logic, style, and grammar to follow throughout this work. "We are unknown to ourselves, we knowers, we ourselves, to ourselves, and there is a good reason for this" (3).6 W ithin this line Nietzsche predicates the subject "we" on an uncertainty and then reflects it back to itself as the possessor of some certainty. He problematizes the grammatical relationship and simultaneously offers justification. (The sarcasm expressed here in the "unknown" and "good 6 Henceforth I will refer to the page numbers in the Ansell-Pearson edition and the Carol Diethe translation of On the Genealogy o f Morality. Any references to the original German text will be to Zur Genealogie der Moral, in Kritische Gesamtausgabe Werke, edited by G. Colli and M. Montinari (vol. 2: 761-900). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78 reason for this" foreshadows Nietzsche's later declaration of the emergence of the philosophical Antichrist.) His assertion in this opening statement functions as a prolepsis wherein he posits the negation and the dismantling of the cultural assumption that he has not yet given so that his "destruction" precedes and thereby ridicules the popularly held notion concerning consciousness and our epistemic fields. Nietzsche creates and maintains linguistic anxiety through this type of unrelenting "foreboding" style.7 7 Bemd Magnus, Stanley Stewart, and Jean-Pierre Mileur in Nietzsche's Case: Philosophy As/And Literature focus on Nietzsche's process of creating philosophy as a literary process wherein the experience of the reader is invoked and the self-referentiality is set forth in his act of philosophizing. These scholars treat "style" as a matter of great concern in Nietzsche's works; they even give a thorough history of this engagement by scholars such as Arthur Danto (1965), Eric Blondel (1971), and Jacques Derrida. They even straggle over the definition of "zur" in the title Zur Genealogie der Moral proposing that "on" or "for" be used and warn against using no preposition at all. However, when it comes to the opening line of the Genealogy, they suggest several expressions but fail to glean the fullest insight: "'We are unknown to ourselves, we men of knowledge' (GM "NP" 1), Nietzsche begins, because we are concentrating too much on the object of our knowledge for self-knowledge to set in. Like critics intent on literature, Nietzsche's men of knowledge - and he does not exclude himself - are for the most part blind to the nature and origins of their own practices" (189). Magnus, Stewart, and Mileur are surely interested in creating a polemically intriguing and intertextual analysis that weaves in scholarly positions of scholars from both literature and philosophy. Although they succeed in presenting their information in a playful manner, their insight is often lacking as they grapple across disciplines and over the entire oeuvre of Nietzsche's works. What they fail to consider is the grammatical resourcefulness of this passage and of the complex self-reflexive nature of the entire work. Richard Schacht in Making Sense of Nietzsche: Reflections Timely and Untimely, who refers to Nietzsche's "physiological" project as "philosophical anthropology" (211), presents a useful introduction to the Genealogy in "Chapter 11: Of Morals and Menschen: Nietzsche's Genealogy and Anthropology." However, his readings are less than Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79 Furthermore, through the dialectic of subject to pronoun-object (we-us), Nietzsche questions the nature of the modern subject by stressing the grammar that keeps the notion of the subject intact. The relation of "we," as subject, to "ourselves" is one of a lack of knowledge and occurs in the dative relation - so that a transfer or relationship is inferred between "I" and "myself," a giving of something that is blurred by the accusative function and relation of "I" to "me." Nietzsche strikes at this subtlety early in his work because he will stress this form of grammatical uneasiness in the more extensive examination of the "splitting of the deed" into a subject, object, and action and the consequential birth of the subject. The only certainty that Nietzsche allows here appears to be the predicative relationship between "we" and "unknown." This appeal to a grammatical logic of turns, twists, and the use of italics, inference and indirect accusation (the dative accusative) suggests challenging as he even admits that Nietzsche is "doing nothing less" than what he claims to reveal to the reader; I would add that Nietzsche is actually "doing far more" that is both interesting and insightful. Sarah Kofman in Nietzsche and Metaphor betrays her appreciation of Nietzsche's style and gives a sense of the rhetorical connectedness to instincts that arise in writing. Her idea also supports my contention that the aesthetic style (its "drivenness" and "instinctive thrust") becomes a resource for the ethics and morality that stem from it. She states that "a 'good' style is one which can communicate through signs a certain 'inner state' symptomatic of a certain taste (such a communication presupposing a listener or a reader with the same tastes). All style reiterates a primary writing, that of the 'drives' (instincts). Thus it is as vain to seek to impose a canonical model on writing as it is futile to seek to legislate universally in morality : each must do only what he can" (2). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80 that experience is at variance with knowledge; there is an incompatibility of the two. The following question, "Who are we, in fact?" is encountered post-factum in dismissed awareness, as an afterthought, or recollection so that Nietzsche compounds his sentiment that language thwarts experience. A close look at these factors in Nietzsche's philosophy is important because of the implicit challenges that they have for Nietzsche's sympathizers and followers. The arresting stylistic choices dominate over the actual message as primary conveyors of meaning - for this is in accord with Nietzsche's privileging of the aggressive "barbaric" stance of the beast over the "reactive" ascetic beings who favor an imposed and "fixed" system of signification. 8 Henry Staten in Nietzsche's Voice states that in his "psychodialectic" reading of the Genealogy he finds that "the logic or illogic of Nietzsche's text is embedded within the more complex system of its economy. The text speaks of activity and reactiveness, but the text that so speaks is itself moved by currents of activity and reactiveness. Nietzsche's text reacts against the slave and the ascetic (who are not identical, but whom Nietzsche at times runs together and never definitively distinguishes), condemns them, tries to throw them outside of the boundary that it draws around nature and health. And it swells with praise when the aggressive, noble barbarians pull into sight; all positive value tends to migrate toward them and cluster around them. The logic of the argument becomes ambiguous and contradictory as a consequence of the pull exerted by these positive and negative valuations" (20-21). Although Staten moves in a direction different from the course of this dissertation, his statement serves to highlight the logical movements that I focus on. Whereas Staten's is a study of the "textual economics of Nietzsche's text" (30) that looks at the logical and libidinal economy, my study is - not dissimilarly - of a certain "illogical" logic that provides for a certain "amoral" ethical code in both content and style that becomes a source for a fully blown-out Lebenskunst scheme. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81 "We remain strange to ourselves out of necessity, we do not understand ourselves, we must confusedly mistake who we are, the motto 'everyone is furthest from him self applies to us forever, we are not 'knowers' when it comes to ourselves..." (4). Mistakenness and miscalculation may qualify such an understanding for Nietzsche, but it is not an arbitrary focus for him as he reveals the drive within him that forces him to cut all the meandering. He acknowledges the source of his seeking and his discomfort in "a fundam ental will to knowledge deep inside me which took control," a universal will. (He is impelled to "know" and possessed by a "will.") This sets him apart from Kant and the Kantian a priori notions. In a disparaging comment aimed at Rationalism Nietzsche claims to appeal to his own inner "oh-so-anti-Kantian, so enigmatic 'categorical imperative,"' his own "a priori," to find out about the “invention” of morality and its secret world (5).9 Nietzsche's achievement of self-irony here also works to elude anticipated criticism of his method by an extensive use of prolepsis. He discounts any questions concerning the validity of his work by referring to works he judges errant in philosophical acuity. "As I said, I was at the time, bringing to the light of day those hypotheses on descent to which these essays are devoted, 9 Stanislaw Przybyszewski follows the same gesture in his novel Homo sapiens of invoking and disparaging Kant in reference to his rationalist system of philosophy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82 clumsily, as I am the first to admit, and still inhibited because I still lacked my own vocabulary for these special topics, and with a good deal of relapse and vacillation" (6). Having turned against Kant's rationalism, he now turns against Schopenhauer's transcendentalism. He claims that his early more important preoccupations dealt with "the value of the 'unegoistic,' the instincts of pity, self-denial, self-sacrifice which Schopenhauer had for so long gilded, deified and transcendentalized until he was finally left with them as those 'values as such' on the basis of which he said 'no' to life and to him self as well" (7). In this manner Nietzsche reserves him self a spotlight as a challenger to these past traditions; he realizes the negation and anti-affirmation of life and physiology caused by philosophers turning the will against life and branding a new nihilism on transcendentalism and pity. As a proponent of "life," Nietzsche claims that he senses the "new demand" for a "critique of moral values" and renders the activity of maintaining values suspect. He questions the “existence” of this transcendental nature of value: the metaphysicality of the nature of values, their unknowability and the raising of their unknowability to a certifiable value. In his move to devalue "value," Nietzsche again engages in a prolepsis by submitting to devaluation the very act of valuation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83 At the very end of the preface, he forges ahead with his claim about the need for interpretation and considers the aphoristic style of his Zarathustra. He comments that "An aphorism, properly stamped and moulded, has not been 'deciphered' just because it has been read out; on the contrary, this is just the beginning of its proper interpretation, and for this, an art of interpretation is needed"(9). In this statement he raises the question of "aphorism" as a genre (or genus) and calls for an "art" of interpretation. "Genre," it seems, should be suspect because it, as any genus would, implicitly holds some embedded value that may be imposed on a reader. Hence, there is the need to re-create meaning through a practice of interpretation.1 0 However, just what is this interpretation? and why must there be an "art" of it? 1 0 Solov'ev, likewise, cautions about the proverb in his text; to understand the Antichrist, he bids the reader to locate the correct genre, in which to express his or her particular thought. In this preface alone other similarities between Nietzsche and Solov'ev appear: both stand against the "hypostasization" of concepts; it can be argued that both desire to perceive "life" from the viewpoint of a universal will; both propose the need for a hermeneutics. Nietzsche resorts to a rhetorical strategy of excess and irony to challenge and strain the reader's understanding; Solov'ev likewise challenges his reader with contradictions from his narrator in the Three Conversations. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84 First Essay: The Historical (and Linguistic) Struggle Between Good and Evil Nietzsche provides a sampling of this artful interpretation. W hile pairing “good” with its perceived opposites ("bad" and "evil") throughout history to find the meaning behind the oppositions, Nietzsche refutes the English psychologists of morality for their lack of historicality and their reliance on notions such as '"usefulness,' 'forgetting,' 'routine,' and finally 'error'" in defining values (12). W hile Nietzsche finds that "good" originally were those who had the "pathos of nobility and distance" in opposition to the lowly and common, this possibility of being "good" eventually became reflected in the act of identifying oneself within the parameters of the oppositions. It is in this "identifying," this subject's ability to name ("the seigneurial privilege of giving names"), that power is expressed (13). This refutation of "naming" (and the resultant subject) will become extremely important in Essay II. The result in Nietzsche's view is that “good” has nothing to do with "unegoistic"; only superstition has it so. He claims that the rise of "egoistic" and "unegoistic" impresses itself during a "decline of aristocratic value-judgments." This occurs just when the herd-instinct becomes more dominant, and overtakes and impresses the antithesis of good and bad with the valuation of moral Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85 values on the conscience. Since, according to Nietzsche's reasoning, good and bad have nothing to do with morality, but with a differentiation of high and low by a subject belonging to high-rank and nobility, conscience, then, figures in as an instrument of blind feeling, which quickly responds to moral sentiment. This is the second most important element introduced here and expanded on fully in Essay III. Morality, Nietzsche pinpoints, is based solely on the oppositions because it is aligned with something less than life - with a hierarchy of values that denies the "will." The subject (along with the act of naming) and the conscience are given birth to in this process. Nietzsche then proceeds to use etymology to prove his ideas and indicates that "good" derives from the noble and the aristocratic while "bad" derives from the common and plebeian, whereas they were once simply markers of rank with no valuative sense.1 1 Nietzsche chides that 1 1 Sarah Kofman in her discussion on the "becoming" quality of concepts refers to etymology as Nietzsche's "weapon against metaphysical dogmatism" because "it highlights the becoming of the concept" and "it plays a strategic role in the genealogical deciphering of concepts" (86). She then states that: "Genealogical etymology does not aim to find the originary, true, and accurate meaning, but to discover multiple origins and to hierarchize them... Genealogy reveals the pre eminence of a group of spontaneous, aggressive, and conquering forces which are usurpatory and which never cease to give new exegeses and new directions. Etymology teaches that weak wills can impose their meanings only by reaction, by inverting, disfiguring, and displacing the meaning attributed by the strong" (87). Furthermore: "A genealogical reading teaches that the language of morality is a falsifying interpretation, a metaphor for the bodily text transposed into the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86 this is his "essential insight into moral genealogy" and goes on to demonstrate that the Latin word malus for bad derived from the word for the dark-skinned and pre-Aryan and bonus from "warrior" (14). However, he admits that this is a more or less precarious delineation of etymology, but figures that it must be so and dismisses the supposition: "The grounds for this supposition will not be gone into here" (16). His stylistic move here casts a sense of disinterest, rather than doubt, on his earlier etymological premises. This essayistic style governs simply that he move on to the next point without concern for the success of his discourse.1 2 In superficial language of consciousness" (87). Kofman's statements are direct comments on the Genealogy and reveal her alignment with Nietzsche's methods. 121 call it "essayistic" in order to acknowledge Nietzsche's deliberate backtracking and negotiation by way of negation. We can also understand it as belonging to a style of crisis as we borrow the term from Bemd Magnus and company. Magnus, Stewart, and Mileur coin the phrase "rhetoric of crisis" in their chapter on "Prophecy's Voice/Voicing Prophecy: A Genealogy of Literary- Philosophical Prophecies" to refer to a historical and philosophical juncture of confusion and the solicitation of a sacral element to intervene. I believe that this term can be used more widely to categorize Nietzsche's style and his discontent with Western logic and traditional phrasings of thought. It does convey the serious commitment to a process of critiquing and polemicizing that is captured in the sense of "essayistic," albeit in a non-committal way that Nietzsche follows when he wishes to "unleash" a concept that is "fixed" or hypostasized and appears to take it seriously in one line and then negates his stance in the following line. Magnus and company state: "As a trope, the heraldry of crisis may include any of a constellation of messianic figures: the prophet as crier in the wilderness; the prophet as diviner of false gods; the diviner of false gods as redeemer; and the redeemer as a resurrected deity or demi-god. While all of these characters share a special relationship to the Deity, Zarathustra is unusual among them in that, as a gospeller, he bears the news that "God is dead." But the ethos of all these characters derive from their special access to knowledge of or about God. With respect to the sense of crisis in their utterances, they possess a divining spirit which enable them to perceive the stresses behind their historical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87 a matter of several lines doubt is shed on his earlier determination, as if either to weaken the position or to cast dispersion on any anticipated opponents' resistance to his ideas. Nietzsche thereby repeats the same strategy that we see in the preface. As Nietzsche continues his explanation of the use of etymology, he pinpoints that ancient language was crude and not to be taken symbolically. "Pure" designated refraining from physically defiling habits and nothing more. However, with the rise of symbolic meaning Nietzsche sees a rise of subjecthood: man becomes first an "interesting animal” and then the human soul becomes "deep and evil." This "interesting" quality is tied ineffably to the self-defiling of man by the use of imprecise language (and the inability of metaphorical language to convey truth). Nietzsche plants the seed here for a more "thorough" examination of this later in the essay. situation, and which enables them to perceive relevant aspects of the future, the latter often in the form of a shift in human consciousness. Not only does the diviner perceive that shift, but his own words become an important part of the transformation, which will ease the sense of crisis. These gospellers are, of course, outsiders. But, more than loners, they come forth as shaping figures in the progress of the human race. In this mode, the philosopher of Beyond Good and Evil speaks as nothing less than "the conscience for the collective evolution of mankind." Even when alone, they are alike to the scourges of the established order. Hence, the recurring figures of transformation in their work: "The Advancement o f Learning"; "to save mankind"; "Revaluation o f all values" (48). Although it appears that within this quote we get away from the Genealogy and into more "properly" prophetic narrative, the narrator of the Genealogy refers to Zarathustra and speaks performatively and prophetically about crisis throughout so that this insight applies to the Genealogy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88 Then, Nietzsche demonstrates the historical route to "Jesus" from this linguistic stage: how the "priestly method of valuation" arises from the splitting-off of the clerical caste from the "chivalric- aristocratic" method (18). This priestly method develops into the opposite of the chivalric-aristocratic method, which signified power, war, and adventure. The priestly-aristocratic, on the other hand, is based on powerlessness, a resulting sense of hate, and the intelligence bom of "priestly revenge." This discrepancy in social stature obviously colors language and the "morality" based on language. Nietzsche depicts the Jews as the "priestly" ones who bring about a reversal of values from good as noble and beautiful to good as "the suffering, the deprived, the sick, the ugly" so that they can identify themselves as the "good" (19). Clearly, Nietzsche identifies a turning within signification in this reversal. "Good" is now what was "bad" and the "bad" gains a sense of "evil" as it refers to those who were once "good." W ithin metaphorical language, as Nietzsche understands it, liaisons shift and meaning takes on a constantly shifting political role. Nietzsche claims that the heirs to this Jewish way of revaluation are "the slaves' [in their] revolt in morality" and that this is forgotten because the revolt has been victorious (19). This leads, Nietzsche claims, to a "new love" created from this Jewish hatred, "which created ideals and changed values": Jesus, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89 embodiment of the gospel of love, as a metaphor for the circuitous route to Jewish values and innovative ideals. Nietzsche continues that because of this Jesus, "Israel, with its revenge and revaluation of all former values, has triumphed repeatedly over all other ideals, all nobler ideals" (20). Nietzsche characterizes Jesus as a seduction of the Jews, the "opponent and disperser of Israel," and part of the exquisite act of revenge that involved him (Jesus) as an instrument that had to be denounced so that the rest of the world could nibble at him as if at a "dangerous bait." The irony of the role of Jesus will be covered later; Jesus stands for a metaphysical, unnatural, and absurd act of self-destruction.1 3 Nietzsche finds the 1 3 It may appear that Nietzsche is anti-Christian in his sentiment here. However, in a section entitled "Nietzsche's Repudiation of Christ" Kaufmann in Nietzsche: Philosopher, Psychologist, Antichrist differentiates between Nietzsche's respect of Jesus of Nazareth and his contempt for the "Christ" of the creeds (337-8). Additionally, Giles Fraser, a Nietzsche scholar (and Vicar of Putney), who expresses in "The orientation of Nietzsche's question of God: On style and seduction" in Redeeming Nietzsche: On the Piety o f Unbelief an appreciation for rhetorical style and an astute sense for complexity that results in analyses that are not categorically dismissive or judgmental (24-31), demonstrates the contradictions within Nietzsche and is able to reconcile the "holiness" of Nietzsche with the Protestant faith quite easily. The premise of Fraser's study is that Nietzsche's work can be read as an attempt at soteriology, i.e. "experiments to design a form of redemption that would work for a posttheistic age" (2). He continues: "Nietzsche's work can be read as a sustained meditation on the various forms in which, through weakness and cowardice, human beings betray their humanity, betray their body, betray the earth, etc. in the search for supposedly consoling (though, in fact, profoundly damaging) fantasies. Metaphysics is, for Nietzsche [...] the name for a particular genre of betrayal; for in as much as metaphysics attempts to locate what gives human life its ultimate value in some realm beyond the earth, it degrades and disparages earth-bound fleshly human existence." (7) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90 phenomenon of the Crucifixion unfathomable: "enticing, intoxicating, benumbing, corrupting, power of that symbol of the 'holy cross' [...] horrible paradox of a 'God on the Cross,' [...] mystery of an unthinkable final act of extreme cruelty and self-cmcifixion of God for the salvation o f mankind?" However, this is all in accordance with Nietzsche's view of the ironic rise of morality and the self-punishing and restrictive ways of religion. Nietzsche even betrays his own rhetorical means and intentions here; in Ecce Homo he will refer to him self as "Dionysus crucified" implying that he, as the "Antichrist" of W estern philosophy and culture, meets the same fate. Nietzsche then introduces the term ressentiment, which refers to the slaves' "turn[ing] creative and give[ing] birth to values" as an "imaginary revenge"(21). This ressentiment serves as the source for the slaves' "no," spoken intolerantly against anything different from itself. Here we get a sense that this ressentiment is fundamentalist and xenophobic in nature. The "no" is equally a reaction to external stimuli and, therefore, it is also characterized by the loss of one’ s autonomy (22). Nietzsche continues his explanation depicting the noble, aristocratic Greek peoples as measuring themselves by their own worth and happiness, while referring to the common people as unhappy due to the burden, suffering, and misfortune they were always undergoing on their own account. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91 Furthermore, whereas a noble loves his enemies and finds a great deal to honor in them, the man of ressentiment creates of his enemy "the evil one," and of himself, the counterpart, the "good one"(24). This resonates with certain popular psychologies that promote pro-active measures for securing mental health and criticisms of fundamentalist ideologies that see reactionary forces at work within the ideologies. Nietzsche's position is that the beastly one is more healthy, more respectable, and more “good” than any priestly or vengeful being. Again, language is invoked as a tool. The "good" person of nobility is "re-touched, re-interpreted and re viewed through the poisonous eye of ressentiment"(24) and is seen as the “evil enemy.” However, Nietzsche stresses that the “evilness” accorded to them is directly proportionate to their strength and grandeur as men of will. The Germanic "blond beast" represents spontaneity, action, and forgetting (in the sense of having no need for forgiveness) but is made out to be a barbarian, one of the "evil enemies," who represents destruction, "the debauches of victory and cruelty," and deep mistrust (25). In this passage Nietzsche glorifies a return to rawness, to the passions and instincts not out of sensual need, but to return to some semblance of purity and being that is not hampered by transcendentalism or hypostasized ideas. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92 Nietzsche then takes a detour to criticize the present culture for demanding that "civilization" must tame man. He laments that sovereignty has been destroyed: "And is that not our fate? W hat constitutes our aversion to 'man' today? - for we suffer from man, no doubt about that. - N ot fear" (26). Man is not worthy of fear because there is no sovereignty or "beastliness of prey" about him. "He has already learnt to view him self as the aim and pinnacle, the meaning of history, the 'higher man"' (27). It is this aim, meaning, and sense of "higher man" that, Nietzsche claims, divides man from him self and results in such things as morality, rationalism, and idealism.1 4 At this point Nietzsche is ready to delve back into the "doctrine" of the subject. Perhaps simplistically, he tackles this process of "transcendentalization" that makes of beast a man of oppression. Nietzsche uses physiological expressions to describe modern man as full of "bad air" and as having the "bowels of a failed soul." He then uses the analogy of lambs to eagles to demonstrate that the ironic "goodness" of lambs comes from their status as prey or as victims, and that eagles are labeled "evil" simply because of their predator instincts. In a more "scientific" explanation Nietzsche then claims that the beings of 1 4 Solov'ev takes these notions to task as well when he explores the ideas of the "end of man" and the "meaning of history" in his Three Conversations. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93 physical strength are maligned by the ressentiment manifested in weak beings, who try to gain strength by a grammatical process of valuation that, as we saw earlier, is subject to intense shifts and reversals. In a sudden turn to physics Nietzsche makes another point based on language, grammar, and the ability to attribute names and values. He states: "A quantum of force is just such a quantum of drive, will, action, in fact it is nothing but this driving, willing and acting, and only the seduction of language (and the fundamental errors of reason petrified within it), which construes and misconstrues all actions as conditional upon an agency, a 'subject,' can make it appear otherwise'" (28). It is a question of the underlying physics meeting the superficial linguistic component as the determining factors of our accounts of reality. Concerning deeds and the subjects that perform them, Nietzsche continues: "But there is no such substratum; there is no 'being' behind the deed, its effect and what becomes of it; the 'doer' is invented as an afterthought, - the doing is everything. Basically, the common people double a deed; when they see lightning, they make a doing-a-deed out of it; they posit the same effect, first as cause and then as its effect" (28). In this account Nietzsche introduces the will-to-power as a physical "driving, willing, and acting." Language as an external manifestation of the will and open to change creates morality out of the possibility of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94 identification of an act with a subject or "soul." It allows for a grammar to underlie certain acts or manifestations that is later carried over to the realm of morality. As we see, for Nietzsche this is little more than "superstition." He denies the reality of a subject that is based on grammar. Identification, memory, and responsibility set into motion this nonexistent "subject" that is anchored on the polarities of good and bad actions (29). This means that there is no "subject" of nature. Nietzsche claims that the subject is the best doctrine on earth because "self-deception" allows the weak to feel freedom in their acts and for their weakness to be an accomplishment. However, if Nietzsche infers that the "subject" is nonexistent in nature, then the sovereign individual that Nietzsche later lauds is not of "subject" nature; this individual must somehow transcend grammar or resist it. Nietzsche goes on to expose the ideals of "justice," "injustice," "godlessness," and "victory of God" as cover-ups for the retribution, the hate of enemy, and the prospect of revenge. The "kingdom of God" as consolation for the sufferings of the world appears as a phrase that is as vacant as the "end of history" and the "meaning of man (3 1).1 5 By 1 5 Solov'ev's ideas can be shown in contrast to Nietzsche's here; however, I will show how his ideas were taken in concert with Nietzsche's due to the logic and manner of his argumentation. Although Solov'ev sought to base a new Christianity, this movement was not dissimilar to Nietzsche's "destruction" of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95 referring to history at this point Nietzsche foreshadows his call in the third essay for a new historiography and a new perspective. Claiming that there is a "script which has hitherto remained legible throughout history," Nietzsche personifies the "Jews" of ressentiment, revenge, and the transcendentalization of values as contrary to nature and akin to monsters (34). He pinpoints the Apocalypse of John as betraying the ugly revenge on the writer’s conscience (35). He refers to Romans instead as the aristocratic, strong, and noble ones, who are challenged by these Jews, a "priestly nation of ressentiment par excellence, possessing an unparalleled genius for popular morality." Nietzsche, then, with the sheerest brevity notes the victories of Judea throughout history: the account of three Jews and one Jewess who defeated Rome; the account of the Renaissance, as m an’s awakening to the classical ideal, that is suppressed by Reformation ressentiment', and Judea as the French Revolution triumphs again in the collapse of the French seventeenth and eighteenth centuries under the "ressentiment-instincts of the rabble" (36). Finally, there is the ideal of the "priority fo r the few," embodied in "Napoleon, - this synthesis of monster [Unmensch] and Judeo-Christian doctrine and tradition. In fact Solov'ev, as we will see in his Three Conversations and Theoretical Philosophy, opposed vacuous and ossified terminology. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96 Ubermensch..." that struggles against Judea.1 6 The embodiment of this ideal in the persona of Napoleon suggests an aesthetic of life-creation and provides a foreground for creating accounts of the struggle of the sovereign individual throughout history.1 7 1 6 A reading of anti-Semitism is readily apparent in this section. However, I do not believe it imperative to take such a course of interpretation. There are instances in the Genealogy where Nietzsche does glorify the Jews over the Christians, such as in showing his preference for the Old Testament of the Jews (and underlining instances of sovereign behavior in it) over the reactionary New Testament of the Christians, which he treats with disgust. Nietzsche's strategy is based on "genealogy" and the seeking out of "types" rather than singling out any particular ethnicity or religious group. His foremost intention is to bend language and to exert force on any perceived stability of "meaningfulness" in it; he thereby demonstrates little concern for the "valuations" that others hold against him because he may appear to have controversial views. As he expresses: "I do not like the New Testament, you have worked that out by now; it almost disturbs me to be so very isolated in my taste regarding this most valued, over-valued work (the taste of two millenia is against me): but it is no use! 'Here I stand, I can do no other', - 1 have the courage of my bad taste" (114). Again Nietzsche plays with the notion of "against" while ironically pitting two millenia against himself. He prefers the Old Testament: "I find in it great men, heroic landscape and something of that which is most rare on earth, the incomparable naivety of the strong heart; even more, I find a people" (114). Nietzsche goes on to criticize the New Testament for its lack of etiquette and "I find nothing but petty sectarian groupings, nothing but rococo of the soul, nothing but arabesques, crannies and oddities, nothing but the air of the conventicle, not to forget the occasional breath of bucolic sugariness which belongs to the epoch (and to the Roman province) and is neither Jewish nor Hellenistic." He decries the insistence of the New Testament on self-importance; it raises Peter to immortality and all kinds of trivialities as concerns of “God” (114). The criticism here is of all idealists or universalists who purport to have a code of ethics for everything based on their experience of the minutest and most personal aspects of life. Giles Fraser points out that now Nietzsche is hailed as an "anti-anti- Semite" (133). Fraser refers to several instances where Nietzsche expresses an extreme intolerance for anti-Semitism because of its "tastelessness," vulgarity, ideological nature, and most condemningly its characteristic as "herd thinking" (133). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97 Second Essay: An Ethics Based on Pain and Gods Born of Cruelty In Essay II Nietzsche begins with a focus on "future" and the causality that is created in part due to linguistics: "To breed an animal which is able to make promises - is that not precisely the paradoxical task which nature has set herself with regard to humankind?" (38) Nietzsche believes that a paradox is at play here because for him forgetfulness gives rise to robust health whereas its counterdevice, memory, suspends forgetfulness when a promise is made. The resultant "causality" of the promise ('"I will,' 'I shall do' and the actual discharge of the will, its act” ) creates the need to "think causally" and to distinguish design in a world of chance and accidents (39). As man becomes "answerable for his own fu tu re," the grammatical intrusion of the future tense on life becomes more pronounced. Similarly, "responsibility,” which originally was concocted to make man "undeviating [notwendig], uniform, a peer amongst peers, orderly and consequently predictable," intrudes on life. Nietzsche's proposition of the sovereign individual, with the attributes of being "like 1 7 Merezhkovskii follows a similar historical patterning in his trilogy Christ and Antichrist as he creates historical fiction about Julian the Roman Emperor and Apostate, Leonardo da Vinci, and Tsar Peter and his son Alexis. I believe that it can be safely inferred from Merezhkovskii's stance as an advocate of Nietzschean ideas that he received this "command" or inspiration in part from Nietzsche’s Genealogy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98 only to itself, having freed itself from the morality of custom, an autonomous, supra-ethical individual [...] man with his own, independent, durable, will, who has the right to make a prom ise," serves as an acknowledgment of the grammatical problem and, simultaneously, a call for a "master of the free will" who "has his own standard o f value'X40). Nietzsche does not treat historical developments with derision, but with caution, which is evident in the compromises and allowances that he makes. He senses that the "extraordinary privilege of responsibility" as a dominant instinct gives rise to conscience and threatens the possibility of the sovereign individual. The irony, however, is that the sovereign individual, who alone is capable of "forgetting" (in the sense of letting go and not reacting), is the one who has the "right" to promise. It is obvious from this point that Nietzsche's sovereign individual does not exist in historical isolation but experiences influences and changes. Nietzsche then goes on to demonstrate the development of concepts and ideals from what were originally procedures of practical matter. He traces conscience and the ability to make promises to pain, the primary "technique o f mnemonics," which is evident to him in the history of cruelty, sacrifice, and rituals (41). He also finds that asceticism, which is based on fixed ideas, was enforced and made unforgettable through Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99 pain. He implicates German reason, including Kant and Hegel, and the history of morals as deriving from "crude" methods (42). In an economy of pain, conscience, and guilt, Nietzsche establishes the equivalence between the consciousness of guilt and bad conscience and points out that guilt (Schuld) descends from debts (Schulden). Punishment in his system is merely a form of compensation made in pain. This is based on the "contractual relationship between creditor and debtor, which is as old as the very conception of a 'legal subject' and itself refers back to the basic forms of buying, selling, bartering, trade and traffic" (43). Nietzsche will not let go of this grammatical subject and points to the language of economy that underlies transcendental thinking; the barbarity of language, once refined, transforms into an ironic muddying of the simple origin of concepts. W ith this transcendentalization of language Nietzsche claims that populations can be controlled; so it is therefore not only economic but political as well. However, Nietzsche does eventually admit that all this is his speculation but insists nevertheless that cruelty has been rendered a "normal human attribute" so much that it is part of the festive aspects of culture and that this exhibition of cruelty exists for enjoyment (45-46). N ietzsche’s main gripe with this system of thought and language is that man, on the way to becoming an "angel," actually loses his connection to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100 the physiological world, settles on a distaste for life, and compounds these problems by becoming more "unreal" (47). Nietzsche claims that "in order to rid the world of concealed, undiscovered, unseen suffering and deny it in all honesty, people were then practically obliged to invent Gods and intermediate beings at every level [...] life then played the trick which it has always known how to play, of justifying itself, justifying its 'evil'" (48).1 8 W ith this revelation Nietzsche reasons that law, justice, and sublimation follow as vacuous thoughts. They are not constants or absolutes but variables. Therefore, "justice," as an absolute concept, betrays its impotence and lack of any eternal importance just as "evil" does.1 9 1 8 Merezhkovskii, in his preoccupation with Julian Apostate and the creation of the pagan gods and their investment with cultural power and prestige, develops this further in his historical novel. Julian is placed at the core of this historical activity and he thereby plays a convenient role within Merezhkovskii's "genealogization." 1 9 Because evil loses importance, it is shown to have been based on an arbitrary designation in its origins. In "Chapter 6: A genealogy of morals" of An Introduction to Nietzsche as Political Thinker, Ansell-Pearson states that "With the knowledge of 'good,' man now also has a corresponding knowledge of 'evil.' It is the latter that Nietzsche wishes a new (aristocratic) social order to cultivate in order to invert and challenge the Christian-moral tradition and its secular successors" (122). Ansell-Pearson infers that Nietzsche does not mind the word "evil," but the valuation and that it has been used by the weak-willed in an economic and political forum to gain "revenge." Nietzsche's thinking parallels conceptions of "evil" that fall within a holistic picture of human nature and not as something to be shunned or demonized. The conception finds apt expression in the works of Jeffrey Burton Russell, who demonstrates a historical evolution of "evil" and of various emanations of the "devil." One such work is The Devil: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 Nietzsche then returns to analyze ressentiment as the origin of justice for it lays the seed for the notion of "sanctifying] revenge with the term justice" and "legitim izing] with revenge emotional reactions in general" (52). Nietzsche isolates the reactive type of humans that goes against the will-to-life and power and finds that "the active, aggressive, over-reaching man is still a hundred paces nearer to justice than the man who reacts; he simply does not need to place a false and prejudiced interpretation on the object of his attention, like the man who reacts does, has to do (53). The active subject is free from the ideals of justice, reason, and metaphysics and, therefore, has no need for bad conscience. To demonstrate the historical development of things normally considered constants and absolutes, Nietzsche differentiates between the origin and the purpose of punishment. He points to the continuous adaptation throughout the history of a cultural given; it is not organic but rather imposed from without. He then states the following as his basis for declaring the need for a new historiography and perspectivism: the origin of the emergence of a thing and its ultimate usefulness, its practical application and incorporation into a system of ends, are toto coelo separate; that anything in existence, having somehow come about, is continually interpreted anew, requisitioned anew, transformed and redirected to a new purpose by a power superior to it; that Perceptions of Evil from Antiquity to Primitive Christianity (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1977). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102 everything that occurs in the organic world consists of overpowering, dominating, and in their turn, overpowering and dominating consist of re-interpretation, adjustment, in the process of which their former 'meaning' [Sinn] and 'purpose' must necessarily be obscured or completely obliterated. (55) Nietzsche's sense is that everything that appears necessary flows from chance and is merely assigned utility. In this manner the universality and necessity of Kant's kingdom of ends simply do not exist when the overpowering, chaotic organic world is considered. There is no universal or rational design, just an underlying will-to-power. But every purpose and use is just a sign that the will to power has achieved mastery over something less powerful, and has impressed upon it its own idea [Sinn] of a use function; and the whole history of a 'thing,' an organ, a tradition can to this extent be a continuous chain of signs, continually revealing new interpretations and adaptations, the causes of which need not be connected even amongst themselves, but rather sometimes just follow and replace one another at random. (55) For this reason a historiography that tackles the origin of things needs not be obscured by ideals or ideologies, as will see in Essay III. Additionally, progress and reason lose their meaning unless we consider them in arbitrary terms, that is, physiological terms. "To speak plainly: even the partial reduction in usefulness, decay and degeneration, loss of meaning [Sinn] and functional purpose, in short death, make up the conditions of true progressus: always appearing, as it does, in the form of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103 the will and way to greater pow er and always emerging victorious at the cost of countless smaller forces" (56). This is Nietzsche's explanation in support of the anti-decadent strength within Decadence and the arbitrary appearance and contradictoriness of phenomena. It is this will to sovereignty that is undisturbed and uncurtailed by the notion of progress. Having established the arbitrary development of concepts, Nietzsche then returns to punishment to consider the procedural aspect of punishment whereas the purpose and meaning of punishment are always changing. He refers to his own historical method as an authoritative check: I assume, per analogiam, according to the major point of historical method just developed, that the procedure itself will be something older, predating its use as punishment, that the latter was only inserted and interpreted into the procedure (which existed for a long time though it was thought of in a different way), in short, that the m atter is not to be understood in the way our naive moral and legal genealogists assumed up till now, who all thought the procedure had been invented for the purpose of punishment, just as people used to think that the hand had been invented for the purpose of grasping. (57) The concept of punishment refers to a synthesis of meanings that have crystallized to the point of being too "difficult to dissolve back into its elements, difficult to analyse." Nietzsche here explains that we cannot deduce signification where there is a historical semiotic layering that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104 obstructs the clear understanding of an original meaning because the multiple and changing definitions obscure the interpretative processes. Nietzsche then tackles the popularity of punishment on account of its alleged ability to get into the subjectivity of the punished and into the conscience of the individual. Asserting that this notion defies reality and psychology, Nietzsche locates another contradiction of logic within this system of punishment; he claims that if the state is to act as it does, violently, it cannot expect of its subject to experience the desired goal, a bad conscience (59). He then points out that there is no "bad conscience" in pre-history, just a sense of fate. So, we can gather that for Nietzsche the underlying basis is chance, fate (am orfati), or the will to power, words that are more or less synonymous in Nietzsche's scheme of things. Nietzsche also objects to punishment because it is perceived as the consequence of something that has gone bad, rather than as a restriction or imperative to oneself to become "better" (60). Nietzsche again attacks the notion of causality and proposes an imperative instead, a command in the present tense such as the one he will express later in this essay: the sovereign individual ideal imperative. If the focus of punishment remains on the external act, then the agent who afflicts the injury that is to be punished experiences him self heteronomously via external means. Nietzsche's complaint is not dissimilar to Kant in that Kant measures an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105 imperative in as far as one relates to it in one's autonomy. Nietzsche is against all things that would lead man away from his sovereign self and 2 0 Ansell-Pearson notes how "Nietzsche departs from Kant in his understanding of autonomy" in the second essay. Ansell-Pearson states that for Nietzsche autonomy consists in one's standing as a "reflective, independent agent who has a 'will to responsibility'" (Political Thinker 135). Kant's insistence is that we all conform to a universal maxim. However, I contend that Kant and Nietzsche converge on the point that autonomy of action refers to acting from an inner sense, rather than heteronomously based on an external cause. For Kant the notions subsists on the opposition between the noumenal and the phenomenal, whereas for Nietzsche it subsists in one's acting according to the will-to-power within rather than reacting to external phenomena. The general problem for Kant arises from the immutable cleft he situates between the intelligible and sensible realms of experience. Nature and reason are at odds and the human agent is caught in between. Action in itself, the choosing of one's action, and the determination of means to meet a specific end are by extension left unstable and relegated to a space of potential confusion. The metaphysical a priori categories of time, space, and causality and the empirical standpoint by which one can isolate and govern experience are already set apart. Kant in his methodology (his analyses and deductions) treats pure reason and practical reason inversely; that is, he treats pure reason by first examining nature, by which to derive the a prior constants of experience, and then applies these concepts to the transcendental, rational realm, while treating practical reason by moving from speculation concerning the postulation of the moral law to the empirical practice of it. H.J. Paton remarks in his analysis, which accompanies his translation of Kant's Groundwork o f the Metaphysic of Morals (New York: Harper & Row, 1964), that lifts words and thoughts directly from the body of Kant’s argument: The categorical 'I ought,' we are told, is a synthetic a priori proposition; and the third term which connects this 'ought' with the will of an imperfectly rational agent like myself is the Idea of the same will, viewed, however, as a pure will belonging to the intelligible world. This Idea is apparently the third term to which freedom was said to direct us at the end of the first section of the present chapter: it may indeed be described as a more precise Idea of freedom — that is, of a free will. (46) The 'I ought' referred to here is in essence a compromise between the 'I will' of a pure rational being practicing its autonomy and that of an imperfect rational being grounded in the sensible world and maneuvering from autonomy to heteronomous concerns and back again. Kant, in a different passage, juxtaposes the will of a holy, or saintly, being to that of a being endeavoring or aspiring to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 106 saintliness, albeit imperfectly and with a foundational misalignment to the pure will of freedom. The agent of the intelligible world is a metaphysical Idea of pure will, whereas the agent of the sensible world is the imperfect rational human being. The Idea is not subject to anything or anyone other than itself; in practical terms it is an object of our aspiration, an impossible goal to be striven for but never to be attained. The antinomy of freedom (of will) and necessity (of action and determination) are left by Kant as if in abandonment and posited in a subject, which straddles intelligibility and sensibility (123-24). The Kantian will is determined negatively, as free from sensuous causes, and positively, as free to act on its own autonomy (126). Freedom, however, cannot be known in explanation or in experience. Kant’s argument is on the whole pitched according to his final note concerning the comprehensible incomprehensibility of the “unconditioned necessity of the categorical imperative," constituting what could be referred to in a deconstructive gesture as the possibility of an impossibility. In his section on "The need for pure ethics," Kant refers to an origin, from which his principles derive their sovereign authority. "These principles must have an origin entirely and completely a priori and must at the same time derive from this their sovereign authority - that they expect nothing from the inclinations of man, but everything from the supremacy of the law and from the reverence due to it, or in default of this condemn man to self-contempt and inward abhorrence" (93). The sovereign has the characteristics of self subsistence, independence, subordinacy only to the "supremacy of the law" which is equal to itself, to the sovereign, and, therefore, to a tautologous identification with law; it is therefore closed off into itself. However, the closing-off does not dismiss a rational being from following the command of the law. The choice is either to identify with sovereign authority or to be condemned by it. On "the exclusion of interest," Kant further characterizes sovereign authority as exclusive of "every admixture of interest as a motive" and renunciation "of all interest," the only determination of such a will striving to adhere to sovereign authority being the non-determination of universality, its adjoinment to law (99). This proposition that Kant makes to the rational individual consists of a dilemma: either to aspire to the universality of law and strive for an impossible membership or to remain in reproach, simply condemned by the impossible law. In Kant’s discussion of ends, for a rational being to be an end in himself, free from pricetags and the pull of the marketplace, he must be a "law-making member in [this] kingdom of ends" and thereby have dignity, "an intrinsic value" and "an unconditioned and incomparable worth" (102-3). He must elude governance by capital and by others and subsist entirely by his own merits and autonomy. "Autonomy is therefore the ground of the dignity of human nature and of every rational nature" (103). This autonomy, however, lies in potent form, always already as a possible impossibility to be attempted, but not entirely Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107 attained. A Hegelian stress on "becoming" can be sensed as underlying Kant's own logic. In contradistinction to this notion of striving toward becoming autonomous, Kant offers the holy will, a perfectly aligned rational being who has no need for duty or obligation: A will whose maxims necessarily accord with the laws of autonomy is a holy, or absolutely good, will. The dependence of a wll not absolutely good on the principle of autonomy (that is, moral necessitation) is obligation. Obligation can thus have no reference to a holy being. The objective necessity to act from obligation is called duty [...] although in the concept of duty we think of subjection to the law, yet we also at the same time attribute to the person who fulfills all his duties a certain sublimity and dignity. For it is not in so far as he is subject to the law that he has sublimity, but rather in so far as, in regard to this very same law, he is at the same time its author and is subordinated to it only on this ground. (107) The holy will, that is one perfectly aligned with absolute good and, therefore, automatically following universal law, present even to oneself as the law of its own making, is of little consequentiality in terms of authorship and agency. This possibility is simply the impossible existence of a moral automaton, one which negates becoming and striving. We sense in the following passage Kant’s attitude to those seemingly already predisposed to absolute goodness. Kant summons all beings to the judgment of moral law: "Even the Holy One of the gospel must first be compared with our ideal of moral perfection before we can recognize him to be such [...] [examples] make perceptible what the practical law expresses more generally; but they can never entitle us to set aside their true original, which resides in reason, and to model ourselves upon examples" (76). Actions of the will must undergo a comparison to the ideal and must adhere to the original. Originality and ideality of motive are here emphatically stressed by Kant. The question arises, however, how do they, original and ideal, exist then, if not in model or through examples? Kant seems to lower the stakes in his Critique of Practical Reason (1788). "For a rational but finite being only endless progress from lower to higher stages of moral perfection is possible" (103). There is a sense of defeat, in the acceptance of one’s own limited nature before the moral law, that Kant stresses in the Critique of Practical Reason. "All that a creature can have with respect to hope for this share [in the highest good] is consciousness of his tried disposition [...] he cannot hope [...] to be fully adequate to God’s will [...] he can only hope to be so only in the endlessness of his duration" (103). The becoming is again stressed, as if there was nothing to be attained outside of the possibility of striving. The ideal is still posited, but at farther remove from any real comprehension by an ethical subject. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108 into the consciousness of an aggravated individual aspiring to survival among the herd (60). He constantly stresses the need for autonomy. Nietzsche compares humans as sea animals, who were forced onto land, their "instincts were devalued and 'suspended'" (61). "The poor things were reduced to relying on thinking, inference, calculation, and the connecting of cause with effect, that is, to relying on their 'consciousness,' that most impoverished and error-prone organ!" (61). Anticipating Freud, Nietzsche warns against a suppressed will or drives that are turned inward [I]n the order of ends the human being (and with him every rational being) is an end in itself, that is, can never be used merely as a means by anyone (not even by God) without being at the same time himself an end, and that humanity in our person must, accordingly, be holy to ourselves: for he is the subject of the moral law and so of that which is holy in itself, on account of which and in agreement with which alone can anything be called holy. For, this moral law is based on the autonomy of his will, as a free will which, in accordance with its universal laws, must necessarily be able at the same time to agree to that to which it is to subject itself. (109) There is a sense of the equation between "obey" and "command" of Zarathustra in this statement; in one's self-overcoming one must be able to command a law that one oneself can and will obey. As an end, the human being is potentially supreme and sovereign in being a law-maker to oneself, in agreeing to laws made in accordance with universality and necessity, and subjecting oneself thereby. To what extent does such a Kantian being prefigure the Zarathustrian being that obeys and thereby commands? The sovereignty detected in these above quotes bears the characteristics of solipsism, self-enclosement, and completion in and to itself. Is this the final goal of moral practice? The move is away from any form of monitoring and advising concerning behavior, action, and willing and toward a specific, although non-determined, alignment with the moral law and the ability to make laws for oneself. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109 due to the "shipwrecked" condition.2 1 Nietzsche sees the soul as a construct created by the obstruction of the instincts. "All instincts that are not discharged outwardly turn inwards - this is what I call the internalization of man: with it there evolves in man what will later be called his 'soul.'" This movement of internalization marks an individual with an ever diminishing sense of sovereignty and autonomy. For Nietzsche mistaking the ignored instincts for an inner turbulence, furthermore, gives rise to the notion of guilt: man's sickness of man, of himself, as the result of a forcible breach with his animal past, a simultaneous leap and fall into new situations and conditions of existence, a declaration of war against all the old instincts on which, up till then, his strength, pleasure and formidableness had been based .(62) W ith this, Nietzsche continues, man becomes so entangled in an inner conflict that the "divine audience" is created to take part in this "new, profound, unheard-of, puzzling, contradictory and momentous [Zukunftsvolles]'' event. W hat is most interesting is that this man requires and creates a voyeuristic God (62).22 The ideals and metaphysical notions, along with "God," are shown to arise from man's reaction to simple 2 1 Ansell-Pearson also mentions the foreshadowing of Freud's Civilization and its Discontents (Das Unbehagen in der Kultur, 1930) in his reading of Nietzsche's account of the repression of the instincts (136). 2 2 Merezhkovskii develops this point in the reign of Julian, who requires an audience of pagan gods and shirks away from the Christian god. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110 grammar. Instinctive beings, on the other hand, are characterized as grammarless beings, who are not of logic, but of instinct. These sovereign individuals let others have "bad conscience" but do not allow it within themselves. Nietzsche's genealogy at this point turns into a critique of the troubling notion of indebtedness to, and guilt before, a god erected at some historical point due to a previous loss of one's self. Nietzsche welcomes atheism as a "second coming"; this atheism exists for him as a rebirth into freedom from the debt and guilt of "God." Hence, his Antichrist signals freedom and the return of oneself to oneself, to a place where there is no need to divide the self by notions of debt and credit. It is clear that Nietzsche stands against any attempts to create an economy of the self. His will to power precludes any divisions of self, or any considerations of self for these very considerations prefigure the belief in the possibility of such a division.2 3 Nietzsche further rails against the moralization of guilt and duty and leads the reader to consider the impossibility of ever making good on 2 3 Merezhkovskii follows Nietzsche in this critique when he works out the despotic element of Julian Apostate by waging a war between Julian, who yearns for the multitude of Greek and Roman gods, and his detractors, who signal an era of Christian monotheism. Here the question of despotism, normally to be pointed toward the Caesar, is lodged at the Christians, who yeam for morality and vindictiveness for the sake of their "loving" Christian God. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. I l l the debt owed. He quickly introduces moments in religious history to show how the concepts of guilt and duty are reversed so that God him self needs to repay the debt by sacrificing him self (67-68). He stresses that the debt-credit exchange becomes moralized to its finality as God pays off him self for the love of the debtor. Nietzsche understands this as an ingenious ploy to propagate what otherwise would have lost steam and failed to move onward. Basically, ideals keep other ideals afloat in this economy. Nietzsche then examines the will as a will that "torment[s] itself" because it has been suppressed and turned against itself until it grows to accept religious precepts and to turn to these "to provide [man’s] self-torture with its most horrific hardness and sharpness. Guilt towards God: this thought becomes an instrument of torture" (68). "God" italicized here stands for the ideal of God. Nietzsche's preference for italics marks his need to state that which cannot truly be represented.2 4 2 4 Nietzsche continues in this section: "In 'God' he seizes upon the ultimate antithesis he can find to his real and irredeemable animal instincts, he re interprets these self-same animal instincts as guilt before God (as animosity, insurrection, rebellion against the 'master', the 'father', the primeval ancestor and beginning of the world), he pitches himself into the contradiction of 'God' and 'Devil', he emits every 'no' which he says to himself, nature, naturalness and the reality of his being as a 'yes', as existing, living, real, as God, as the holiness of God, as God-the-Judge, as God-the-Hangman, as the beyond, as eternity, as torture without end, as hell, as immeasurable punishment and guilt. We have here a sort of madness of the will showing itself in mental cruelty which is absolutely unparalleled: man's will to find himself guilty and condemned without hope of reprieve, his will to think of himself as punished, without the punishment ever measuring up to the crime, his will to infect and poison the fundamentals of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112 To support his love of the animality in man, Nietzsche voices a preference for the Greek religion over the Christian.2 5 The Greeks did not crucify or abuse themselves, but created gods that would take on the blame for their actions. Thus, the gods took on "guilt" and "evil-doing" (70). Nietzsche prefers that the gods be assigned the "ideals." Punishment, however, because it is material can be easily measured and figured out by man. Then Nietzsche asks three questions: 'Is an ideal set up or destroyed here?' you might ask me... But have you ever asked yourselves properly how costly the setting up of every ideal on earth has been? How much reality always had to be vilified and misunderstood in the process, how many lies had to be sanctified, how much conscience had to be troubled, how much 'god' had to be sacrificed every time? If a shrine is to be set up, a shrine has to be destroyed', that is the law - show me an example 1 f \ where this does not apply! (70) things with the problem of punishment and guilt in order to cut himself off, once and for all, from the way out of this labyrinth of 'fixed ideas', this will to set up an ideal - that of a 'holy God' - , in order to be palpably convinced of his own absolute worthlessness in the face of this ideal." (68) 2 5 A number of studies on the Antichrist, the devil, or the Jungian "shadow side" allow for animality in humankind. They see the opposing alternative, the taking up of fundamentalist viewpoints, as far more harmful to the psyche and society. Among those whose studies voice such views are Robert C. Fuller (Naming the Antichrist: The History o f an American Obsession), Bernard McGinn (Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil), and Jeffrey Burton Russell's (The Prince o f Darkness: Radical Evil and the Power of Good in History). 26 In this manner Merezhkovskii's Julian Apostate will show that the "ideal" of a Greek shrine is destroyed so that a Christian one takes its place and vice versa and Przybyszewski's Homo sapiens will show that Falk destroyed the "shrine" of love in one woman to erect it in another ad infinitum. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113 He uses metaphorical language to show how literal the destructiveness of ideals is and then proposes a "reverse experiment": to link bad conscience to thinkers of ideals rather than to those of natural inclinations. For too long, man has viewed his natural inclinations with an 'evil eye', so that they finally came to be intertwined with 'bad conscience' in him. A reverse experiment should be possible in principle - but who has sufficient strength? - by this, I mean an intertwining of bad conscience with perverse inclinations, all those other-worldly aspirations, alien to the senses, the instincts, to nature, to animals, in short all the ideals which up to now have been hostile to life and have defamed the world. To whom should we turn with such hopes and claims today? (70) This call for turning ideals back to the thinkers of ideals is tried out in the new historical novels, which comprise rewritings of history and morality. In the final sections of Essay II Nietzsche depicts the new individual by referring excessively to a nature of earthly strength and to a nature that encompasses the opposites, an individual who is well-rounded, one who is neither biased by a certain principle or ideology nor weakened by considerations of social constraint, propriety or etiquette.27 This 2 7 Nietzsche continues in full force: "We would need another sort of spirit than those we are likely to encounter in this age: spirits which are strengthened by wars and victories, for which conquest, adventure, danger and even pain have actually become a necessity; they would also need to be acclimatised to thinner air higher up, to winter treks, ice and mountains in every sense, they would need a sort of sublime nastiness [Bosheit] itself, a final, very self-assured wilfulness of insight which belongs to great health, in brief and unfortunately, they would need precisely this great health'.... Is this at all possible today?... But some time, in a stronger age than this mouldy, self-doubting present day, he will have to come to us, the redeeming man of great love and contempt, the creative spirit who is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114 individual is the sovereign individual who says "yes" to both love and contempt within, and who, thus, acknowledges a certain ironic will to live and takes no recourse whatsoever in costly ideals. He encompasses contradictions not for the sake of contradictions but for the vitality that sustains him. This vitality and awareness are far from the self-conscious sort. Nietzsche then states that if the will is not free as it is for the sovereign, then it is compelled and by this very compulsion it feels that it must will something. It, therefore, wills "nothingness" rather than not willing at all. The "nothingness" equates to "God" or to a particular philosophy that will not take physiology, or arbitrariness, into consideration. This section of the essay functions as a conclusory statement on the genealogy. This is the crowning event of the book and holds within it the rhetoric, grammar, logic, and message of the entire book amplified in the Antichrist performative and imperative. To pushed out of any position 'outside' or 'beyond' by his surging strength again and again, whose solitude will be misunderstood by the people as though it were flight from reality - : whereas it is just his way of being absorbed, buried and immersed in reality so that from it, when he emerges into the light again, he can return with the redemption of this reality: redeem it from the curse which its ideal has placed on it up till now. This man of the future will redeem us not just from the ideal held up till now, but also from the things which will have to arise from it, from the great nausea, the will to nothingness, from nihilism, that stroke of midday and of great decision which makes the will free again, which gives earth its purpose and man his hope again, this Antichrist and anti-nihilist, this conqueror of God and of nothingness - he must come one day..." (71) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115 strengthen his position Nietzsche further concludes in the final section of the second essay that he must defer to the man of youth and of the future, "Zarathustra the Godless," the prophet who will come in silence, because when it is a matter of nature nothing needs to be said, conjured, or speculated. Nietzsche insists that redemption comes in the form of a return to one's origins, one's originality, one's drives and primary will. In these last two sections one can observe Nietzsche's use of italics and ellipses to spotlight and focus on that which is non-existent in the physiological world and refers to lofty non-natural aspirations (71). Third Essay: Ubermensch or Unter-menschl The Ascetic Alternative Condemned In the third essay Nietzsche gives a list of ascetic goals in their social hierarchy beginning with artists and culminating with priests and points to the fundamental "nothingness" as the highest goal of the high priests.2 8 He attributes the existence of this "nothingness" to a basic human trait: "That the ascetic ideal has meant so much to man reveals a 2 8 Sarah Kofman suggests a "typological unity" is "expressed" through an irreducible diversity, but there is no essential unity" to how the ascetic ideal manifests (84). "These different meanings do not have the same importance, even if collectively they all at bottom reflect the same will to nothingness." She connects this point to Nietzsche's argument about punishment with its multiple meanings (85). "Each mastering [which gives meaning] is equivalent to a new interpretation which, by imposing itself, effaces the previous meaning and ultimately forces it to be forgotten." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116 basic fact of human will, its horror vacuv, it needs an aim - , and it prefers to will nothingness rather than not will" (72). Nietzsche points out that a compulsion to follow a certain grammar by which an end-result can be seen, marks the state of man. Nietzsche uses Richard W agner as a case in defining what these ascetic ideals mean. Rather than providing a definition he makes a roundabout case against the taking on of ascetic ideals by individuals who then use these ideals to shut off some component of life that stands in contradiction to what the ideal signifies. In this case W agner takes on chastity later in life especially in a bid to disgrace sensuality (73). Asceticism is, then, a process of denial, turning back on oneself, saying "no" to life, and being incapable of allowing for contradiction, which is the same for Nietzsche as taking an unwavering fundamentalist point of view. The specific problem with W agner is that he treated music as an ideal: music set apart from all the other arts, the inherently independent art, not providing reflections of the phenomenal world like the other arts, but instead, speaking the language o f the will itself straight out of the 'abyss', as the latter's most unique, original, direct revelation. (77) To Nietzsche's great disdain W agner became "an oracle, a priest, in fact, more than a priest, a sort of mouthpiece of the 'in itself of things, a telephone to the beyond [ein Telephon des Jenseits], - from now on, he Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 did not just talk music, this ventriloquist of God, he talked metaphysics" (78). For Nietzsche the disturbance is in the great escape from life and from self-made tortures that W agner and the band of philosophers had to undergo because of their ascetic ideals. Nietzsche proposes, instead of idealism or transcendentalism as in Schopenhauer, his conception of a "hitherto untouched and unexplored physiology o f aesthetics" (85). Nietzsche believes that the ascetic ideal and philosophy go hand in hand throughout history. He points out that the first steps of philosophy contained doubt, the need for suspended judgments, a will for neutrality and objectivity, and that these things steps ran counter to the calls for morality, conscience, and reason in general. Then, he describes how things became turned around historically. W hat once appeared as sin is now virtue and vice versa. He explains today's age as one of hubris and godlessness. "Hubris today characterizes our whole attitude towards nature, our rape of nature with the help of machines and the completely unscrupulous inventiveness of technicians and engineers; hubris characterizes our attitude to God, or rather to some alleged spider of purpose and ethics which is lurking behind the great spider's web of causality" (86-87). Nietzsche outlines a number of ways in which haughtiness has taken man away from his earlier self and created a being Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118 who lacks any empathy for the "morality of custom," which predates "world history" (88). Nietzsche characterizes the existence of this ascetic type as the "incorporate will to contradiction and counter-nature" because it "demote[s] physicality to the status of illusion"(91). Nietzsche finds it absurd to renounce one's ego and one's reality. He even finds that Kant plays the same trick on his "reason," so that "reason," portrayed as an ascetic priest, denies itself an "ego" or knowledge of the "in-itself" of phenomenal things. "The ascetic self-contempt and self-ridicule of reason decrees: 'there is a realm of truth and being, but reason is firmly excluded from it!'..." (92) The ascetic quality for Kant exists in the notion that the noumenal exists but it can not be known as it is completely "incomprehensible" for the intellect.29 Then, Nietzsche gives some slight praise to reversals of perspectives. "Finally, as knowers, let us not be ungrateful towards such resolute reversals of familiar perspectives and valuations with which the mind has raged against itself for far too long, apparently to wicked and useless effect: to see differently, and to want to 2 9 Kant ends his preliminary work on ethics and practical reason, Groundwork on the Metaphysic o f Morals, with the ironic notion of one's ability to comprehend the total "incomprehensibility" of noumenal matters: "while we do not comprehend the practical unconditioned necessity of the moral imperative, we do comprehend its incomprehensibility. This is all that can fairly be asked of a philosophy which presses forward in its principles to the very limit of human reason" (131). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119 see differently to that degree, is no small discipline and preparation of the intellect for its future 'objectivity' [...]: so as to be able to engage and disengage them so that we can use the difference in perspectives and affective interpretations for knowledge." Here Nietzsche recalls the beginning of the tract on the genealogy with the emphasis on knowing and the turns of knowing and unknowing. He reveals his perspectivism and the phenomenology of many "eyes" as the only option to a Kantian single "non-eye" and we receive a strong sense of Nietzsche's aesthetic, which actually allows for all the perspectives, even those that have been considered "dangerous" and errant. Let us be more wary of the dangerous old conceptual fairy tale which has set up a 'pure, will-less, painless, timeless, subject of knowledge', let us be wary of the tentacles of such contradictory concepts as 'pure reason', 'absolute spirituality', 'knowledge as such': - here we are asked to think an eye which cannot be thought at all, an eye turned in no direction at all, an eye where the active and interpretative powers are to be suppressed, absent, but through which seeing still becomes a seeing-something, so it is an absurdity and non-concept of eye that is demanded. There is only a perspective seeing, only a perspective 'knowing'; the more affects we allow to speak about a thing, the more eyes, various eyes we are able to use for the same thing, the more complete will be our 'concept' of the thing, our 'objectivity.' (92) Nietzsche does not italicize the eye; he means for it to be taken at its face value. He italicizes the words 'only' and 'more' as he refers to eyes and perspectives in a gesture that signals his awareness of the fatal flaw in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120 trying to base a multitude as certainty. His gesture is one of bracketing these ideas and letting them hold some sway in his argument so that what he presents is an uncertain qualification. Nietzsche then examines the self-contradiction within the idea of asceticism and primarily in "life against life" as nonsense (93). "The ascetic ideal springs from the protective and healing instincts o f a degenerating life which uses every means to maintain itself and struggles for its existence [...] in it and through it, life struggles with death and against death, the ascetic ideal is a trick for the preservation of life." This ascetic ideal is a trope suggesting a turning around that merges life and death into an inseparable chaotic pull. Nietzsche identifies the ascetic man as the sickly type who has struggled with him self "with disgust at life, with exhaustion and with the wish for the 'end.'"30 The ascetic priest is the incarnate wish for being otherwise, being elsewhere, indeed, he is the highest pitch of this wish, its essential ardour and passion: but the pow er of his wishing is the fetter which binds him here, precisely this is what makes him a tool, who now has to work to create more favourable circumstances for our being here and being man [...] this ascetic priest, this apparent enemy of life, this negative man, - he actually belongs to the really great forces in life which conserve and create the positive... (93) 3 0 This is in a manner that resonates with the partners of Solov'ev's Three Conversations’ searching out some "end" for themselves of history, of Christ, of goodness, of the conversation and the story. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121 Again, we have the turning of negative into positive. Nietzsche is in awe of this "sickest" of creatures, who is the most self-destructive, the most changing, the least satisfied, the most "fed up" "but even this nausea, this weariness, this fatigue, this disgust with him self - everything manifests itself so powerfully in him that it immediately becomes a new fetter. His 'no' which he says to life brings a wealth of tender 'yeses' [eine Fiille zarterer Ja's (.«c)] to light as though by magic; and even when he wounds himself, this master of destruction, self-destruction, - afterwards it is the wound itself which forces him to live..." (94). Nietzsche's appraisal of man is taking a reversal so that it seems rather satirical that the praise is in favor of the negative qualities because they give rise to the positive; it is as if Nietzsche praises the turning quality itself in man's nature and not man as he outlined him. It is the process that is praised and seen as synonymous to the power and will behind the manifested actions and occurrences. "The sickly ones," Nietzsche finds, "represent justice, love, wisdom, superiority, that is the ambition of these who are 'the lowest', these sick people!" (95).3 1 Nietzsche implores that there be a form of 3 1 Nietzsche brings up the question of representation here in the italics, to "represent justice, love, wisdom, superiority", those unearthly things that cannot be represented nor even posited without unleashing a genealogy that deconstructs Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122 separation so that the weak do not contaminate the strong with their insidious manners and their diseased emotional lives. "Great nausea" (94) and "deep pity for man" are for Nietzsche the great epidemics released by asceticism and which Nietzche finds as the most harmful to man.32 The one designated to take care of the sick is the ascetic priest for the strong cannot take on that responsibility without becoming sick themselves. Nietzsche's rhetoric is strewn with dualisms and merging contradictions and antitheses, for example: "The priest is the direction- changer of ressentiment." He changes the direction of their blame; as the sick look for a cause and culprit for their pain, they look to release emotion that acts as an anesthetic against their pain. Nietzsche lists a number of chemical or biological imbalances that may occur in the body. those very concepts. The ascetics, therefore, are privy to the "nothingness" of these concepts. 3 2 Max Nordau and Cesare Lombroso use similar rhetoric in discrediting Nietzsche and the other "prophets"and proponents of Decadence. However, Giles Fraser in Redeeming Nietzsche: On the Piety of Unbelief (London: Routledge, 2002) claims that Nietzsche's work on degeneracy could be categorized in the same class with "Morel's Treatise, Lombroso's Criminal Man, Maudsley's Body and Will, Lankester's Degeneration, Krafft-Ebbing's Psychopathia Sexualis and Nordau's Degeneration" as a diagnosis of the age. Fraser states that "Degeneracy, for Nietzsche, is a consequence of what he calls anti-natural morality. The values of the healthy arise out of the natural world and are bent upon the affirmation of life" (93). Fraser also pinpoints the need to celebrate physicality and refers the reader to Daniel Pick's Faces o f Degeneration: A European Disorder 1848-1918 for more information on Nietzsche as one of the late nineteenth-century analysts of degeneration (226-27). The irony of positioning Nietzsche in this manner is that it accepts his view of himself as an "anti-Decadent Decadent" and contradicts, while revealing the shallowness, of Nordau's and Lombroso's views. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123 Yet, he states that the sick delight in finding blame in each other and making evil-doers out of their friends. By locating a physiological source of illness and exposing a worthless and dangerous preoccupation in ideals of wrong- and ill-attribution he is further poking fun at the idealists who forget the body as their rootedness in reality. At this point Nietzsche sums up his genealogy and gives a reason for the existence of terms of morality: You can now guess what [...] the healing instinct of life has at least tried to do through the ascetic priest and what purpose was served by a temporary tyranny of such paradoxical and paralogical concepts [solcher paradoxer und paralogischer Begriffe] as 'guilt', 'sin', 'sinfulness', 'corruption', 'damnation': to make the sick harmless to a certain degree, to bring about the self-destruction of the incurable, to direct the less ill strictly towards themselves, to give their ressentiment a backwards direction ('one thing is needed' - ) and in this way to exploit the bad instincts of all sufferers for the purpose of self-discipline, self surveillance and self-overcoming. (100) Nietzsche claims that it was a "very great deal!" for a division to occur between the sick, who formed a church, and the healthy and then in brackets he explain the assumption implicit in his reasoning: "that 'sinfulness' in man is not a fact, but rather the interpretation of a fact, namely a physiological upset." Questioning the role of the ascetic doctor (who thinks of him self as a savior), Nietzsche examines the methods and forms by which the "fight Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124 against the feeling o f lethargy” is fought on a grand scale (102). These methods lead to what Nietzsche brands as "spiritual disturbances", hallucinations, or "ecstasies of sensuality" (103). Nietzsche does not criticize these but rather focuses on the interpretation of certain states as key to understanding what is happening. The supreme state, that of salvation itself, that finally achieved state of total hypnosis and tranquility, is always seen by them as the mystery as such [...] as a journey home and into the heart of things, as a liberation from all delusion, as 'knowledge', 'truth', 'being', as an escape from every aim, every wish, every action, as a beyond good and evil as well. (103-04) Nietzsche locates the second method for alleviating depression, which is the method of "mechanical activity," or what is commonly called the "blessing of work," which works by blocking out suffering by bombarding the consciousness with one action followed by another (105). Nietzsche objects to this pushing aside of oneself in order to remove suffering and, therefore, not feel oneself. He also finds a third "higher valued" means for the alleviation of suffering in the "prescription of a small p l e a s u r e "the pleasure of giving pleasure (as doing good, giving gifts, bringing relief, helping, encouraging, comforting, praising, honouring)" (106). These behaviors amount to the means by which one forgets oneself for the purpose of staving off the depression that results from not knowing oneself. "This 'will to reciprocity', to form a herd, a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125 'community', a 'conventicle' [...] is an essential step and victory in the fight against depression." The herd is based or founded out of the instinct of weakness that has willed it and the cleverness of the ascetic priest to organize it. Nietzsche states that the strong prefer to stand apart as they are part of the "solitary predatory-species of man." (107) These above stated four means are the "innocent means in the fight against displeasure" and amount to "moralistic mendaciousness" (108). Nietzsche specifically tires of moralistic lies and the inability of biographers to include that written "against oneself", an open self- reflexivity that is killed by moralistic religion that looks to cover up indecencies and self-contradictions; he mentions a number of historical examples that includes Byron, Moore, Schopenhauer, Beethoven, and Wagner. Nietzsche challenges writers of his day: "what would people do next if someone told the story differently for once, if a real psychologist told us about the real Luther, no longer with the moralistic simplicity of a country pastor, no longer with the sugary, deferential modesty of Protestant historians, but instead with the intrepidity of a Taine, from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126 strength o f soul and not from a prudent indulgence towards strength." (109)3 3 Nietzsche states his reason for the lack of self-knowledge that he had posited in the preface. Knowers are infected by their era of moralization and there is a "mistrust towards ourselves" (109). Nietzsche refers the reader to the second essay of the Genealogy in order to glimpse the meaning of "the ascetic ideal utilized to produce excess o f feelings." This is a formula that takes us into an accounting of debts. Nietzsche states that as the ascetic priest has called into service all the extreme emotions released suddenly ("anger, fear, voluptuousness, revenge, hope, triumph, despair, cruelty") for the sake of clearing away the melancholy, pain, and misery of existence and providing a "religious interpretation and 'justification'", a price will have to be paid afterwards (110). The "feeling o f guilt" was used to lead man away from his depression and resulted in "the vehement physiological revenge taken by such excesses, perhaps even mental disturbance." Nietzsche now continues railing at the Christian church for ruining the arts and letters by replacing the Greek tradition with its own.34 He 3 3 Hyppolite Taine's syncretistic aesthetics were met with great favor by the Decadents. Przybyszewski and the Czech critic Frantisek Saida refer to Taine in developing their aesthetic. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127 uses language strategically here when criticizing the ascetic priest for ruining spiritual health and taste in art and letters. But Nietzsche claims that he wants to focus only on the power of the ascetic ideal and its claim to authoritative interpretation in the world. "The ascetic ideal [...] inexorably interprets epochs, peoples, man, all with reference to its one goal, it permits of no other interpretation, no other goal, and rejects, denies, affirms, confirms only with reference to its interpretation" (116). Nietzsche sets science up as an opponent to the ascetic ideal; yet, he soon demonstrates that science is merely a manifestation of the ascetic ideal. "Precisely the opposite of what they are declaring here is the truth: science today has absolutely no faith in itself, let alone in an ideal above it, - and where it is still passion, love, fire, suffering, it is not the opposite of the ascetic ideal but rather the latter's own most recent and noble m anifestation" (116). Nietzsche's use of italics serves to put into suspension the reality and stability of the signification of the terms italicized. "[Sjcience today is a hiding place for all kinds of ill-humour, unbelief, nagging worms, despectio sui, bad conscience - it is the disquiet of lack of ideals itself, the suffering from a lack of great love, the discontent over enforced contentedness" (117). Nietzsche criticizes 3 4 This is, perhaps, another source for Merezkovskii's impulse in retelling the history of the Roman-Greco world of Julian the Apostate. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 128 scientists for the lack of perspectivism in their science and their inability to be flexible. They fall prey to some ideology that does not allow for the recognition of alternate routes and perspectives; by holding tight to their preconceptions they easily dismiss others and become distraught and overly defensive. Nietzsche continues being quite critical of current day sceptics because they are no different from the believers and insist on the ideal and on truth. However, what is interesting here is that Nietzsche implicates him self so that he "creates" him self and inserts him self into a historical context of which he is critical and yet in which he is immersed. These 'no'-sayers and outsiders of today, those who are absolute in one thing, their demand for intellectual rigour [Sauberkeit], these hard, strict, abstinent, heroic minds who make up the glory of our time, all these pale atheists, Antichrists, immoralists, nihilists, these sceptics, ephectics, hectics of the mind [des Geistes] (they are one and all the latter in a certain sense), these last idealists of knowledge in whom, alone, intellectual conscience dwells and is embodied these days, - they believe they are all as liberated as possible from the ascetic ideal, these 'free, very free spirits': and yet, I will tell them what they themselves cannot see - because they are standing too close to themselves - this ideal is quite simply their ideal as well, they themselves represent it nowadays, and perhaps no one else, they themselves are its most intellectualized product, its most advanced front-line troops and scouts, its most insidious, delicate and elusive form of seduction: - if I am at all able to solve riddles, I wish to claim to do so with this pronouncement!... These are very far from being free spirits: because they still believe in truth..." (118) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 129 W hat Nietzsche does here is quite remarkable as he focuses on the "free" of spirit, those who are too close to it, like he himself; he discounts him self as an object, as a phenomenon to be experienced along with the other idealists or anti-idealists and stands aloof treating him self and others but keeping him self out of the count of those affected or infected. This is quite telling of his process of self-creation; there is not a denial but rather a self-effacement as if he were simply a medium for this philosophy and his phenomenal self must be suspended during this criticism.3 5 He makes his "pronouncement" as he had announced his "Antichrist" self. Interpretation remains at the core of the matter for Nietzsche so that any "renunciation of any interpretation (of forcing, adjusting, shortening, omitting, filling-out, inventing, falsifying and everything else essential to interpretation) [...] expresses the asceticism of virtue just as well as any denial of sensuality (it is basically just a modus of this denial)"(l 19). Nietzsche finds that the "unconditional will to truth" marks the ascetic ideal as a "metaphysical value" and that all endeavors of truth- finding are equally hopeless. "Strictly speaking, there is no 'presuppositionless' knowledge, the thought of such a thing is unthinkable, 3 5 Eric Falk in Przbyszewski's Homo sapiens takes a similar self-effacing stance. Appearing to criticize all that he may have stood for, including anarchism and socialism, he demonstrates that all revolutionary or rebellious positions are rendered defiled once they are treated by their proponents as status quo. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130 paralogical: a philosophy, a 'faith' always has to be there first, for knowledge to win from it a direction, a meaning, a limit, a method, a right to exist." For knowledge biases and prejudices must be in place; for knowledge to be possible faith and philosophy come first and truth comes later. The circling of the genealogy is completed here. The knowers, as anti-metaphysicans who are godless, are proven to be "full" of God and metaphysics. Nietzsche impugns science for having "a value-ideal, a value- creating power, serving which it is allowed to believe in itself" (120). Nietzsche describes it in terms reserved for an impostor. Nietzsche declares that modern science is "the best ally for the ascetic ideal, for the simple reason that it is the most unconscious, involuntary, secret and subterranean!" (121). Nietzsche questions the strengthening of the ascetic ideal via scientific advances and perceives man as falling into "the piercing sensation of his nothingness" (122) and neither Kant nor the following transcendentalists have been able to deal with the question of knowledge in such a way as to emancipate man. They have to a certain extent allowed man to follow his desires, but Nietzsche states that that question of knowledge and science has led man in a vicious circle based on metaphysics and the ascetic ideal. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131 Historiography as a Key to Epistemology Nietzsche criticizes two types of historiographers in the final sections of the third essay. He implicitly instructs how new historiographers must not write history. The first type is the one who claims to be descriptive and reflective. "Its noblest claim nowadays is that it is a mirror, it rejects all teleology, it does not want to 'prove' anything any more; it scorns playing the judge, and shows good taste there, - it affirms as little as it denies, it asserts and 'describes'" (123). Nietzsche claims that this is the type of Russian historiography of "Saint Petersburg metapolitics and Tolstoi's ’ pity."' It projects to see and to see objectively as if a mirror reflecting surfaces, but Nietzsche's claim reduces it to a foreclosure on reflection. Its ideal obstructs its vision or view. The other "historian" (Nietzsche shifts from historiography to historian without any clarity as to differences between the two) is the contemplative and speculative type. W ith regard to that other type of historian, perhaps an even more 'modern', pleasure-seeking, voluptuous type who flirts with life as much as with the ascetic ideal, who uses the word 'artist' as a glove and commandeers for him self the praise of contemplation. (123) Here Nietzsche is quick to point out his great disdain for the contemplatives and his preference, therefore, for the nihilists or anarchists: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132 The 'contemplatives' are a hundred times w orse-: I know of nothing as nauseating as this type of 'objective' armchair scholar and perfumed sensualist towards history, half priest, half-satyr [...] this cowardly contemplativeness, this lewd eunuchism towards history, this flirting with ascetic ideals, this tartuffery of fairness that results from impotence! (124) Nietzsche cites atheism as a "comedian" of the ascetic ideal because it arouses mistrust. However, it is also based on a will to truth. But this will, this remnant of an ideal [...] is that ideal itself in its strictest, most spiritual formulation, completely esoteric, totally stripped of externals, and thus not so much its remnant as its kernel. Unconditional, honest atheism ... is therefore not opposed to the ascetic ideal as it appears to be; instead, it is only one of the ideal's last phases of development, one of its final forms and inherent logical conclusions, - it is the awe-inspiring catastrophe of a two- thousand-year discipline in truth-telling, which finally forbids itself the lie entailed in the belief in God. (126) Nietzsche finds that atheism rests on a will to truth and an ideal. Nietzsche then describes the evolution and development of God into science in a teleology. He betrays the logic of the Antichrist in the following statement: All great things bring about their own demise through an act of self-sublimation: that is the law of life, the law of necessary 'self-overcoming' in the essence of life [...] After Christian truthfulness has drawn one conclusion after another, it will finally draw the strongest conclusion, that against itself; this will, however, happen when it asks itself, 'What does all will to truth mean?'... (126-27) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133 Nietzsche, according to this logic, would suggest that the Antichrist arises from the Christ as an element of the Christ's self-sublimation and as an element of its coming to self-awareness. Here Nietzsche questions his earlier premises: "what meaning does our being have, if it were not that that will to truth has become conscious of itself as a problem in us?... W ithout a doubt, from now on, morality will be destroyed by the will to truth's becoming-conscious-of-itself" (127). Here Nietzsche plays and struggles with concepts and grammatical structures that have framed the whole genealogy. The problematical issue within us as subjects is the very finding of the problem and the will's understanding of itself; here Nietzsche is breaking from the grammar of subject-object and taking something impersonal so that the will is foregrounded as subject. This is the history that he writes: the will's becoming conscious. Nietzsche further describes what the ideal and will are all about. "Except for the ascetic ideal: man, the animal man, had no meaning up to now" (127). The ideal fills in the hole brought up by a quest for meaning that cannot be given for there is not so much a meaning to be extracted as there is a will to be experienced. Nietzsche explains that the ideal lent an occupancy to the will and a purpose, which then could be filled out by the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134 construction of ideals. Man seeks meaning and wills the meaning and has an interpretation of a congregation of facts. The interpretation - without a doubt - brought new suffering with it, deeper, more internal, more poisonous suffering, suffering that gnawed away more intensely at life: it brought all suffering within the perspective of guilt... But in spite of all that - man was saved, he had a meaning, from now on he was no longer like a leaf in the breeze, the plaything of the absurd, of 'non-sense'; from now on he could will something, - no matter what, why and how he did it at first, the will itself was saved [...] And, to conclude by saying what I said at the beginning: man still prefers to will nothingness, than not will..." (127-28) Nietzsche thus ends the Genealogy by equating meaninglessness with the suffering that arises and continues from an imposed transcendental sense of meaning. If we retrace the steps of Nietzsche's genealogizing, we see a broad outline of his motivation and strategy. He engages a consideration of the purpose behind knowledge and epistemology only to disengage and to refute it. He refutes the potency of any truth-values obtained from a knowledge that is at the same time an un-knowledge. He does it throughout the entirety of the Genealogy with the exception of the final movement. Here he, in effect, sublates his rhetoric as he considers science and asceticism at the end of their proverbial ropes. Equally his sovereign individual cannot hark back to the old Germanic "blond beasts of prey," but that is okay; he does not have to. Nietzsche finally allows for some Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135 historical movement and for the existence of morality and conventions. Rather than negotiating, as he does constantly earlier in the genealogy, a "turn" against these philosophical moments in history, he allows for them to exist. The early ambiguities end in a final shocking note of acceptance. The laws of grammar and physics, adjoined in Essay 1 by Nietzsche to create the perceiving subject, are left alone. Historiography is the one tool that is stressed as a possible tool for the reorganization of the worldview. N ietzsche’s exercises in expressing cultural perspectivism and renewing philosophical representation may function as cornerstones for the aesthetic practice of Decadent culture that culminates in a new ethics. Nietzsche begins with the premise of this ethics, the "to do" (the doing of the deed being inseparable from the deed itself - an absorption of act and object with the performing subject) or the practice of daily life, and takes his readers on an excursion through self-mastery and self-overcoming, the self-creation that is based on locating the sovereign individual throughout history and deciding yow the past and future should adhere to the viable present. One particular gesture is revealing of Nietzsche’s aesthetic practice and his need to "disembowel" his tradition. In an oxymoronic gesture Nietzsche demonstrates his relationship to his tradition by promoting "forgetting" over "remembering." There is a rewriting of parts of K ant’s Critique o f Judgment in this gesture; that is, there is a touch of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136 the Kantian sublime in the "forgetting" that Nietzsche advocates. That sublime is in the ability to know and to remember but to hold oneself in suspension in relation to it so that one is in control and not martyred to any idea arising from the past of that remembering. More so of the Genealogy than of N ietzsche’s final work, Ecce Homo, which he subtitled "the book for all occasions and all humankind," is this labeling pertinent and indicative of N ietzsche’s intent. It is written "for all" as a text of their personal history without regard for their particular predisposition and as a guide to “the individual” to sever oneself as a sovereign individual from the collective mass of an unaccomplished and undecipherable herd. As we have examined, N ietzsche’s Genealogy tackles the problem of epistemology, ethics, history, and historiography in this order. N ietzsche’s work consists largely of an essayistic style that combines substantive argument, rhetorical strategy, an interrogation of the philosophical tradition, and a development of ideas that leads to the displacement of the Kantian "categorical imperative" in favor of his "genealogical imperative." After suggesting his sense of epistemology, Nietzsche embarks on a trinitarian discourse that involves an etymological investigation of morality as historically and politically derived, a debunking of Rationalist and Idealist notions of the role of morality within history (which leads to his self-proclamation as the Antichrist), and the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137 justification of a new historiography. The aesthetic demand that Nietzsche passes down to those who are willing to listen to him is to recreate or rewrite historical writing so that it uncovers history as Nietzsche has done in the Genealogy. The ethical measures taken by Slavic writers in this direction will then be seen in their implicit interpretations of Nietzsche and his call for the sovereign individual in the struggle for and against “meaning.” Although they appear to retain a stylistic consistency within their works, Solov'ev, Merezhkovskii, and Przybyszewski proceed along similar rhetorical and thematic lines. Grammar and physics remain a specific trademark of Nietzsche, but historiography and the critique of asceticism are taken on by the others. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 138 Chapter 2: Vladimir Solov’ev’s Three Conversations: An Answer to the Threat of Imposture No new superhuman form of organism is created or required by history because the human form can infinitely perfect itself - outwardly and inwardly, remaining all the while the same: it is capable according to its prototype, or type, of fitting and connecting within itself everything, to become the instrument and bearer of everything, to whatever one could aspire - it is capable of being the form of a perfected unity-of-all, or divine being. - "Idea of the Superman" Nietzsche, while thinking himself to be a real superman, was only a super-philologist. - "Literality or the Truth?" Mis-reading Nietzsche The above epigraphs originate in essays that provide m is readings or mis-representations of Nietzsche by Vladimir Solov'ev. "Idea of the Superman" reads like a spoof on the immortality scheme of certain philosophers and "Literality or the Truth?" parodies and negates Nietzsche's ethical project.1 Solov'ev deliberately separates him self in 1 All references to Solov'ev's works in the original Russian will be to the 1966 Brussels reprint of the second edition of Sobranie sochinenii, published as Sobranie sochinenii Vladimira Sergeevicha Solov'eva s 3-mia portretami i avtografom. Where relevant, translation information will also be included in the citations. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139 these essays from the phenomenon of Nietzscheanism. He shuns the movement and attempts to derail any proponents of Nietzschean ideals that may equally adhere to his thinking. However, as Solov'ev's own followers pointed out, the ideas of Solov'ev and Nietzsche can be accepted in tandem and syncretized in simplistic readings without a fear of contradiction.2 Solov'ev did not actually help out in this process of understanding by his own insistence on - what I contend is - a false division between his ideas and the German philosopher's. Solov'ev's final statement at the end of Three Conversations (Tri razgovora, 1899-1900), the proverb "All that glitters is not gold" [Ne vse to zoloto, chto blestit] (SS 10:220), suggests that his own writings may be implicated; in this judgm ent his thought "is" not necessarily the gold his reader may think it to be. The main problem is that the philosophical project of representation is not consistent with the "glitter" of style and rhetoric that may take precedence over the purpose and meaning of representation, a point that Komblatt supports in reference to Solov'ev's "Idea of the Superman" ("Ideia sverkhcheloveka") was originally published in World o f Art (Mir iskusstva) 9 (1899): 87-91 (SS 9:265-74). "Literality or the Truth?" ("Slovesnost' Hi istina?") was originally published as part of "Sunday Letters" ("Voskresnyia pis'ma") in Rus' March 30, 1897 and appended to Three Conversations (Tri razgovory) in 1900 (SS 10:28-32). 2 Judith Deutsch Komblatt stresses the literary aspect of the sources and genres, which - she convincingly suggests - Solov'ev is highly conscious of in his Antichrist project ("Soloviev on Salvation" 68-87). As this is likely the case, it appears that Solov'ev creates a superficial, stylistic barrier between himself and Nietzsche, which the Symbolist followers ignore. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 140 allusion to literary genres. In the proverb there is no predication of glitter on gold as a substantive. There is the "glittering" action [chto blestit] and gold only insofar as it conveys a negative attribute [ne vse to zoloto]', this thought relates to Nietzsche's critique of the deed, wherein the deed alone exists and the representational force of grammar is responsible for creating a substantive doer. W e can only be guaranteed of the in-existence of the substantive, that is, its attribute-like state, and not its assured existence. There is a literal [slovesnost'] gold, the attribute, but not an "essential" or "existent" [istina] gold. This reading stems directly from Solov'ev's phenomenological and existentialist position, which we will consider below in reference to "The Initial Basis for a Theoretical Philosophy" (Pervoe nachalo teoreticheskoifilosofii, 1897) (SS 9: 89-130).3 This is a significant connection that Solov'ev makes in relation to his understanding of the Antichrist. The Antichrist is not necessarily an "Antichrist" (an absolute Other of Christ) as one might construct such a notion. The sense of the proverb is that there are only actions and negative attributes, the sense of which brings us close to a consideration of negative theology. The final conclusion in the story is that there is no "essential" evil. There is no evil as an existence, but there may be, perhaps, an action or attribute 3 First published in Issues in Philosophy and Psychology (Voprosy filosofii i psikhologii) 40: 867-915. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141 designated as "evil." (This leads to the question, W hence does evil spring if there is possibly no substance of evil as source, whether possessed or controlled? Is there a will to evil?)4 If we deny evil and Antichrist substantive existences and characterize them as unlike "good" and unlike "Christ," we run the risk of characterizing the latter two as negative substances in relation to these prior substance-less existences. Grammatically, we run aground. A consideration of evil and Antichrist - when taken to its end - leads us to posit questions about the "good" and the "Christ." These "substances" will appear to have tropic functions and to serve merely as tropes. From what Solov'ev offers in this work, it appears that there may only be a trope around which the Christ, the "good," and the gold orbit or perform their "turn." Two years earlier, in his essay "Literality or the Truth?" Solov'ev posited a contradiction as he mistook the "reality" of "essences" in his critique of Nietzsche. His article, the title of which stresses the juxtaposition of the "literal" to the "essential," begrudges Nietzsche the 4 See Richard J. Bernstein, Radical Evil: A Philosophical Inquiry, which offers a considerable amount of insight on the philosophical literature that exists concerning this issue. He analyzes Kant's Religion within the Limits o f Reason Alone (also translated as Religion within the Boundaries of Mere Reason), Groundwork o f the Metaphysic o f Morals, and Critique of Practical Reason as well as Nietzsche's Beyond Good and Evil and On the Genealogy of Morality among other works of more contemporary philosophers. See also Rethinking Evil, a compilation of various scholars' articles under the same theme. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 142 call for a superman with name or reality, when Solov'ev stresses that the Biblical Paul already succeeded two millennia ago in naming Christ as a "real superman" with a "name." Solov'ev's argument hinges on the "literal" when it comes to the refutation of his competitor in philosophy, Nietzsche. Solov'ev criticized Nietzsche for introducing a "higher being" that had already been called for by the Apostle P a u l:".. .in speaking of the superman, Paul names Him [Christ], while for the most recent preacher [Nietzsche] there is nothing to point out in reality and no one to name" (SS 10:29; W ozniuk 87).5 He finds fault in Nietzsche in that "the limitations 5 I refer to Vladimir Wozniuk's translation in Politics, Law, and Morality: Essays by V. S. Soloviev. However, I have adjusted the translation of the titles to depict more accurately the essence of the essays. Wozniuk decides to translate the title of this essay "Slovesnost' ili istina?" as "Literature or Truth?" so as to avoid the "bookish" 'philology' (SS 10:28-32). However, a better translation may have been "Literality or the Truth?" because Solov'ev is juxtaposing the literal and the "truthful" to decide which overrides the other; the sense is also one of the "letter" versus the "spirit." One can even detect the opposition of "letter" (slovesnost” ) of the law to the essence (istina) or existence of such in Solov'ev's text. However, the "literal" can also be understood as in service as a trope to the "essential." In his encyclopedic article "Istina" (Stat'i iz entsiklopedicheskogo slovaria Brokgauza-Efrona) Solov'ev defines "istina" as "to, chto est', v formal'nom otnoshenii - cootvetstvie mezhdu nasheiu mysliu i deistvitel'nost'i" (SS 12:592). In this definition "istina" is reduced not to a substantive, but to a correlation between "thought" and "reality." As such, the "truth" in "istina" seems to receive little privileging by Solov'ev over the "literal." This further strengthens my contention that Wozniuk's translation of "istina" as "truth" is based more on the translator's assumption than on the author's intended meaning, or intended obfuscation of meaning. In this sense translating "istina" with "existence" or "essence" may better convey Solov'ev's understanding of "istina” as a process of the correlation of, or correspondence between, "thought" and "reality." Similarly, Wozniuk translates "Ideia sverkhcheloveka" as "The Idea of a Superman." However, I feel that "Idea of the Superman" better captures the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143 of philology, or that which he called historie, constricted him" and Solov’ ev bemoans Nietzsche the lack of reality in the latter's superman: Zarathustra (SS 10:29; 88).6 Solov'ev appears to be disturbed by the choice of name and by its appeal to decadents (SS 10:30). "Here is the heart of the problem; here is the tragic situation for Nietzsche: for him there is absolutely nothing to teach about the superman, and all his advocacy is reduced to a single literary exercise, which is beautiful in literary form but bereft of any real content" (SS 10:31; 89). W hat of Solov'ev's glittering "non-gold," his literary exercise in perceiving "no generic sense of "idea" and that the definite article implies the particular sense of the "superman," to which Solov'ev responds. 6 Marina Kostalevsky, in a footnote in Dostoevsky and Soloviev: The Art o f Integral Vision, states that Solov'ev "values the idea of superman in Nietzsche" (201). I agree with her on this; Solov'ev does welcome the open forum of discussion about supermen and the superhuman element, as she suggests, "from an ontological point of view" for Solov'ev thinks it is better for people to think about this idea, even if erroneously, rather than not to think about it at all. However, Kostalevsky then mentions that "Soloviev acknowledged Nietzsche's formulation of the question to be correct: the overcoming of the human element. Granting this, it goes without saying that for him there exists only one "superman" - the God-man Christ, who has shown the "superhuman road," at the end of which lies "complete and decisive victory over death" (SS 9:273). However, Nietzsche's "formulation" of this question is not "the overcoming of the human element." It is unclear if Kostalevsky agrees on the "correctness" of this notion as expressed by Solov'ev. The importance here is that Solov'ev has his "correctness" wrong. Nietzsche in no way advocates the "overcoming of the human element" that Solov'ev advocates or that Kostalevsky seems to support. Nietzsche proposes a return to the "human element" by overcoming the valuations and historical metaphysical schemes that have marred the "human element" from being truly human. If we choose to insist on Solov'ev's reasoning, then we will fail to see his "likeness" in Nietzsche. That is why I agree with Komblatt on the importance of reading Solov'ev as "literature" and his ideas as open to "literal" play. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144 essential evil"? Solov'ev claims that Nietzsche "went out of his mind" as a way to save himself; he sacrificed his "visible cerebral 'ego'" to save his "own intrinsic being." Solov'ev likewise - it can be seen - goes out of his "literal" mind two years after the publication of this article to express the validity of a tropic evil and a tropic Antichrist. Furthermore, Solov'ev believes that Nietzsche had profundity and spiritual depth, but that his followers constitute a "semieducated mob" that is enthralled by the "sonority and harmony" of a "brilliant literary exterior." He ends the essay with a statement that foreshadows his own telling of the Antichrist: "In all his emptiness and artificiality, the superman whom the unfortunate Nietzsche concocted and morally regurgitated perhaps represents the prototype of the one who will display, apart from his brilliant words, both deeds and signs of the times, even if they are false" (SS 10:31-32; 90). On the one hand Solov'ev proposes reality as a necessity for foregrounding a superman and on the other hand Solov'ev fears, or envies Nietzsche, his perhaps "impotent expressions of a real premonition." In this sense Solov'ev feels impelled to return to Nietzsche to offer a summation of his own thought. Ironically Solov'ev will use his philological erudition to create a "Pansophius" ("All-knowing" monk) and the tale about the future Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145 Antichrist, whose reality cannot be ascertained for obvious spatiotemporal reasons.7 In his other article on Nietzsche, "Idea of the Superman," Solov'ev returns to Nietzsche and to his celebrated vogue in Russia. He speaks somewhat playfully about fads that have market demand as descending from an originary spiritual impulse on the part of few "thoughtful people" (SS 9:265; 255-56). (He demonstrates the commonality of the root in the apparently oppositional senses of "rynochnyi spros" and "dukhovnyi zapros.") Solov'ev isolates three particular movements that are in demand: the "economic materialism" of M arx, the "abstract moralism" of Tolstoi, and the "demonology of the "superman"" of Nietzscheanism (SS 9:266; 257). He finds the last to be the most compelling. In a logical move - that we will see enacted several times over in "The Initial Basis for a Theoretical Philosophy" later in this chapter - Solov'ev will locate the error in Nietzschean thinking, isolate the "indisputable truth" (or 7 Czeslaw Milosz in "Science Fiction and the Coming of the Antichrist" in Emperor o f the Earth: Modes o f Eccentric Vision considers Solov'ev's story of the Antichrist to be of the science fiction literary form because it adheres to the literary convention of speaking of something that will purportedly happen in the future as if it had already occurred. Also, Solov'ev proposes in "Literality or the Truth?" that Nietzsche substitutes "literality" for the "truth" and posits a concocted "superman" in place of reality. Although appearing to be in opposition here to Nietzsche's rhetorical strategies, Solov'ev himself appeals to "literary" tricks in Three Conversations, as Milosz and Komblatt point out. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146 "undisputed fact" of his phenomenological strategy) that lies within this error, and decide the value of this truth and for whom it is valid.8 However, Solov'ev strays from Nietzsche's concerns and deals with the vulgarized concept of the superman; Solov'ev tackles that by which "man naturally wants to be better and more than he is in reality" (SS 9:268). If we recall the core of Nietzsche's concerns, we remind ourselves that "to be better" [byt' luchshe] and to be anything outside of our physiological reality are erroneous notions for Nietzsche. They defy reality by implying a super-reality based on moralism. Solov'ev connects this desire "to be better" with a yearning for a superman ideal. Solov'ev then takes a detour; he focuses on the biological processes and the natural evolution of forms and deduces that man needs nothing new or different in his organism because infinite perfection is an internal process severed from the form of human existence (SS 9:270; 260). However, he finds that death is one particular impediment imposed by form that must be reckoned with. "If 8 We can readily identify the Kantian basis of Solov'ev's "judicial" reasoning. The following line reads like an allusion to Kant's The Critique of Practical Reason (1788) and Religion at the Limits o f Reason Alone (1793): "We judge ourselves, but in a court of reason, conscientiously, and then we pronounce sentence upon ourselves. Some voice of a higher nature in the depth of the human soul forces us to want eternal perfection. Reflection indicates to us the ordinary and common fact of our imperfection, and the conscience says that this fact is not only external reality for us, but it also depends on us ourselves" (SS 9:268; Wozniuk 258). Solov'ev in essence creates a link between Kant's rationalist "court of reason" and its demands that we act in accordance with moral law and Nietzsche's demand that we live according to the instinctive dictates of the sovereign individual ideal. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147 there is a reason naturally for us to be burdened, if there is a reason to be basically dissatisfied with present reality, then, of course, it is in this concluding phenomenon of all of our known existence, in this its graphic upshot: coming to naught" (SS 9:271; 261). Solov'ev claims to follow logic in stating this; it is the conquering and overcoming by death that imposes on reality an unbearable condition for man; Solov'ev describes "death as an unbearable contradiction." In this context superman would mean for Solov'ev a "conqueror o f death - a liberated-liberator of humanity from those essential conditions which make death necessary, and consequently, the executor of those conditions by which it is possible either not to die at all, or having died, to rise from the dead to eternal life" (SS 9:272; 261). Solov'ev surmises that following the antithetical conditions by which death is possible will lead to a solution as how to conquer it. At essay's end Solov'ev reveals that he has used the occasion of "superman" talk brought on by Nietzscheanism to suggest a serious discussion about his own superhuman ideals. W e can, therefore, understand the content of this essay as a parodying of Nietzschean ideas for the sake of glorifying one's own or entertaining a reading public with certain outrageous ideas in order to make them more palatable.9 The Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148 ridicule posed to Nietzsche in this article is in doing away with Nietzsche's privileging of physiology (Nietzsche is not anti-death) and in creating yet another "lie," a metaphysics of overcoming death. Although there is a clear separation between the ideas and personae of Nietzsche and Solov'ev, especially in Solov'ev's own propositions as we have just seen, a crossover of philosophies does occur. The purpose of this chapter is to present an analysis of the notions of admonition, advent, and imposture as they appear in Solov'ev’s theoretical and fictional accounts of 1898 and 1899 and, thereby, to suggest a convergence with the ideas and style of Nietzsche demonstrated in the previous chapter. My findings demonstrate the existence of a syncretistic culture of the Antichrist and the tropic (self-contradictory) strategies that Solov'ev adheres to even while emphasizing and advocating authenticity and a sincerity of experience. The awareness of a fundamental problem concerning the perceiving subject is brought to the foreground in 9 Irene Masing-Delic offers an insightful study of Solov’ev's ideas about immortality in "Vladimir Solovyov: The Meaning of Love," Abolishing Death: A Salvation Myth o f Russian Twentieth-Century Literature (105-122). She focuses on the role of beauty and love in his immortalization project. She refers us to a consideration of Solov'ev's conditions of how "we acquire control over death and how we ultimately can overcome it" (SS 9:351). Masing-Delic's quote comes from the public lecture "Lermontov" given in Saint Petersburg in 1899 (SS 9:348- 67). This lecture revisits the theme of "Idea of the Superman" (SS 9: 265-74); the first several pages amount to little more than a rehashing of the earlier article's preoccupation with a "superman" who overcomes death. It thereby betrays Solov'ev's preoccupation with "overcoming death" as a matter of interference in his critiques of Nietzsche and Lermontov alike. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149 discussions that deal with authenticity and imposture (or im postor-ship).1 0 A similarity is also conveyed in a performative literary act of the annunciation of authenticity; in fact Solov'ev is highly concerned with the one who comes in the name of authenticity, actually an im postor latching onto the name of something already authenticated. In this case the Antichrist comes as a second Christ. This act takes place as an act of mimesis and reproduction and stresses authenticity and sovereignty. This coming in Solov'ev points to the inevitability and irrevocability of a basic relationship and contract between the one that follows and the preceding Other that he must somehow imitate. Christ comes before as the crucial one and the Antichrist follows as an alter-Christ that balances some crucial equation and even supersedes the original Christ as more "authentic." The basic philosophical and practical problem that persists in Solov'ev and motivates his thinking is how to perceive without the hindrance of 1 0 Nietzsche deals extensively with the subject that arises from grammar and the splitting of an act into doer, deed, and object. Nietzsche declares in his Genealogy that the Antichrist comes to issue a "destruction" of the centuries of flawed Judeo-Christian civilization. Nietzsche claims to confront this tradition, along with its dilemmas concerning the slave and nobleman mentalities and the natures of good and evil, and its conventions put forth by a politics and an economy based on grammar and the logic behind the division of act and agent from process. This grammatical procedure constitutes a construction of a subject and an avowal of judgments that may then arise to mark this subject in relation to his or her actions. This, we are told, is an unsound practice that results in lies for life. Similarly, Solov’ev questions the integrity of the formulation of the Cartesian ego. He questions the notion of cause and effect in consciousness and the formulation of "cogito, ergo sum." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150 hypostasis and how to act in authenticity.1 1 The question in Solov'ev’s work acutely concerns the possibility of authenticity in everyday life and his method is a religiously and mystically informed phenomenology. 1 1 In his masters' thesis of 1874 The Crisis o f Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists (Krizis zapadnoi filosofii: protiv pozitivistov), published in Orthodox Review (Pravoslavnoe obozrenie) (SS 1:27-170), Solov'ev addresses the problem within Hegel's project and similarly the problem within the Positivists' conceptions as the hypostasization of abstraction in order to found a new philosophy, as equally flawed as its predecessor. The following passage demonstrates Soloviev's philosophical strategy and his insistence on locating the hypostasization of concepts as a way to discover fundamental flaws within philosophy. This type of strategy will underlie his future thinking about impostors and Antichrists. The following passage and all subsequent allusions to Crisis refer to the translation of The Crisis o f Western Philosophy: Against the Positivists by Boris Jakim. Hegel had to acknowledge that only the concept in itself has real being. Only the speculative concept is real - not as a thought in our head, but in itself, as concept. But it is clear that the proposition the concept is in itself either does not consist of anything but words or contains the hypostasization of the concept. For if the speculative concept, taken purely logically, is the true, adequate form of that which exists, then, affirmed separately from its content, as existing in itself, this form is nothing else but a hypostasized abstraction. Having removed all the rational hypostases of the old metaphysics in his absolute idea, Hegel hypostasized this idea. And however far the great destroyer of all scholastic determinations may be from scholasticism, his own principle - the concept in itself - is nothing else but the scholastic entitas, substantial form, universale ut reale. Hegel, rejecting all immediate content, considered only the formal or logical side to be real. Such a pronounced one sidedness necessarily provoked, as we have already shown, a reaction in the opposite, just as one-sided, direction. Considering the absolute form of logical philosophy to be an empty abstraction, one began to search for a purely immediate, empirically given content, without understanding that content taken separately form its logical form is just as empty an abstraction, and to recognize it as that which truly exists is a similar hypostasization of an abstraction. Here, instead of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151 This leads to several questions about the core text of discussion here: W ho is the Antichrist? W hat is the philosophical nature of this Antichrist? and, W hy is this Antichrist a crucial concern in Solov'ev’s thinking? Solov'ev appears to warn against a certain coming whereas M erezhkovskii (whom we will analyze in the following chapter), following Nietzsche, appears to welcome the coming of the Antichrist. If Solov'ev disdains Nietzsche, as it seems in the quote above, can M erezhkovskii discover in Nietzsche’s words a contribution to the possibility of a new Christian consciousness that is Solov'evian in nature? My goal is to pinpoint the convergence and the divergence of both hypostasized concepts, we have, at first, hypostasized elements of matter, material points, atoms, as the principles of empirical reality. But it is very obvious that the material atom is entirely reducible to formal, relative determinations, that the unknown principle of immediate independent reality, i.e., the principle of action, consists not in the atom as material element but in force (speaking the language of primitive innocence, the language of Dr. Buchner) which is inseparably connected with the atom. It is just as obvious that what, in external action or for another is force, in itself is will. Indeed, will is the inner principle of action and, therefore, of reality. (SS 1:104; 96-97) Solov'ev then goes on to critique Schopenhauer's metaphysical will and Hartmann's attempt to clarify and strengthen Schopenhauer's system. His concluding note is that these philosophers's doctrine, although it advances philosophy, "shares the general limitation of Western philosophy: the one-sided dominance of rational analysis, which affirms abstract concepts in their separateness and therefore necessarily hypostasizes them" (SS 1:110; 103). This concluding statement echoes Nietzsche's criticism of the hypostasization in grammar, particularly in the breaking up of the deed and the subsequent creation of a flawed subject. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152 philosophers' ideas in thinking about the Antichrist and the possibility of a new form of perception and action for man. It is the Antichrist, the opponent of a corrupt Judeo-Christian line of thinking that can overturn the tradition and restore authenticity. Nietzsche privileges the Antichrist in this way in his Lebensphilosophie process while Solov'ev continuously points to an elusive Christ figure that never quite comes; even his Antichrist is rather tentative about "coming" out. But how is this Antichrist that tentatively comes different from the Nietzschean Antichrist that marches forth in the performative words of Nietzsche? The answer comes in the way of Solov'ev's phenomenology. There are several steps that Nietzsche takes to get to his Antichrist claim. These are historical and philological in nature. For Solov'ev, however, the Antichrist, an impostor, comes in the name of a valid authority, the Christ. The question returns to one of authenticity versus counterfeiting and of creation versus mimesis and reproduction. If we juxtapose the theoretical concepts of Solov'ev onto the narrative of Solov'ev's Antichrist tale, we can gain an understanding of a phenomenology that is "spiritually" motivated. It allows us to perceive an almost Husserlian phenomenology with a spiritual basis. Then, if we remove the idealism extant in this, we come back squarely to the Nietzschean concern with the physiological and the vitalistic factors, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153 which Solov'ev equally shares. I contend that the Antichrist of Solov'ev's Three Conversations, juxtaposed to the article "The Initial Basis for a Theoretical Philosophy" of 1897, with its explication of "impostor" logic, provides a clearer picture of an otherwise ambiguous view of the Antichrist.1 2 Firstly, to situate Solov'ev within the "genre" or movement of Decadent literature and to group his religious and mystical works with those of Nietzsche, Merezhkovskii, and Przybyszewski, I point out that Solov'ev's interest in philosophy is largely synonymous with an infatuation with "crisis": crisis to be understood as the critical and crucial breaking point of all "wisdom" (Sophia) and intuition (in the sense of his phenomenologically derived "simple consciousness") from lived experience and "live-liness" (the present moment, existing before thought and language grasp and shape intuited experience gramm atically).1 3 1 2 Kostalevsky comments in her chapter on "Justification of Good versus Justification of Evil" in Dostoevsky and Soloviev: The Art o f Integral Vision that philosophical ethics is inseparable for Solov'ev from integral knowledge (145). She ties in Solov'ev's entire oeuvre as implicated in this quest for a solution to ethical problems. She quotes a Kantian sentiment from Solov'ev's Theoretical Philosophy to introduce this chapter: "If good, as such, must without fail be tme, then it is clear that truth, in its essence, cannot be something that is contradictory or alien to good" (145). Kant predicates the good on the truth and, conversely, the truth on the good. For an in-depth look at Soloviev's mystically motivated conception of wisdom, see Samuel D. Cioran, Vladimir Solov'ev and the Knighthood o f the Divine Sophia and Kristi Groberg, "The Feminine Occult Sophia in the Russian Religious Renaissance: A Bibliographical Essay." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154 Solov'ev bases his thinking on this crisis (the critical moment), on Christ (a critical persona of W estern culture and the trigger for religious experience), and on Kant (the persona demarcating the ascent to and, conversely, the descent from Rationalism). Solov'ev's The Crisis o f Western Philosophy highlights an early preoccupation with hypostasization, the ossification of living ideas and concepts, abstract and empirical, into hardened, useless matter of no theoretical or theurgical value. In Crisis Solov'ev demonstrates that Positivism, masquerading as a valid worldview, is no more than an impostor of the truth.1 4 The basic principle, or essence, of positivism consists in the fact that, besides observable phenomena as external facts, nothing exists for us, and that the relative knowledge of these phenomena therefore constitutes the sole actual content of human consciousness. For positivism, everything else is completely alien and inaccessible. Given such a basic conviction, in such a state of consciousness, what must religion and philosophical metaphysics be for positivists? The inner, proper content of religions and philosophical metaphysics does not exist for positivists by the very nature of their world-view. (SS 1:167-68; Jakim 167) It is, therefore, a worldview that hardly captures the world as it is. Solov'ev's Three Conversations demonstrates a continuity of this philosophical interest from the early dissertation on the Crisis. It is highly 1 4 This position, whereby he invokes an "impostor," is one that he will underscore fully two decades later in his Theoretical Philosophy (1897-1899) and in the "Short Story about the Antichrist" (1899). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155 unlikely that Solov'ev would make a reversal of his lifelong positions on the problem of hypostasization in philosophy in his "deathbed" statement, as Judith Deutsch Komblatt contends in reference to followers and scholars who perceive that Solov'ev abandoned his former faith ("Salvation" 70). I add that there is a clear surfacing of Kantian concerns with peace, evil, and moral action and a covert expression of morality as means and ends that culminate in the story with the depiction of the impostor-like Antichrist and that also resonate with certain sentiments expressed throughout the dissertation of 1874 and the Theoretical Philosophy of 1897. "Christ" represents a core concept of truth for Solov'ev in the sense that "Christ" functions as a divine principle through which humanity reunites with the Godhead.1 5 By warning of imposture, Solov’ ev perceives a threat to this union. His thought process, however, is similar to 1 5 Valery Kuvakin has said of Solov'ev in A History o f Russian Philosophy From the Tenth Through the Twentieth Centuries that his "philosophy of history assigns an exceptionally great, indeed metahistorical role to the individual and society. His logic is quite transparent and impetuous" and that "Godmanhood is the central category in Soloviev’s philosophy of history. For him, as an idealist, history appears first of all in the form of the spiritual, or rather spiritual-religious, history of mankind. Another general quality of his conception of all-unity is theocentrism, since all its key elements are linked with acts of the divine, supernatural forces intervening into the world of men. Soloviev divided world history into two major periods: the movement of man to Christ and the movement from Him to a certain hypothetical and desirable Universal Church, which in his opinion, should signify in itself 'humanity reunited with its divine principle through Jesus Christ"' (2: 448). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156 N ietzsche’s in the "toward" movement of his "ad-monition." Nietzsche expresses an "ad-vent" of the Antichrist, as a movement "toward" the shedding of false layers in search for an ideal of individual sovereignty. Yet, both advocate something along the lines of a union or re-union with an essential part of oneself that is neither imposturous nor layered on by language. The prefix "ad-" is worthy pointing out for the implication of direction in "ad-monition," "ad-vent," and even "ad-vocation," wherein "vocation," a "calling," and "ad-vent," the "coming," are gesticulated performatively. The Antichrist serves for each philosopher as a measure not of religious or spiritual indebtedness, accomplishment, or fear, but of a philosophical sincerity and a vitalistically inclined posture. The sovereign evoked and the impostor scorned are central components of the generally vitalistic views of Nietzsche and Solov'ev alike. Of further implication of their philosophical connectedness may be the fact that the "Antichrist" plays a far greater and central role in their late works than does the "Christ." Solov'ev's final work, which is on the Antichrist, Three Conversations, was first published in the journal Books o f the Week (Knizhki nedeli) from 1899 to 1900 under the title of Under the palms: Three conversations about peace and military matters (Pod pal'mami. Tri razgovora o mirnykh i voennykh delakh). Once the three separate Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157 conversations were compiled into the completed works, the title was changed to Three conversations about war, progress, and the end o f world history, with the inclusion o f a short story about the Antichrist and appendices (Tri razgovora o voine, progresse i kontse vsemirnoi istorii, so vkliucheniem kratkoi povesti ob antikhriste i s prilozehniiami) (SS 10:81- 221). This work serves, as the subtitle suggests, as a treatise on "war, progress, and the end of history." This subtitle presents the philosophical focus of the work as it echoes Kant's tract "On Perpetual Peace" in its insistence on war, progress, and the finality of infinitude that is implied in "the end of history." The longer title suggests that this collection of three conversations culminates in an anti-climactic finale, which is implicated in the "inclufsion] of a short story of the Antichrist." This refrain from highlighting and underscoring the "short story" creates a sense of irony and suggests a forestalling of focus. It is as if Solov'ev is tentative here. In any case "genre" does become an issue, as Judith Deutsch Kornblatt dem onstrates.1 6 Although Solov'ev is not at all Nietzschean in the stylistic 1 6 Kornblatt considers the viewpoint that Solov’ev is not contradicting his earlier more "positive" works about the possibility of the realization of Godmanhood, the union of God and man in earthly life (68-87). She suggests that Solov'ev embarks on a literary experiment as he mixes the genres of story, "scholarly- philosophical paper," and "religious homily" within the context of Platonic dialogue (71). It all remains fiction, she states, and should be read as such. Therefore, rather than turning against his earlier philosophical positions, Solov'ev engages in self-parody and self-negation. I agree with Kornblatt fully and assert Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 158 sense, I suggest that he does "genealogize" history. As he distracts the reader from conventional modes of thinking and subverts philosophical systems with turns of phrase intended to draw one into contradiction and a dead-end, he leads his readers to consider the arrival of an inopportune furthermore that Solov'ev experiments with the Decadent trope of the "turn" and with irony. Kornblatt takes this point of view and expands on it in a later article "The Truth of the Word: Solovyov's Three Conversations Speaks on Tolstoy's Resurrection" (301-321). (This article is reprinted in Solov’evskii sbornik: Materialy mezhdunarodnoi konferentsii “V. S. Solov’ev i ego filosofskoe nadsledie” 28-30 Avgusta 2000 g. [66-86].) "The philosopher turned to fictional discourse as an active embodiment of his thought as he struggled with the distinction between good and evil. We might say that his fictional discourse meets philosophy not to conquer it, nor to lose himself in it, but to converse with it, and, from the interaction of discourses, to create a whole, bogochelovecheskii Truth, 'undivided, yet unmerged'" (316). Kornblatt stresses earlier that Solov'ev "repeatedly emphasizes the interactive wholeness of multiple reality, or vseedinstvo: 'all-oneness'" (302). This serves as an underlying premise on which Solov'ev will base his philosophical writings; and it is to include his literary experimentation. This view differs somewhat from the more linear views that stress Solov'ev's later turn in life against the possibilities of realizing Godmanhood. Kornblatt alludes to Solov'ev's "non-linear" traits as a person and writer in his self-parody. She states that the character Pansophius refers to Solov'ev himself as the ("pan" as "all" or "all-oneness"; "Sophius" as Wisdom) "All-Knowing" (318). She also mentions that although mutually influential on writers and philosophers, Solov'ev "was notoriously hostile toward Nietzsche’s philosophy, as he was toward all decadence and early modernism in Russia (9: 265-74 and 7: 159-70)" (318). This contrasts greatly with A. F. Losev’s view in Vladimir Solov’ev i ego vremiia. Losev points out that Solov'ev experienced Nietzsche far more profoundly than is evident in Solov'ev's typical literary criticism and that his works of the 1890s must be considered, especially Solov'ev's correspondence with Konstantin Leont'ev, in order to glean Solov'ev's underlying predisposition to Nietzsche’s ideas behind the mild and good-humored words [chego on o nem ne skazal vvidu svoego obyknovennogo literaturno-kriticheskogo blagodushiia] (422-23). The choice of blagodushie on Losev's part to characterize Solov'ev's literary sentiment toward Nietzsche is startling. Solov'ev's literary critiques, although not overly polemical, contain elements of derision mixed in with a possible sense of humor, but only detectable as humorous if we consider certain statements as intentional mis-readings and puns. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159 time, the era of the Antichrist and the end of history. However, his work ends on an ironically light note not dissimilar from the manner in which Nietzsche ends his Genealogy. In this sense I would group Solov'ev with Nietzsche as an anti-decadent Decadent and propose a future study that examines Solov'ev in the context of Decadent literature. In his preface to the Conversations, Solov'ev addresses the question of evil (as a "natural defect" with an economy (if it is to be counterbalanced by an increase in good) or as an autonomous power, an ideality, of temptation that must be challenged) and relegates the answer to metaphysics (SS 10:83).1 7 He then specifies that his goal - in relation to the question of evil - is to provide the "most straightforward literary form," a layman's version of his Theoretical Philosophy1 8 in a 1 7 Solov'ev does this in a Kantian manner as he divides the phenomenal from the noumenal in his world of representations. In fact Solov'ev's metaphysics relies on a Kantian division of the world into the noumenal and the phenomenal. 181 have previously in this chapter referred to the first article in the Theoretical Philosophy, "The Initial Basis for a Theoretical Philosophy" ("Pervoe nachalo teoreticheskoi filosofii"), which was published in 1897 in Voprosy filosofii i psikhologii 40: 867-915 (SS 9:89-130). The other two articles of the Theoretical Philosophy are "The Truthfulness of Reason" (''Dostovernost' razuma") also published in Voprosy filosofii i psikhologii in 1898 (43:385-405) (SS 9:130-147) and "The Shape of Wisdom and the Reason of Truth" ("Forma razumnosti i razum istiny") in Voprosy filosofii i psikhologii in 1899 (50:881-903) (SS 9:148- 166). The editor claims that death interfered with Solov'ev's plan to complete his fundamental work on epistemology; these articles were, therefore, grouped together by the editor for the Sobranie sochinenii (1911) because they fall under the general heading of the theme. In the passages that follow I refer exclusively to the first article, which consists of Solov'ev's groundwork for the epistemological project. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160 "conversational" format, his objective being to present various opinions and positions with the hope of extracting "truth" by arriving at the "final indomitable kernel" of unconditional truth.1 9 This "hopeless" notion of truth fuels the philosophical crisis underscored here and, therefore, the occult interest - that is sparked by the Antichrist perceived as a "demonic" figure and the expression of which gains importance in the popular and vulgar aspects of a broader cultural representation, such as in the literary emanations of the occult - is not an issue here. The Antichrist in Solov'ev, as in Nietzsche, consists of a 1 9 With this ambitious philosophical goal Solov'ev intends for his treatise on the Antichrist to be understood in the broader sense of a cultural dissatisfaction with philosophy, science, and religion as institutions in the late nineteenth century. The Antichrist, thus, appears here as a trope masking a fundamental philosophical opposition to centuries of the Judeo-Christian tradition and it bears an inherent call for a renewed ethics. This symbol will appear in the form of a human being in the story, but the being does not recognize himself as an Antichrist. He “comes” rather as the second coming of Christ. Solov'ev appears thereby to be addressing an altogether different element of the Antichrist that we know from Nietzsche. His Antichrist is not even conscious of himself. The hopeless and lackluster arrival of the Antichrist in Solov'ev's work and Komblatt's insight about the self-parodying and the Platonic dialogue format (the Socratic questioning and teasing by the narrator) lead me to believe that Solov'ev's "truth" as such does not exist. We may not know "truth" by itself, but we can know impostors and thereby know "truth" only negatively as "not this, not this," is what Solov'ev appears to be demonstrating. As pertains to specific elements in Nietzsche, Solov'ev's Three Conversations addresses an underlying "will" as potentially or essentially evil, one’s sovereignty in a culture of anti-Christianity as predicated on an extreme irreverence for the religious figure of Christ, and Tolstoian passive resistance to evil as opposed to the preferred active engagement against evil - so that he treats Tolstoi as partaking in the ascetic reactive ethos. These are all relatively negativist assessments; Solov'ev prefers to engage the "absence" of features that he praises. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 161 flirting with, or skirting of, notions dealing with metaphysics, ethics, and aesthetics. This does not mean that I deny any practical aspect to expressions of the occult or of studies of the occult and of demonic literature, but rather insist that a certain philosophical assumption must take place before this "devil," or an unseen will or void, can come to rhetorical eloquence. (I addressed this in my introduction when considering the descriptive and, at times, moralistic studies of Groberg and W einer.) The implicit teaching or modeling of a brand of historiography by which the Decadents create a new ethics is closer to characterizing the works of Solov'ev, Nietzsche, and Merezhkovskii than is the portrayal of immoralism or of a "devil" at play. Kornblatt's insight of Solov'ev's self- parodying and self-negation extends to the Decadent style overall and these stylistic means do not preclude utilizing controversial images or characters to convey philosophically rich notions. Solov'ev's foreword begins on the following point: Is evil only a natural defect, an imperfection disappearing by itself with the growth of good, or is it a real power, ruling our world by means of temptations, so that to fight it successfully assistance must be found in another sphere of being? This vital question can be fully examined and solved only in a complete system of metaphysics. (SS 10:83; 15)20 20 Kant's Religion at the Limits o f Reason Alone is recalled here. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162 The question raised is one of the utility of empiricism for a problem that could better, or only, be treated in a system of ethics that corresponds to metaphysics. In a footnote Solov'ev directs his more scholarly reader to his Theoretical Philosophy; the conversations are a form, he alludes, for the common reader. He thus provides not only the scholarly source, or guide, for the Conversations but a reading for the Conversations as well.2 1 I will now outline concepts from the Theoretical Philosophy that are especially instrumental in foregrounding Solov'ev's intentions for a phenomenology of Decadence, and similarities between his Antichrist and that of Nietzsche: Solov'ev establishes the will as a will to truth and goodness (it appears as a Kantian in-itself) and he makes a distinction between the knowledge of objects and abstractions. He questions the validity of presentations of reality that are not brought up by a subjective consciousness; he perceives the world as made up of "facts." However, these "facts" may be governed by a precarious epistemology that is not firmly tested as to the separation of belief from events witnessed by consciousness; Solov'ev questions the Cartesian subject and doubts it. Like Nietzsche, Solov'ev doubts the "subject," the "soul," and "spirit"; Solov'ev identifies the "impostor" and performs a "genealogy" of the 21 • This point thereby validates the notion that Solov'ev does not reverse his philosophical positions. Although Kornblatt does not refer to the Theoretical Philosophy, her position would be further justified by this connection. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 163 subject; Solov'ev expresses his aversion to Cartesian grammar and the creation of substantives from actions. Solov'ev believes that the subject is equal to its deeds and that the depiction of an ego is equally the depiction of a "puppet." Solov'ev expresses his distaste for the Schopenhauerian self as the cause or reason of its representations and alludes to M ax Stirner's "creative nothing" as a more hopeful sense of the empty and featureless channel of the ego. He states that sensations, illusions, and hallucinations (the methods of how Nietzsche's ascetic escapes his self) cast doubt on the psychic subject. He performs a genealogical etymology of "person" and links it to the expressions of the "persona," "personality," and "mask" of the Romans. He states his aversion to dogmatic views and bids to create a future philosophy (in a Nietzschean fashion). Solov'ev claims that the subject exists because it is based on space, time, and causation. The Cartesian subject equals its perceptions and holds no substance whatsoever; he further claims that the subject is a form that is empty of any substance and that it is a product of reflection; and he claims that only immediate reality exists, which is attested to by sensations, thoughts, and feelings (similar to Nietzsche's physiological stance). Solov'ev equates goodness and truth in the Theoretical Philosophy (SS 9:89-130) and states that the will strives toward an expression of true Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 164 goodness, describing it as if it were a Kantian end-in-itself (SS 9:90-92).2 2 The divergence here is a will to truth as opposed to Nietzsche's will to power. The two wishes are to "live in accordance with true goodness and for that reason to know its true essence and real demands" (SS 9:90; 464) and to "know the truth for its own sake" (SS 9:91; 464). The equation of truth and goodness is instrumental for, and constitutive of, the moral life. This is in keeping with Kant and becomes more so when Solov'ev declares "the unity of and distinction between moral and theoretical philosophy" (SS 9:92; 464).2 3 Here he differs with Nietzsche. Solov'ev states that an object of knowledge can only exist for us through our knowledge of it (SS 9:100-01). The validity of an object, thus, becomes a question of the validity of our knowledge before it. "What is called knowledge in general is the agreement of a given thought of an object with the actual existence and character of the object" (SS 9:100; 2 2 These page numbers refer to the collected works of Solov'ev and to the reprint of Vlada Tolley and James P. Scanlan's translation of Solov'ev's "Osnovy teoreticheskoi filosofii" (1911-1914) in A History o f Russian Philosophy From the Tenth Through the Twentieth Centuries, volume 2, edited by Valery A. Kuvakin (Buffalo: Prometheus Books, 1994). Their translation was originally published in 1976 by University of Tennessee Press in Russian Philosophy, volume 3, edited by James M. Edie, James P. Scanlan, Mary-Barbara Zeldin and with the collaboration of George L. Kline. They refer to the Theoretical Philosophy as "Foundations of a Theoretical Philosophy" ("Osnovy teoreticheskoi filosofii"), although the Sobranie sochineii does not support their adjustment of the title. 2 3 Kant predicates truth on goodness and goodness on truth. He also distinguishes between moral and theoretical philosophy as practical reason and pure reason. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165 464). Kant's notion is that we cannot know things-in-themselves, only our thought about them. However, Solov'ev turns from Kant in this instance as he stresses the existence and character of the object as something with which our thought can come into agreement. "How in general is such agreement possible, and how is its presence in each case certified?" (464) Solov'ev goes on to prove such knowledge exists by picking at a "concrete" ("in concreto") example (SS 9:100; 465); he decries abstraction as the instrument of "thought-smugglers" ("dlia myslei-contrabandistok") in the same manner that Nietzsche would. Solov'ev then relays a dream during which he undergoes the process of choosing whether to write this philosophical piece or to go out for a walk. As he chooses to write, he awakens and ascertains that his clear experience leading up to the writing of this piece leads to reality. From this he gathers "evidence of the presence in our knowledge of an element of absolute, immediate, and indisputable validity and evidence of the unalterable limits of such validity" (SS 9:101; 465). This validity is based on a conviction of reality and it is the conviction of the act or process that enforces the reality rather than any particular content (SS 9:101-05; 466). The notion of validity gains force here, however, as a subjectively verifiable state. This validity, therefore, exists for only one perceiving subject at a time. Conviction is privileged over content so that Solov'ev's position is subjectivist and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166 adheres to K ant’s notion of the "transcendental unity of apperception."2 4 And, it is only valid throughout the duration of the present subjective state, as with dreaming. Recollection, however - Solov'ev states for the purpose of clearing some space for empiricism - is another matter and attests to objectivity. The subjective state or consciousness, most closely transcendental apperception in Kant, "must be acknowledged as absolutely valid because here knowledge directly agrees with its object, thought is a simple repetition of fact, judgm ent is the expression of pure identity: A=A" (SS 9:102; 466).2 5 For Nietzsche, however, the terms of the "absolute, immediate, and indisputable validity" would be substituted by an arbitrary, perspectivist, impermanent, physiologically-anchored validity so that validity becomes synonymous with questionability. It is important to stress that Solov'ev can only mean knowledge as subjective process involving an object and the object being a referent of that subjective process. This he calls pure consciousness or "knowledge o f psychic immediacy [nalichnost]" and admits that it is highly limited and is only a knowledge of simple consciousness. Outside of the subjective 2 4 This phrase refers to the interconnectedness of all thought and the basis of our experience of the objective world, wherein we perceive and are aware of what we perceive. Solov'ev separates the prefix from the root in the word "Bei-wusstseyn" to demonstrate that consciousness is a matter of being "by," "aside," or "at" a state of "knowing." He equally breaks up the words "so-znaniem" and "con-scientia" (SS 9:102). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167 realm there is plenty room for error and skepticism as one moves from "the sphere of valid fact to the sphere of disputable assumptions" (SS 9:103; 467). Absolute validity holds only within the narrow bounds where one experiences a presentation. "To the question of the actual reality as opposed to the mere appearance of a given object, immediate consciousness cannot give an erroneous answer, first because it gives no answer to this question and second because it never raises it" (SS 9:104; 468). The lack of distinction between the presentation of an object as it exists in reality and as it seems to appear blurs and weakens our possibility to see the illusoriness that is manifest behind presentations. In this manner Solov'ev again agrees with Kant about an inability to know the in-itself of objects. Nietzsche would discount this type of reasoning altogether; his critique of epistemology in the preface and first essay of the Genealogy goes so far as to suspend any worth in this process because there is a sense of valuation and a privileging of a metaphysical knowledge in this equation. However, when Solov'ev claims that the world is "a certain aggregate of facts sensed, represented, thought of" (SS 9:106; 469), and that epistemology is posited rather precariously and never given as such, he comes into full agreement with Nietzsche. The Antichrist trope is evident as the "anti-" of this world for Solov'ev; the Antichrist is against Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168 sense, betrays the representational scheme of the Judeo-Christian western world and defies thought, or lurks where thought must go beyond itself in order to comprehend. (However, if it is used in a Nietzschean way to transcend conventional modes of understanding and interpretation, it is used in direct opposition here to Nietzsche's sense because Antichrist for Nietzsche signifies returning to sovereignty, whereas for Solov'ev it would signify a loss of sovereignty. The only difference, however, is terminological.) Furthermore, Solov'ev needs to know the rational grounds upon which confidence in the existence of the conscious subject, the ego, is based in order to know what the subject is; he claims to differ from Descartes in that he needs to go to the root (SS 9:107-08; 470). He reproaches Descartes for not being skeptical long enough concerning the existence of the subject (SS 9:108-09; 470-71). There is doubt of the existence of a subject as there is no self-evident truth to prove or posit it. Solov'ev challenges the predication of being to thinking and requires a clear explication of this philological move. Then, Solov'ev claims that in positing the triad of thinking, being, and subject, only the first is clear; thinking is the "observed fa c t o f a psychic occurrence" (SS 9:110; 471). Immediate consciousness in this way is equivalent in form and content (it is self-validating and self-evident), whereas the positioning of the subject Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169 is swamped in doubt so that there is a convergence here between Solov'ev and Nietzsche as both question the appropriateness of an interpretation of reality that is conveyed through grammatical thinking. Solov'ev shows further closeness to Nietzsche when he claims that Descartes assumes thinking to "belong[s] to some sort of special reality distinct from the body, which he indifferently calls 'soul' (ame), 'spirit' (esprit), a 'thinking thing' (res cogitans, chose qui pense), finally an 'intelligent substance' (substance intelligente)” as incorporeal, proven but not distinguished from the thinker (SS 9:110; 472). "There is thinking (in D escarte’s sense), as a fact of observed sensations, representations, emotions, and form ed concepts, judgments, conclusions, decisions" and the concept of the ego or subject is connected to the other concepts as "an attendant secondary act." "This I naturally is singled out from the aggregate of these facts, is made a common denominator, so to speak, and takes on the aspect of something independent - i.e. the idea arises that the logical subject of the series of conscious phenomena is the expression of something more real than these phenomena" (SS 9:111; 472). This passage is clearly Nietzschean and mirrors statements made in the second essay of the Genealogy. W hen further analyzing Descartes, Solov'ev identifies faults within Descarte's method (SS 9:112-14; 472-73). "When Descartes, to express Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170 the essence of the subject, calls it res cogitans, substantia intellectualis, seu spiritualis, we know (from inner experience or pure consciousness) only the import of the participles and adjectives, while the substantives remain obscure" (SS 9:113; 473). Solov'ev castigates Descartes for uncritically taking these terms from scholasticism without explanation or derivation and lacking in any phenomenological insight. Solov'ev then adheres to the "impostor" m otif to situate Descarte's historical position within philosophy. Descarte's thinking subject is an imposter without a philosophical passport. Formerly he occupied a humble cell in a scholastic monastery, as some entitas, quidditas, or even haeccetas. Hastily changing clothes he escaped from the monastery, proclaimed "cogito ergo sum," and held for a time the throne of modern philosophy. But not one of his followers could clearly explain whence this ruler of men's minds had come or who he was. (SS 9:113; 473)2 6 2 6 Solov'ev then mentions that Descartes advances the "cogito ergo sum" not to a conclusion but to the level of an originary or primary concept that asserts the notion of "personal existence" [lichnoe sushchestvovanie] [I'existence personnelle], which is subsumed 100 years later by Kant under the notion of constitutional principles of the human mind and categories of reason. Solov'ev refers to Victor Cousin's explication "Vrai sens de l'enthymeme cartesien: je pense, done je suis" in CEuvres choises de Descartes (433-34). In the struggle to reach god and the universe, Solov’ ev claims, the "goods" of "existence Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171 This "impostor" of philosophy is described in a manner similar to the Antichrist of Three Conversations, as a plain, unassuming individual who happens onto a throne and no one can quite decide why or whence he came. Solov'ev further decries Descarte's "metaphysical subject" as an inheritance from the scholastics that has confused two other concepts of the subject: the "pure subject of thought" and the "empirical subject," the first being abstract and the second a concrete, living individuality (SS 9:114; 473). Descartes fell into a fatal confusion, mixing together the characteristics of both concepts of the subject and illegitimately creating a third - an undoubted mongrel, for on the one hand Descarte's spiritual substance is so abstract that it becomes indistinguishable from thinking in general, while on the other hand it is an individual being or thing (res, chose) seated in the middle of the brain of each separate person. (SS 9:115; 473) Solov’ ev attacks Descartes on the grounds of his "mistaken" nouns, assigning substantives that "sneak in" unnoticed invalid assumptions about knowledge that are untrue. Nietzsche's biggest gripe is with the creation of a substantive subject that exists apart from the action of its observation of a particular deed. personnelle, humanite, ame" are nothing but "exquisite contraband" [sploshnaia kontrabanda] (SS 9:114). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172 "The pure subject of thinking is a phenomenological fact [...] absolutely valid, but only as part of the immediate content of consciousness [...] The ego is actually given or appears, the same as everything else" (SS 9:115; 473). The subject and its object of presentation have equal validity, for example, the I and the portrait it sees 97 hanging on the wall. "We have no philosophical right to ascribe to it an indisputable or evident reality beyond the bounds of such given states - all the more since we are even unable to say plainly what in fact this subject would be beyond the bounds of its phenomenological existence or immanent appearance" (SS 9:115-16; 474). As the pure ego retains a sense of being consistently one and the same and psychic states fluctuate and represent diversity, it merely seems that the ego is not a thought as the psychic states are, but that it is more substantive. However, Solov'ev declares that "a permanent member of a court does not in that capacity represent a court of higher instance." Although the Antichrist as such does not receive any consideration in the Theoretical Philosophy, the Antichrist trope that I have outlined in the introduction surfaces in these philosophical considerations as a series 2 7 These statements are not at variance with Nietzsche’s notion of grammar as indicative of the modem subject. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173 of metaphors of misrepresentation. Solov'ev continues (with an allusion to Schopenhauer): But not only with respect to such representations, which are connected with the so-called "outer senses" and are taken by naive opinion for independent realities, but also with respect to the simpler inner phenomena such as desires and emotions, there is no consciousness of them as products of subjective creativity. Everyone is conscious of him self as desiring and feeling, but as far as is known no one, awake or even dreaming, has ever been conscious of him self as the creator of his desires and feelings, i.e., as their real cause or sufficient reason. Expressing this fact in scholastic terms it must be said that I am conscious o f m yself always as only the subject o f my psychic states or passions and never as their substance. The misrepresentational and imposterous qualities of the "subject" are traced back to the philosophers who create and conjure them. Solov'ev stresses that as far as immediate consciousness is concerned, the subject is phenomenological in nature and must be assigned a reality of its own. Solov'ev finds that the subject of consciousness can justifiably have no other reality than a phenomenological one. W e find the subject to be a constant form linking psychic states in all their diversity, a changeless but empty and featureless channel through which the stream of psychic existence flows. And if we nonetheless do not attribute to ourselves or to our ego such emptiness and featurelessness, it is only because for the self-validating subject of consciousness we substitute something else, namely our empirical individuality, which of course can be quite full of content but in return - alas! - does not embody the self- evident immediate reality which belongs to the pure ego or phenomenological subject. (SS 9:116-17; 475) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174 Here there is an allusion to Max Stirner’s "creative nothing." The phenomenological condition cannot be doubted during the process of thinking, but the validity of the empirical individuality should be doubted for it is an ever-changing, becoming individual component as distinguished from the unchanging structure of the pure ego of consciousness. Philosophy, or the "correct rational opinion," is based on the faulty notion of a concrete, "processing," [werdende] individual. It confuses this concrete ever-changing entity with the indubitable constant and unchanging pure subject. The "unchanging pure ego" and the "unchanging pure subject" are flaws in thought. It is in this "correct rational" stance that we glimpse a view of Kant as Antichrist-like due to the confusion and resultant imposter-like conclusions of his philosophy. Solov'ev warns us not to mistake the dynamism of psychology for concrete substances that can anchor our existence in an unquestioned reality. Solov'ev explains that the "deceits of sensations," illusions and hallucinations, cast doubt on the validity of all of our sensations to attest to the objective reality of the physical world, the "deceits of self- consciousness," any psychic disturbances such as split personality, undermine our confidence in the essential identity of the ego and the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175 authentic reality of the psychic subject (SS 9:117-18). He mentions these very things that create doubt that Nietzsche finds the ascetic to resort to in order to alleviate the pain of existence and to escape from oneself. He states that the formal or phenomenological subject does not change at all while this is going on: I, me, mine remain as if nothing had happened. Nor is this surprising: in the subject of consciousness as such there is nothing to change, since in itself the subject has no content. It is only a form, which can with equal ease accommodate the psychic material of any individuality. (SS 9:118; 476) There is essentially no formal distinction between one perceiving subject and another. The subject is like a receptacle for experience and nothing more. An impostor would then be one who misrepresents this situation and attaches more meaning or value to the "subject" than it should hold, which is none. Solov'ev continues, "The fact of imaginary self-consciousness suggests, first of all, that perhaps the ancient Romans were not mistaken when, instead of saying 'person' [litso] or 'personality' [lichnost] they said 'mask' [lichina] ('persona' originally meant 'mask')" (SS 9:118-20; 476). He resorts to etymology to assert that "hypnotic masks" are not at all infrequent manifestations within empirical self-consciousness; it is possible and definitely not questionable that metaprosopoeia occurs whether as a ploy to possess alternate identities or as a manifestation of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176 changeable realities. Solov'ev feels adamant about the need to keep "methodical doubt" intact; reality must be questioned as a subjective state rather than a manifest state (SS 9:119). Solov'ev expresses an easy and confident paranoia about this needed doubt; if we can reproach him [Descartes] for anything it is only for abandoning this foundation too hastily and, instead of erecting it on a solid edifice of verified thought, beginning to build dogmatic card houses on the shifting sands of half- naive and half-pedantic realism. [...] the Wvrng force of the conviction which in practice eliminates doubt, the logical right to demand an account of this conviction, and finally the philosophical duty not to deny this demand - all these things are entirely the same for both sorts of evidence: the evidence of empirical sensation for the real existence of external objects as well as the evidence of empirical self-consciousness for the true reality of our psychic subject. And the value of methodical doubt is also the same for both. (SS 9; 119-20; A ll) All dogmatic views must be purged through this doubt in order for a future philosophy to succeed with a better understanding of the world. No independent reality is accorded to the physical world and to forms bound by matter, space, and time. However, the doubt applied to the physical world needs to be applied to the inner world. "The first condition for this is methodical doubt of propositions, taken on faith, concerning the psychic subject. This doubt is not a game of blind m an’s bluff but is a necessary stimulus to the reformative work of thought" (SS 9:120; 478). Solov'ev Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177 extends the questionability of self-consciousness to the past, to memory and to recollection. The habit of realism, with its assumptions and prejudices, safeguards dogmas from true questioning. Illusions within memory and recollection can present themselves as longstanding or permanent. Solov'ev is, therefore, in accord with Nietzsche's impatience with grammar of the future and of the "promise" and of the past and of "remembering" (reactive ethos). In this passage we see that Solov'ev takes an approach of negation while Nietzsche is more concerned with a focus on restoring things to the the primitive and barbaric states. Solov'ev continues to "disembowel" the subject: Once we question the independent reality of external things and objects (and not to do so would mean to give up philosophy), we cannot logically refrain from questioning the reality of the empirical subject, since the latter is inseparably linked with an indefinite multitude of facts of external experience in space, time, and causation, and cannot have greater validity than they. (SS 9:122; 479) Several paragraphs later he outlines that: W ith the disappearance of all psychological reality the individual ego coincides with the undifferentiated phenomenological subject, and personal identity reduces to the form of identity in general, A=A. Descartes’s cogito ergo sum can legitimately contain nothing more. For with the removal of the external content of life the correlative internal content is necessarily removed as well, and only an empty form remains. (SS 9:123; 479) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178 Finally, Solov'ev considers the subject as a form with a potential to be filled with thought matter, however, that must always remain a form and, therefore, empty of substance (SS 9:123-24; 480). He does philosophically to the Cartesian subject what Nietzsche does to the subject that is unleashed in grammar. He refers to the subject "as a potentiality for psychological existence capable of experiencing all those states" of the internal world; however, this subject is still a “product of reflection, an abstract concept." Solov'ev appeals to the notion of potentiality and latency of our psychic life during the sleep state. In all such cases the concept of potentiality is abstracted from the facts of the relativity and inconstancy of our manifest or immediate consciousness. Generally to this abstraction from factual data there is joined a representation of potentiality as a special kind of real being which alternately draws in and lets out its actual states like the tentacles of some elementary animal. This potentiality figures in as a creative essence, will, or soul and is similar to the Nietzschean will-to-power that underlies all of life like a deterministic fate. However, Solov'ev then states that potential reality [sushchnost] is a product of reflection in need of verification (SS 9:124-25; 481). The question of sleep extends to the present moment and marks the past; there is no way to verify that consciousness is preserved throughout sleep nor that sleep itself ends or is ever embarked on. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179 And this is not to mention that a question arises concerning the true nature and real existence of time - in which it is assumed that personal identity resides as its states change - as well as of space; and without philosophical resolution of this question nothing can be built upon data which make sense only in relation to time, which may prove to be a pure illusion. "Hence we are left with the necessity of extending provisional doubt equally to both sides of what is thought about - to the subject of one’s own psychic life as well as to the object of the external world." Immediate reality is something that is given; it is a fact without doubt attested to by the presence of sensations, thoughts, and feelings, or simply immediate consciousness (SS 9:125-27; 481-82). However, the question of whose consciousness comes into play as if it were a possession, whether private or communal property remains. The very question is simply a philosophically inadmissible expression of dogmatic certainty as to the independent and self-identical existence of individual beings. But it is precisely this certainty that needs examination and justification by indisputable logical deductions from self- evident data. (SS 9:126; 482) Solov'ev finally states that he has not found these in Descartes, Leibniz or any other philosopher and asserts that individuals of varying backgrounds do not exist as "simple, immediate, given fact[s] of consciousness: they are all simply expressions of psychologically mediated certainty requiring their own logical justification" (SS 9:127; 482). For this philosophical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180 treatise on a phenomenological perspective, we gain access to the underlying questions that form the basis for Three Conversations. These questions, however, are addressed obliquely and for that reason require the explication of the present chapter. A simple reading of the Conversations would show that Solov'ev takes on merely the social, political, religious, and moral issues that emerge in the work. These evidently deal with the nature of evil, the purpose of war, and the notion of progress throughout history. However, when we do take Solov'ev's tip in the preface and recount his theoretical work, we can understand that the point of these discussions is to learn more about our attitudes concerning knowledge and the subject. Mr. Z. plays the supposedly Socratic role in these Platonic dialogues that arise one year after the writing of the Theoretical Philosophy. In positing this narrator, Solov'ev allows his reader to explore, as Mr. Z. indirectly asks, the nature of the perceiving subject and the objects of reflection. Although the questions are posed within the work to a group of four different people about the existence and the purpose of evil, war, and peace, Solov'ev directly confronts the reader with the weight of moralism on viewpoints and the necessity of lurking ambiguities. The manner of Solov'ev's argumentation demonstrates that doubt and imposture belie the viewpoints of certainty, which are often fundamentalist and moralist in character. In this manner it appears that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181 Solov'ev is fighting against fundamentalism and moralism and proposing a Nietzsche type of perspectivism. Soloviev's Three Conversations, Including the Story o f the Antichrist: A Genealogical Approach? Solov'ev states that his objective is to provide an apologia and polemic, a work within which good and evil can be squared off against each other, so that the vitality of Christianity can be demonstrated (SS 98 10:83). Already Solov'ev admits to a Nietzschean way of thinking, a clearing away of confusion and steering away from scientific examinations and sermons. Solov'ev expresses this aim as "to disperse the fog." In relating his account of the religion where seekers worship a "hole in their house" as their refuge and savior, Solov'ev describes that particular religion as a "truthful error," an error that lacks the intentional deception of others (SS 10:84). He conveys the object of worship in a literal manner: the house and the hole remain a house and a hole. W hen having undergone transformation, the house becomes a kingdom of God and the hole becomes a Gospel. However, the negative quality of the void remains. Solov'ev objects specifically to the loss of "good" in "good 2 8 The page numbers of Solov'ev's Three Conversations refer first to the collected works followed, where relevant, by the page number of the translation by A. Bakshy, War, Progress, and the End o f History: Three Conversations, Including a Short Story o f the Antichrist. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182 news" and the loss of "Christ" and resurrection in Christianity. He detects a "hollow" space in the teachings of his contemporaneous believers and vows to show up the fraud in their way of thinking that extends to "practical" matters: such as to questions of politics and religion (SS 10:86). Christ, as a historical being and a founder of Christianity, is completely alien and "only a hindrance in their way." Solov'ev refers to these believers as rationalists and moralists, who exist in a sphere of reason or moralism and lack competence in practical matters. "Christ," on the other hand, denotes to Solov'ev a real and positive essence. (The impostor/Antichrist m otif underlies this reasoning.) This is the same observation that Kaufmann make of Nietzsche: that Nietzsche truly respected "Christ" but shunned the creeds that followed. Then, Solov'ev recommends Buddhism to the preachers of 29 "hollowness." He expresses that the positive messages of the Jewish and Christian Scriptures stand in opposition to the negation and "hollowness" of Buddhism (SS 10:86; 20). At the end of his preface Solov'ev states that 2 9 Nietzsche considers Buddhism equally "hollow," a set of teachings that holds "nothingness" at its sacred core. However, Solov'ev's sentiment shows a less tolerant view of this school of thought whereas Nietzsche swats down Buddhism in a single gesture while attacking all ascetic ideals. We have seen that the use of contradiction arises in Nietzsche to negate a previous criticism and thereby unsettle our sense of fixedness about out thoughts. (Additionally, Nietzsche admits admiring the Old Testament for its expression of the barbaric will to power.) Solov’ ev, on the other hand, tends to express his ideas in a more "linear" style, although as we see in the earlier points about his ideas of Nietzscheanism, he does not admit, or acknowledge the possibility of, error in his own reading. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 183 he wants believers to be honest even if they err. In this manner he professes a truthfulness to literality and to one’s genealogy since he has no patience for historical deviation. He then informs the reader that the Prince of the conversations gives obvious contradictions in his statements and that he will expose these untruths in the name of "a spiritual sanitation in the life of society and bring[s] useful results in both the present and the future." This is to be the purpose of the polemical nature of the Three Conversations. The positive goal of this project stated as being "the presentation of] the question of the struggle against evil and of the meaning of history from three different standpoints," Solov'ev introduces five characters to do this job: the General, who provides a religious conception of daily living in congruence with conservatism, especially in the first conversation; the Politician, who adheres to current liberal views concerning culture and progress, especially in the second conversation; the Prince, who expresses a nearly fundamentalist religious point of view; the Lady, who acts as a sounding board, letting certain ideas reverberate and functioning as a mouthpiece to voice readymade cultural assumptions; and Mr. Z., who presents an alternative and futuristic religious view backed by Father Pansophius, the original teller of the Antichrist story in the third conversation (SS 10:87). The Prince and Lady mainly provide points of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 184 view lacking in rigor and they function to provide a prism by which the others may examine their notions. Kornblatt points out that the Prince, like the lesser characters of a Platonic dialogue, diminishes in importance and is absent more and more throughout the progression of the conversations; this supposedly points to his inability to tolerate the truth and views other than his own. Solov'ev claims to stand aligned with Mr. Z, but admits that he finds a relative truth in the accounts of the General and Politician and allows his higher sense of truth to synthesize these two views. He claims that "unconditional truth" does not "exclude or reject opposing viewpoints, but rather "justifies, interprets, and sanctifies them." Solov'ev offers a Hegelian introduction to the matter of debate: If from a certain point of view the world’s history is G od’s judgm ent of the world - die Weltgeschichte ist das Weltgericht - this judgm ent involves a long and complicated lawsuit or litigation between the good and the evil historical forces, and this suit, to come to a final solution, must involve both a determined struggle for existence between those forces, and their greater inner, therefore peaceful, development in the common forms of culture. (SS 10:87; 21) Solov’ev recognizes "good" as an ultimate goal in this world process with an array of varying methods for the achievement of "good." For this reason the conversations will address militant and peaceful methods of challenging evil. Solov'ev admits that to address an extremist manifestation of evil in the conversations is to fall short. Furthermore, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185 conversational format is "disruptive" in its breaks and the playful tone does not correspond to the religious significance of the issues expresses (SS 10:88). He, therefore, creates a story taken from a "deceased" monk that he will build up climactically to full expression; this is his rendering of "good" and its struggles. The challenge and resistance that Solov'ev finds come from "the prevailing insufficient knowledge of the references to the Antichrist contained in the Scriptures and in Church tradition." Solov'ev proposes to utilize these to render indications of all of the Antichrist's main features, such as: his inner significance as a religious impostor who obtains the title of the Son of God by 'stealing' it and not by spiritual self-sacrifice; his connection with a false prophet or wizard who seduces people by means of real and false miracles; the obscure and peculiarly sinful origin of the Antichrist him self who secures his external position as monarch of the world by the help of evil powers; and the general development and the end of his activity. (SS 10:88; 22) Solov'ev admits that this story arises from historical conjecture and fantasy and amounts to a fairly detailed and interesting account of the Antichrist.30 Connected to this are ruminations on the categories of thought and reality: "good," "evil," "sin," and "history" (SS 10:89). 30 • • Nietzsche also includes such admissions and disclaimers as components of his rhetorical style. These admitted conjectures and speculations serve to weaken any opposing point of view before it arises in an act of prolepsis. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186 Solov'ev claims that his account of Pan-M ongolism and the Asiatic threat are not taken from Scripture, but, he states, "can be based on Scriptural statements."3 1 This self-referential comment - the verses are taken from his own poetry, as Kornblatt points out - contains self- parodying praise and an anachronistic gesture that displaces, or projects in the future, the "Asiatic threat." He raises his words to a "scriptural" level. He is being equivocal and contradictory. However, he states that it is all for the sake of unifying Christian Europe against the force of the Antichrist, "who 'will speak loud and high-sounding words,' and will cast a glittering veil of good and truth over the mystery of utter lawlessness in the time of its final revelation, so that even the chosen, in the words of the Scriptures, will be reduced to the great betrayal. To show beforehand this deceptive visor, under which is concealed the evil abyss, was my highest aim in writing this book" (SS 10:90-91; 25)32 Solov'ev's account implicitly states that his Antichrist is not quite the Nietzschean type; he implies that Nietzsche would rather cast philosophical lawlessness over 31 There is a lack of critical judgment connoted here in the possibility of the threat’s basis in Scripture. 32 This evil abyss will turn out to be a position anchored on the fa?ade-like notion captured in the final pithy statement, "All that glitters is not gold." Also, Solov'ev refers to the "deceptive visor" or "visage" of the evil using the expression "etu obmanchivuiu lichinu" wherein he retains the same root ("lik") that he focused on earlier in Section 16 of the Theoretical Philosophy (SS 9:118-19) when referring to imaginary self-consciousness and "masks." If Solov'ev chooses to retain his philosophical sense here, the expression would be redundant for the "lichina" inherently retains a sense of deception "obman.'' Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187 the veils of good and truth, and that he is Kantian in his "grateful feeling of a fulfilled moral duty" in publishing this work. (He also admits to attaching a number of short articles published between 1897 and 1898 in the journal Rus', for he claims that certain of these articles are his "most successful" and that they function to "supplement" and "clarify" the main ideas of Three Conversations. These articles would be the "Sunday Letters," one of which, "Literality or the Truth?" we considered above. In this case Solov'ev invokes the tension between the "literal" and the "essential.")3 3 However, all in all it appears that Solov'ev in his basis and syncretistic outlook is equally somewhat Kantian in sentiment, that is, in his style and terminology, and Nietzschean in conviction and in his conclusions. Solov'ev aspires to overturn conventional and erred thinking; yet his grounding is in moral duty and in a world divided into realms, phenomenal and noumenal. Solov'ev's story about the Antichrist reveals that his logic and ethics are not at all dissimilar from that of Nietzsche. 3 3 The foreword is dated “Holy Sunday, 1900.” Solov'ev died several months later on July 31, 1900. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188 The First Conversation: War, Evil, and Holy Causation (SS 10:93-119) Solov'ev opens the scene to the conversations in the Alpine foothills overlooking the Mediterranean (reminiscent of the Nietzschean refuge). He seats the general, the politician, the prince, the lady, and Mr. Z. together. All but Mr. Z. have definite attributes: the "old general," the "resting politician," the "young prince," the "middle-aged lady," and Mr. Z. as the man of "uncertain age" and "social position." Mr. Z. transcends attributes, perhaps, because he represents an author who wishes to transcend earthly qualities. To gain credibility Solov'ev begs of the reader to take the conversation from the point at which it is recounted for the writer. Solov'ev further claims that he, out of "fear," will not dare to "compose it out of his own head after the model of Plato" (SS 10:92). This is a moment of parodying the reader. Kornblatt mentions Solov'ev's desire to translate Plato and to become a "Russian Plato" of Socratic dialogues. The General holds to a notion that military service is sanctified by the Church and is of supreme importance to a nation. He is taken aback by the Politician, who insists on presenting war and military service as "ancient barbarism" [ostatok drevniago liudoedstva] (SS 10:94). The cause of ours has always been sanctified and exalted by the Church and glorified by the praise of the nation... The cause which we have served, and always have been Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189 proud of serving, is suddenly declared to be a thing of evil and a menace to our country. W arfare, it appears, is against G od’s express commandments, is entirely opposed to human sentiments, and inevitably brings about the most dreadful evil and dire misfortune. (SS 10:94; 32). Until yesterday, I knew that I had to develop and strengthen in my troops not a new but this same old fighting spirit, the willingness of each individual soldier to conquer the enemy or to go to his death. And, for this, it is absolutely necessary to possess an unshaken faith in war as a holy cause. But now this faith is being deprived of its spiritual basis, military work is losing what the learned call “its moral and religious sanction.” (SS 10:95; 34) The Politician answers that this is not a black or white case, rather "the principal attitude toward war remains what it has always been: war is an unavoidable evil, a misfortune, tolerable only in extreme cases" (SS 10:96; 35). The Prince is only too happy to ponder the absence of the military, war, and evil. Mr. Z. reminds him: "Of the fact that war is not an absolute evil, and that peace is not an absolute good, or, putting it in a simpler way, that it is possible to have (as we do have sometimes) such a thing as a good war, and that it is also possible to have (as we do have sometimes) an evil peace" (SS 10:99; 39). Mr. Z throws in a sense of arbitrariness and questions the absolutism in his thought. This brings the discussion to the point where relatives and absolutes are considered. Can war be equated with murder and evil? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190 W here does "will" fit into the picture in terms of determining an act of killing as evil? The question is: Is the general and undisputed rule, 'don't kill,' unreservedly absolute? Does it therefore admit of no exceptions whatsoever, in no single case, under no circumstances? Or does the rule admit of even one exception, in which case it cannot be considered absolute? (SS 10:102; 43) The rhetoric gravitates around universalist and absolutist precepts. Mr. Z. asks the Prince about his sentiment of believing in the moral order of the world, the truth, or the will of God as manifesting by their own power and creating an evil-free world. The Prince believes in prayer and Christian gesture as that which implement good events in the world and influence wrongdoers to be "good" (SS 10:103-04). The General, then, speaks foremost of action in the world, the need to perform duty based on necessity and proper judgm ent (SS 10:109). Mr. Z. demonstrates through logic and reference to Biblical stories that "Christ must have been insufficiently imbued with the 'true Christian spirit'!" for he could not convert Judas, Herod, or the evil thief (SS 10:117). The question of resisting evil remains then answered most favorably by the General and by Mr. Z.; it is best resisted by intentional action, whether this is sparked by a moral sense or a social one. The party adjourns for dinner and agrees to avoid religion for the next discussion to be led by the Politician. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191 The Second Conversation: The Ethics and Probable Cruelty of Politeness (SS 10:120-158) The Politician begins the second conversation by offering a pragmatist perspective and by denying the reality of higher morals; instead he recognizes one essential virtue: politeness, which coincidentally is lacking in those who pride themselves on recognizing high morals. He states that higher morals are a notion; they have no actual existence. Politeness for him is far more a requisite of social life than chastity, disinterestedness, or unselfishness "for a civilized life no higher virtues and no Christianity, so called, are necessary" (SS 10:121; 67). Mr. Z. counters with a story about a writer-friend who out of sheer and excessive politeness overexerted him self and suffered mentally and spiritually to the point of suicide. "I am by no means opposed to politeness, I merely object to making it into some kind of absolute rule" (SS 10:122; 69). The Politician answers to this in the following manner: "An absolute rule, like everything else absolute, is only an invention of those who are lacking in common sense and the feeling of reality. There are no absolute rules for me. I recognize only necessary rules." His idea is to do that which is materially convenient and that which all should do as a courtesy for one another, hinting of the Kantian notion of adhering to a universally held maxim of mutual social respect. Sacredness or sin do not come into this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192 category. The problem with Mr. Z.’s writer-friend had not to do with politeness, but self-denial. "An abnormally developed conscientiousness gradually became with him a mania, which eventually brought him to his ruin" (SS 10:123; 70). Mr. Z. relates what a friend and pilgrim, Barsonophius, would try to teach the writer-friend about evil and sinning. What, distressed about your sins? Give it up, my dear fellow, it is nothing. Let me tell you this: sin five hundred and thirty-nine times a day if you like, but, for H eaven’s sake, don’t repent. To sin first and then to repent? Why, anybody can do that. Sin, by all means - and often! But repent? Never! For if sin is evil then to remember sin is to be vindictive, and nobody approves of that. The worst vindictiveness of all is to remember your own sins. It is far better to remember the evil done to you by others - there would be some benefit in that, as you would be careful with such people in the future. But as for your own sins - forget them utterly. It is by far the better way. There is only one mortal sin - despondency, because it gives birth to despair, and despair is not even a sin, it is the death of spirit itself. Now, what other sins are there?3 4 He goes on to teach moderation as the wisdom of the living social man and a new form of Christianity, based on the consciousness of one's conduct and not restraint by tradition and convention. "If a rule is what you want, here it is: Be firm in your faith, not through fear of sins, but because it is a joyful thing for an intelligent person to live with God; 3 4 The Nietzschean notion of "forgetfulness" and the reactive pathos of ressentiment is recalled here. Both Nietzsche and Solov'ev are against retaining guilt and both propose forgetting (or remembering in Solov'ev's case) for the sole purpose of self-preservation and maintaining individual sovereignty. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193 without God a person is utterly wretched" (SS 10:124). If we substitute a m orfati for "God," then we would have a statement that would be equivalent in sentiment between Nietzsche and Solov'ev. Mr. Z. then tells a story about two hermits who decide to go to town and spend time with "drunkards and sinners" (SS 10:126). One retains the consciousness of being blessed and the other grieves and repents relentlessly till he falls into despondency. Once he feels atonement is impossible, he returns to town and meets his doom. The other keeps a higher consciousness of his daily life and becomes a saint.3 5 The Nietzschean notion of “forgetfulness” proves to reconnect him to a sense of individual sovereignty. At story's end, the Prince arrives and the conversation shifts back to war. The Politician agrees with the General about the need to wage war during the appropriate circumstances, but asks, "Are we to justify the perpetuation of war and militarism?" (SS 10:128; 77) He concludes that the historical importance of war is the main, if not the only, instrument by which the State has been created and gradually consolidated" (SS 10:129; 77). He, therefore, is in favor of war as the foundation of a state and undertakes a minor "genealogy" of war and militarism within Russia (SS 35 • • The Prince’s absence for this story stresses Solov'ev’s insistence that moralism, for which the Prince stands, is to be excised from moderation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 194 10:129-32; 78-82). He urges the others to consider that the era of war is over, that political negotiation is possible in a civilized world, and that poets and painters may appeal to the past or to the barbaric worlds in Africa or Central Asia in order to experience and portray the aestheticism of war. He points out that war heroes were designated (canonized) out of a nationalist necessity and attacks the triviality and contradictions within the others' thinking about war. "The point is that political acts cannot be rated by their indirect and unforeseen consequences" (SS 10:133; 84) He pledges the futility of war and implicates questionable acts performed in the name of Christ to point out the barbarity underlying the claim of Christianity: "What is this 'Christianity' of yours if not an empty title which carries with it no guarantee of anything?" (SS 10:142; 95) The members of the group then decide to set aside religion and they consider the evolution of the solidarity among nations from its origin in military defense to its goal of spreading civilization (SS 10:144; 97). Because Russia lacks in industrialization, the Politician recommends two courses of action for Russia: the maintenance of peace throughout Europe and the civilization of barbaric nations through influence garnered by the support of all Europe. As to the sentiment that Russia is not fully European, the Politician argues that "we are irrevocably European but with an Asiatic sediment at the bottom of our soul," a comment that dispels the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195 earlier threat somewhat (SS 10:149; 104). He then proceeds to give an exposition and a genealogy of the essence of the noun European, claiming that "European" is the all-leveling equality to which the adjective Russian refers (SS 10:149-51; 104-106). This reductive thinking implicitly links Russia, Asia, and Europe in anticipation of the Antichrist story, which will highlight the dangers of merging. It is as if Solov'ev gives a preview of his reading about history in the Antichrist story. As they end their conversation, the Lady sums up what the Politician has meant to say; "You wanted to say, did you not, that times have changed; that formerly there was God (and war), but now, instead of God, there are culture and peace" (SS 10:154; 111). She means that there is culture as a historical treasure and there is civility, or politeness, as its moral or practical side. She "feels" God, but not culture, although neither has been clearly "explained" to her. The Politician sums it up by returning to the topic of politeness: To the superficial eye it may appear unimportant, but it has enormous and singular significance for the simple reason that it is the only quality that can be universal and obligatory. It is impossible to demand from anybody either the highest virtue or the highest intellect or genius. But it is possible and necessary to demand from everybody civility. It is that minimum of reasonableness and morality which allows people to live like true human beings. Politeness is not the whole of culture but it is a necessary condition of every form of cultured conduct, just as literacy, though not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196 the sum total of education, is a necessary condition to it. Politeness is cultured conduct [...] (SS 10:155)3 6 For the Lady, culture represents the goal of history while politeness and civility are sub-currents of culture. The Politician points out that the words politeness and politics are closely related ("politesse i politique") (SS 10:155). As for world and historical progress, "a peaceful, 'polite,' universally profitable settlement of all international relations and conflicts - such is the fundamental principle of sound politics for civilized humanity" (SS 10:157; 114). The Politician is in agreement with the Lady. Before they head off to dinner, Mr. Z. asks: I only wanted to comment on your recent remark that peaceful politics is the symptom of progress. It reminds me that in Turgenev’s Smoke some person, speaking just as reasonably, says, "Progress is a symptom." D on’t you think, then, that peaceful politics becomes a symptom of a symptom? [...] My point is that if peaceful politics is merely a shadow of a shadow, is it worthwhile discussing it at such length? All this talk about shadowy progress? W ould it not be better to say frankly to humanity what Father Barsanophius said to the pious old lady: "You are old, you are feeble, and you will never be any better." Mr. Z. questions and confuses the others as he challenges them to become simpler and more rigorous thinkers. By referring to Turgenev's Smoke, Solov'ev praises literature as an authoritative source for these matters. 3 6 The Politician insists on a Kantian universal maxim based on civility. The italics are in the original text. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197 Kornblatt gains further justification for her claim that Solov’ ev is highly interested in the literary aspects of his argument. The Third Conversation: Progress Toward an Undesired End (SS 10:159-193)3 7 In the third conversation Mr. Z. continues his interest in the notion of "peaceful politics as a symptom of progress." For he states that "progress is certainly a symptom" (SS 10:159; 116). "I believe that progress - a visible and accelerated progress - is always a symptom of the end." The Politician counters that it may be so in "progressive paralysis," but not so in culture and cultured life. Mr. Z. states that it is the "history of humanity, and that historical 'process' which has doubtless been going on at an ever-increasing rate" that is "nearing its end" [priblizhaetsia k svoei razviazke] (SS 10:160). Mr. Z, thus, introduces the notion of the 37 • • Bernard McGinn in Antichrist: Two Thousand Years of the Human Fascination with Evil refers extensively to Solov'ev's tale of the Antichrist. He mentions that "Mr. Z, the presenter of the discussion, insists that progress itself is a symptom of the end and that this end must involve Antichrist" (265). However, I find a paradox in this notion. The end, for it to be an "end," has already arrived (along with the required Antichrist). However, progress, as a "symptom" of an "end," would be annulled. Mr. Z. may mean a perceived progress, but he cannot mean progress as actual process. Otherwise, progress as a possibility is annulled and "symptom" becomes a vacuous notion. The only way out of this thought is to consider "end" as a staged (and restaged) event; this would allow for "end" and "progress" to coexist as non-paradoxical terms. In fact something of the "eternal return" or of "spirality" would be evoked in this use of the terminology. Solov'ev does not specify exactly what he intends to convey. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198 "end," as purpose, so that the others can fully think out the linearity of their concepts; their beginnings and absolute ideas require "ends."38 This leads to the discussion of the Antichrist; at once the Prince declares he must leave and the General states, "Where religion is involved, never expect any good" (SS 10:160; 117). The Lady and General can now entertain the notion that the Prince may be one of many Antichrists. They foreshadow the anti-Christian element of his fundamentalist thinking. The General criticizes the Prince for his moralism and, thus, his lack of attention to the Christ or Antichrist. The Lady describes the Prince’s audience in a critical Nietzschean mode (she stands against those of ressentiment) as unnatural, miserable, lacking joy, satisfaction, and humor. They pose as Christians, yet lack Christian spirit. The Politician declares his fascination with the new topic and presents historical references to the Antichrist: in Renan, to Nero; in Jewish accounts to King Antiochus Epiphanes; and in the Russian "schismatics" (SS 10:161-62; 120). Mr. Z. states that: the closing scene in the tragedy of history will not be a mere infidelity to or a denial of Christianity, nor simply the triumph of materialism or anything similar to it, but that it 3 8 This discussion follows Hegelian terminology about progress, the universal will, and teleology. Mr. Z. stresses the horizontality, and finiteness, of their concepts as opposed to the verticality. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199 will be a religious imposture. The name of Christ will be arrogated by forces in humanity that in their practice and in their very essence are alien, even inimical, to Christ and his Spirit. Again, this reference to anti-Christian thinking that pretends to be Christian but is inimical to the doctrines parallels the philosophical thinking that Solov'ev critiques in the Theoretical Philosophy. Solov'ev takes great effort to isolate "Christ and his Spirit" from Christianity. He aims to isolate an essence, an originary "Will" in this expression that is, perhaps, closer to Nietzsche's will-to-power than the religious expression otherwise allows. The Politician then begins his analysis of Christians who follow Christ but "may prove [to be] mere impostors" and, by way of following Mr. Z.'s and the General's discussion, Antichrists (SS 10:162; 121). The logic is based on reversal and twists. The Politician thereby agrees with Mr. Z. and the General: Anyway, there can be no doubt that the name of "Anti- Christ" justly applies to those persons, here in France, as well as in our own country, who are particularly busy about Christianity, making of it their special occupation, and considering the name of Christian some sort of monopoly or privilege of their own. (SS 10:162-63; 121) In describing these "aliens" to the spirit of Christ, he continues: They are either mad slaughterers [zhivodery kakie-to ogoltelye] ready to revive at the drop of a hat the terrors of the inquisition and to organize religious massacres after the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200 style of those "pious" abbes and "brave" "Catholic" officers who recently gave vent to their feelings on the occasion of celebrating some detected swindler; or they are the new ascetics and celibates who have discovered virtue and conscience as they might discover some new America while, at the same time, losing their inner truthfulness and common sense. The former cause a moral repulsion; the latter make one yawn with boredom. These are equally targets of N ietzsche’s genealogy as we saw in the previous chapter: those who wage war in the name of "something," the essence of which they have forgotten and from which they have become disconnected. Time seems to be a culprit here in that it allows for a decay of essence and for the flourishing of those who practice austerities for the sake of exalting a superiority and close relation to a dead essence of Christianity. Both groups are criticized, the aggressors and the complacent, for their roles in falsely raising a banner of truthfulness for an ideology bereft of any practical value for the majority of people. There is a foreshadowing of the totalitarian and fascist anchoring of truth on falsehood and the acceptance of such by a mass of individuals. The manner in which Solov'ev targets these historical categories within Christianity parallels the genealogical style of Nietzsche. Mr. Z. emphasizes that the beginning of the age of the Antichrist is here. W hen asked to explain his position simply, he states that "It is a pity, though, that one cannot explain everything about the Antichrist with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201 proverbs" (SS 10:164; 122).39 To begin, Mr. Z. solicits the others' answers to the following question: "Tell me whether you recognize the existence and the power of evil in the world?" The Lady responds that death itself is proof of evil not to be escaped; for her the dictates or confines of physiology manifest a security beyond which metaphysical (or "unknown") concerns lurk as "evil." The General, on the other hand, accepts a balance in the world between God and the Devil with the disclaimer that G od’s tolerance allows for the Devil's existence and the Politician asks to hear a true positive religious account, or a "natural human account" of evil, claiming that he knows all too well the mutterings, or “naked pretensions” of the self-righteous, such as the Prince (SS 10:164; 123). Mr. Z. claims from scripture that truth comes to the earth, instead of peace, and truth of necessity brings division, or dualism. "He came to bring truth to the earth, and truth, like good, before anything else divides." For the Lady, who cannot synthesize contradictions between peacemaker and divider, Mr. Z. explains that 39 Solov'ev poses the question of deriving meaning in proverb as Nietzsche had posed the questions concerning philosophical interpretation and the role of aphorisms in obtaining "truth." Komblatt points out that Solov'ev's use of the proverb further indicates the "literary" impulse of his writing. Irony and contradiction are thus introduced into the dialogues. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202 there is good peace - the peace of Christ, resting on the division that Christ came to bring to the world, namely, the division between good and evil, between truth and the lie - and there is bad peace, the peace of the world which tries to blend or to externally unite elements that are internally at war with one another. (SS 10:165; 124) Mr. Z. alludes to a similarity, or parallelism of dynamic, between the political world and the spiritual. "As in the political struggle, so in the spiritual one; the good peace is that concluded when the object of war is accomplished." This thinking is based on categories and absolute concepts so that this response contradicts Mr. Z.'s earlier statements. To the Lady, however, as a commoner, this talk of war between good and evil appears to be metaphorical. To her good is natural: "it is one’s duty to foster the growth of good in man" (SS 10:165; 124). Mr. Z. alludes to the notion of the deliberate growth of kindness for the purpose of offsetting wickedness (referring to the earlier conversations). The Lady perceives this "economic" talk as reminiscent of the Prince’s talk. Mr. Z. criticizes the Prince's fundamentalism as out of league with reality and states, "Well, since I don't believe the Prince to be the Antichrist, I have little faith in his coming, and still less in his theological presence of mind" (SS 10:166; 125). Solov'ev ridicules the Prince and his fundamentalism (and Lev Tolstoi) in a manner that privileges the Antichrist over these; perhaps the impostor is more desirable in his "goodness" than a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203 fundamentalist. Solov'ev is, after all, forging a theological phenomenology in this work that runs parallel to his philosophical work and he, therefore, resists belief for the sake of phenomenological experience. Mr. Z. bets that the Prince's reasoning relegates the power of good and moral development to a time when miracles increase in number toward the "end." The General denies seeing miracles or enlightenment within his own experience. Mr. Z., then, presents a Nietzschean conclusion to the social experiment of a court chamberlain, who taught love and forgiveness to one's enemies. "Alas! he only exasperated the evil spirit of the villain and died miserably by his hand" (SS 10:167). He states that the account of this experience is presented in farce by Alexei Tolstoi. Again, Solov'ev, alluding to an intertextual reference, implicitly posits his own work within a literary field. Solov'ev betrays his sentiment concerning rhetoric and genre when the character of Mr. Z. speaks: "At any rate, the actual relationship between kindness and wickedness in human life is portrayed in these amusing verses with much greater skill than I could ever show in my serious prose" (SS 10:168; 128). This is in comparison with realism where the "black soil of psychology" is ploughed, and heroes become "literary reminiscences for bibliophiles, I am certain that this farce which, in an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 204 exaggerated and wildly caricatured form, plumbs the very depth of the moral problem, will retain all its artistic and philosophic truth." This is actually Solov'ev's goal of the Three Conversations. The Lady accuses him of a Nietzschean intention, to present a "spirit" of contradiction and to "willfully defy public opinion" [la vashim paradoksam ne veriu. Vy oderzhimy dukhom protivorechiia i narochno vsegda braviruete obshchestvennoe mnenie.] (SS 10:168; 129). Mr. Z. replies that he doubts the existence of "public opinion"; he infers that there is a lack of sight on the public's part. Mr. Z., then, tells the story of the court chamberlain (SS 10:168-70; 128-130): It is a tale, moral, and treatise on evil tendencies and kindness in the nature of every human being (whether noble or ignoble) and the degree to which either is sparked to grow further (like "flowers and weeds"). The chamberlain is real, exhibits an inoffensive weakness on the surface, is vain and kindhearted. He has a good sense of humor, is invincible, and is insensitive to wrongs. This is how he carries and possesses his sense of sovereignty. The villain is an admixture of good and evil; he has the evil of envy at his root and exhibits kindness as a superficial sensitivity to the acts of the chamberlain Delarue. This he achieves at the climax of repentance. However, when Delarue extends his real kindness, his practical help by the sharing of his fortune, the villain's inner moral Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205 emptiness is revealed. "The slumbering crocodile of envy" is aroused. "What did excite his envy was for him unattainable infinite vastness and the simple seriousness of that kindness" (SS 10:171). The logic of the beneficence functions akin to the healing power and poison of herbs that are each fed by rain. Kindness, like the rain, develops good in the good and evil in the evil one. Mr. Z. teaches discrimination as to when to offer kindness; the choice and distinction made as to whom the recipient should be are foremost in importance. Mr. Z. is, therefore, practical and responsive to others as they exist in reality without imposing ideologies on social interaction. In response to the story, the Politician identifies the Antichrist as the force within the villain that motivated him to take advantage of the chamberlain and eventually to seek control of the governorship. Mr. Z. questions the Politician about his earlier assertion that natural, barbaric humanity eventually became educated and formed European civilization. Following this logic, the Politician foresees the death of evil and the growth of good and productivity.40 4 0 This foreshadows totalitarian ideology with the Soviet ideal of overcoming physical death; see Irene Masing-Delic's Abolishing Death. The notion of overcoming diseases echoes Nordau’s pronouncements on Decadence and modernity. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206 Mr. Z. points out the counterbalance of success by referring to "increases in neuropathic and psychopathic symptoms of the degeneration accompanying the advance of culture?" (SS 10:172). (This dialogue incorporates the popular notions of Nietzscheanism and Entartung as culture-wide problems.) Mr. Z .’s contention is that as the plus grows, the minus grows, and nil is attained. He states further that Death is an equalizer; as egotism and altruism are both made senseless, there is ultimately nothing to be gained. The Politician declares that love for children and moral satisfaction allow him to devote life to these pursuits as a motivation and an objective in his life. In terms of the future, however, Mr. Z. challenges him: Human beings who do not yet exist cannot excite such love, and here the question put by our intellect as to the final meaning or aim of our cares acquires its full importance. If the answer to this question is death, if the final result of your progress and your culture is the death of one and all, it is then clear that every kind of activity for the sake of progress and civilization is without purpose or meaning. (SS 10:173; 134) Mr. Z. tackles the objective or empirical measures of progress and civilization in order to show that they do not survive death. There are motives such as love and meaning, which cannot be held as measures of culture, because they exist only in and of themselves. Here he is Kantian in his emphasis. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 207 The Prince soon enters the conversational forum as Mr. Z. asks, W hy trouble about progress since the end of progress signals the death of everyone, barbarian and civilized alike? The Prince reverts to his Gospel approach, the telling of the husbandmen parable, to voice his theory: the men who forgot their lord as their benefactor forgot the truth and sought that which was conditional on seeking the Truth. They thereby acted in a manner that is destructive of the "Kingdom of God" and erected "various States, armies, courts, universities, and factories" (SS 10:174). (This anti industrialist and anti-cultural progress approach is presented as that of the later Tolstoi.) The Prince believes that each man is sent as an ambassador of God. The Politician, however, remarks to this rather facetiously that he needs only three conditions for proof of these men being sent as ambassadors from God. These are incontestable documents, a personal audience with the lord, and a salary. For him existence on earth is an "indisputable fact"; this echoes Soloviev's argument in the theoretical phenomenology referred to earlier. The Politician's response is that the question of ambassadorship has no ground and can, thus, be only a "rhetorical improvisation," a further construct by the already constructed "subject" (SS 10:175). The Lady, who shows a protectiveness toward the Prince, mentions the common cultural view of everyone’s dependence on God. The Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 208 Politician, however, counters that death and life as "natural necessities" do not predispose one to an imaginary service to an unknown master. His belief is that what is needed in a peaceful culture is to live in a good and intelligent manner. The General notices a circumvention of the question of progress and the Politician challenges the Prince for altering the parable that he told. The Prince then reads a passage concerning an interrogation of Christ's abilities and powers whereupon Mr. Z. proves the Prince wrong: that Jesus spoke simply of the source of his authority and claimed that his interrogators had none. Mr. Z.'s argument parallels that of sovereignty: He quoted such a witness of his authority as the questioners dared not reject, and next proved that they themselves had no proper authority or right over him, as they acted only out of fear of the people, afraid for their lives, adapting themselves to the opinion of the mob. Real authority is that which does not follow others, but itself leads them forward. Fearing and obeying the people, these men revealed that the real authority had deserted them and now belonged to the people. (SS 10:178; 140) There is a strong sense of Kant's universal categorical imperative in this statement as well as of Nietzsche’s sovereign individual ideal.4 1 4 1 See the footnote on the parallels between the Kantian and Nietzschean systems of individual sovereignty and autonomy in the explication of Essay II of GM in the previous chapter. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 209 Mr. Z. reveals that the parable is addressed to those who resist the M essiah and that God must destroy the husbandmen and return the vineyards to others for caring because they destroyed his Son, the representative of his command. He clarifies further things that the Prince may have blurred: rendering unto Caesar what is Caesar's, the raising of the dead for God is of the living, Christ is the son of God, and a general warning against hypocrisy and vanity. The Prince is, thereby, found guilty of modifying the teachings to apply them more fundamentalistically to everyone's life. He claims that there are uncertainties in the Gospel, to which the Lady agrees, and claims further that intricacies, a lack of clarity, and contradictions abound from section to section in the commandments. He then insists that the essence is "the great principle of not resisting evil by force" (SS 10:181; 144). The conversation, then, returns to "evil." Mr. Z. challenges the Prince about non-resistance to evil. The reason is that with no resistance, evil should disappear. Mr. Z., then, suggests that evil only exists as a response to a mistaken opinion of it; once evil is "thought up" or posited, the thinker begins functioning according to the proposition about evil. Mr. Z. invokes "the startling failure of Christ’s cause in history” and focuses on the fundamentalist view of evil and tries to shake it up logically (SS 10:181-82; 145). Mr. Z. challenges the group to ponder the essence of Christianity and to question Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210 it as a failure. "Isn’t it strange that nonexistent evil always triumphs and good always falls through to nothingness?" (SS 10:183; 147) Mr. Z. explains his reasoning thusly: It is quite simple. Evil really exists, and it finds its expression not only in the deficiency of good but in the positive resistance and predominance of the lower qualities over the higher ones in all spheres of being. There is an individual evil in the great majority of people. This occurs when the lower side of human beings, their animal and bestial passions, resist the better impulses of the soul, overpowering them. And there is a social evil, when the human crowd, individually enslaved by evil, resists the salutary efforts of the few better men and eventually overpowers them. There is, lastly, a physical evil in humanity, when the baser material constituents of the human body resist the living and enlightening power that binds them together into a beautiful form of organism and resist and break the form, destroying the real basis of the higher life. This is the extreme evil, called death. And were we compelled to recognize the victory of this extreme physical evil as final and absolute, then no imaginary victories of good in the individual and social spheres could be considered real successes [...] By what logic would it be possible to appraise highly the moral victories of Socrates’ good over the moral microbes of bad passions within him and over the social microbes of the Athenian agora, if the real victors would be, after all, the much worse, baser, and coarser microbes of physical decomposition? Here, no moral verbiage will protect you against utter pessimism and despair. (SS 10:183-84; 148) Mr. Z. invokes a vitalistic argument. He challenges the others to based their beliefs on phenomenological bases. He stresses that evil is a quantifiable property, a natural counterbalance to good, rather than a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211 qualifiable affect in a moral sphere. It "transcends" morality and becomes, rather, an effect of nature for him. He proposes "actual resurrection" as a remedy. Evil will serve, then, to "enhance the triumph, realization, and power of good." W ithout this the Kingdom of God remains a kingdom of death, where death serves as an absolute universal law (SS 10:185; 149).42 The Politician supports this notion: that death is known whereas God is unknown; so we must use the appropriate terms to correspond to reality. The inference here is that God equals a certain death (an escape from the reality of life), a possible allusion or reworking of Nietzsche’s dictum that "God is dead," and at the very least, an interesting interpretation on the grammatical and metaphysical levels (as escape from reason). The Prince claims that death "is a fact of indifference similar, say, to bad weather. Because it is not in our power to change it, it does not follow that it should be of any consequence to our conscience" (SS 10:185; 150). Mr. Z. claims that this is not so; death is ultimate, as it seals fates. In bad weather, one can praise God, whereas in death, a person can no longer do anything. Solov'ev here introduces his views of metaphorical language and privileging of physiology so that nothing of physical experience should be viewed in a language of transcendence. Mr. Z. 4 2 Irene Masing-Delic's Abolishing Death would equally be insightful in this context. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212 claims that the conscience has "incontestable limits" - it gives only negative indications or instructions (similar to Nietzsche's view of bad conscience and guilt and Freud's superego as a means of negative self- control) (SS 10:186). He distinguishes between reason and conscience, noting that reason can serve either good or evil and demands that there is a need to have a third element in the equation in order to carry out the will of God (SS 10:187; 152). That is the "inspiration of the good." Mr. Z. continues this Kantian argument and introduces Kant's query in the Critique o f Judgment that aims to bridge pure reason and practical, moral duty with an aesthetic inspiration of beauty. "If good is confined only to carrying out the 'rule,' there is no room left for inspiration of any kind. A 'rule' is given once and for all, is definite and the same for everyone." The one who gave this rule is dead and has "no personal vital existence for us"; instead, the "absolute, primary good" is seen as a punishing paternal Deity (SS 10:188; 153). A similar argument is made by Solov’ev in the Theoretical Philosophy and in his thesis The Crisis o f Western Philosophy concerning hypostasized concepts, which are equivalent to these "dead rules." "So long as your lord only imposes duties on you and demands from you compliance with his will, I do not see how you can prove to me that he is a true lord and not an impostor." The "impostor" in Solov'ev's philosophical literature competes with the role of philosophy itself, which Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213 should be to provide an understanding of metaphysics and supra-rational duty, and the possibility of identifying with the self as sovereign and constantly developing. The impostor comes as the Antichrist to take sovereignty away from others. In this manner Kant's universal maxim that stems from reason that governs like a deity (from the source of a "metaphysical deity") is reduced by Solov'ev's voice in Mr. Z. to an impostor. Mr. Z. states that good follows from one's acts. He tells the Prince: I shall stick to my opinion that your distant lord, demanding good from others but doing no good himself, imposing duties but showing no love, never appearing before your eyes but living incognito somewhere abroad, is no else but the god of this world [in opposition to a heavenly god], (SS 10:189; 154) The General emphasizes, "this damned incognito." Talk of the impostor continues. I have no doubt, Prince, that you are genuinely erring when you take the clever impostor for the real God. The cleverness of the impostor is a mitigating circumstance which greatly reduces your own guilt. I m yself could not immediately see through it. But now I have no doubts of any kind, so you will understand with what feeling I must look at what I consider a deceptive and seductive mask of the good. (SS 10:189; 155) Mr. Z.'s God, thus, differs from the Prince's by "the real victory over evil in the real resurrection." He supposedly means this quite literally. Mr. Z. believes in the "absolute superiority" of the good and, by logic, in its Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214 unlimited power and in the truth of a "historically confirmed" resurrection. Because the Prince affirms that Christian faith is for him a mythology, Mr. Z derides him by excluding him from the category of Judases; he states that the Prince's fallacious religious theoretical notions preclude him from being cast in the category of traitors. Mr. Z. thereby posits fundamentalist notions as even unworthy of Antichrist stature. The Politician then asks for a portrait of the Antichrist to see if it is not atheist, infidel or a "true Christian" as the Prince is (SS 10:191; 157). Mr. Z. states that a "single satisfactory portrait" cannot do. Innumerable ones have been made of Christ. I believe such is even impossible, for Christ is an individual, unique in his own kind and in the personification of his essence - good. To paint his portrait, a genius will not suffice. The same must be said of the Antichrist: he is also an individual, singular in completeness and finish, a personification of evil. It is impossible to show his portrait. In Church literature, we find only his passport with a general description and some special marks...4 3 The Lady wants to know of the Antichrist's necessity, mission and the time of his coming. Mr. Z. claims that a monk by the name of Pansophius ("All-knowing") gave him an account of the Antichrist in fictional format; however, he states that it is a reliable imaginary forecast 4 3 Solov'ev echoes his concern with Descartes' ego. Descartes, who holds a "passport" to invent an ego fails to give a concrete portrait and merely provides a flawed portrait. The "passport" is for Solov'ev a term of derision. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215 and in accordance with the Bible, Church tradition, and the dictates of sound sense (SS 10:192). Again, Solov'ev implicates the self-referentiality of genres and the literary import of this study. Solov’ ev hints at the immateriality of the world: fictions equate to accounts of reality, or even to something more accurate than reality. There is also a hint at the life- creation aesthetic here. Mr. Z. then leaves to look for the manuscript. The party looks at the sky and notices a change in nature (except for the Prince who sees nothing). The Lady senses "some ill-omened presentiment" [ predchuvstvie kakoe-to zloveshchee] (The rhetoric centers around the root for evil - zlo.) (SS 10:192). The General states, "I think it is even more likely that the Devil, with his tail, is spreading fog over the world. Another sign of the Antichrist!" in a line that echoes Symbolist concerns with omens in the sky portending a revelation of doom (SS 10:193; 159). The Antichrist Story: Impostors and Followers (SS 10:193-221)4 4 The story then begins with an ode (or verses) to Pan-M ongolism that equates Pan-M ongolism to "forebodings of the glorious providence of 4 4 V. K. Kantor in "'Antikhrist' Vladimira Solov'eva i 'Khristos'Aleksandra Bloka" (145-56) in Solov’ evskii sbornik claims that Solov’ev appropriated the theme of the Antichrist from Dostoevskii's "Velikii inkvizitor" and created an Antichrist story that has become indistinct from the canonical traditional Church version (145-46). According to Kantor, Solov'ev has thereby successfully and uncannily projected the Antichrist onto the contemporary historical scene. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216 God." In hinting of a predication or equation between Pan-M ongolism and God, it begins on a farcical tone that is revealing of Solov'ev's concerns: the predication of "good" on an existent form of "evil." It also begs the question, where does Solov'ev stand in the concern about eastern invaders? Especially in the suggestion that the initiating force of Pan- M ongolism is the Japanese people, described as "imitative, copying the external forms of European culture and its baser ideas," the stress is on the reproduction and the vulgarization of culture while the political aim is expansion and conquest. The question of mimesis and imposture arises with the questioning of authenticity here. The idea of Pan-M ongolism, represented as derivative of the W estern Pan- movements of Hellenism, Germanism, Slavism, and Islamism, all representing angles of Christian "difference," relies on the W estern conception, while considering the W est as “unreservedly alien, nothing but enemies" (SS 10:194; 160). The logic contains a certain irony of borrowing and then destroying the source so as to claim primary ownership status, originality, and authority, based loosely on the Christ/Antichrist dynamic. The plan of these Pan-M ongols is to unite with some and to conquer others, to establish allies arbitrarily and to rid themselves of enemies arbitrarily on the way to universal power. The Mongolian yoke over Europe is to last one half of a century with a "mutual interchange of European and Eastern ideas, providing a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217 repetition on a grand scale of ancient Alexandrian syncretism" (SS 10:196; 163). "Interchange" and "syncretism" are words here denoting the mixture and adulteration of the purity of cultures, which is presented ironically as being fictional - with the choice of words exuding a strong sense of the "imitative" and the "imposturous." Referring to contemporary problems, the story then looks to three governing tendencies that have overrun Europe. W ith the great influx of Chinese and Japanese workers into Europe, there are acute social and economic problems that the "ruling classes" continue to try to solve while secret, international societies form a European conspiracy to expel the M ongols and reestablish independence. The accomplishments that result are the alliance of the United State of Europe, which has a program for the renewed progress of material culture but fails to resolve questions of metaphysics concerning life, death, and the destiny of humanity. Solov'ev continues to chart out a fictional course of history modeled on the events and ideas of the Nineteenth Century. The most important result is "the final bankruptcy of the materialistic theory. The notion of the universe as a system of dancing atoms, and of life as the result of mechanical accumulation of the slightest changes in material no longer satisfied a single reasoning intellect" (SS 10:197; 164). Solov'ev continues his disdain of Positivism and the empirical sciences from his early dissertation. This "philosophical Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218 infancy" and the "infantile capacity for naive, unconscious faith" have been "outgrown." The "infantile" believers developed into rational thinkers. Among the "believing spiritualists" was a "superman," who at age thirty-three was already famous as a thinker, writer, and public figure. The age would correspond to Christ's and set off this superman as one who overcomes the Christ, who survives "belief" and crucifixion. His belief is in "the good, God and the Messiah" (SS 10:198; 165). In these he believed, but he loved only himself. He believed in God, but in the depths of his soul he involuntarily and unconsciously preferred himself. He believed in Good, but the All Seeing Eye of the Eternal knew that this man would bow down before the power of Evil as soon as it would offer him a bribe - not by deception of the senses and the lower passions, but only by his own immeasurable self-love. Self-love becomes a fatal flaw, a mark of hubris in Solov'ev's worldview.4 5 Solov'ev also characterizes him as the "great spiritualist, ascetic, and philanthropist," not unlike the way Nietzsche would characterize the priests of ressentiment. The proclivity to serve evil is seen in the measure of one’s love for oneself, seeing oneself as second only to God, as oneself a Christ, and by seizing advantage at the expense of others. Christ is seen 4 5 Self-love plays a differing role in the philosophies of Kant, Nietzsche, and Solov'ev. In Kant and Solov'ev self-love represents a degeneration of the self toward the communal good, whereas in Nietzsche it serves to affirm one's self over destructive conventions. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 219 rather as a predecessor. This superman fails to achieve what Christ and Zarathustra did.46 This superman, in Solov'ev's account, claims to come after Christ at the very end of history, thereby fulfilling a greater mission and purpose, and replacing Christ by scheme and of necessity. "I come last, at the end of history, and for the very reason that I am most perfect. I am the final savior of the world, and Christ is my precursor. His mission was to precede and prepare for my coming" (SS 10:198; 166). The logic is that of reversal and turning; the irony is in the notion that he at best accomplishes the role of the "anti-" to the Christ. Whereas Christ reformed humanity and divided the world into good and evil, he, as benefactor of humanity, will unite humanity by providing benefits to both the good and evil. His justice will carry mercy and compassion to all. His overcoming and perfection are, thereby, greater than Christ's. Solov’ ev, then describes this "superman's" travails. W aiting for signs of his appointment, he becomes disillusioned and reconsiders the resurrection of the original Christ as a possibility: that Christ is alive as a deliverer. From fear and envy, he falls into despair and decides to fling him self from a precipice when he finds him self held back by a mysterious 4 6 The duty of the superman is to fulfill the command of obedience in order to be able to further command. This is the Zarathustrian command examined later by Heidegger and in Richard White's study on Nietzsche and sovereignty, Nietzsche and the Problem o f Sovereignty. See especially "The Return of the Master" (124- 49). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220 force. "A strange figure gleaming with a dim phosphorescent light loomed up before him, and its two eyes pierced his soul with their painful penetrating glitter..." (SS 10:200; 168) This power beseeches him to take its command and support for power and truth and to turn back on the god of the "crucified beggar." Thou art the sole, the only begotten, the equal of myself. I love thee, and ask for nothing from thee. Thou art so beautiful, great, and mighty. Do thy work in thine own name, not mine. I harbor no envy of thee. I love thee. I require nothing of thee. He whom thou regardest as God, demanded of his son obedience, absolute obedience - even to death on a cross - and even there did not help Him. I demand nothing of thee, and I will help thee. For the sake of thyself, for the sake of thine own dignity and excellence, and for the sake of my own disinterested love of thee, I will help thee! Receive thou my spirit! As before my spirit gave birth to thee in beauty, so now it gives birth to thee in power! (SS 10:200-01; 168) W ith a new "special inspired air" this superman writes "The Open W ay to Universal Peace and Prosperity," with a Kantian allusion as it echoes Solov'ev's subtitle and Kant's tract, "On Perpetual Peace."47 Critics 4 7 Wozniuk comments on Solov'ev's rebuttal to Kant on theoretical grounds in his essay "Nationality from a Moral Point of View" (1895); Solov'ev objects to the Kantian notion of cosmopolitanism and differentiates between his negative view of nationalism and his positive view of nationality (xxv). In the footnote to this comment, Wozniuk claims that "the influence of Immanuel Kant is particularly apparent even in Solov'ev's rebuttal to Kant's ideas concerning the origins of the State and human rights" (303). In my findings I concur with Wozniuk. It appears that a stylistic or argumentative choice to which Solov’ ev adheres is to incorporate and synthesize the points that he will refute; for this reason many choices taken by Solov'ev appear to result in intentional "misreadings" or "misrepresentations." Of further support is Komblatt's contention that Solov'ev Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221 spot that in the words of the "coming man" there are "signs of a quite exceptional and excessive self-love and conceit, and a complete absence of true simplicity, frankness, and sincerity" (55 10:201; 169). His books are purportedly the work of a genius and present solutions to everything from individualism to the common good, treated in ways that are mystical and practical. Solov'ev puns with his readership for giving in to "bestseller mentality" and with the writing in seeking agreeableness and acceptance by the public rather than the truth, and finally for not abiding by Christ's warning that "I have come in the name of the Father, and you accept me not. Another will come in his own name - him you will accept" (55 10:202; 170). Christ is not mentioned in the books that the superman writes, but all assume that the love and good will expressed are "Christ" enough. An international constitutional congress was to be held in Berlin to deal with internal conflicts caused by warring political and social factions. An executive power was sought and found in this "Coming Man" [griadushchii chelovek] who had fame, was a capitalist, and was popular in financial and military circles (55 10:203; 171). His mother was of doubtful reputation and many could lay claim to being his father. Here utilizes fictional discourse. Fictional discourse, pluralistic or polyphonous in nature, allows for dissenting voices and can be used to ward off moralistic notions. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222 Solov'ev targets social decorum and claims that this last age is too advanced to be concerned with such trivial affairs; he harks back to Christ’s own immaculate conception: the superman's birth being derivative, imitative and based on coarser ideas. Solov'ev describes this man with sarcasm, in all the glamour of youthful superhuman beauty and power and, with inspired eloquence, expounded his universal program, the assembly was carried away by the spell of his personality and, in an outburst of enthusiasm, decided, even without voting, to give him the highest honor and to elect him Roman Emperor. (SS 10:203; 172) He in turn grants all "an eternal universal peace," subjects all insubordinates to himself, and, thus, creates a supra-historical world situation (Solov'ev foreshadows totalitarian forces here.) In this universal monarchy he first gives peace, then prosperity through available world resources. As he is a philozoist, he is against meat, vivisection, and slaughter and remains a vegetarian (as Nietzsche professed to be). He then establishes an equality of universal satiety in the second year of his reign (SS 10:204; 173). W hen he is visited by the magician Apollonius, a "semi-Asiatic and a semi-European, a Catholic bishop in partibus infidelum," one who mixes W estern science and Eastern mysticism, and is learned of the trick of guiding atmospheric electricity to demonstrate miracles, the new Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223 emperor takes him on as a companion (SS 10:205). The M ephistophelian qualities of this bishop are clearly evident. W hen all political and social problems are solved, the religious question becomes the issue. Although there is a perceived increase in moral progress, the numbers practicing have diminished. The representatives of Christianity are: the Papacy established in Saint Petersburg greatly simplified; the Catholic priesthood as representatives of strong will established especially in North America; Protestantism in Germany, purged of negativities; and the Evangelical Church of the sincerely religious, and the Russian Orthodoxy, unified with the old believers, and the revivified Church, struggling against extremists and Satanists (SS 10:206-07). In the fourth year of his reign, the emperor holds a world congress, which includes three conspicuous men: Pope Peter III, who is distrustful of the emperor and magician, who has now become a cardinal and imperial Chancellor; Elder John of the Orthodox faith, who is said to be the incarnation of the Emperor Alexander I or John the Apostle; and the German theologian Professor Ernst Pauli (SS 10:208-09). The Emperor demands love at the outset of the congress. "I wish you to recognize in me your true leader in every enterprise undertaken for the well-being of humanity, not merely out of your sense of duty to me but mainly out of your heartfelt love for me" (SS 10:209-10). There is clear irony in this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224 demand for love. He claims to appeal to the three branches of Christianity out of his benevolence and to enact transformations: he appeals to followers of the spiritual authority of the Papacy by returning the throne to Rome; he appeals to followers of the sacred tradition of the Orthodoxy by establishing a world museum of Christian archeology in Constantinople; and he appeals to followers of the personal assurance of truth and free examination of the Scriptures by establishing a world institute for the free examination of sacred Scriptures (SS 10:210-12; 182). The majority of the people crosses over to the Emperor's platform in support of these plans while the Pope, Elder, and Professor remain with a minority of followers. The Emperor then appeals to these three, asking what they value m ost in Christianity. The Elder claims that he wants "Christ him self in person" and asks the Emperor to declare the coming of Christ (SS 10:213; 184). The emperor is enraged and the magician creates thunder that strikes the elder dead as he cries out "Little children, it is the Antichrist!" Upon this act the emperor claims him self to be "innocent of this deed" and that his "Heavenly Father avenges his beloved son." "The Ecumenical Council of All Christians, after a foolish opponent of the Divine Majesty had been struck by fire from heaven, recognized unanimously the sovereign Emperor of Rome and all the Universe as its Supreme leader and Lord" (SS 10:213-14; 185). Pope Peter III defies him Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225 with the cry o f "Contradicturl" and "Our only Lord is Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God [...] By the authority of Christ, I, the servant of the servants of God, cast you out forever, foul dog, from the city of God, and deliver you up to your father Satan! Anathema!" The magician stirs once again and the Pope falls dead. Professor Pauli becomes "noble and inspired" and reads from his writing that the Antichrist has now been exposed and that the council pleads to itself "to cease all communion with the excommunicated one and with his abominable assembly, and to go to the desert and wait there for the inevitable coming of our true Lord, Jesus Christ." They cry out "Adveniat\ Adveniat citol Komm, H err Jesu, komm\ Come, Lord Jesus Christ!" The guards take the two bodies as evidence of their death and the Emperor addresses the congress. He names Apollonius the magician as successor to Peter and pledges to unite the Orthodox and Protestant Churches under him (SS 10:215; 187). After meeting and embracing the Greek and German representatives, hell stirs loose. Tongues of flame turn into strange beings and flowers and the enchanting angelic music of unseen singers are met with a "terrific subterranean noise" heard in the "Kubbet-el-Areah" - "dome of souls" - the "Muslim mythical entrance to hell" in a corner of the palace (SS 10:216; 188). Apollonius quietens the voices and noise by kneeling and shouting into the ground. He ignites fireworks from the cardinals' baskets Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226 and "reaching the ground, all the sparkles transformed into numberless, variously colored sheets containing complete and absolute indulgences of all sins - past, present, and future" (SS 10:217; 189). Professor Pauli comes into the city, takes the bodies of the Pope and Elder, untouched by decomposition, while the guards are asleep. A spirit enters the bodies and the two beings are revived. They vow a unification of the Churches in the night and witness the apparition of a woman "clothed in the sun with the moon beneath her feet and a wreath of twelve stars on her head" and follow it southward (SS 10:218; 190). Solov’ev introduces here the Divine Sophia here, a gesture of inspiration to the Symbolists. Mr. Z. claims that the manuscript ends unfinished here and he recalls the outlines of the remainder of the story. The new Pope continues to corrupt the "remaining superficial Christians who were not yet disappointed with the Antichrist" (SS 10:219; 191).48 Here there is the sense of intolerance concerning the unification; there is something demonic feared about merging differences into a unit. In Solov'ev's 4 8 The focus on superficiality in the above details is cause for wonder as to Solov'ev's acceptance of vulgar Nietzscheanism. Did he attribute it fully to Nietzsche without considering the cultural and political perversions as well as oversimplifications and outright errors that many made while "understanding" the German's philosophy? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227 account the Antichrist is established sinisterly, while the Christ is always “com ing” and never arriving - an anticlimactic doctrine because it is constructed on the paradoxical notion of constant expectation, and thereby a monotony, of a climax. He declared that by the power of his keys he could open the gates between the earthly world and the world beyond the grave. Communion of the living with the dead, and also of the living with demons, became a matter of everyday occurrence, and new unheard-of forms of mystic lust and demonolatry began to spread among the people. Trouble comes in the form of a Jewish uprising. The Jews rise up because he secretly spreads a rumor that he will allow them to have dominion over the world if they make him the Messiah. W hen it is discovered that he is not even circumcised, "the boundless and fervent devotion to the savior of Israel, the promised Messiah, [gives] place to as boundless and as fervent a hatred of the wily deceiver, the impudent impostor" (SS 10:219; 192). In this there is still a continuing hope of self-love and the creation of Christ out of himself. He sentences insubordinate Jews and Christians to death. The Jews are slaughtered, and as the emperor is escaping with the help of his Pope/magician, a volcano erupts and swallows them up. The Jews flee to Jerusalem, where "they [see] Christ coming toward them in royal apparel, and with the wounds from the nails in his outstretched hands" (SS 10:220; 193). The Christians led by Peter, John, and Paul come from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 228 Sinai to Zion, and the Jews and Christians that were killed by the Antichrist arrive as well. Mr. Z. states that the objective of this narrative is to portray the conclusion of the historical process consisting in the appearance, glorification, and destruction of the Antichrist, so that the coming of "Christ" and Christians is predicated on the Antichrist. For him good and evil must coexist and inherent in this scheme there are no valuative differences; this is justified by the genealogical analysis. In a final comment Mr. Z. claims that the Antichrist is "not essentially evil" and he reverses his earlier position that the truth of the Antichrist cannot be revealed by a proverb. Mr. Z. simply explains that "All that glitters is not gold." [Dama: Pochemu vash antikhrist tak nenavidit boga, a sarn on v sushchnosti dobryi a ne zloi? G. Z.: To-to i e st’ , chto ne v sushchnosti [...] ‘ Ne vse to zoloto, chto blestit.1 ] Solov'ev, thus, leads us to believe that akin to counterfeit gold, the reality of the Antichrist is constructed on a facade, a lie, much like the Cartesian ego. The General adds that the curtain of this historical drama falls on war, specifically the meeting between two armies, so that for him the conversation begins and ends with war (SS 10:220-21). The final sentiment remaining in Three Conversations is that no clear interpretation can be given by any of the interlocutors. The truth and the "Christ" are in Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 229 a state of perpetual coming, but without definitive arrival. The question of evil does not allow for an answer, although Solov'ev seems to lead his readers to infer that there can be no "essential evil." It appears that a degree of arbitrariness and moderation underlie Solov'ev's project and that, if anything is to be understood by this work, it is that Solov'ev stands opposed to fundamentalist thinking, i.e. the self-assured thinking that arises out of the self-love of impostors. These conversations, or Platonic dialogues, culminate in an allegory of Solov'ev's theoretical philosophy.49 Considering Solov'ev's phenomenological critique of authenticity and imposture, we can see its impression on and in the Three Conversations and in the "Short Story of the Antichrist." W e can also see the likeness of Nietzsche in the call for authenticity and in the caution against the impostor. The ambiguities that arise in Solov'ev's texts differ from the ambiguities in Nietzsche's by reason of Solov'ev's appeal to 4 9 Vladimir Wozniuk, in his introduction to his translations of Solov'ev's essays in Politics, Law, and Morality: Essays by V. S. Soloviev, states that Solov'ev's essay "Plato's Life-Drama" (1898) attests to the importance of Plato in his later life (xxvi). "This immersion into the Platonic corpus accompanied Soloviev's work on the problem of logically reconciling law and morality [...] As references throughout his essays and correspondence suggest, Soloviev in some ways modeled his own quest for justice and reconciliation in Russia on the classical example of Socrates in Athens." He was even encouraged to pursue translations of Plato into Russian; however, that "Soloviev was not translating Plato in order to lose himself on the ethereal plane of Platonic abstraction; on the contrary, he was driven by a keen sense of practical necessity and historical purpose" (xxvi). We can detect the appeals to necessity and purpose in the Three Conversations, on which Wozniuk comments. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 230 philosophical categories and literary genres, as Komblatt notes, and by reason of Nietzsche's appeal to challenging conventions within language. These two thinkers give fundamentally similar critiques with fundamentally different strategies; this accounts for the apparent differences and, perhaps the intentional mis-readings. If we consider Solov'ev's texts to comprise an admixture of philosophy in the theoretical sense, literature as in the telling of the story of the Antichrist, and a combination of applied poetics and aesthetic expression in his tackling of Lebenskunst and German Romantic problems, whether in his poetry to the Divine Sophia or his theurgical practices of aesthetic and religious devotion, then the literary play, which allows for this admixture, suggests that Solov'ev's works are implicated, or embedded, in the decadent culture of the "turn." Any contradictions, paradoxes, ironic subversions, or uses of hyperbole are part of a cultural and philosophical anxiety that, when analyzed apart from the content, enriches our understanding of Decadence and Symbolism. In this sense Solov'ev and Nietzsche's texts can stand together as companion guides to the decadence of the fin de siecle. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 231 Chapter 3: Dmitrii Merezhkovskii's Christ and Antichrist: Synthesis and the Failure of Representation Violate the law, love thyself, curse Him, and be as I am! I love the falsehood that contains a truth. I love temptation... I will unveil for him the mystery and charm even of crime. I am like unto you... Mine be the cloudless sky in which you have dwelt till now, and from which you have died, to give place to mangods! - Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, Julian the Apostate M erezhkovskii's account of Death o f the Gods: Julian the Apostate (Sm ert' bogov: Julian otstupnik) was published in 1895 as the first volume in his trilogy Christ and Antichrist (Khristos i Antikhrist). Death o f the Gods: Julian the Apostate is represented in scholarship as Merezhkovskii's attempt to reconcile Christianity and paganism by forging a "new" history of the Roman emperor Julian. Scholars have explored this aspect of Merezhkovskii's entire trilogy to a great extent.1 However 1 Edith W. Clowes in The Revolution of Moral Consciousness: Nietzsche in Russian Literature, 1890-1914 refers to Merezhkovskii’s historiography as "Apollonian historicism" (123), which she clarifies earlier as a blend of Apollonian structure and Dionysian cyclicity: "Central to his idea of history is a concept of time that synthesizes Dionysian cyclicity with a popular-Hegelian teleological temporality. In his novel trilogy, Christ and Antichrist, he views the history of moral consciousness as a series of conflicts between a thesis, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 232 significant the notion of synthesis may be within Merezhkovskii scholarship, the fundamental issues that the writer struggles with in the Christ and Antichrist trilogy underlie the proposed synthesis of paganism and Christianity. These issues are in fact closely tied to the concerns of both Nietzsche and Solov'ev that we have explored in the previous two chapters. Although a number of scholars already support and present the influence of Nietzsche and Solov'ev on M erezhkovskii, there still remains the need to pinpoint the viability and applicability of Nietzsche's and Solov’ev's philosophical stances in M erezhkovskii's historical fiction.2 Although Merezhkovskii appears to synthesize the two generally incongruent traditions and religions of Hellenism and Christianity - if we consider his efforts externally as elements injected into the plot and renewed, or reinterpreted, histories - his attempt is caught up in the earthy, pagan impulse, and an antithesis, the otherworldly, Christian impulse. In each ensuing conflict the contradictions between the two become more marked so that eventually one impulse completely overpowers and displaces the other" (12). C. Harold Bedford in his study The Seeker: D. S. Merezhkovskiy claims that Merezhkovskii's pursuit of a historiography that presents a synthesis between pagan and Christian elements begins in 1892 with the conception of the Christ and Antichrist trilogy and that it endures until 1904 with its completion (65). He cites the various confusions, the duality evidenced in the oaths on which the characters swear and in the statues that they revere, and the oppositions set up between the pagan "mangod" and the more Christian-inclined "Godman" (66-67). 2 The texts of Solov'ev that I have analyzed in the previous chapter were published four to five years (1898 and 1899) after Merezhkovskii's Julian Apostate (1895). This study will, therefore, pinpoint parallels between Merezhkovskii and Solov'ev and not direct influences of either Solov'ev's Theoretical Philosophy or Three Conversations on Merezhkovskii's formulation of the historical "Antichrist." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 233 superficial aspects of merging two paths; he does not allow for a "sublation" (in the sense of a Hegelian Aufhebung) or a sublimation. This is readily apparent in his novelistic discourse. Merezhkovskii fails the reader not from a moralistic "crack" (Weiner's derisive term for hubris) but from a philosophical and rhetorical lack, or "crack." Rather than negotiating varying perspectives like Nietzsche and sidestepping science because it smacks of asceticism (the more sinisterly because of its claims to truth and purity from prejudice), or wrestling for an answer to his own call for synthesis like Solov'ev in debates about the uncertainly, or "non- essentially," "evil" Antichrist. Merezhkovskii seeks a religiously- condoned basis (we can recall his founding of the Religious-Philosophical M eetings in Saint Petersburg) for his experiment. M erezhkovskii "fails" because he is a "poor" Decadent, unwilling to maintain a break with his "search for truth." W hereas Nietzsche and Solov’ ev question the philosophical assumptions behind representation and challenge grammar and literariness in their works, Merezhkovskii stresses his dependence on representation by seeking one-dimensional solutions to the philosophical problems of the fin de siecle. A focus on M erezhkovskii's characters would, therefore, show that they are rendered "flat" and ultimately uninteresting. However, his philosophical struggles and tensions remain Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 234 interesting, thought-provoking, and compelling in their implications for an understanding of Decadence. W ith this perceived attempt at a reconciliation in the form of a synthesis of the two cultural forces, Merezhkovskii clearly resorts to a revisiting of the philosophical problems of representation, negative theology, mysticism, and morality.3 If we consider the first novel of the trilogy in this light we see that M erezhkovskii addresses the issue and recurring m otif of individual sovereignty as it is opposed to herd mentality. Along with this issue and closely interconnected are M erezhkovskii's attempts to develop an aesthetic of life-creation that extends into politics and ethics and to synthesize elements of education that would allow for a syncretistic Weltanschauung. It is these elements that reveal Merezhkovskii's role in the philosophical development and application of German Rationalist and Romantic concerns; his work should be seen in light of these fundamental elements rather than through the simplistic notion of synthesizing Greece and Rome. M erezhkovskii also proposes, or posits, a "destruction" of conventions and conventional 3 Glenn Davis, in his article "Symbol, Idol, and Belief in Dmitrii Merezhkovskii’s The Death o f the Gods," stresses that Merezhkovskii's philosophy of history is presented as the dialectic of the flesh and spirit (151-66). Davis agrees with Heinrich Stammler, a Merezhkovskii scholar, that the dialectical play and the historical tensions deal with the battles of belief. In this chapter I will look more closely at the rhetorical and literary strategies within Julian the Apostate that underlie these dialectical and historical tensions. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235 thinking. He does not abandon the "ascetic ideal" that Nietzsche identifies to be the core problem with the Judeo-Christian tradition. Rather, he skirts the issue of authenticity and imposture and the questioning of epistemology and ethics, thereby revealing him self to be the poorer philosopher among the authors of the "turn" of the century already analyzed here. The purpose of this chapter is to consider these philosophical attempts by Merezhkovskii and, secondarily, how scholars elucidate these attempts. I will contribute to this scholarly input by clarifying M erezhkovskii's place within the larger philosophical debate of the turn of the century by clarifying M erezhkovskii's reliance on a logic of the "turn" of the century as inherently expressed in the concerns with representation, negative theology, and the destruction of conventional morality.4 4 There is a need to refute several points and inferences made by Adam Weiner in Davidson’s collection on Russian demonology that betray a scholarly "demonophobia." This scholarship is revealing not only of certain particularly academic viewpoints but of Merezhkovskii's work within a larger context. The biases expressed are especially transparent and the presumptions are insightful. Firstly, of interest is the ambiguity of the title of the collection of articles; it serves to implicate authors, texts, and demons as somehow psychologically and morally inept. (It implicitly relies on categories that do not "fit" the texts.) The title Russian Literature and its Demons implicates via metonymy and synecdoche the Russian authors as demonic or "possessive of' (and "possessed by") demons. The inference is doubly-minded: that these authors suffer from "moral" dementia and debasement depending on whether they are infected by the demonic company their works keep or whether they administer such "demons" out of poor, infected moral judgment. In either case the authors are scrutinized as to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 236 their "moral cracks" without any consideration given to tropic appeals or literary strategies. In introducing Merezhkovskii, Weiner focuses as, a literalist, on the narrative point of view and on the adherence to an unstated moral code (371). Unfortunately, Weiner reads symbolism as if it were a positivist work and the trope of Decadence cannot but escape his attention as he assumes he has analyzed the narrative. What he complains of as the "disorientating use of narrative point of view on the demonic" is merely a trope of Decadence (373). The equally troublesome "ethically ambivalent characters" can be understood more clearly as pursuing a complex life-creation aesthetic. Further along, Weiner grieves over the historical figures who are shaped by their "encounters with supernatural powers"; the confusion between the real and the imagined proves too "unreliable" for him. One must wonder why a scholar of this sentiment does not focus solely on realism. Instead, he insists on affirming the corruptive influence of symbolism’s twenty-year obsession with the demonic, with the way the Devil struggles against creation, chiefly by transforming order into chaos, unity into opposition. The old moral categories are no longer productive... so that traditional understandings of evil - as negation, deception, destruction, the absence of good - provide little illumination. (373) Weiner reads literally what is tropic; instead, he should take a pointer from Glenn Davis' scholarship. The "old moral categories" and the "traditional understandings" must go out the door. The literalist position can do no better than to perceive Decadence and Symbolism as culminating in absurdity and idolatry. Weiner’s predicament of applying categories of judgment that fit hagiographical literature arises from mixing expectations of these with his so- called "demonic accounts." Weiner states that "evil here reveals itself to be the stagnation of received norms of behavior, thought, and morality, while good is the destruction of that old world order" (373) However, evil lacks agency and good lacks instant predication on destruction. "Demonism" "become the productive term" only pinpoints the problems of literalism in scholarship on Decadence. Weiner errs yet again by imposing a certain assumption of moralism onto Decadent aesthetics. Ethics, art, and politics are interwoven throughout the trilogy. Leonardo is most evidently about art, being that the focus is on da Vinci and his synthesized depictions of the pagan and Christian elements. However, the life-creation aesthetic abounds in the first volume. It is the art in life-creation that is the underlying basis of the trilogy. The "question of art’s role in the moral life of mankind" is a minor consideration that Weiner holds to be the most important. Synthesizing light and dark, da Vinci tells his apprentices Cesari and Giovanni that both poles exist. This contradiction confuses the apprentice Cesari and Weiner alike. Weiner’s bias is evident in his wish as a scholar to correct Merezhkovskii’s "chiaroscuro of dualities and second thoughts" so that it is morally pleasing (376). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237 The mixing of "God’s beautiful truth" and the "Devil’s ugly lie" creates discomfort for Weiner and reveals his lack of critical distance in treating Merezhkovskii. Accusing Merezhkovskii of "second or third-guessing" in Merezhkovskii’s wish for a religion of the synthesis of flesh and spirit, Weiner himself "second guesses" whether Merezhkovskii does "mix truth and lie for aesthetic effects" (376). The viewpoints expressed by Weiner echo the psychological diagnoses posited by self-assured proponents who held themselves in moral elevation in relation to their subjects. From all of these accounts it would appear that Merezhkovskii's Christ and Antichrist trilogy is a failure and that Merezhkovskii the artist is morally and psychologically damned. However, Weiner is too busy exacting from the "implied authors" hints as to whether the demons are "implied" in "this" world, the world of the characters, or implicated in their dementia. This busying of oneself with psychosomatic evil at best muddies the scholarship some more. I think it more productive to treat continuously the text itself as the "demon" of Symbolism and to take for granted the author as demented, as is already inferred rather than to keep testing the moral waters. Then, consistency remains and, if the authors choose to be ironic, self-contradictory, opaque, or immoral, then at least the scholar will remain true to a Nordauean project. Even in the gesture of "doubling," Weiner locates "an impious challenge to God's creation" (376). He, thus, fails to see that the notion of "double" can refer to a more philosophically complex project that includes the phenomenologically derived "impostor" in Solov’ev's theoretical philosophy. In reference to the "vegetarian" Leonardo, who refrains from consuming animals, but designs a "killing machine" that can mince a battalion into pieces, Leonardo's command to "never imitate anyone," rather than signifying the Decadent privileging of creation over copying, is transformed by Weiner into a satanic gesture. There is irony and there is contradiction in the words and actions of the character of Leonardo, but not to the extent that a moralist interpretation is justified. Weiner's reading continues with further presumptuousness: "the reader, too, will probably admit that he is lost in the maze of the novel's presentation of good and evil and their proper balance in art." This does not apply to a reader who neither cares for moralism in literature nor exacts a teaching in fundamentalist morality. Weiner equally makes the mistake of imputing characters' intentions and actions to the author. He states that "Merezhkovskii, like Leonardo, aestheticizes evil for the sake of the duality on which the trilogy stands" (377). However, this is more than a moralistic journey. In reference to the duplicity of "doubling thought" I believe that Merezhkovskii makes a philosophical choice and is more interested in the Kantian project of bridging knowledge, ethical action, and the judgment of beauty in art. The confusion of "doubling" thought is the problem of synthesis, of merging polarities at the extremes, which mirror each other from opposing angles. I believe this is an essential component of the quest for individual sovereignty. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 238 First, an examination of the philosophical background on which Merezhkovskii's development of the trilogy takes place is in order. Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal refers to Julian the Apostate as the attempt in the period of M erezhkovskii's "high Nietzscheanism" and optimism to realize a Nietzschean project of merging Dionysian and Apollonian aspects of culture.5 In Dmitri Sergeevich Merezhkovsky and the Silver Further pejorative miscalculations that Weiner makes about the trilogy are references to the sublime as he refers to the "horror that attracts" and the "reader’s experience of Satanic beauty" (378). Finally, the question of telling good from "evil in works of art and science," which stands out as Giovanni’s question to the priest, is what Weiner pursues to answer. One of Weiner's misguided goals becomes clear as he states that the character of the "religiously ambiguous Leonardo," whose aim "to please God or the Devil" remains "one of the book's unfathomable ambiguities" (379). However, this "ambiguity" does not and should not occasion truth-telling. For his ultimate support Weiner quotes Zinaida Gippius who insists that Merezhkovskii was experiencing a "turn towards Christianity" already in Julian but that it was not evident even by the time of Leonardo. The reason for a lack of a "unified, consistent ethical center," I contend, is the upheaval and destruction of the conventional core and the life-creation impulse in the literary act to create a new one. 51 treat the texts of the trilogy as literary works with heavy philosophical strains rather than as an incorporation of the author, his psychology, and his moral development. A focus on the textual, rhetorical, and the immediate life-creation concerns and context is more revealing of the Decadent epoch and more neutral and insightful than a critique that fixates on the personae and their shifting identities. For further consideration of the Dionysian elements in Christ and Antichrist, see Cecylia Suszka, "Na Granicy Epok: Zywe Kamienie Waclawa Berenta a Chrystus i Antychryst Dymitra Merezkowskiego" (173-91). Suszka undertakes a comparative analysis of the Polish novelist Berent’ s Zywe Kamienie (Living Stones, 1917-18) and Merezhkovskii's trilogy. She analyzes mytho poetic elements amidst the writers' fin-de-siecle preoccupations. In particular she isolates representations of Bacchanalian orgies and the Dionysian myth and stresses the historiosophical nature and syncretistic worldview in which the mythological and biblical motifs occur. Her conclusion is that the writers present Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239 Age: The Development o f a Revolutionary Mentality she divides M erezhkovskii's literary output into three distinct stages of his life. From the 1880s to 1899 Merezhkovskii experiences his "aesthetic age," which will be the timeframe focused on in this chapter. Rosenthal explains that during this age Merezhkovskii's "spiritual confusion culminated in a philosophy of pagan individualism, inspired by Nietzsche, which exalted aesthetic creativity and solitary greatness" (11). From 1899 to 1905 M erezhkovskii then undergoes a period of "religious search." As we will see, this is the period during which he published Resurrected Gods: Leonardo da Vinci (Voskresshie bogi: Leonardo da Vinchi 1901) and formulated Antichrist: Peter and Alexis (Antikhrist: Petr i Alexei 1905).6 It was a period, Rosenthal claims, of an "attempt to find a more definite faith which would guide and inspire both life and art. Art and religion were to be united in a new synthesis based on an interpretation of Christianity which included paganism" (11). It was also a period, she states, of the "discovery of Vladimir Soloviev... of the revival of Kantian characters who follow an "internal" imperative of self-perfection as they seek a primordial Platonic unity with steadfast yearning. The titles of the three volumes are: Smert' bogov: Iulian otstupnik (PSS 1), originally Otverzhennyi, serialized in Severnyi vestnik 1895 I-VI (Jan - June); Voskresshie bogi: Leonardo da Vinchi (PSS 2, 3) serialized in Bozhii mir 19001 - XI; and Antikhrist: Petr i Alexei (PSS 4, 5) serialized in Novyi put' in 1904 and also in Voprosy zhizni. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 240 ethical idealism, and of a general interest in religious questions" ( l l ) .7 So far, so good. The final period, however, which lasts from 1905 to 1941, Rosenthal considers M erezhkovskii's "theocratic" stage, in which he shifts from individualism and synthesis to "social salvation" as a way to "accompany the personal" form of salvation (11). I recognize this element already in Julian (1895); I believe that this division into stages does not apply firmly and should be recognized as a simplistic and convenient way 7 For the social significance of Merezhkovskii's aesthetics during this period from 1899 to 1905, see Avril Pyman, "Vjaceslav Ivanov and Novyj put'. Lico Hi maska? A disagreement between Merezkovskij and Ivanov as to how to put across the attitudes of the 'returning intelligencija' without shocking people of the Church" in Vjaceslav Ivanov: Russischer Dichter - europaischer Kulturphilosoph (289-306). Pyman examines the philosophical and religious concurrence and disagreements, mainly between Merezhkovskii and Viacheslav Ivanov, within the framework of the Religious-Philosophical Meetings sponsored by Merezhkovskii and his wife Zinaida Gippius. Pyman reveals the political and aesthetic atmosphere of these theoretical and literary-polemical discourses and gives the reader a sense of the ideological climate that existed within the Symbolist circle and the challenges that were put forth. One example is Merezhkovskii's challenge to Ivanov for relying on the name of "Dionysus" when Merezhkovskii claims that "Christ" is simply "enough." The seriousness of the discussions appears to border at times on the ridiculous. Although the debates were heated, it seems senseless to attribute any permanence or commitment to thoughts that shifted so freely. Additionally, Pyman brings up the misunderstandings that arose at the Meetings due to the changes to which Merezhkovskii had submitted his ideas from 1895 to 1905. From the "pro-pagan" Julian to the "religion of the Trinity," which first appeared in Peter and Alexis, Merezhkovskii was blamed for trying to "reinterpret the sacraments and dogmas" of Christianity, for having intimated in the shifts of his evolution that his understanding of Christianity may be "essentially Nietzschean and neo-pagan," and for having confused his own terminology (292-293). Pyman sums up Merezhkovskii as "essentially a confused thinker, albeit a simple man with a simple and strong personal devotion to Christ, who used words and concepts allegorically to illustrate a fluctuating world view" (293). Vladimir Solov'ev even appears to have complained in 1899 about Merezhkovskii as one who confuses his ideas and language (293). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241 of categorizing M erezhkovskii's thoughts. Rosenthal characterizes this final period as "becoming" a politically infused and simultaneously a religiously inclined stage, in which Merezhkovskii is highly sensitive about the political movements that affect Russia, primarily the movement of Bolshevism. It may very well be that in this period his sentiment of sympathy (and admiration) toward the "Antichrist" shifts to a sense of distrust and fear as he identifies it with political totalitarianism in world culture. I would generally agree with this above outline of M erezhkovskii's output; however, I contend that elements of the first two stages, as well as the general outline of the theocratic stage, exist in his works from the early 1890s and must be recognized as so. I will add later in the present chapter that M erezhkovskii's confession and "confusion" of 1914 - that he personally erred in judgm ent in relation to the playing out of the Christ-Antichrist dynamic - should bear little consequence in our estimation of his work (a confession that W einer prematurely relies on as an essential key to understanding M erezhkovskii's motives and failings). Clearly, M erezhkovskii continued writing in a similar vein and as "errantly" if we focus on the fundamental philosophical concerns of his trilogy as they reappear in his work after 1914.8 8 This present study serves as a source for a future study of Merezhkovskii's later work. Because of the limitations and narrower scope of the present study, I defer Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 242 For the specific attributes of Julian we should consider that Julian, more intensively than Leonardo and Peter and Alexis, underscores the intersection and interplay between Merezhkovskii's issues and the broader Nietzschean philosophical concerns at the pre-climactic anticipation of the turn of the century. Rosenthal considers "Julian [to be] the most Nietzschean of M erezhkovsky’s protagonists; the portrayal of Christianity in the novel is the most negative and the concept of history the most cyclical" (8 1).9 She expresses here the popular notion of Nietzsche's feelings towards Christianity, meaning the herd instinct expressed by followers and their uncritical acceptance of and adherence to "institutionalized" creeds.1 0 Completed in 1894 and published in 1895, consideration of these works to a future study. I note, however, that Christensen in "Religion and Revolution" views the larger concerns of Peetr and Alexis as elements that continue to receive further development in Merezhkovskii's Russian trilogy in the following decades in the author's supposed "theocratic age." 9 Glenn A. Davis supports this view in "Symbol, Idol, and Belief in Dmitrii Merezhkovskii's The Death o f the Gods" as he follows Nietzsche's reasons for rejecting Christianity (151-66). The reasons he gives are that the asceticism of suffering and death take precedence over any life-affirming aesthetics, which is to say that Christianity tortures the "life" out of its followers. However, I note that the irony is that the life-affirming Symbolists and Decadents "contaminate" their life-creation practices with an injection of a mythology of death, suicide, strife, sexual betrayal, deception, and imposterous figures. Additionally, within the Christian scheme of things art and life are presented as opposed to the "truth" of Christianity. 1 0 For the opposing viewpoint - one that avows of Nietzsche an acceptance of certain aspects of Christianity - see Giles Fraser's work on Nietzsche, Redeeming Nietzsche: On the Piety o f Unbelief and the collection of articles edited by John Lippitt and Jim Urpeth in Nietzsche and the Divine, in particular Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 243 Julian, according to Rosenthal's scheme, is the only volume anchored in Merezhkovskii's "aesthetic age," in which Merezhkovskii sustains a focus on the total aestheticization of life, i.e. a positive and optimistic view of the merging of art, ethics, and politics (to a lesser degree) with the hope of creating a new reality, a "new religious consciousness" via the synthesis of the two principles of paganism and Christianity. The following volumes, rather, address M erezhkovskii's deteriorating optimism and a concern with more overtly political and religious issues, which are of less importance to this study on the "Antichrist" and the sovereign individual. Rosenthal lays out a historical scheme to pinpoint periods of the varying influences on M erezhkovskii. Rosenthal claims that since 1888 Merezhkovskii is interested in the "problem of individualism" as an element of Nietzschean influence; however, she adds that the influence may come from Spencer as well as M ikhailovskii (57). In 1891 Merezhkovskii traveled to the classic world, became more attracted to Nietzsche's thought, and from 1891 to 1893 he Jacob Golomb's "Nietzsche's positive religion and the Old Testament" (30-56), and the collection edited by Jacob Golomb, Weaver Santaniello, and Ronald Lehrer in Nietzsche and Depth Psychology for alternative studies of Nietzsche's "negative" views of Christianity. The negation, these scholars invariably propose, is directed at the institutional qualities rather than at the creative powers of religion per se or at the human figure of Christ. It is Paul who, instead of Christ, is often singled out by Nietzsche as a figure of ressentiment and as the figure responsible for the "denaturing of natural values" (Golomb, "Nietzsche's positive religion" 44). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 244 accepted the "romantic semi-religious mysticism which viewed art as a path to the world soul" (58-59). In this mysticism he resembles Vladimir Soloviev and in his approach to art he resembles Nietzsche (59). Rosenthal comments further that "by 1894 M erezhkovskii’ s Nietzscheanism reached a new stage; he attempted to live it completely, to make him self into a superman" (60). This is clearly a statement of his attempt to realize the life-creation aesthetic in his life and work. Julian represents to M erezhkovskii the "prophet of a new faith" (62) and it is in Julian that Merezhkovskii is able to equate paganism and Nietzscheanism. Interestingly, Merezhkovskii dared not call Julian an "apostate" at first; he sympathized with Julian, as the earlier title demonstrates, his status as an "outcast." Merezhkovskii changed the original title The Outcast 0Otverzhennyi) only after he changed his faith and approach to aesthetics.1 1 Although highly successful at the time, Julian, as a novel of 1 1 The evolution of the titles for the first volume is quite suggestive: the original Otverzhennyi (The Outcast) denotes an unintentional "turning (vrt) away" (in the sense conveyed by the grammatical passive construction); the second title Otstupnik (The Apostate) denotes a well-intentioned "stepping (stup) away" (in the sense conveyed by the active construction and the agent (-nik) suffix); and the subtitle Smert’ bo gov declares the destmction of the Western tradition of metaphysics in a Nietzschean manner. The second title also infers a "stepping away" from the conventions and crowds in a gesture of individual sovereignty. In the second volume, Leonardo da Vinci, Voskresshie bogi refers to a new rise in metaphysics; the gods are "resurrected" in synthesis. The equation of "Dionysus" and "John the Baptist" in the painting of Leonardo, wherein the characteristics and images of one appear juxtaposed onto the other, suggests a continuity that is also vulnerable to the "impostor" element and to imitation. The Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 245 ideas, eventually fell into oblivion (62). The year 1896 is significant in that M erezhkovskii suddenly and "explicitly stated that Nietzscheanism was not enough" but nonetheless "exalted Nietzschean values and denigrated Christian ones" (61). The following novels of the trilogy are marked by this anxiety and vacillation between acceptance and denigration. The vacillation and ambiguity are readily apparent in scholars' approximations of M erezhkovskii's appropriation of 10 philosophical terminology. Ideologically, the concerns of the three stages of Christ and Antichrist already receive treatment in the early aesthetic expressions of Julian. Furthermore, the three characteristics that Rosenthal cites in philosophical ambiguity of this equation expresses that ambiguity is a decisive mark of this volume. C. Harold Bedford, in his exposition of Nietzsche's influence on Merezhkovskii, mentions that Merezhkovskii praises positivism and utilitarian morals as part of the classical views of earthly happiness (63). This "earthly happiness" is evidently connected to Nietzsche's views. However, this is not in agreement with Nietzsche's privileging of physiology over metaphysics. A vulgarization is readily apparent in this sentiment taken by Bedford from Merezhkovskii's essay on Maikov in Vechnye sputniki (PSS 13:266). Nietzsche, who in Essay III of the Genealogy declares that the sciences are suspect because they rely on the "ascetic ideal" in their basic logic, would not support Merezhkovskii's supposedly “Nietzschean” move of "praising" positivism. Solov’ ev would not encourage this either (if we refer back to his monograph on the failures of Positivism). Merezhkovskii is also caught up in "good and evil" thinking; he is not ready for the Nietzschean "beyond good and evil." In his essay on Calderon in Eternal Companions (Vechnye Sputniki, 1899) he considers vice and virtue as categories essential to human nature (PSS 13:83). These examples point out some areas of confusion and, perhaps, deliberate flaws that may signal why Merezhkovskii would fail in his attempt at synthesis; he appears to have bastardized the system for his own aesthetic and personal purposes. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 246 reference to the later period of 1899 to 1905 - the discovery of Solov'ev, the appeal to Kantian idealism, and the interest in religion - are not only present but essentially delineate the earlier period that gives rise to Julian. The specific reasons for privileging Julian in this study rather than Leonardo or Peter and Alexis are the following: Julian appears in print in 1895 before the actual "turn" of the century and, therefore, embodies the pre-"turn" millenarian anxiety; if we choose to adhere to Rosenthal's notion that M erezhkovskii undergoes a period of "religious search" from 1899 to 1905 (which I see no reason to resist), we can surmise that the pre- "tum" anxiety and motivation culminate in a "contamination" of his original philosophical and spiritual pursuit (religion and spirituality being two different things and having two different goals). I infer here that Leonardo and Peter and Alexis contain elements of compromise, that is, M erezhkovskii introduces "advanced" elements of Solov'evian and Kantian critique as well as a "turning" away from Nietzscheanism, the larger focus here.1 3 This would be highly pertinent for a study of Merezhkovskii's life-creation aesthetic as it develops over time and as he expresses it later in his life, but it falls outside of the scope and purposes 1 3 Additionally, the project of merging paganism and Christianity is foregrounded in Julian while the familial aspect of Julian, although it introduces the conflict, is insignificant in comparison to Leonardo and Peter and Alexis. (Peter and Alexis is mainly concerned with the familial and generational conflict as constitutive of the Christ-Antichrist dialectic.) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 247 of the present study; and additionally, if we were to fixate or hold firm to the works of the period from 1899 to 1905 - as constituting M erezhkovskii's awakening to Solov'evian ideas and Kantian idealism - we would lose sight of M erezhkovskii's personal contribution to ideas that resonate with the Nietzschean sovereign individual, the call against asceticism, and advocations (and admonitions) of the impostor- Antichrist.1 4 (We may, instead, formulate a study of influence on M erezhkovskii but this is not my intention nor the course of this study.) Julian, as an individual protagonist, differs, for example, from his following Christ and Antichrist protagonists in that he is involved equally intensively in the three searches: the aesthetic, the religious, and the political. For this reason, in addition to the stress placed on the immense influence of Nietzsche on Merezhkovskii and reasons outlined earlier, I will treat Julian in detail and refer to Leonardo and Peter and Alexis in passing as certain motifs echo from the initial installment of the trilogy; we should bear in mind that the latter two appear in print after the "turn." Another reason for focusing on Julian is that it is closer to the Nietzschean concerns of The Birth o f Tragedy from the Spirit o f M usic and On the 1 4 We may, instead, formulate a study of the influences on Merezhkovskii but that is not my intention nor the course of this study. I refer the reader to the works already cited: the monographs by Rosenthal and Bedford, and Clowes' The Revolution of Moral Consciousness. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 248 Genealogy o f M orality in the manner of its criticism of asceticism and how it highlights the pitfalls of a position that does not allow for a pluralist perspectivism. Furthermore, the style, trope, and ethics of life-creation are laid out as the central concerns that dominate over the political and religious elements in Julian; I highlight them as the philosophical questions of representation and the sublime. These philosophical elements, grounded in Julian, continue throughout Leonardo into Peter and Alexis to a lesser degree. Leonardo and Peter and Alexis actually move the discussion further away from the concerns with the sovereign individual to the art- object and artifact of mimicry and mimesis (in Leonardo) and to the ethical dimensions of the transfer of power within a bond of kinship in Peter and A lexis.1 5 The following sections of this chapter treat the most important elements of the Julian in relation to Merezhkovskii's understanding of Nietzsche and his implementation of the "Antichrist" gesture. After treating the philosophical problems of representation, individual sovereignty, mysticism, and conventions, I will offer in brief the views of scholars on Leonardo and Peter and Alexis. In this manner I highlight the 1 5 Although analyses of such elements would prove fruitful to an overall understanding of the obstacles on the path to Merezhkovskii's realization of the life-creation aesthetic, they fall outside of the confines of the present study. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 249 rhetorical and tropic resourcefulness of M erezhkovskii's adherence to the Christ-Antichrist dynamic in Decadent culture. Julian the Apostate: The Story The plot of Julian is straightforward. Julian, the protagonist whose uncle and cousins have been slain by the emperor Constantius in order for Constantius to protect his throne, trains to be a Christian monk and develops an attraction to Arsinoe, a young female devotee of the Greek gods, in particular Aphrodite.1 6 She activates within Julian an interest in these gods and he subsequently embarks on a path by which he first studies and then worships these "pagan" gods. Then, during his military assignment, he proves his competence (whether due to skill, luck, or mystical assistance - the ambiguity is left unanswered by the author) on the battlefield by conquering peoples and land for Rome. In triumph he rises to glory and becomes emperor upon Constantius' death. Imposing a return to paganism onto the Roman people, Julian meets resistance and, 1 6 Rosenthal points out that Arsinoe expresses Merezhkovskii's personal inability to overcome his fears about the synthesis of Christianity and paganism (66). She appears as a catalyst for the transformation of Julian. Merezhkovskii actually posits a catalyst in each of his volumes, a catalyst that functions to highlight the synthesis at work in history. In Leonardo it is Giovanni Boltraffio and in Peter and Alexis it is Tikhon the peasant who turns away from the cult of the Old- Believers. It can be argued that these figures also represent certain personal features of Merezhkovskii's psychology at the time of their composition. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 250 ultimately, rebellion. Growing coarser and less refined in his approach to spirituality, Julian becomes a religious despot and meets his end through betrayal as he succumbs to greed, pride, a desire for more power, and zealousness. This plot is relatively linear with little stylistic or rhetorical charm or even any particular writerly aspect that would qualify it as modernist in nature. However, of interest are the following philosophical motifs. M erezhkovskii creates levels of gods and portrays a certain arbitrariness in the hierarchies that are established by toying with the philosophical notion of representation in the statues and other icons that represent these gods. First, there is Christ, the most recent and widespread "addition" to the godly collection. Then, there are the Roman and Hellenistic gods. Finally, there is nature, which consists of the more "occult" and mysterious gods, for example, the Sun god, Mithra-Helios (PSS 1:182-89; 221-28), and the less "understood" and more "dangerous" occult rituals.1 7 171 refer to the page numbers of the Moscow 1989 reprint by Izdatel’ stvo "Kniga” of Volume 1 of Polnoe sobranie sochinenii: Smert’ bogov (Iulian otstupnik) originally published in Moscow by Sytin in 1914. The page numbers that follow refer to the translation Julian the A postate by Herbert Trench: The Death o f the Gods, "the exclusive authorization for [this] English version" given by Merezhkovskii to Trench on June 24, 1901. All subsequent page numbers will refer to this translation, unless otherwise noted. Any changes in translation that I deem necessary to an understanding of the philosophical elements in the text will be noted after the reference. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 251 O f interest is that the paganistic religions have less of an anthropomorphic representation of gods available to them. Julian, then, as a sustained discourse on the representation of divine beings and ideals, considers the destructiveness of conventions and their cyclical nature in society, the possibility of synthesis in experience, and the nature of individual sovereignty. Representation is the backdrop upon which the novel is cast; gods, pagans, saints, and temples lay in seeming disarray; the reader must bear in mind the oppositions and the hierarchy of these saints in order to keep the conflict in mind. Images seem to change quickly while the substances and material form of statues and icons remain the same. The conventions of Christian morality are exposed - in this novelistic study of philosophical representation - in their similarity to conventions of other forms of worship. Merezhkovskii shows the cyclical nature of change and the fear of the otherness of "foreign" rituals. He also highlights the disagreements about "hypostasis" and the status of God the Father and his Son, the Christ.1 8 Amongst these problems of representation and the question of conventions Merezhkovskii presents the 18 During the Council of bishops who undertake this discussion, the reader gets a strong sense of Solov'ev's criticism of the hypostasization of concepts. The bishops' reasoning toward "hypostasis" is anchored in a hypostasization, that is, they are caught up in an ossified notion rather than engaged in the vital dynamic to which they think they are referring. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. notion of synthesis as the most sustained attempt at reaching a midpoint in the novel between the feuding ideologies of Christianity and the paganism of the Hellenic arts. W ithin the novel Julian undergoes training as a student of Greek philosophy, a monk of Christianity, and then as a practitioner of witchcraft and the occult arts. He even puts on the airs of being a Christian at one point after he has renounced Christ in order to deter others from guessing his true predisposition. He comes under the "spell" of mysticism and nature through the influence of the mentors who train Julian; they speak to him of a negative theology and endeavor to stretch his thinking so that he can encompass the varying poles in his thought. Finally, the topic of sovereignty receives development in Julian. Julian finds his sovereignty through the deceptive means of lying and appearing to be Christian in his practices. He also senses an "inner will" of the gods that gives him triumph and he also succumbs to temptations that are uncannily similar to those offered by the devil to Christ on the mountain. Understanding that the pursuit of sovereignty is the quest and goal of Julian, we can readily see how Merezhkovskii develops the questions of representation, convention, and mysticism into a climactic build that ends, however, without resolution. For this reason, I believe, readers and scholars find M erezhkovskii's attempts at synthesis dissatisfying and disillusioning. Yet, a reading that avows the portrayal of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 253 these complex philosophical conflicts does not need to be dismaying; a synthesis does occur in the posing of these various questions in Merezhkovskii's juxtapositions. The final element that receives development and that is closely interwoven with the problem of representation is art. Art, if we include historiography, even includes the power of synthesis. Initially, art that is developed to please Constantius is considered a craft like propaganda. In the sense of propaganda art is reduced to yet another convention; and as a convention, art is arbitrary, meaningless in metaphysical or idealistic content, and simply a tool, much like words, the etymology of which reveals a value assigned over time due to habit and utility. However, as at the end of Julian, Arsinoe's wax figure and Ammianus' plan to write the biography of Julian refer to a final aesthetic attempt at synthesis. References to art will, therefore, be underscored in the sections that follow. "Synthesis" and Problems in Representation The problems of "evil" and the "Antichrist" have little to do with a dismantling of "good and evil" thinking in the Decadent texts and a whole lot more with problems attributed to the failure of pluralist thinking and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 254 the persistence of moralism. M erezhkovskii’s trilogy addresses these problems with indirect references to more fundamental rhetorical and philosophical problems. The following sections on the particular rhetorical and philosophical problems that come up in M erezhkovskii (representation, individual sovereignty, the question of convention and mores) highlight the ongoing fundamental challenges posed by and within language. These subchapters delineate why synthesis was never an option for M erezhkovskii, but merely a distraction, and why it would hardly reap a solution. W ithout a fixed meaning for the subjects of Merezkovskii's inquiry, there could only be nothing to synthesize. Nietzsche's predilection for highlighting grammar in On the Genealogy o f M orality and M erezhkovskii's penchant for underscoring the shiftiness underlying literary representation in Julian proceed from an exercised understanding of the problematic notions of "truth" and "stability" in and throughout history. W hat I mean by "exercised" is that they both uncover extensively and in many situations the reasons why "truth" and "stability" fail. Their larger tasks are to show that the nature of epistemological inquiry is in question, primarily because epistemology as a path to "truth" and "stability" in meaning is overshadowed by concerns such as Nietzsche's "un-knowing," M erezhkovskii's "knowing-too-many - things-but-not-the-essential," and Solov'ev's cautionary stance against Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 255 "knowing-all-too-well" (and thereby falling into hypostatization - the loss of dynamic meaning). In this section of the chapter I pinpoint moments in the novel that are pivotal in foregrounding and underscoring the problematical role of representation in aesthetics. The Antichrist trope as a whole serves to enhance Merezhkovskii's exposition of the problem and the reader's perception of it. M erezhkovskii's main goal, as proposed by scholars, in Julian is to present a synthesis of religions, especially those in which Christ and a multitude of other gods and goddesses stand opposed to each other in representation, but stand in agreement as far as essence goes.1 9 However, M erezhkovskii foregoes a concern with the "original" and "authentic" essence of religion and the question how to merge different traditions in exchange for a more philosophical, and particularly Nietzschean, project. His pursuit of synthesis is, therefore, relegated to secondary status and deemed of less consequence than the more obvious concerns. W hat Merezhkovskii truly underscores is the problem of 1 9 Solov'ev, as we have seen in Three Conversations, problematizes the notion of "essence" in his critique of "evil." He thereby posits a questioning of "essence" in general. For if there can be no "essential evil," can there be anything that is "essential"? This is similar to Kant cautiously and tentatively positing "radical evil." Both acts of questioning and positing "essence" and "radicality" act to undermine a school of philosophical thinking. In Kant's case it is the undermining of his own Critique o f Practical Reason, whereas in Solov'ev's case it would be the undermining of the historical oppositionality between Christ and Antichrist. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 256 representation and epistemology in the abundance of symbols and icons that he brings to the reader's attention . His trilogy addresses not so much a problem of synthesis throughout history as it does the Kantian problem of representation, ethics, and aesthetic judgm ent; Merezhkovskii basically falls back, albeit indirectly, on the Kantian faculties of pure reason, practical reason, and aesthetic judgm ent so as to grasp the make-up of a perceiving and ethical functioning human subject. I will indicate the manner in which Merezhkovskii probes these philosophical problems in comparison to the ways in which Nietzsche and Solov'ev deal with these questions. Merezhkovskii believes these religions at the time of the composition of this novel to be similar in essence. That much is clear. Otherwise, synthesis, as a process of joining two unlike sources, would be impossible. The worship and praise of Christ and Greek gods constitute actions of a singular approach or attitude, the singularity of which is marred or obstructed simply by the appearance of dissimilar "godly" beings. The focus here is on fixity of thought. (These gods are "hypostasized" in metal or in rock.) C. Harold Bedford considers this problem of synthesis from two angles, due to M erezhkovskii’ s attraction to the two paths of the Hellenes and of the Christians. He further breaks down the Christians into ("dead") medieval Catholicism and the ("true essence of the Christian idea") Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 257 Galilean, thus pointing to the problem of stability in meaning and representation within the one path of Christianity alone (62-64). This is, then, a problem of conjoining similarities that appear dissimilar and conversely dissimilarities that may appear similar. Harold introduces the conflict between creeds, or codes and catechisms, and "essences." I agree with Bedford's notion in that Merezhkovskii seems to privilege the images or icons and to insist on an actuality of "essence" within the icon or image, when the worshipping subject attends to the icon or image with the proper attitude. M erezhkovskii's critique of representation takes place within his attempt to merge image, worship, and metaphysical "essence." Let us consider Nietzsche in this regard. The primary Nietzschean critique of representation takes place, on the other hand, within language and grammar. The grammatical problem of the deed - with the breakup that Nietzsche explains in Essay I of the Genealogy between subject and act that results in a supposedly flawed understanding of subject, object and action - involves prejudicial ascertainment dangerous to philosophical acuity (28). Basically, if a subject presents a perception to self and that perception consists of dividing a deed into an act and agent for the sake of simplification, or habit (based on ressentiment and a reactive pathos), then the very possibility of that perception is based on an earlier conceit, which stems from a need to establish responsibility and, therefore, an attributable Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 258 subject, and from this very need and behind the need there is a prejudice. The subject results as an effect of a prejudicial act. Getting back to M erezhkovskii, we note the importance of iconic representation and meaning. M erezhkovskii's chosen statues of worship in the trilogy denote gods and goddesses and convey that the very existence of the statues constitutes an act of worship, and yet the statues mask that these two acts of signification (of denoting divinity and inferring an act of worship) are ultimately inseparable. If the representation of the statues and the act of worship become one, the acting subject of the worship is included in the unity of this "one." Furthermore, Merezhkovskii introduces a puzzle to this scheme of things. By the political authorities' ability to designate that the pagan gods designate Christian saints, M erezhkovskii toys with the notion of the continuous existence of stone in a determined image and a continuing act differentiated only externally by the mark of a new political order (wherein Christ replaces the Greeks), which will be overturned in time by Julian, who him self awaits to begin the overturning process. The focus is on stability in the midst of instability. Hence, the "Christ," as a figure of stability, is threatened by the antithesis, "Antichrist," as instability from within, as if subsumed by a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 259 property not foreign to it at all but very much alike to the "Christ" and constituting the mere flip side of this "Christ."2 0 The stone remains the same, although the figures chiseled into the stone are perceived differently. The arbitrariness of the sign is revealed in this act of worship. Rosenthal points out that Julian falls in love with a statue of Aphrodite and that he decides to destroy the Christians who smash these relics of "beauty" (62). "Their symbol, the cross, he said, is an instrument of torture; it does not merit the worshipping of free men." W hen confronted with the term "idol" concerning the Hellenic god Helios, Julian retorts: The 'idol' [...] is your word. For what imbeciles do you take us, if you think that we worship the matter that represents our gods, metal, stone, or wood. All your preachers preach this, but it is a lie. W e worship not these things, but the soul, the living soul of beauty in these models of the purest human beauty [...] To deify the splendid sculptures of Phidias, which breathe Olympian beauty and goodness, is that less reasonable than to bow before two crossed beams of wood, a shameless instrument of torture? (PSS 1:275-76; 327-28)2 1 2 0 Several theoretical works on representation are of interest as further analyses of this problem. The collection of essays Beyond Representation: Philosophy and poetic imagination is particularly insightful within this context. 2 1 The original of the 1914 publication insists on the godly images as deriving from the "purest divine beauty" rather than Trench's choice of "human": My chtim ne mertvyi kamen', med' ili derevo, a dutch, zhivoi dutch Icrasoty nashikh kumirakh, obraztsakh chisteishei bozheskoi prelesti (276). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 260 There is a clear circling of logic here; the battle for icons and symbols is unrelenting and, because these symbols, in and of themselves, are without substance, they are absolutely arbitrary if not performed for the sake of a religious affiliation that assigns a purpose. In terms of a genealogical project Merezhkovskii recreates the rise, reign, and fall of Julian by foregrounding the questions and details that have to do with the massive political and religious shifts in his environment. This genealogical project takes place amidst the various icons, statues, and signifiers of the transcendent and metaphysical realms. A reader can easily miss the significance of these gestures if the reader fails to follow the conflict embedded in these symbols. In the beginning of the novel the problem of representation is foregrounded together with the problem of synthesis. The images of Castor and Pollux, sons of Zeus, are presently worshipped as the Christian saints Cosmas and Demian (PSS 1:1; 3). In addition the innkeeper swears to both "Moses and Deidamia, Christ and Hercules" in making his wish that his wine is excellent. The main problem is that this is an "either-or" situation; the collective has little patience or understanding of differences. M erezhkovskii underscores the commoners’ understanding: e.g., the innkeeper appeals to all possible gods (in this case Christ and Hercules) in his uncertainty and lack of conviction, albeit in an air of arbitrariness. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 261 This attitude differs from the determined approach of Julian, who assigns meaning by granting the gods his worship; this is, perhaps, Julian's fatal flaw but it does constitute an aspect of his sovereign individuality. There are also many instances of temples being reconverted or destroyed. The Arian basilica of Saint Maurice is built from the ruins of the temple of Apollo (PSS 1:23; 31). Interestingly enough, it is a Nietzschean crowd of ressentiment that attends the temple; "the halt, the maimed, the sick, and the blind, expectant of miracle, thronged near the tomb." The comment by Nietzsche of one temple being destroyed only for another to be erected holds significance for the cyclical erection and destruction of temples in this novel. One set of ideals or system of metaphysics is turned over into its other. The temples turn to tombs; the Olympians, who conquered the Titans, now stand to be conquered (PSS 1:57; 74). Representations are used also as political commentary. A statue is found and government officials are called to destroy it. "A resemblance to Julian was discovered in the face of Brutus, and in the work as a whole a criminal allusion to the recent punishment of Gallus" (PSS 1:127; 157). A basin used for Dionysus rituals is to be used for the baptism of Constantius, whose only interest in the baptism is to ward off guilt and sin (PSS 1:180-81; 219). Symbols are frantically swapped out. M erezhkovskii is clearly clueing in the reader to his own uneasiness with Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 6 2 the act of physical representation. His own desire for syncretism is undermined by an inability to rise above a battling of creeds. Glenn A. Davis in "Symbol, Idol, and Belief in Dmitrii M erezhkovskii's The Death o f the Gods" raises questions that deal directly with the issue of representation under the categories of literalism, Kantian beauty, the iconic status of statues (the literal versus the symbolic) and signs. These categories pinpoint further why Julian fails in his attempts at synthesis. Davis believes that Julian ultimately fails because he becomes caught up as a literal "idolater." His "literalism" leads him to absurdity and to idolatry. I support this view and add that he "surrenders" to the trope; Julian is engulfed in his figurative thinking as if it was literally an expression of truth. Davis also asserts that symbols function as the “limitless part of thought,” a sentiment that invokes the sublime and the notion of standing before the limits of perception (sub-limine). I add that the style, irony, and "turning" allow for both the showing of limits and limitlessness. The ambiguity that results from M erezhkovskii's inability to characterize Julian's state of mind serves a function in allowing for literal and figurative expression simultaneously. Davis' reference to Steven Cassedy's analysis of the representation within an image or icon as a merging of the visible and invisible further supports my contention that the issue of representation involves a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 263 philosophically rich, yet unanswered, question that is steeped in Kantian thinking.22 Similarly, I believe that within the sublime there is a merging of “visible” expression in response to an "invisible," but "real" force. The issue of idols and idolaters is the same as that of the conflict between the pagans and the Christians. Julian fails in his symbolic transcendence because he gets mired in the icon and he becomes preoccupied with his "man-god" status and denounces transcendence. He confuses the beauty beyond the Aphrodite statue with the physical material itself. He gets caught up in "either-or" thinking; he loses sight of the possibility of any in-between. As we shift from a consideration of the problem of representation in icons and statues, we shift to the problem of ethical action, or putting into practice what we know - the Kantian shift from pure reason to practical reason. Davis' article is insightful within this context. He 2 2 See Steven Cassedy, "Bely's Theory of Symbolism as a Formal Iconics of Meaning," Audrey Bely: Spirit o f Symbolism, ed. John E. Malmstad (285-312). Davis refers to the Kantian beauty in the synthesis of Christianity and paganism. He also cites Jaroslav Pelikan's analysis of Christian aesthetics and its breakdown into beauty, the true, and the good in Jesus through the Centuries: His Place in the History o f Culture (New York: Harper, 1987): (154). These are coincidently the breakdown of Kant’s critiques: judgment (aesthetic beauty or, simply, "beauty"), pure reason (knowledge or the "true"), and practical reason (morality or the "good"). For insightful summaries and equally insightful analyses of elements of Kantian philosophy that are applicable to the above issues, see the following: John H. Zammito, The Genesis o f Kant’s Critique o f Judgment and Stanley Bates, “The Mind’s Horizon” in Beyond Representation: Philosophy and Poetic Imagination (151-174). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 264 presents the notion that the temptations of flesh and shame indicate an amoral ideal in Christianity and states that Julian insists on the literal interpretation of flesh and on Christianity as a "religion of literal death and weak submissiveness." I agree and observe that Arsinoe, who appears to Julian as statue-like in her beauty and flesh, occasions Julian's shift from transcendental ideals to the pursuit of power, a move that I identify as running parallel to a shift from Kantian metaphysical concerns to the raw Nietzschean will to power. Arsinoe serves as a catalyst that steers Julian away from beauty to power. As Julian pursues the competition of duality (the play of the physical senses), he loses sight of the possibility of synthesis. This move is one from the symbolic order to the utilitarian, Davis proposes, as we move from a focus on Arsinoe's beauty to Julian’s power. I agree with Davis that the progression marks a path from that of literal representations of mystery to ideology and earthly progress, this being the attribute of the Antichrist. The will to power drives Julian to give up the pursuit of the transcendent nature of reality beyond objects for objects themselves. Julian transforms him self into an empty sign; this is what Davis considers a "sin" of the prosopopoeiac act, taking metaphor literally. (Iamblicus, who will be presented later within the context of mysticism, on the other hand, remains rooted in his criticism of dualism as he condemns existence and representations as idolatry.) Furthermore, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 265 Arsinoe returns toward the end of the volume as a proponent of synthesis. She bids Julian to let go of the distortions of Christ's meaning. Her sculpting of a wax figure presents the Christ and pagan synthesis. Davis continues examining the character of Julian and mentions that Julian’s will-to-power has a single truth as its goal.2 3 If we choose to consider the later volumes, this matter of representation becomes confusing and more complex as M erezhkovskii merges it with an added problem of "identity." Merezhkovskii layers the philosophical and aesthetic issues of Julian, without having resolved them, with newer political nuances in Leonardo and Peter and Alexis. The ambivalence in these works noted by scholars arises because of such an attempt by M erezhkovskii to politicize his aesthetics. Examples of such moments of representational confusion arise: when Leonardo paints John the Baptist and the depiction of John begins to take on a resemblance of Bacchus and the M ona Lisa. Rosenthal points out that "Leonardo becomes conscious of the secret he has been concealing, even from himself, that Dionysus and Christ, Christ and Antichrist, are one" (PSS 231 , however, disagree with Davis’ delineation of what the Nietzschean ideal means. He mentions that Nietzsche's will to power seeks a single truth, but the will to power would not seek a single truth, but rather some acknowledgment and coming-to-power of one's physiological being, all other "truths" being metaphysical fictions. The "truth" of the will-to-power would thereby be symptomatic of a living impulse open to a variety of perspectives, the only concern of which would be to be aligned with an individual sovereign ideal. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 6 6 3:358; 82).24 Also, Giovanni Beltraffio, who cannot reconcile his inner conflict, commits suicide because the perfection of the Christ and Antichrist resemblance is too overpowering for him; Cassandra the catalyst provides the seduction by which he falls (PSS 3:288; 83). Likewise, the questioning in Peter and Alexis "whether Peter him self is a man-god, a man-beast, or Antichrist is not clear, for he is beyond good and evil" (PSS 3:288; 84). The ambivalence toward the status and depiction of these two "truths" poses a question that is left unanswered by the end of each volume. The authorial intrusion is more evident as the reader is presented with a self-consciousness in the text that is not fully consistent with the actions or musings of the characters in question. The Julian volume, however, is clearer in its meaning for life-creation; it warns against literalism in aesthetics and ethics and negatively advocates syncretism, even though Julian fails, because a truly successful synthesis must not be of a literalist nature. This is discernible in the text and in the final note that Ammianus' historiography will secure the meaning of Julian's life. The ambiguity is felt, however, in the call for impartiality; the reader senses an impossibility of impartiality that M erezhkovskii 2 4 This and the following two references are to the novels Leonardo and Peter and Alexis in the completed works edition of Merezhkovskii and the page numbers that follow refer to Bemice Glatzer Rosenthal's article "Stages of Nietzscheanism: Merezhkovsky's Intellectual Evolution" (69-93) in Nietzsche in Russia. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 267 perhaps also felt. In the abovementioned examples the troubling merging of individuals' faces in the images formed by Leonardo and the impossibility of designating Peter as man, beast, or Antichrist reflect M erezhkovskii's own tensions in synthesizing Christ and Antichrist literally. In Julian the synthesis has occurred symbolically, although it ultimately fails for Julian who cannot bridge the polarities. This novel also offers Merezhkovskii the chance to criticize the conventional thinking behind morality and to pinpoint the shortcomings of the philosophical project of representation. An element of direct relevance to the problem of representation is the ubiquity of conventional thinking. M erezhkovskii portrays the silly dimensions of belief and superstition in relation to ideas and objects that function as symbols. Conventions are held by the emperor Constantius who has murdered Julian’s uncle and cousins to keep his conscience clean. "Bishop Ozius succeeded in convincing him that one religion only possessed the power of purifying from sins like his" {PSS 1:11; 16). For this reason the image of Christ is displayed and Christianity is worshipped during Constantius' reign. One of the problems with the religious and moral conventions is that the rituals and beliefs of others, although similar in paradigm and structure to one's own, are feared and considered superstitions. There is widespread xenophobia that Merezhkovskii alerts the reader to in this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 268 novel. A comment is made later by Arsinoe that "with age [...] one grows better and more tolerant, or indifferent [...] This is a superstition neither better nor worse than other superstitions. And then one is capable of a good deal when bored" (PSS 1:131; 161-62). (Arsinoe, however, is weakly developed by M erezhkovskii. She is a devout proponent of Aphrodite, turns inexplicably into a Christian nun and then back again.) Arsinoe, who worships the Hellenic gods, conveys to Julian, who is attracted to her, that morality is simply a notion that creates "sin" (PSS 1:192-93; 115) and Julian begins to express to her that he finds Christian values contemptible and hates the "Galilean lie" (PSS 1:105; 131). Thereafter, he promises to take up his own power and to see Christianity as an infection. An ironic touch that Merezhkovskii adds to the novel is to show that those of authority are most concerned with pettiness when it comes to conventions. The Council of bishops quarrels without effect about the meaning and labeling of "hypostasis" (PSS 1:108; 135). Their lofty aims seem to be anchored on grammatical identifications of Father and Son; M erezhkovskii reveals this argument in a light of ridiculousness and petty 2 5 Arsinoe, although representing a shift from Christianity to the eventual synthesis of paganism and Christianity, remains a weak character and an antagonist on a minor level. Because of her unclear intentions and misguided motivations, her character contributes to the perceived ambiguous and confusing elements within the trilogy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 269 concern. Likewise, Constantius questions God for not protecting him; he alludes to all his charitable works and demands rewards. He alludes to an economy of sin and forgiveness in postponing his baptism so that all his sins can be washed away at an opportune time (PSS 1:180; 218). Even Julian’s wife, Helena, whom he is forced to marry before going off to capture Gaul, relies on Christian convention and desires to be the "spouse of Christ" while thinking of Julian as "guilty" and as the "devil" as a form of fear and motivation not to consummate their marriage (PSS 1:160; 196). All of these above elements in the novel support my contention that the larger issue appears to be what on the outset seems like the minor issue of representation; however, representation in icons, beliefs, superstitions, and moral conventions underlies any apparent synthesis that scholars or the author him self may attach to Julian. Julian the Apostate and the Ethics of the Sovereign Individual Ideal The second most important problem posed in Julian is that of individual sovereignty and ethical action. W e have briefly considered in the previous section the call to ethical action as a second step in the philosophical process of understanding representation. Now we will consider ethics and individual sovereignty from the point of view of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 270 philosophical and scriptural "instruction." This presentation is largely from the point of view of syncretistic ideas that Julian must imbibe from his teachers. Contrary lessons are given to the young Julian, from those who behoove the young emperor to act "selfishly" to those who promote his position as essentially tolerant and warranted in a pluralist society. On this backdrop Julian receives a training that consists of the study of the 0 f\ Stoics, Christ, Aphrodite, and the occult arts. He is tutored in the "austere principles of the Stoics" by Mardonius, a disciple of ancient philosophy (PSS 1:9; 13), carries a copy of Plato’s Symposium covered by the binding of the Epistles of Saint Paul so that the monk Eutropius will not discover the contents (PSS 1:20; 26), studies the Apocalypse of the Book of Revelations (thereby foreshadowing his own entrance on the scene as an Antichrist) (PSS 1:25; 33), visits an Aphrodite temple due to immense attraction to the goddess and the "maimed" Eros statue within (there he finds a mystical "repose") (PSS 1:27; 37), studies negative theology and Eastern mysticism with Iamblicus, a pupil of the Neo- Platonist Porphyrius (PSS 1:47; 61), hallucinates a meeting with Lucifer at a "miracle" performed by the occult practitioner M aximus (PSS 1:68-69; 87), becomes a devout Christian monk (PSS 1:84-85; 106), and finally 2 6 For a general overview of the history of the occult in Russia, see the articles in The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture, edited by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 271 turns against the Christian morality in favor of worshipping the pagan gods and goddesses of Nature, such as Mithra-Helios (PSS 1:189; 228). M ore specific moments infused with philosophical implications will follow. These above instances and interactions are largely with books and schools of thought. As bookish knowledge is imposed on him, Julian must decide what to follow. However, his decision is "made" for him as he encounters Nietzschean beings. Merezhkovskii uses the first part of Julian, which consists of two parts, to establish Julian's intellectual and ethical development. Three particular incidents are especially important in this process of development. The first is a dream. Upon meeting Lucifer in his hallucinatory dream, Julian receives the teaching: "Violate the law, love thyself, curse Him, and be as I am!" (PSS 1:69; 88).2 7 Although it teaches the glorification of oneself, this lesson is dualistic because it is based on oppositional thinking: love of oneself equals dread of the other. Therefore, it is not truly a lesson in individual sovereignty or in autonomy as it depends on this vital heteronomous attitude toward another. However, as a vulgarization of the 2 7 This particular passage, as translated by Trench, was deleted from the Polnoe sobranie sochineii (1914) and is also absent from the 1906 publication by Izdanie "Pirozhkova" (76). This command modifies the previous deleted line: "Revolt like me and I will give you strength" (my translation). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 272 Nietzschean individual sovereign ideal, it holds interest for those wishing to understand Nietzsche simplistically. The second incident occurs in the transferal of teachings by Maximus. Julian is taught by Maximus that several truths do indeed coexist (PSS 1:70; 89). He is told to choose one path while bearing in mind that choices are arbitrary, if not based on mere preference; he can choose the priestly or the noble and Titan paths. "Ah! If thou canst make one the truth of the Titan and the truth of the Galilean, thou wilt be greater than any that have been born of women!" (PSS 1:72; 91). This would be the highlight of Christ and Antichrist if Merezhkovskii strictly intended for synthesis to hold the primary value in his project. In fact he may have concluded the novel and trilogy here and sent Julian on his way as a peacemaker between the "Galilean" and the pagans. However, the lesson gets complex as the issue shifts to the focus on interpretation. Ethics is impacted by this shift because ethics becomes the object of interpretation and the individual is a decisive factor in determining the meaning of ethical action based on an ethical understanding. Maximus explains to Julian that intention and interpretation are more important than the actual choice he makes for arbitrariness lies at the base of all meanings. Representation of a certain law, its letter, is undermined by M aximus who stresses intention and interpretation as more crucial considerations that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 273 lead to unity and synthesis, the implication being that there is no singular truth. "Wherein does truth consist? W here does the falsehood begin? You believe and you know, and I neither wish to believe nor am skilled to know. Truth dwells for me in the same shrine as falsehood." M aximus claims not to have deceived Julian concerning the magic or miracle that he has performed; he wants Julian to stretch his ethical imagination. "I love the falsehood that contains a truth. I love temptation [...] I will unveil for him the mystery and charm even of crime" (PSS 1:74; 93-94). (This passage was equally deleted from the 1914 edition and is absent from the 1906 edition [78]. Maximus states instead in the 1914 edition: "I would have deceived and tempted Julian if it was necessary, for I love him." [my translation]) Although simplistic in expression, these words are of the sense of the "sublime"; they indicate limits of meaning and invite Julian to encounter a "turn" in the usual meaning of things. The third incident is, rather, a longer process during which Julian receives schooling in Kantian lessons (autonomy versus heteronomy) and then, rather than acting according to a rationalist scheme, he begins to impose a metaphysical and occult scheme onto his interpretation of everyday events. Julian is introduced to certain stages of development wherein he learns that resourcefulness exists on two distinct levels: that of inner resourcefulness or autonomy; and that of exterior resourcefulness or Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 274 heteronomy, which can be imposed onto a supernatural scheme of things. Julian first learns that he "can wear a mask and keep [his] own counsel" [Merezhkovskii's original term for Trench’s choice of "mask" is "pritvoriat’sia" as in "to create oneself anew" or "to dissemble"]; he must be cunning and perceptive of underlying truths to be successful on his journey to power (PSS 1:78; 99). Julian begins to respond to an inner feeling and credits his triumphs to the inner "will of the gods" (PSS 1:125; 154). Gradually Julian perceives this inner will to arrive from a different source and acknowledges "supernatural powers" as responsible for his conquests and decides to model him self after "ancient conquerors" (PSS 1:143-44; 176-78). Those that he conquers in Gaul are similar to Nietzschean Northern beasts of prey; they simply ignore the ways of Christianity rather than challenge it and, therefore, do not get caught up in trivial bantering. The confusion of these levels leads to deception and ultimately self-deception; Julian plans to act "according to the counsel of the Nazarean Christ," that is, deceptively: "gentle as doves and wise as serpents" in order to make greater gains (PSS 1:158; 193). There is irony in this statement in the form of the reversal within the expression of Christ. Finally, in Part II of the novel Julian meets his downfall. M erezhkovskii portrays the downfall in view of the opposing perspectives Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 275 between Christianity and Hellenism. The military campaign between Julian and Persia is described in detail and it depicts the inner conflicts amongst Julian’s men due to their ideological differences. Leading to his downfall, Julian has tried to re-erect pagan temples and to counter the demands posed by the "Galileans" by oppressing them. Julian gets bogged down in these ideals as he tries to realize them and make them concrete. The themes of representation and convention make up the backdrop as they did in Part I. Now, however, there is also a lesser emphasis put on the role of mysticism and negative theology in synthesis, which we will consider in a following section. There are numerous elements of irony in character and plot that, although potentially confusing to a reader, server to forward M erezhkovskii's philosophical project. One of the ironies during Julian's reign is to shut down a temple of Apollo that Constantius had altered by presenting an image of his head over the statue of the body of Apollo (PSS 1:195-96; 237). Individual sovereignty is decided by one's self representation, that is, identity and predication on an image or icon. Other happenings include: the pillaging of the eyes from a statue of Dionysus by a Christian monk, who decides to remove the sapphire eyes (PSS 1:213; 258) that were earlier ordered to be recaptured from a relic of the "Crucified" one (PSS 1:200; 242); the Roman subjects being subjected to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 276 saluting Hermes along with the image of Julian, thereby being denied their freedom of religion (PSS 1:197; 239); Christians declaring their religion greater by virtue of the six-times greater number of holidays in their religion as opposed to the Hellenist religion (PSS 1:196; 238); the people realizing that Julian cares more for his gods than for anything else (PSS 1:206; 248); the imposition of many rules and moral codes for sacrificial priests under Julian's command (PSS 1:218-19; 265) and Christian teachers being denied their right to teach rhetoric (PSS 1:220; 268). There is an overwhelming amount of attention paid by the narrator to these conventions and shifts in ideology. The author appears to be impressing on the reader that nothing has changed concerning the state of oppression by the emperor. Ultimately, the ironic shifts that arise first in Julian extend to numerous characters and also to the debunking of nearly all ideologies. Julian is criticized by his own men for being overly manipulative and insensitive. Oribazius, the court physician, reprimands Julian for keeping the Christians' malady of having "faith in miracles" (PSS 1:208; 251); Julian’s Platonic philosophy is termed "the tortuous wisdom of the serpent" (PSS 1:216; 262); Arsinoe, Julian’s old "girlfriend" appears to tell him that Hellenism is obsolete (perhaps, in the sense of Solov'ev's view of hypostasized concepts that grow brittle when ossified) (PSS 1:242-43; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 277 293); and Julian, when under the duress of battle, turns to his statue of M ercury to perform a ritual (PSS 1:297; 351). These ironic shifts also extend to the manner in which M erezhkovskii introduces key Nietzschean elements that we have explored in the chapter on the Genealogy, The clearest Nietzschean element arises in Julian's treatment of the "herd" and in his impatience toward the "herd's" attitude of ressentiment. There are clear Nietzschean moments in Part II of the volume, the most pronounced being the criticism of herd mentality. Pamva, an old man, calls for the men to rise up and stand against the emperor in a show of revenge, or ressentiment (PSS 1:258-59; 310), while Julian refers to these commoners as "beasts" (PSS 1:262-63; 314), and Gorgius, a pagan priest, refers to them as sick, debauchers, and in decline (PSS 1:271; 323). These are people of the Nietzschean priestly classes who seek revenge against the "noble ones." Julian even sets out to analyze in a Nietzschean manner and to write a philosophical treatise, entitled Against the Christians, of the New Testament and canons of the Christian faith (Nietzsche’s work of this aim was ultimately entitled The Antichrist.) (PSS 1:293; 348). Rosenthal clarifies the "Nietzscheanism" in M erezhkovskii's sentiment concerning the proletariat as the "rootless ’ mass-man"' as she refers to his essayistic writing in Vechnye sputniki (Silver Age 61). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 278 A creed of defiant asocial individualism, Nietzscheanism enabled Merezhkovskii to affirm his own importance. It emphasized the creator in revolt against the Philistines, against bourgeois culture, Zarathustra leaving the marketplace. The frenetic activity of economic man deals with trivia, Merezhkovskii implied; it is the artist who destroys the old life and creates the new. A warrior for culture, his field of action is the human soul, his spiritual aristocracy makes him an adherent of the individual, an enemy of the crowd (chem ). (61-62) It is clear from this statement that Iulian does function, at least implicitly, as a response to Nietzsche's command On the Genealogy o f Morality. The final Nietzschean moment in this novel appears when Julian desires a miracle and claims that he wants to be Dionysus and lead his men to mastery; this is consistent with Nietzsche's self-declaration as Dionysus in Ecce Homo (PSS 1:317; 376). There is also the Nietzschean am orfati that persists in the character of Julian; Julian challenges Fate and the gods concerning his desire to see a miracle: "It was not death he feared, but only defeat in his purposeless and intoxicating game against the higher powers" (PSS 1:303; 359). Now we can return to a consideration of the elements of mysticism and negative theology that appear throughout the work. These always appear as instances where an ethics of life-creation is voiced; they are, therefore, tinged with a sense of irony. These moments also recall the problem of representation as it is taken to its "sublime" extreme and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 279 contain certain commands of interpretation as well as irony because of their juxtaposition to the Nietzschean sovereign individual ideal mentioned earlier. W hen we are first introduced to mysticism Julian studies under Iamblicus and leams elements of negative theology, the positing of a god that is not. "He is, what the universe is not, the negation of everything that exists. He is nothing, and He is all" (PSS 1:50; 65). Equally, "there is no evil, there is no body, there is no universe, if He exists!" (PSS 1:51; 66). Iamblicus also teaches Julian of the transmigration of souls in the notion of the "eternal ladder of births and death." He clarifies to Julian that "Will, Action, Effort, are only enfeebled and deflected contemplations of God" (PSS 1:52; 67). M aximus also teaches Julian that Hellas never existed other than as an ideal world to come and offers to clean Julian of his "Galilean corruption" by performing some occult practices. Maximus purges Julian of his "sins" in the temple of the Sun-god Mithra, "where mysteries, forbidden by the Roman laws, were performed [...] the bleak walls were engraven with cabalistic signs of Zoroastrian religion, triangles, enlaced circles, winged beasts, and constellations" (PSS 1:184; 223). Then, Julian is ready to look out from the hill for the Christ-like temptation: "Look forth upon this sight of glory! your hour is come! Act now!" (PSS 1:187; 226). When his soldiers recognize the images of Mithra-Helios and Apollo on a statue and banner, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 280 they rush to judge Julian as "Satan has entailed our Emperor" or refer to him as "Antichrist" (PSS 1:188-89; 227-28). Julian ultimately takes all of these lessons to heart; however, he posits him self as a savior and aggressively declares that he will set his people free from the oppression of ideologues: "I am the messenger of Life who shall set you free! I am the Anti-Christ!" (PSS 1:209; 253). There are also teachings of several proponents of Gnosis that Julian invites to his court to quarrel with the "Galileans"; they voice "anti-Christian" teachings with which Julian intends to offend the Christian council. The Gnostic Cassiodorus speaks: In the Christians [...] there is a soul, as in animals; but there is no mind, as in us. W e alone are initiated into the mysteries of the Gnosis and of the divine Plenum. It follows, therefore, that we alone are worthy to call ourselves human. All others are, as it were, pigs and dogs [...] You should know everyone, but no one should know you. Before the profane, deny the Gnosis, be dumb, and despise evidences of the gospel. Despise professions of faith and martyrdoms; love silence and mystery. Be for your enemy as invisible, elusive, inviolable, as the immaterial forces. Ordinary Christians need good actions for their salvation; but those who possess the highest knowledge of God, the Gnosis, need not perform these actions. W e are the sons of light, they the sons of darkness. W e fear not sin, because we know that sin is needful to the material body, and even to the immaterial soul. W e are placed so high that, let out faults be what they will, we cannot err. Our heart remains chaste in the delights of matter, as pure gold keeps its brightness in the mud. (PSS 1:227; 275) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 281 Then, hinting of negative theology, Triphon, a representative from Egypt announces that "Above the three hundred and sixty-five celestial spheres, above the hierarchies of angels and archangels, there is a certain Nothingness, nameless, and more beautiful than any light, a motionless and sterile N othingness..." (PSS 1:231; 280). Julian positions him self among these thinkers in a later section when he refutes the notion of idol- worship; for Julian the idol is not an idol, but a symbol that directs him to an essence: "We worship not these things, but the soul, the living soul of beauty in these models of the purest human beauty. It is not we, the idolaters, but you - you, who devour each other like wild beasts for the sake of an iota." Julian goes on to describe how the Christians are idolaters for worshipping "two crossed beams of wood" (PSS 1:275-76; 328). The final section of the novel involves his "final stand." He includes the possibility of synthesis as we near Julian's betrayal and death and suggests an aesthetic sublimation of Julian's tortured life by way of impartial historiography - an allusion to Nietzsche's final call in the Genealogy. The final actions of the novel resound with the call for an individual sovereignty that Julian stands for and a final synthesis that may prove triumphant after Julian’s death. The novel ends with the resonance of the role of representation that was set in the first chapter with the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 8 2 introduction of new Christian saints imposed over Hellenic ones. First, Julian makes a final call for sovereignty and, then, Arsinoe returns and demonstrates her shift to an ideological synthesis that is mystical in nature. In a gesture of expressing his life-creation aesthetic, Julian claims sovereignty by declaring independence from the gods. Simultaneously he betrays his failure at reaching a mystical synthesis. I swear by the eternal joy, locked here, in my heart, I renounce You, as you have renounced me! I abandon you as you have abandoned me, impotent Deities! Single- minded against you, phantom Olympians, I am like unto you, but not your equal, because I am a man and you are only gods!... Long, long has my heart aspired to this deliverance; and now I break our alliance, laugh at my superstitious terrors, at your childish oracles. I was living like a slave, and I might have died a slave! No melancholy, no fear, no victims, no prayer! All that is past. Henceforth in my life there shall not be a single shade, nor trembling. Nothing! Except that everlasting Olympian smile which I have learnt from you, the Dead! Nothing, but the sacred fire of which I rob you, O Immortals! Mine be the cloudless sky in which you have dwelt till now, and from which you have died, to give place to man-gods! (PSS 1:308; 364)2 8 After awakening from the following night's sleep, Julian has the realization that "the gods are no more, that he has thrown down the altar of 2 8 A substantial section of the text above was deleted from the 1914 publication and is also absent in the 1906 edition (320). The following lines were deleted: "I am like unto you... Mine be the cloudless sky in which you have dwelt till now, and from which you have died, to give place to man-gods!" It appears that Merezhkovskii took to deleting any and all lines that expressed the sovereign individual ideal. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 283 sacrifice [...] He is falling, falling through the void, with nothing, nothing in the universe to arrest his fall" (PSS 1:311; 368). This image is confirmed from the outside by the "Galileans" who view him as "possessed of demons [...] [having] sold his soul [and being] drag[ged] to the abyss" (PSS 1:319; 377). This final moment for Julian before his death occurs as a result of having succumbed to a temptation. The temptation theme continues as a gesture put forth by Artaban, a Persian, who promises Julian that he will win the battle if he bums his ships and proceeds forward. This temptation echoes the earlier temptation by the imagined Lucifer. Julian follows Artaban's call and meets his own death. The final segment of the novel is ushered in with the final return of Arsinoe, who has now turned against her Christian vows and supports a synthesis of religions. She tries to persuade Julian to recognize the sameness of all ideological paths. She states that Christ and Hellas are of the same nature and that Julian is not an apostate, but that the others, who give lip service, are apostates (PSS 1:323-24; 383). Julian maintains his renunciation of Christ and the image of the abyss returns: "Between the two lay still that abyss which is not to be crossed by the living" (PSS 1:325; 385). Just before his death, Julian refers to the two dominant philosophical strains that have marked his life; he refers to having done his duty (in a Kantian manner) and that, if he has failed to satisfy his desires, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 284 Destiny rules earthly affairs (a sentiment similar to Nietzsche's a m orfati) (PSS 1:334-35; 396). The ending is highly implausible and contrived, but nevertheless full of M erezhkovskii's philosophical implications. After Julian's death it is apparent from the changes in emperors' reigns that triviality and an exchangeability of prejudice in religion and superstition continue (PSS 1:341-42; 403-4). The final two scenes express M erezhkovskii's sentiments concerning the Christ-Antichrist problem. Arsinoe, who is now practicing her craft as an artist, fashions a wax model of a figure that can be either seen as Dionysus or Christ. She is ambivalent in her explanations and expresses her intention thusly: "He will stretch out His hands toward the world. He must be inexorable and terrible as Mithra-Dionysus in all his strength and beauty, yet merciful and hum ble..." (PSS 1:347-49; 409). Ammianus, who is writing memoirs of Julian’s life and campaigns, bids to be impartial in his historiography. He claims to recognize "no suffering from the antagonism between the Greek and the Christian doctrine." He agrees with the work of Clement of Alexandria, a Christian master, that Rome and Hellas were precursors to the teachings of Christ and that Plato is a forerunner of Christ. In this equation there is a balancing of the Christ/Antichrist dialectic. It appears that M erezhkovskii claims representation to have been the original problem, historiography an Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 285 aid to a solution, and the Christ/Antichrist understanding as a necessity for the integration and synthesis of all faiths. This synthesis in an aesthetically pleasing historiography ends on a Kantian note; Kant, whose Critique o f Judgment was to bridge and clarify the unity between reason and morality, likewise hoped for aesthetics to be the essential link. Now that we have explored Merezhkovskii's critiques of representation, the sovereign individual, ethics, irony, the ressentiment of the herd, negative theology, and aesthetic synthesis in the historiographical imperative, we can briefly consider the novels Leonardo and Peter and Alexis to decide how these fit into Merezhkovskii's overall plan of attempted synthesis and continuity. Rosenthal claims that the dialectic that exists throughout this history is between the two principles of paganism and Christianity and it seeks an ultimate resolution (Rosenthal, Silver Age 100). As it proceeds throughout history into the time of Petr and Alexei the process transforms into "the Biblical Father- Son dialectic and the Pagan-Christian antitheses" (100). However, Rosenthal declares that by 1911 Merezhkovskii has weakened the "case" for paganism, which must "fail" due to M erezhkovskii's new ideological outlook. Is this failing and change to signify the failure of M erezhkovskii's aesthetic endeavors as established in Julianl Peter Christensen declares a need to examine the philosophical and political Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 286 program of M erezhkovskii's writings while bearing in mind the need to "bypass the issue of historical accuracy to try to examine Merezhkovskii's ideas on religion and revolution" ("Religion and Revolution" 65). Equally, I declare a need to suspend - or "bypass" - the notion of Merezhkovskii's aesthetic (and moral) endeavors and to consider the philosophical program. Leonardo da Vinci Rosenthal argues that Leonardo represents the synthesis of dichotomies. Leonardo, considered a heretic, attempts to synthesize the two principles of flesh and spirit. He is juxtaposed to M ichelangelo, who represents the suffering attached to the flesh. Leonardo represents the soaring spirit: the "combined masculine and feminine elements, perfect love and perfect knowledge, strength and compassion, daring and humility, sensuality and intellect, idealism and practicality, art and science, love of beauty and spiritual yearning" (Silver Age 101). But, as Rosenthal states, Leonardo's "art and his life mirrored the dichotomies of the world around him; the Renaissance synthesis, which revived the amoral pagan gods, was not completely successful" (101). Leonardo is ultimately unable to leave his "spiritual testament to his successor," Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 287 Giovanni Boltraffio, who as a devout Catholic dies in the embrace of the "White She-Devil." Therefore, the volume ends in another failure of synthesis. Bedford is more insightful in his comments on the continuity and mirroring in Leonardo of Julian. He resorts to pointing out a hierarchy in Leonardo and lists characters and their functions (73). In addition to the Olympian gods, who are revived in the Renaissance in the discovery of the statue Venus in a vault, and the witches of the Sabbath, who portray darkness, ignorance, corruption, and the superstitions of the M iddle Ages, there are the following characters: Fra Benedetto, who functions as an artist-monk who suppresses art by stressing religious themes; Savonarola, who negates "knowledge" by destroying what he deems to be heretical; Fra Giorgio di Casale, who functions as the chief inquisitor; Merula, who as a neopagan worships classical sculpture; Marc' Antonio della Torre, who as a neopagan advocates reason and stands opposed to the superstitions of the Church; and Pope Alexander VI, who represents "indulgent depraved pastimes" (75-76). Against this background of characters, Leonardo, as an individual, represents a complex mass of contradictions and the ambivalence of the age. Bedford points out that although Leonardo is "beyond good and evil," he regrets any negative effects of his actions on others. Finally, the characters that are pivotal to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 288 Leonardo's role in synthesis, his successor Giovanni Beltraffio and M ona Cassandra, who plays a role akin to Arsinoe in Julian, fail to synthesize paganism and Christianity and exist merely as spokespersons on synthesis. Considering these elements of Leonardo, it becomes self-evident that Leonardo plays a similar role in Merezhkovskii's scheme of things: synthesis, although desired and aspired to, exists as a secondary philosophical goal to the primary concerns of M erezhkovskii's project to found a system of representation and symbolism. Finally, the use of the images of blood and wine and their merging in the figures of Dionysus and Christ strongly supports Merezhkovskii's views on the continuity of Christianity from paganism, but does little to create a sense of synthesis. This continuity is clear as is a continuity in the failure of synthesis and in the working of the problems of representation, individual sovereignty and ethics, negative theology, and aesthetic unity. Christensen states in "Christ and Antichrist as Historical Novel" that Leonardo fails as a synthesis because of the ambiguity in merging heaven and earth. He expresses that the conflict in this work is between determinism and the eschatological or apocalyptical sense of an End. In this sense there is a conflict in M erezhkovskii’ s ideas that runs parallel to the basic conflict between the Nietzschean am orfati and the Solov'evian sense of "end" conveyed in his Antichrist story. However, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 289 apocalyptical sense in Merezhkovskii differs from that in Solov'ev's story where we learn that there is no "essential evil."2 9 2 9 In "Dionysus and the Witches' Sabbath in Merezhkovsky's The Romance of Leonardo da Vinci," Christensen makes several significant remarks about Leonardo. Even in a seemingly arbitrary application they are pertinent not only to Merezhkovskii's trilogy, but to the particular philosophical concerns that I have been outlining in connection to the "turn" of the century. He mentions that in the 1920s Merezhkovskii "attack[s] the Christ/Antichrist dichotomy as a repressive ideology of official Catholicism rather than use[s] it in a symbolic representation of the struggle between good and evil in the world." Perhaps, Merezhkovskii realizes that the Christ-Antichrist dichotomy cannot be used to represent good and evil in reversed roles. "Good" always refers simplistically to "good" and "evil" to "evil." The difficulty of representation in the trilogy is that "good" and "evil" have no fixed markers. He also mentions that "Antichrist" is introduced as a propagandistic term. It is a political expedient that is meaningless. The Church lacks morality and Christianity is prefigured in earlier religions; these statements weaken the sense of an absolute meaning in Christianity. Furthermore, he states that the appearances of sacrilege come across as innocent. I add to this that litso (face) and appearance figures strongly in Solov'ev's theoretical philosophy in the section on lichina and litso concerning personalities and personae in his phenomenological views when he refers to a Roman example. Christensen also notes that the poles are obscured. Black becomes white and the meaning to "champion good" can be to "foster Antichrist." This notion is also reflected in the contention that Peter and Alexis are the "obverse and reverse of the same coin." Theoretically, I also ask, Are the Christ and Antichrist the "obverse and the reverse of the same coin"? If so, the Other is subsumed into the Same in Decadent and Symbolist philosophical ideology. Christensen also argues about the useless dichotomy that Leonardo represents in paganism and Christianity and comments that Samuel Cioran sees Solov'ev's Antichrist wrongly as a "darker cataclysm." It is a farce, however, as I have argued, that Solov'ev presents, a farce ultimately betrayed by his statement that there is no "essential evil." The story glitters, but it is not equivalent to the gold that may be perceived. The impostor may appear, but forgery takes place in that there is no validity or currency to the "essence" that we expect of "evil." The question remains, Who is guilty of the imposture or of the forgery behind this "evil"? Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 290 Peter and Alexis Finally, we will consider the last work of the trilogy. Rosenthal stresses that in Peter and Alexis there is a "dissolution of the synthesis prefigured by Leonardo into its components" so that both the pagan and Christian elements are doomed. Petr represents the Antichrist as a form of Nietzschean superman, who destroys traditions and creates anew on "marshes" (103). Alexei, on the other hand, represents humility, meekness, and compassion. He supports the Old Believers and eventually becomes a martyr while Tikhon appears as if from nowhere to signal an approach beyond the Old Believers and the State represented by Peter. He symbolically appears as an "apocalypse" in his desire to bring "a new earth and a new sky" (104). It is important to remember in this context that in 1900 M erezhkovskii had already experienced a disillusionment with the "new religious consciousness" as it failed to create or achieve any "new truths." Therefore, the failure of a synthesis based on Merezhkovskii's personal experiences is not unexpected. My point that synthesis is not the primary issue is hereby given further support. Bedford in his observations of Peter and Alexis makes an interesting point that adds to my claim concerning the tropic element of the Decadent and Symbolist period. He claims that Peter and Alexis Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 291 appear to be the "obverse and reverse of a coin" (81), a sentiment that I find telling of the Christ and Antichrist dialectic, the dependency of each on the other, and of the nature of the rhetorical appeal of the Antichrist as a trope. W hile Peter reveres the pagan aspects of the W est (art, education, military techniques) and advocates science (and sees God in the laws of nature and in science), Alexei represents frailty and the antithesis of Peter. Their representatives also function as "obverses" and "reverses" of the same coin. For example, Alexis' mistress, Evfrosiniia, represents Venus, Aphrodite, and Greek paganism and demonstrates that the merging of Christianity and paganism is incomplete in Alexis whereas Tikhon, like Arsinoe a catalyst for synthesis, depicts the final rejection of the old and new churches and demands that the "true Church [...] [is] to be found in the world, in life" (88). The final act in Peter and Alexis - when Tikhon is struck dumb by John the Son of Thunder and is unable to share his insights and newfound joy - ends on a telling summary note about M erezhkovskii's entire project of synthesis: those who are capable of witnessing "synthesis" are unable to communicate or to convey the fruit of their efforts of synthesis and, therefore, synthesis fails. This is to say that even when appearing as if it may be successful, synthesis is doomed, because the act of representation can never offer meaning can be that is absolute. This ending infers that Merezhkovskii bases the Christ and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 292 Antichrist dialectic as a natural tension throughout history without any - 5 A possibility of social resolution. The Confession of 1914 Rosenthal mentions that Merezhkovskii retracts his views in 1914 and downplays Julian's praise of paganism (Silver Age, 63 fn). The significance in this is that Merezhkovskii makes several omissions in the text of Julian that is eventually published in the complete works (PSS 1: v). He thereby alters his original published version and his original intentions as well as the desired interpretations that he seeks from his readers. Merezhkovskii's "telling" in 1914 of his earlier "dangerous 3 0 Christensen in “Christ and Antichrist as Historical Novel” presents Peter and Alexis as problematic in Merezhkovskii's evolution of thought and makes some more significant remarks. The first is that there is a failure of the Hegelian synthesis in Merezhkovskii's third volume; I add, however, that there is, instead, a refocus on the Kantian problem of representation. Christensen considers that Merezhkovskii’s sense of a Third Age presents a merging of history and fable, in which there is a strong mystical moment of transcendence. However, I add that as we have seen, transcendence is merely a joke, a gesture of imposture; the only transcendence is tuming-within rather than actually transcending the situation externally. This would support the notion that Nietzsche and Solov'ev appear as essential pacifists while Merezhkovskii remains the straggling soldier of morality (perhaps, like Tolstoi who never quite transcended but dug himself deeper into an ideological hole while confessing his earlier ills). Christensen also notes that Merezhkovskii ultimately embraces Jesus (fundamentalism), drops his negotiation of Christ and the Antichrist, and portrays a political move whereby he shuns pluralism in favor of fundamentalism; and that the Antichrist question brings up a sense of the impostor in the problem of representation. In what Christensen focuses on, the questioning of beast turning into man or man turning into beast to form the Antichrist, there is a clear sense of the instability of philosophical representation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 293 blasphemy" conducted in the 1895 version in relation to the attempt at a synthesis of paganism and Christianity in the trilogy appears as yet another "dangerous blasphemy," perhaps one raised to a higher degree, by which he claims a power to continuously change his mind and ideology. Unless his statement that Jesus Christ represents the synthesis of spirit and flesh can be rendered more "truthful," all we have is yet another whimsical change. W hy Adam W einer, whose view I have mentioned in the introduction as well as in reference to M erezhkovskii's trilogy in this chapter, would accept this as proof of a stable sentiment judging a less stable sentiment makes little sense in rigorous scholarship, but some sense in an attempt for the scholar to align him self with an anticipated feeling of religious correctness on the part of his readers. It may be that writer and scholar fall prey to the same poison of "dangerous blasphemy." M erezhkovskii probably comments on blasphemy as his inability to succeed in synthesis and his inability to persevere in his project of synthesis. The confession of the "blasphemous lie" appears in the "Ot avtora" chapter (PSS 1: vi). However, within Merezhkovskii's conception is a further presentation of his bifurcation - he follows the lie to see the truth [nado bylo mne proiti etu lozh’ do kontsa, chtoby uvidet’ is tin u]. He has no regrets. W einer, however, simply imposes regrets onto Merezhkovskii. "From divarication to synthesis; such is my path" is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 294 M erezhkovskii's expression. Merezhkovskii does not deny or regret or diminish in importance his passage, or path, to synthesis, of the failure thereof. W einer's acknowledged presupposition makes of M erezhkovskii a sorry, penitent confessor of the uselessness of his earlier work and of the misguidance of his readership. However, this hardly seems to be the case if we read closely enough. In D. S. M erezhkovsky in Exile: The M aster o f the Genre o f Biographie Romancee, Temira Pachmuss cites Heinrich Stammler for his understanding of Merezhkovskii. Stammler mentions the 1914 autobiographical sketch, which he refers to as "Merezhkovskii's melancholy statement" in his article "Julianus Apostata Redivivus: Dmitrij Merezkovskij: Predecessors and Successors." He agrees with the cultural sentiment that labels Merezhkovskii a "Russian Luther" and acknowledges the "hostile criticism" that marks his career. Stammler's view is far more sympathetic than that of Weiner, who considers M erezhkovskii's statement of regret for the "blasphemous" project of Christ and Antichrist as valid and morally justified.3 1 The scholarly sentiment that Pachmuss and 3 1 Stammler offers a comparative study of Julian in this article that is worthy of attention. He points out elements that are compelling and supportive of the present study. One particular element indirectly offers clarity as to Merezhkovskii's aesthetic purpose in writing a "history" of Christ and Antichrist; it is the room allotted for intentional "errors." Stammler finds numerous flaws in Merezhkovskii’s recounting of Julian’s life. He locates anachronisms, literary Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 295 Stammler evoke is one of appreciation for the continuity of process that marked Merezhkovskii's literary pursuits. There is no sense of blasphemy or regret to be read in Merezhkovskii against himself. Merezhkovsky dealt with the problem of duality in the structure of the universe - the struggle between the gods and God, man and superman, Heaven and earth, the flesh and the spirit, and slavery and freedom. Stammler is of the opinion that the reader and the critic, frequently unable to determine whether M erezhkovsky adhered to Christ or the Anti-Christ, man-god or God-man, became im patient and critical of the ambiguities characteristic of M erezhkovsky's writing. They wished to see him resolutely committing him self to one single cause, championing and vindicating it in all of his works. In the pursuit of his literary career, therefore, he was frequently criticized outside all literary considerations. (Pachmuss 308) This last statement inevitably applies somewhat to Weiner's conclusions. W e can consider Merezhkovskii's remarks in Tsarstvo Antikhrista (Reign o f the Antichrist), co-written with Z. N. Gippius, D. V. Filosofov, and V. Zlobin (Munich, 1921), concerning the political suffering in Russia occasioned by the rise of Bolshevism and an anticipation of the triumph of Christianity for more insight on the Christ and Antichrist dialectic. However, the early aesthetic project of the 1890s is clearly finished and the "new" project focuses on an altogether "new" logic, wherein the "new" devices, and a disregard for accuracy, all of which I consider to be integral to the Decadent aesthetic and not to be of concern for a fictional work. The historiographical purpose of the Decadent historical novel is to follow a line of thought that matches the commands of Nietzsche’s genealogical imperative. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 296 Antichrist expresses continuity in name alone and becomes a vehicle, or pawn, for the political expressions of M erezhkovskii's apprehensions toward Bolshevism. For further support against taking certain autobiographical statements as truthful confessions, we can consider Christensen in "Religion and Revolution." He points out that in 1907 M erezhkovskii called for violence against the Antichrist of the Russian monarchy. Christensen refers to Rosenthal who agrees that M erezhkovskii is rarely consistent. Eventually M erezhkovskii retracted his claim for violence (172). This would seem to support a careful look and treatment of any of M erezhkovskii's autobiographical claims, especially any "confessions" of blasphemy that may also be retracted or nullified at whim's notice. It would thereby seem most reasonable in scholarship to suspend Merezhovskii's later judgm ents concerning his own work and to judge the trilogy of the 1890s and early 1910s as a writerly attempt to engage in the Nietzschean atmosphere and to create a basis on which the sovereign individual and the new ethics of a new religious consciousness could be anchored. The various inquiries that Merezhkovskii utilizes the Christ- Antichrist dialectic for are clearly then of a primarily religious, philosophical, and aesthetic nature and secondarily of a political nature as it is refracted along the Oedipal concerns. The questions that persist deal Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 297 mainly with the nature of representation and sovereign individuality in the face of polarities. These are dealt with in a more "innocent" manner in Julian the Apostate than in the latter works. As the statements from the scholars mentioned earlier attest, Merezhkovskii lost interest in "synthesis" by the time he started writing Leonardo and Peter and Alexis. Along with his entrance into a new phase of "religious search" from 1899 to 1905, he had overcome his period of "high Nietzscheanism" and optimism - not to mention the pre-turn millenarian anxiety before the turn of the century. However, as I have demonstrated, the Christ-Antichrist dialectic remained more or less the same in its oppositionality and tropic functions throughout M erezhkovskii's historiographical work. However, the greater significance of the dialectic of Christ and Antichrist is in its ability to serve, as did Nietzsche's invocation of the Antichrist and Solov'ev's story of the Antichrist, as a basis for a critique of greater social and political concerns that are anchored on fundamental philosophical problems of subjecthood and representation. In this chapter I have argued for the necessity of recognizing that M erezhkovskii's Antichrist mirrors the ideals of the Nietzschean Antichrist and, additionally, that Merezhkovskii's synthesis appears to "fail" because Merezhkovskii chooses to merge his "Antichrist" sovereign individual protagonist into tradition and convention Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 298 rather than allowing him to sidestep or sublimate traditional concerns, that is, M erezhkovskii posits a seemingly "failing" protagonist not because "failure" results from the attempt at synthesis, but that representation - as a precise act by a Lebensphilosoph - fails. Nietzsche's method, as we have seen, is to recognize the historically omnipresent ascetic ideal and to sidestep the values of history altogether, since he cannot pull him self away completely from the strictures and demands of science, religion, and the arts. M erezhkovskii, on the other hand, tries to force a compatibility of history with his ideal (inscribed in the "new" historiography) and asserts "stubbornly" that synthesis is imminent; he fails three times. Something seems amiss with a project that takes him ten years to complete and is given three chances to succeed. Therefore, I claim that this failure is not the "failure" of the trilogy. The "failure," and the criteria by which the philosophical project of Julian should be judged, must be measured by M erezhkovskii's ability to implement certain tropic elements that are specific to the "turn" of the century that I have outlined in the introduction and that are evident in Nietzsche's and Solov'ev's philosophical statements. Merezhkovskii rewrites the history of Julian the Apostate in order to put the focus on the polarization of Roman society into pagans and Christians, and to spotlight the cultural dependence and insistence on maintaining an Antichrist figure. Merezkhovskii differs from the other Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 9 9 writers in this study in that he extends his concerns and views the theme of Antichrist differently in his historical novel as his focus is on the synthesis of polarities rather than on the insistence of authenticity in life. The authenticity is either already presupposed or implied in the synthesizing process. M erezhkovskii creates a sense of Antichristian culture in the use of the title Death of the Gods. He alludes to the end of metaphysics and the possible beginning of a phenomenologically "knowing" man (homo sapiens). Merezhkovskii refers to Greek philosophy; Plato and Plotinus emerge as sources. There is an extensive treatment of the philosophical problems of representation, the sublime, negative theology and mysticism, and the occult throughout the novel; and there are many allusions to the Antichrist. Although this novel is clearly a historical novel, it is also a Bildungsroman in that it shows the development of a young Caesar into a ruler. It may also be considered a Kunstlerroman if we consider the life- creation aesthetic that is Julian's pursuit. If so, it may be seen as a step in the development of life-creation from Nikolai Chemyshevskii's What Is To Be Done? (Chto Delat'? 1863) in its preoccupation with creative social transformation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 300 Chapter 4: Stanisiaw Przybyszewski's Homo sapiens: Contradictions of the Satanist Aesthetic Primitive man, or, in other words, man without brains, that is, simply Homo, not yet become sapiens, is subject to sudden inspiration, ecstasy, prophetic vision, and so on. This prophetic vision strangely approaches insanity, which today, in our liberal- philanthropic-democratic society, is cause for putting such prophets in lunatic asylums. - Stanisiaw Przybyszewski, Homo sapiens There they enjoy freedom from every social constraint, in the wilderness they compensate for the tension which is caused by being closed in and fenced in by the peace of the community for so long, they return to the innocent conscience of the wild beast, as exultant monsters, who perhaps go away having committed a hideous succession of murder, arson, rape and torture, in a mood of bravado and spiritual equilibrium as though they had simply played a student's prank, convinced that poets will now have something to sing about and celebrate for quite some time. We are unknown to ourselves, we knowers, we ourselves, to ourselves, and there is a good reason for this. - Friedrich Nietzsche, On the Genealogy o f Morality Stanisiaw Przybyszewski is considered the pivotal figure of the M loda Polska {Young Poland) movement of Modernism. In terms of the Nietzschean influence on him, he reverts to genealogical themes and concerns about epistemology, psychology, and conventions in morality and ethics. The literary work of focus in this chapter, Homo sapiens, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 301 relates to Nietzsche's Genealogy and Solov'ev's Theoretical Philosophy indirectly. Przybyszewski is highly interested in advocating authenticity in his call for a "new art" and "new ethics" and for spotting "impostors," who call on philosophy and tradition without an awareness of what he terms the "naked soul," the instinctual source of life. Like Nietzsche, Solov'ev, and Merezhkovskii, he takes on the problems of representation, the sublime, icons, and epistemology in his own particular way in the fictional discourse of Homo sapiens. In relation to the "turns" analyzed in the previous chapters, Przybyszewski equally presents "turns" in representation, ethics, and aesthetic judgment. He personifies the trope of the "turn" in his actions, statements of irony and controversy, and bids for a "new" art and artist free from the restraints of convention and identified with the natural, vitalist force of a satanist persona. Praised early in his career as an essayist of the German Decadent movement, an influential figure on Scandinavian and Slavic proponents of early Modernism, and a proponent of the role of aestheticism in the merging of life and art, Przybyszewski is generally denigrated, and in some circles praised, as the "Satanist," the immoral "demonic" being of Polish modernism, and the failed dram atist.1 However, the publication of his first essay "Zur 1 For an overview and analysis of the movement by breakdown into the genres of literary journalism, poetry, drama, prose, and criticism, see Maria Podraza- Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 302 Psychologie des Individuums. Chopin und Nietzsche" (1891) brought him respect and fame within the Berlin artists' circle, which included prominent figures of the German and Scandinavian modernist movement (including the modernist German poet Richard Dehmel, the Swedish playwright August Strindberg, and the Norwegian expressionist painter Edvard Munch), who met regularly at the Zum schwarzen Ferkel winery, and established his influence on other members of the Central and Northern European M odernist scene. He gained notoriety for his aesthetic life-creation deeds, one of which was to play the piano "possessed" like Chopin. One of the other Lebenskunst elements of Przybyszewski's life in Berlin is his marriage to the Norwegian music student Dagny Juel, which Kwiatkowska's Literatura Mlodej Polski and Artur Hutnikiewicz' MIoda Polska. Stulecie Mlodej Polski (A Century o f Young Poland), edited by Maria Podraza- Kwiatkowska, offers a critical reexamination of the period with sections on the ideological elements and the philosophical and metaphysical dimensions of the period, the parameters of nature and human existence, earlier critical approaches to the period, Young Poland in translation, and a comparison with Romantic and Positivist literature, music and art, and the theatre of the period. Earlier studies of the period that I have found to be especially insightful include Julian Krzyzanowski, Neoromantyzm Polski: 1890-1918', Kazimierz Wyka, Modernizm polski', Obraz literatury polskiej XIX i XX wieku, s. V: Literatura okresu Mlodej Polski 1.1 (A View o f Polish Literature o f the 19th and 20lh Centuries: Literature o f the Young Poland Period), edited by Kazimierz Wyka, Artur Hutnikiewicz, and Miroslawa Puchalska; and Tomasz Weiss, Przelom antypozytywistyczny w Polsce 1880-1890 (The Anti-Positivist Crisis in Poland 1880-1890). Greta N. Slobin, in "Polish Decadence and Modernist Russian Prose," offers a view of the cultural exchange mainly between Przybyszewski and numerous Russian writers, including Andrei Belyi, Aleksei Remizov, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii, and Vasilii Rozanov. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 303 earned him the envy of Strindberg, who recorded this episode in his autobiographical novel Inferno (1898). This bit of personal history includes Przybyszewski's move to Norway. In 1894 Przybyszewski moved to Kongsvinger with his wife, where he met with Ibsen, Bjornson, Hamsun and Vigeland. During his stay in Norway he wrote the trilogy Homo sapiens (1895-96), the novel Children o f Satan (Satanskinder, 1897) as well as his first play Great Luck (Das grosse Gliick, 1897). Also, in 1895 he began to correspond with and influence the editor of the Czech modernist monthly M odem i Revue, Am ost Prochazka. In 1896 Przybyszewski likewise formed contact with the Krakow litterateurs 2 Dagny Juel became the object of fascination due to her popularity in the modernist circle. The painter Stanisiaw Wyspianski and the sculptor Gustav Vigeland sketched and sculpted her. However, she left behind only a small collection of poetry, plays, and letters. She was considered a scandalous figure, "ruined" in part by her husband, and dead at 34, murdered by a husband's acquaintance, who had accompanied her to the Caucasus. Ewa K. Kossak relates ■fuel's life within the context of Lebenskunst and the myth-formation in Dagny Przybyszewska: Zblqkana gwiazda (Dagny Przybyszewska: Lost Star). Her early death and the mysterious circumstances surrounding her relationships with artists of the period helped create an aura of demonism around Przybyszewski. Przybyszewski eventually recorded his recollections of these events and of the many personalities in his life in the memoirs Moi Wspolczesni (My Contemporaries). The first volume was completed in 1926 and the second in 1930. Milosz mentions that Przybyszewski was known to distort certain facts; however, the memoirs do convey the "typical attitudes" of the day. Jozef Dynak in Przybyszewski: Dzieje legendy i autolegendy (P rzybyszew ski: The H istory o f a Legend an d an Autolegend) performs a cultural study of the emanations of myth and legend formation that have arisen surrounding Przybyszewski due in large part to ideas proposed in Przybyszewski's own writings as well as to that of his contemporaries and literary "descendants." Dynak analyzes not only works of fiction, but "fact" as well as critical summations of the writer and his deeds. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 304 Maciej Szukiewicz and A dolf Nowaczynski and in 1898 he arrived in Krakow to establish the modernist movement there. His early projects consisted mainly of translations of his earlier essays from German into Polish and the editorship of the modernist journal Zycie (Life), which collapsed in 1900 due to conflicts with censors and financial difficulties. These events are significant in that they demonstrate the prevalence and extent of Przybyszewski's reach throughout the transnational and syncretistic culture of Central Europe of the 1890s. The kernel of thought that is central to Przybyszewski's works, both essayistic and fictional, is the "naked soul" (naga dusza). The 1980 Nobel poet laureate Czeslaw M ilosz summarizes, without praising nor deriding, the controversial writer's main philosophical premise. Concerning Przybyszewski's thoughts about social rebelliousness and sexual freedom, he refers to Przybyszewski's theory of the "naked soul" as 3 Many of Przybyszewski's essays are newly compiled in Polish in the recent edition by Gabriela Matuszek, Synagoga Szatana i inne eseje (Satan's Synagogue and Other Essays). The only previously available edition of essays was Stanisiaw Przybyszewski: Wybor pism (Stanisiaw Przybyszewski: A Collection of Writings), edited by Roman Taborski. Although many of his essays show the influence of Nietzsche, Przybyszewski's Satan's Synagogue in particular comprises a genealogical study of demonology; he invokes the Dionysian elements of culture and focuses on the polarity of good and evil as he seeks to align Satan with the "will" and to characterize this "will" as a force that governs as if it were a "individual sovereign ideal." Gabriela Matuszek has also edited the recent republication of Przybyszewski’ s novel Satanskinder (Satan's Children) into Polish as Dzieci szatana: Powiesc. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 305 the substratum of phenomenal existence and the fate-like "will" that governs human actions. The "naked soul" makes its presence known in so-called "abnormal" psychic states - hysteria, hallucination, possession. Przybyszewski praised those epochs of history when the "naked soul" released all the brakes, as in the M iddle Ages with their devils, collective psychoses, and witches' Sabbaths. He deserved the name of "Satanist" in that Satan was for him a symbol of primordial, hidden forces in man. Reaching for the true core of man, he saw it in a demon who is nothing other than sexual desire. In his words: "In the beginning there was lust." Today this sounds very familiar, as Freud has accustomed us to the notion of libido, but Freud, who was twelve years older than Przybyszewski, was hardly known at the turn of the century except within a narrow circle of specialists in Vienna. Przybyszewski, we might say, was capturing those same fluids in the air that crystallized in the work of the founder of psychoanalysis. (History 331-32) This appraisal is significant to the culture of the turn of the century in that it marks the appeal of the "satanic" and the call for extreme resistance to conventions and tradition. Milosz goes on to claim that Przybyszewski, as an extremist, felt Nietzsche was too "literal" and garnered misunderstandings via disciples who proposed his work as a "call to uncontrolled spiritualism and individualism" (332). M ilosz adds that, although prolific, Przybyszewski retains the reputation of a "witch doctor" Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 306 and his works lack the judgm ent of artistic validity (333).4 Milosz' History was completed in the mid-1960s and published in the United States in 1969. Since then, including the publications of his second edition in 1982 and the publication of the first Polish edition in 1993, M ilosz' summation has withstood the political transformation o f the region. However, Polish scholars' understanding of Przybyszewski's philosophical role during the fin de siecle has undergone certain changes, mainly due to the wider acceptance of Przybyszewski's complexity as a theorist and the multidimensional aspects of Decadent culture in the last two decades alone. The first collection of work marking such an appreciation in the estimation of the writer's importance is the collection of essays in Stanisiaw Przybyszewski: W 50-Lecie Zgonu Pisarza (On the 50th Anniversary o f the Writer's Death). The collection of essays Totenmesse: Modernism in the Culture o f Northern and Central Europe furthers our understanding of the transcultural relationships between Stanisiaw Przybyszewski and exponents o f German, Scandinavian, and Bohemian M odernism.5 The essays look at the pronounced role that 4 Maria Kuncewicz considers Przybyszewski's role as a "Polish Satanist" in a general manner in her article "A Polish Satanist: Stanisiaw Przybyszewski" (3- 20). 5 These articles, edited by Piotr Paszkiewicz, were originally presented at a conference on modernism at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw in October 1995. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 307 Przybyszewski played in developing M odernist culture with Edvard Munch, August Strindberg, Gustav Vigeland, Am ost Prochazka, Karel Hlavacek, and Jin Karasek ze Lvovic among others. A recent collection that addresses the Polish-German interconnectedness of the period and that treats Przybyszewski as a pivotal figure is Recepja literacka i process literacki: O polsko-niemickich kontaktach literackich od modernizmu po okres mi^dzywojenny (Literarische Rezeption und literarischer Prozess: Zu den polnisch- deutschen literarischen Wechselbeziehungen vom Modernismus bis in die Zwischenkriegszeit). Essays in the collection treat the influences of Schopenhauer and Nietzsche on Przybyszewski, his use of ambiguity due to the bilingual status of his earlier writings (he published primarily in German throughout the early 1890s for his Berlin audience and, then, in the early 1900s, after moving to and "initiating" the Krakow Moderna, he began to translate and rewrite his earlier works into Polish and to continue writing original works in Polish), and the parallel lives of Przybyszewski and Hermann Bahr. In this collection Antonin MeStan remarks in "Praga, Wieden, Monachium, Krakow: austriacko-niemiecko-polsko-czeskie kontakty literackiepod koniec X IX i na poczqtku X X wieku" ("Prague, Vienna, Munich, Krakow: Austrian-German-Polish-Czech Literary Contacts at the Turn of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries") that Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 0 8 Przybyszewski arrived in Krakow from Germany through Prague, where he was published as a Slavic writer first in Czech and only then in Polish. Also, Gabriela M atuszek examines the entire century of "interconnectedness" between Przybyszewski and the Germans in a study of the evolution of his literary reputation in Germany in D er Geniale Pole? Niemcy o Stanislawie Przybyszewskim (1892-1992). This scholarship continues commentary on and the debate concerning Przybyszewski's Pan-Slavic roots and appeal. As the final writer of focus chosen for analysis in the present study, Przybyszewski offers, perhaps, a strong example of Central European Decadence reaching out into the surrounding regions.6 6 The cult of personality around Przybyszewski must be acknowledged for his identification with Nietzsche and his preoccupation with satanic elements in culture earned him an undying popularity throughout Central Europe and primarily in the Czech lands. The issue of the Slavic appropriation of the Nietzschean persona that stems from this popularity offers a further glimpse into the psychology of the period and a further demonstration of the application of a Nietzschean rhetoric. The personal identification of artists with a Nietzschean and a satanic literary persona raises the following question: Who serves as a “proper” Nietzschean or a "proper" Satanist in this context? Bemice Glatzer Rosenthal offers an answer to this problem in her introduction to Nietzsche in Russia: In some circles, Nietzsche meant individualism, while in others he meant loss of self in a cultic community, collective creativity, or even self-sacrifice for the sake of the future. The nihilistic aspects of his philosophy were simplified and vulgarized for mass consumption. Rightly or wrongly, Nietzsche was often perceived as advocating promiscuity, hedonism, amorality, selfishness, contempt for the weak. Ironically, the positive Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 309 aspects of his philosophy were subsumed into other isms, while the negative were labeled Nietzscheanism and condemned. (3) The following considerations offer insight to the issue of Nietzscheanism and Satanism in the Central European context based from the opposing perspective, that of the affirmative power of Nietzscheanism and satanism. Przybyszewski, as an essayist of the Berliner Modeme and later the Young Poland movement in Krakow, identifies with Nietzsche and is considered a Satanist for drawing up a system of aethetics under a cloak of satanic and Nietzschean worship. The Czech poet Stanislav Kostka Neumann, on the other hand, who figures primarily as a poet and then an essayist of Decadence evolves politically into an anarchist and then, eventually, into a staunch supporter of communism in Czechoslovakia. The general scholarly assessment of Neumann, however, has been that he embodies the persona of a politically tendentious state poet. About his early poetry, Walter Schamschula, the literary historian of Czech literature states in Geschichte der tschechischen Literatur (Band 2. Von der Romantik bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg) (Cologne: Bohlau Verlag, 1996): Nicht nur wird der christlichen Demut damit ein neuer Stolz des emanzipierten Ubermenschen entgegengesetzt [. ..], sondern es wird einer sexuellen Emanzipation das Wort geredet, wobei die Antwort aufden christlichen Dualismus, in dem das Triebleben als Teufelswerk gesehen wird, gerade die, wenigsten dichterische, Verehrung des Satan, der Satanismus ist: Satanova slava mezi nami. (417) Przybyszewski and Neumann, as representatives of the 1890s, stand as anti- Christians and as emancipators in a cult of the physiological, the basic human drives and instincts. But the question that remains is, in what relation do they stand to Nietzsche? In what sense does Nietzscheanism as a nomenclature do justice to their work and to what extent does it fail? The term itself denotes a contamination of Nietzsche via appropriation, vulgarization, and eventual political aestheticization. Yet, how one divides the “Nietzscheans” into those who follow and extend from Nietzsche and those who happen to bask in the temporary popularization and fascination of his ideas is insightful. On the one hand the latter may appropriate Nietzschean ideas while, on the other hand, the former imbibe a Nietzschean style and rhetoric, which then pervades their work - to the point where they even turn against their "maker," in this case Nietzsche. The question of individual sovereignty by these Nietzschean stylists is turned into a question of demasking Christ in order to uncover Satan in the process. In Przybyszewski’s genealogy of Satan, it is Satan that appears at the beginning of the world. Rhetorically it appears that Przybyszewski is toying with Satan in his demonological study as symbol for the physiological and unconscious and as substantive for a biblical figure. In 1897 Przybyszewski published this work in the Berlin journal Die Kritik. His popularity extended throughout the Slavic world. His influence was directly felt and his ideas were Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 310 quickly disseminated. The correspondence between writers of the Ceska moderna and with Przybyszewski shows an inordinate amount of allegiance to him as well as an affinity with his ideas. I mention this to validate the use of Czech literary sentiment to express a positive judgment of the “satanic” works in question. The Polish audience was mixed in appreciation and reception. The following quotation is taken from Dobrava Moldanova’s post-1989 appraisal of Czech Modernism. (The following translations of quotations from Moldanova and Saida are my own.) As followers of Nietzsche, the Czechs revered the strong individual, the human-titan, railing against all human and divine laws, against all authority, and until then the unshakeable authority of God. The motif of Satan (introduced to us especially by Przybyszewski) is a motif of total revolt: Satan in the conceptualization of the decadents is above all a free spirit, who did not subordinate himself to any authority, already having resisted for a long time the surviving order of God. The cult of evil identified with him is an expression of the resistance to ethical norms and to authoritative morality, which the [Czech writers] reject. (Moldanova 56) The following quote testifies to the positive acclaim and valuation of Neumann’s poetic depiction of Satan by the writer and critic F.V. Krejci: "His Satan does not mean evil, but good; not destruction, but progress, health, and strength; not sin, but the right to live, pleasure and passion; in one word he is the personification of knowledge, spirit, progress, and beauty" (qtd. in Moldanova 63). Further on Moldanova comments: "In the spirit of Nietzsche's thesis that God is dead, the young poet at the forefront of the depairing crowds first seeks for help from Satan. This symbol of evil is transformed into a symbol of activity, into a symbol of the restless and searching soul of modem man" (64). In his review of Satanova sldva mezi nami [Satan's Glory Among Us], the critic F.X. Saida claims that Neumann: speaks of the "inseparably connected artistic and human intentions." Throughout the whole book you see that he does not oppose art and life; rather, he essentially dreams only of the one single art, the most complex, of course, the art of a powerful and beautiful life. Even the luminous, optimistic outline of Mr. Neumann's book coheres to this idea. Satan is not an absolute to him, but rather a relation of the most relative of all relations. That, which we call evil, what was declared by the Christian ascetic ethics, is, on the contrary, for Mr. Neumann the spring of life, its spur, its multiplier and intensifier. A cooled life can only be heated, revived, and renewed by it according to our poet. [Satan] is the great father of the dark sources of life, hatred, pride, and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 311 rebellion. He is power as a remedy for faintness, hatred as a remedy for indifference, pride as a remedy for vanity and cowardice. And more: he is the tribunal of the future, which will judge all according to the truth and will elevate everything that had been oppressed and killed in the past; he will avenge the honorable and powerful that had been oppressed by the weak and cunning, and everything delicate and beautiful that had been destroyed or put to shame by crudity and cunning. (Saida 330) Although Karel Hlavacek and Jin Karasek ze Lvovic are generally considered the leading proponents of the Czech "Satanists" of Czech Decadence, it is Stanislav Kostka Neumann, whose entire volume of poetry Satan's Glory Among Us functions as an extensive poetic treatment, an ode, on the theme of Satanism in literature and culture (Prague: Grosman a Svoboda, 1897). (This collection of poetry was also reprinted in Stanislav K. Neumann: Basne. (Prague: Knihovna Klasiku, 1962: 147-192).) Of especial interest is that Neumann is the only one of the Satanists to become a poet of the Communist revolution. From spouting satanic prayers he develops into a poetic prophet of leftist politics, comparable in stature to the Russian Vladimir Maiakovskii. Stanislav Kostka Neumann's Satan's Glory Among Us is a collection of verse poetry, originally intended as a collection of both verse and prose poetry that was published in December of 1897. The title and motivation behind the collection seem to suggest an attempt to address the then current fascination with Satanism. In his memoirs Neumann acknowledges to reading Gourmont's Latin Mysticism and Baudelaire's Flowers o f Evil, but claims that his choice to “apostrophize” Satan is based solely on his own sense of aesthetics and taste. This gesture is consistent with Robert Pynsent's distinction between the Eastern and Western European variants of Decadence and with the need and urge to claim a trope for the expression of the new individual sovereign that I claim. Neumann claims that his Satanism was "merely decorative," that it served as an early manifestation of what would clearly be presented to the world in his latter Socialist poetry as a non-mystical and non-religious fascination with social revolution and equality. He claims to have sought to establish not an Antichristian atmosphere that flowed from paganism, but to express his keen sense of the new upcoming "renaissance" and future freedoms of Man and the rebirth of humanity. In 1898 Neumann felt that those who would lead this social race for freedom would appear as barbarians to conventional "decadent" man (Neumann, following Nietzsche, perceives decadent man as he who holds firmly to conventional morality; Neumann thereby identifies with Nietzsche’s classification of himself as an "anti-decadent decadent.") (329-30). These barbarians will oppose Christianity in its most primitive and fundamental forms as they represent the joys, strength, and vigor of life. Asceticism and moral and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 312 physical slavery will be abolished and individual freedoms will be realized. These are Neumann’s reasons for and the meaning behind his satanism. The critic Frantisek Saida claimed in the literary journal Rozhledy that Neumann’s Satanism did not arise from the Catholic sources of Baudelaire's and Barbey d'Aureville's satanism, which was based on the notion of spiritual perversion and the Christian conceptions of guilt and sin. Saida advocates that Neumann's satanism differs in scope in that it represents the "innocent Psyche": the freedom of "Psyche" in its fullest development, power, strength, and the glorification of all that is desirable and positive in a human being, rather than what is harmful to the soul (330). The title of the collection is ambiguous. It can be translated literally as Satan’ s Glory Among Us; but the stronger sense derives from its declarative or performative sense: "Let there be glory to Satan among us" or "Praise be to Satan within us." The title clearly contains this ambiguity and it, therefore, widens the meaning and function of the collection into several possibly intended views concerning satanism and the social role in which it is placed. Furthermore, the relation of "Satan" to "us" modified by the "glory," the item of exchange, infers a modeling of this phrase on typically religious declarative and performative statements. This title enacts an act of faith and is grammatically based on pronouns, the relationship of the abstract substantive slava [glory] of the possessive pronoun Satanova [Satan's] and the personal pronoun nami [us], which is in the instrumental case. This performative statement thereby imposes an ideological attitude and renders it in force between the possessive pronoun and the personal pronoun. Interestingly enough, the grammatical choices here do not justify thinking of "Satan" as an actual being but as a quality of the "glory." This declarative mode of the title renders the pronouns, as "facts," justifiable and borrows its meaning from the conventional ecclesiastical model, on which it is based. Expressed thusly, the title refers to verses within the collection that form a collection of various religious subgenres such as the prayer, the litany, Church liturgy, the creed and acts of contrition or penance (otherwise, a contract to turn one’s life around or to transform oneself). In the initial poem, "Ave, Satan,'' the narrator "sings" [zpivam] of natural and mystical forces as well as of power and defiance. In only one instance does the narrator acknowledge in his apostrophe of an audience that may hint of Satan; it is that which has given him creation by the "touch of rebellious hands" and has lit his soul with the "pride of a burning breath." Other than that, there is no establishment of a particular or concrete satanic presence. "Vypuceljsem nad bahna..." relates the narrator's rise upward from a swamp or marsh-like setting as he sings praises to the "lord" that has given him life. The refrain consists of a description of the "proud" narrator raising his arms above to grasp at the dearest powers of his dreams, a gesture that is reminiscent of a priestly figure addressing the crowd of believers. "Ad Te Clamamus Exules Filii Evae" posits an opponent of God who lies in wait and anticipation of the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 313 great moment of Man. Biblical allusions to John the Baptist, the Nazarene, Golgatha, and the Crucified are posed as superficial and suggest a temporal quality when compared to the underlying force of all that is Satan. In "La dame au cochon" Neumann relates that Satan is ultimately victorious and that vengeance belongs to Satan alone, echoing the motif concerning the Old Testament God. Satan is heralded as ultimately victorious. "Credo" is clearly modeled on the Apostles’ Creed. It consists entirely of repetitive statements beginning with "I believe..." It refers to Man as the son of Satan and to Satan as oppressed over the ages by the Nazarene. It heralds the return to power of Satan’s forces, which are primarily that of nature and of the depths of the earth. Utilizing the paradigm of the creed, Neumann substitutes the figure of Satan for the heavenly father. Although this poetry obviously lacks the philosophical and essayistic qualities of the novels considered in the previous chapters, it certainly adds to a greater social awareness of satanism. The common elements between the three works of literature covered are the images of nature as a darker force, an "abyss" or source of overwhelming emotional power and the act of declaring or performing a ritual of rising to power (this has been demonstrated in the discourses on mysticism, negative theology, the prayers of Neumann's collection, and in the responses of Falk and Julian to their satanic temptations). The philosophical questions that arise in Neumann's poems and that deal specifically with Przybyszewski's and Merezhkovskii's works are: mysticism and the representation of an otherworldly force, the occult; the Church and its literary genres; and the role of representation: substituting substantives in the paradigm marked out by the Church in order to subvert it and present a new model of individual sovereignty. The question of auto-creation and auto-stylization in Neumann takes on greater value as it contributes to the aesthetic of life-creation and the role of ethics and politics that resurface in Neumann’s later Socialist Anarchist and Communist commitments to aesthetics. Connected to the abovementioned Nietzschean and satanic identification is the appropriation of a distinctly Nietzschean arrogant poise that marks the Nietzsche of Ecce Homo that resurfaces in Slavic Nietzschean autobiographical essays and fragments. This pose, taken on by Przybyszewki contains at least three characteristics. The first is a denial of others' influence on one's own thoughts and works, the second is a taking on of a mask of sovereign solitude, and the third is the profiting from another without the acknowledgment of debt. This is a possible direction to take in the above-mentioned need for a division of Nietzsche-influenced from Nietzschean writers on the basis of style, rhetoric, and autobiographical statements. The Nietzsche-influenced writers imbibe the rhetoric of Nietzsche to the point of decadent life-creation. The following statements from Przybyszewski can be compared to Nietzsche's own comments in Ecce Homo. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 1 4 Much like Nietzsche, Solov'ev, and M erezhkovskii, Przybyszewski has met with a growing popularity in relation to a "New Age" of re publication, resurgence in social significance, re-translation, and re- invention, occasioned by the events o f 1989. For example, Mieczyslaw Dqbrowski in Dekadentyzm Wspolczesny: Glowne idee, motywy i postaw y Nietzsche was fully aware that his psychological and philosophical attempts could not be made without the knowledge of natural sciences; therefore, as we know, shortly before his illness he intended to go to Vienna University to carry out thorough studies of biology that he hardly knew. It is not surprising that he could not exert any influence on me when I was transforming principles of psychopathology in my mind, and even wrote the study on Fechner's 'consciousness threshold.' (qtd. in Czamocka 44) I enclose another of Nietzsche's important works: Jenseits von Gut und Bose. I would advise you first of all to read this work and get accustomed to its reasoning. [...] If you happen, in fact, to concentrate on this piece, I will most willingly provide you with everything I possess about Nietzsche, as well as with his works. And you can come to me all the braver, for among those who read Nietzsche I am the only one who has understood him fully [...] [...] though Nietzsche never mentioned Stimer, there is no doubt that he knew his work thoroughly, because he fully profited from it, and there is no need for subterfuge, nor shameful muttering or a worried scratching of the head: There would not have been Nietzsche’s Ubermensch had it not been for Stimer’s Der Einzige. Nietzsche could not really impress me with his 'scientific' psychology since I had known all this before; neither was I affected by the relativity of his ethic ideology - Jenseits von Gut und Bose - for it had already been with me. I had long forgotten what was good, what evil, what beautiful and what ugly - I had given up categories. Yet, what I did admire to a great extent was the language of Nietzsche. (45) Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 315 modernistyczne w polskiej i niemieckojqzycznej literaturze X X wieku (Contemporary Decadence: The M ain M odernist Ideas, Motives, and Attitudes in Polish and the Germanic Literatures o f the Twentieth Century) considers Przybyszewski when he revisits Decadence with an eye to clarifying the continuation of M odernist trends of the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to the end of the twentieth century. He concludes that Decadence functions as an aesthetic and philosophical unity that, although transformed throughout the century, forms a firm basis on which later M odernist works arise and offer a metaliterary and metacultural commentary. Edward Boniecki in Struktura "Nagiej Duszy": Studium o Stanislawie Przybyszewskim (The Structure o f "The Naked Soul": A Study o f Stanisiaw Przybyszewski) produces a similar study, but with a focus on the "contradictions of Post-Cartesian philosophy and modern anthropology" that Przybyszewski confronts. Boniecki performs an analysis of Przybyszewski's use of the term "naked soul" and foregrounds its meaning within a religious, philosophical, aesthetic, and mystical sense. He considers Przybyszewski a contemporary "mystic" and a precursor to Carl Jung. These works demonstrate the unsteady reputation that Przybyszewski has endured throughout the twentieth century; perhaps equal in "antichristian" notoriety to Nietzsche, Przybyszewski is still "becoming" a serious thinker when compared to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 316 Vladimir Solov’ev and Dmitrii Merezhkovskii. Perhaps because his literal output, aside from the essayism, is accorded little validity, Przybyszewski remains a Decadent whose mark remains strongest where the boundaries of life and art have been blurred. Unfortunately, this means that he remains known more for his "Satanism," alcoholism, and the deaths of women near to him. Even his daughter Stanislawa Przybyszewska, noted as a promising playwright, died of malnutrition due to morphine addiction in 1935 at the age of 34. The Przybyszewski heritage is often noted in this regard.7 On the other hand, scholars like Andrzej Walicki maintain a criticism of appreciation. In his recent assessment of "Nietzsche in Poland 7 Stanislawa Przybyszewska was bom in 1901 as Stanislawa Pajqk as the illegitimate child of Przybyszewski and was not allowed by the state to adopt her father's name until 1919. This was coincidentally the same year that she had the occasion to meet him for the first time and that he introduced her to morphine. Daniel Gerould, in his introduction to Przybyszewska's plays (The Danton Case, Thermidor: Two Plays), hints at the incestuous nature of the relationship that Przybyszewski developed with his daughter. (They met discreetly at hotels due to the jealousy of Przybyszewski's current wife.) Przybyszewska evidently suffered from loneliness in addition to drug addiction and her letters betray a bipolar personality and a mentality bent on Lebenskunsf, in numerous letters to acclaimed authors of decadent works in which she asked for copies of titles unavailable in Poland she portrays a mindset that confuses the boundaries between reality and art. See A Life o f Solitude: Stanislawa Przybyszewska: A Biographical Study with Selected Lettters, edited by Jadwiga Kosicka and Daniel Gerould. For the original Polish publication of the collected plays see Dramaty, edited by Roman Taborksi. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 317 (Before 1918)" W alicki makes the following summation concerning Przybyszewski and his general intellectual-social climate: The Young Poland, Przybyszewski argued, was a renaissance of Polish romanticism, a new outpouring of the quintessentially Polish spirit. The philistine society associated it with rotten decadence, spiritual anarchy, and blasphemous Satanism, preached by its main hierophant, Przybyszewski. The strength of entrenched philistinism was such that only the greatest iconoclastic energy, the greatest civil courage, could put it on the defensive and make some room for spiritual freedom. This unprecedented courage was called Nietzscheanism, and it was an adequate word because Nietzscheanism was an eruption of the old, proud Polish soul, the same soul that had lived in Mickiewicz and Slowacki. It was not only a force of revolutionary destruction but also a profoundly constructive force, a striving for the positive ideal of the superman, embodying the ultimate perfection of the liberated human spirit. Nietzsche, a proud descendant of Polish nobles, shared this ideal with Slowacki, who dreamed of the liberation of the self-creating spirit from the inertia of matter and of raising man above the existing form of the human species. Therefore it makes no sense to accuse the writers of Young Poland of yielding to the pernicious German influence, epitomized, allegedly, in Nietzsche's Ubermensch. Those who indulge in such accusations have not read Slowacki's Genesis From the Spirit. In this manner Nietzsche became annexed, as it were, made a part of the continuous tradition of the Polish spiritual elite. His superman was thereby dissociated from the militaristic Prussian ethos and associated exclusively with the romantic and neo-romantic protest against the deadly grip of the conformist and hypocritical majority. (64-65) W alicki chooses to highlight the aspects of Przybyszewski that foreground the continuity of the Polish romantic and nationalist tradition. Along this Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 318 backdrop, Przybyszewski is interpreted not as a persona or personality but as an actor on a national-mystical stage. The historical and philosophical aspects of Przybyszewski's aesthetic development, therefore, take precedence for W alicki as he offers insights that differentiate the experience of "Nietzsche" in Poland from that in other countries of the region. Przybyszewski's Homo sapiens initially appeared in German in three installments between the years of 1895 and 1896; the three parts were entitled Ueber Bord (Overboard), Unterwegs {In Passing), and Im M alstrom (In the M aelstrom).8 Its division into three parts may suggest a 8 Przybyszewski published the second volume, Unterwegs {In Passing) (Berlin: Fontane, 1895), of Homo sapiens first; he completed it in June 1894 in Kongsvinger, Norway. He then followed with the third volume, Im Malstrom {In the Maelstrom) (Berlin: Verein fur Deutsches Schriftthum, 1896) and finally with the first volume, Ueber Bord {Overboard) (Berlin Hugo Storm, 1896). (Przybyszewski's Polish version was published in Lwow by Naklad Ksi^gami Polskiej between 1899 and 1901.) No reason is given why he decided to write out of sequence. However, one can conjecture from reading these volumes that they were meant to stand as separate units during their conception. The prose is typically lean and the context and subtext are provided with allusions, generally in dialogue or character reflection, to philosophical and sociopolitical motifs. This makes the later volumes readable without a synopsis of earlier materials. It also points to Przybyszewski's primary commitment to philosophical endeavors. All page references in this chapter will refer to these abovementioned editions followed by page numbers referring to the translation of Homo sapiens from the Polish by Thomas Seltzer. Across from the title page of this English translation the publisher emphatically asserts: "It is universally conceded that Stanislaw Przybyszewski is Poland's greatest living writer. Homo sapiens is his most famous work." Henceforward all citations to Homo sapiens will refer to the translation by Seltzer followed by page numbering to the original German editions as noted above; page numbering of the German edition will follow a reference to one of the titles of the three volumes. I will include quotations from Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 319 connection to Nietzsche's Genealogy with its division into three parts; however, there is a more direct influence in the trendiness of a trilogy as we see it also in Merezhkovskii's division of Christ and Antichrist into three historical tales and in Solov'ev's Three Conversations.9 O f more significance, as Przybyszewski relates to Nietzsche's work, is the protagonist’s attitude in Homo sapiens', he appears to follow a "genealogical imperative" as opposed to the Kantian categorical imperative. This is evident in the epigraph above, a segment of text that demonstrates the author's genealogizing the madman in his descent from primitive man and society’ s intolerance and lack of understanding of such a being. Rather than following the Kantian maxim of doing what one would naturally will others to do, Przybyszewski's character seems to act along the "genealogical" lines of calling attention to and subverting any notions or conventions that may govern that activity. There is an implicit the German and Polish editions where differences in meaning may occur or be of further insight. 9 In the previous chapter on Merezhkovskii I referred to Avril Pyman's statement about the use of trilogy in early modernist prose as part of the trendiness and experimental nature of the modernist novel. Adam Weiner refers to Avril Pyman's notion in A History o f Russian Symbolism about Merezhkovskii's trilogy in his article "Satanism in the Russian Symbolist Novel." He quotes the following: "Artistically, the trilogy forms not so much a bridge as a series of stepping-stones from the realist novel of the nineteenth century, with its full- rounded characters and sequential plot, to the shifting, kaleidoscopic techniques of modernist prose" (qtd. in Weiner 396). I agree with Pyman, but add that the philosophical project should be considered along with characters and plot. The notion of "ethically challenged" was attached to the characterization of the modernist trilogy. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 320 subversion of convention and tradition in the manner that Eric (Erik) Falk acts. The use of homo sapiens ("knowing man") in the title recalls Nietzsche's toying with man as "knowing unknower" in the prologue to his Genealogy; this allusion can equally be seen as a play on Nietzsche as it is criticism of the notion and nature of "knowledge" in experience. In terms of the culture of an Antichrist portrayed in Homo sapiens Przybyszewski presents an egomaniac, who chooses to defy all restrictions, taboos, and authorities. He cares little for those he presumably loves. He even questions whether he is indeed "Satanic" and whether he introduces a needed Antichrist-like fervor in his fight against everything that represents the establishment. The allusions are clearly to the Nietzschean Antichrist taken to its satanic extreme. Also, Przybyszewski includes a great deal of essayistic content that is reminiscent of his essays on the "great genius" of Nietzsche and on society’s need for "new art" and for a strong mystical force in this art.1 0 There is in Homo sapiens, therefore, a merging of philosophical inquiry and the sensationalization of the anarchistic satanist persona of the protagonist. 1 0 The essayistic material that the character Falk seems to recall in these sentiments is examined in detail by Jorg Marx in Lebenspathos und "Seelenkunst" bei Stanislaw Przybyszewski (Stanislaw Pryzbyszewski’ s Life- Pathos and "Art o f the Soul"). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 321 In the novel the protagonist Eric Falk, a writer - more specifically an essayist and pamphleteer - relies heavily on Kant and Nietzsche for inspiration in his ruminations and in his quest to found a "new ethics," a code of behavior worthy of one opening up to the "naked soul." Falk, who continuously reflects, or argues with others, concerning philosophy and politics, is mainly informed by philosophy of the previous century: a combination of German Romanticism and a politics of socialism and anarchism of the latter half of the nineteenth century.1 1 Although he is 1 1 As far as philosophy is concerned, Przybyszewski goes to great lengths to work out the problem of synthesizing phenomena and noumena, the Kantian terms for the physical world and the abstract ideas that consist of "unknowable" things. He imputes a metaphysical sense of "something within" to his characters that arises in their reflections on their impulses and desires. He also introduces the Nietzschean notion of perspectivism, the simultaneous validity of many views in a number of ways; one way in which Falk explains his perspectivism in a phenomenological manner is through the words: "Every object is a stereometric figure with a multitude of facets" (228). "Jedes Ding hat wirklich sehr viel verschiedene Seiten, die [. . .] nicht nebeneinander zur behaglichen Ubersicht daliegen [. . .] Es gibt da die vierschiedensten Beleuchtungen" (Unterwegs 140). Concerning individual sovereignty and the characters' needs to become independent and "sovereign," there are allusions to the Will, and to the Antichrist through descriptions of Falk being or looking "Mephistophelian" or "Satanic." Fate and Destiny are also driving forces that lend nuances to the discovery of what is sovereignty. Of limited importance to Homo sapiens is also the notion of representation within an icon or statue, such as with Marit's changing relation to the Byzantine icon of Mary. Marit, seduced by Falk, appeals to the representation of Mary for guidance and support in order to resist the "Satanic" Falk, to whom she eventually succumbs. Here the connection to Merezhkovskii's concerns in the trilogy is apparent. The modernist preoccupation with life- creation necessitates a philosophical understanding of problems with representation, individual sovereignty, and mysticism. Przybyszewski also introduces the great philosophers in anecdotal ways. Falk, when wondering if his love for Ysa will work out, considers Kant: "Could it be that Kant was right? Is love really but a disease, a fever for the elimination Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 2 2 politically involved, he discounts all possibilities for engagement and commitment. Although a fierce proponent of socialism and anarchism, he ironically and self-contradictorily prefers not to be identified with either of disease germ, a process of recovery?" (115) (Przybyszewski invokes Kant in the Polish version, but in the German he does not even offer a direct allusion; Falk simply asks: "Sollte er Recht haben? War Liebe nur eine Krankheit, ein Feber, umfaulende Stojfe auszuscheiden - ein Genesungsprozefi - ein Blodsinn - ein - ein - Herrgott!" [Ueber Bord 147]) If so, then Kant is placed in a category like Lombroso and Nordau, who discern the diseased and degenerated condition of the fin-de-siecle artist. Falk thinks of Nietzsche: "What terrible thing is this animal which a certain professor took it into his head to call the superman - superman! [...] this Ubermensch is a remarkable maniac" (245). In the German edition Falk merely comments: "[.. .] es ist so schrecklich unheimlich, was fur ein Tier so ein Ubermensch ist. Ich bin namlich ein Ubermensch" (Unterwegs 168). Then, he claims that Nietzsche's "superman," as an "unhappy creature would probably have perished from a plethora of conscience and intellect the very day after birth" {Im Malstrom 46; 289). There are also the earlier references to Hegel and Stimer. At the conclusion of the novel it is unclear exactly how Przybyszewski wants the reader to feel concerning his philosophically knowledgeable, but ethically inept, character Falk. Is he an accomplished sovereign individual or a failed "Satanist" promoter who cannot realize any of the anti-ideals that he proposes? One of the faults is implicitly pitted against philosophy for not being capable, or of the nature, of synthesis; it is valueless for the concerns of life. For example, one of the most troubling elements concerning synthesis comes when Falk considers Hegel: "Why does nature use such unaesthetic means to attain her loftiest aims? 'Why?' The sex organs, for instance, serve for both procreation and the elimination of the waste products of the metabolism" (Ueber Bord 96; 75). The problem of merging the phenomenal and noumenal realms is posited in this gesture of the “most sacred mingling with the most commonplace." There is the constant synthesis of male and female polarities that Falk pursues but fails at comprehending or securing in a relationship. For a focus on the philosophical aspects of Przybyszewski's literary endeavors see Stanislaw Boryzm's Panorama Polskiej Mysli Filozoflcznej {Polish Philosophical Thought), especially the chapter "Swiatopogl^d filozoficzny Stanislawa Przybyszewskiego," ("Stanislaw Przybyszewski's Philosophical Worldview") and Zarys Dziejow Filozofii Polskiej: 1815-1918 {A Historical Outline o f Polish Philosophy) edited by Andrzej Walicki, especially Halina Florynska's article "Problematyka filozoficzna neoromantyzmu i Mlodej Polski" ("The Philosophical Problematic of Neoromanticism and Young Poland"). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 323 leaning. The main thrust of this novel, which can be read as a social novel about a particular type of individual living in the Polish part of Prussia during the 1890s, is that one's aesthetics can govern one's ethics, politics, and amorous engagements alike. The novel is of the form of a Bildungsroman, or a Kunstlerroman, in that it traces the development of a writer in his late teens as he progresses to superficial personal triumphs as well as the catastrophic results of personal choices in his adult years. Eric Falk suffers from a form of paranoia, which becomes exasperated in the third volume of the novel. Love is depicted in Falk's encounters with three women, with whom he shares his yearnings and deepest feelings, albeit to different degrees. However, these deep feelings - like his political leanings - are overrun with doubts and contradictions. In Volume I he "steals" his best friend M ikita’s fiancee Ysa (Isa); in Volume II he seduces and defiles the overly religious Marit; and in Volume III Ysa, whom he married, finds out that he has a child with Janina, his "steady" female companion.1 2 Olga, a fourth woman, appears as a messenger, who shares news with him of his socialist anarchist colleagues' status throughout Europe. His best friend M ikita commits 1 2 These parts were written at different times, as mentioned earlier, and not in chronological order. This suggests that Przybyszewski had submitted his ideas of Falk's earlier development to a revision now that he had the "future" of his character in place. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 324 suicide at the end of Volume I as a result of losing Ysa and M arit commits suicide at the end of Volume II because of her inability to conceive of a religious reconciliation after Falk's seduction; both have done so largely as a result of the personal betrayal enacted by Falk. At the end of Volume III Ysa learns of Falk's infidelities and leaves him forever to ponder his "great lie."1 3 The various loves and deaths point to the ironic tragedy of Falk's new ethical system, by which he defies conventions, challenges those close to him to resist moral traditions, and realizes that he remains an individual, no more the "sovereign" for all his philosophical "triumphs." Similarly, as in Nietzsche's, Solov'ev's, and Merezhkovskii's texts, Przybyszewski's text stresses the failure, or incompatibility with practicability, of a modernist subjectivity due to the weighing constraints imposed by the "structures" of grammar, representation, and more overtly by the Church and even progressive socialist politics. Any metaphysical or mystical program offers little relief and no practical solution. The "naked soul," just like M erezhkovskii's synthesis, ultimately proves to be of little practicable value. 1 3 His "great lie" functions, similar to the great "Galilean lie" for Julian the Apostate, as a weight carrying the burden of tradition and conventions. However, for Falk this lie is caused by his own actions; therefore, for him to become free his pondering must take the form of destroying any conventional thought that would weigh heavily upon his soul. I will comment on this further in a section below. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 325 Upbringing of a Decadent Aesthete Other than for the psychological implications of these intrigues, the plot is simple and can be compared to Goethe's Die Leiden des jungen W erther (1774) in that the preoccupation of the characters is with passionate and suicidal love.1 4 This love unfolds along a philosophical backdrop. Falk is in fact paralyzed by his philosophical yearnings. He, like the characters in M erezhkovskii's Christ and Antichrist, would also like to synthesize the world; he, however, would like to merge it into a maelstrom or spiral of energy. His wish is to combine the intellect, or reason, and ethical actions into one faculty that could realize the "naked soul." Falk's actions culminate in destructive life-creation activities that I will outline later in this chapter. Already within the first chapter Kant is summoned concerning his thoughts on love and Falk ponders the notion of universal love as it may be drawn up along the Kantian lines of duty and morality. He also contemplates love that is mystical in nature and destructive in its potency when its proponents apply religious and social conventions. Falk also invokes the names and poetry of Schiller and Goethe throughout the novel in connection with this theme. 1 4 Unlike Werther, whose advances of love remain unrequited, Falk is unrequiting. He seduces and retreats and, thus, leads the other to "perform" suicide. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 326 The first chapter establishes Falk's habits and predispositions; in this chapter unfolds the camaraderie that is both spiritual and intellectual between Falk and his dear friend Mikita. All is told through Falk’s point of view as we learn his rationalistic version of love (via Kant), his mystical aesthetic of art, and his socialist leanings. W e learn that he associates closely with Mikita, who has written a "famous German [heretical] essay" (Ueber Bord 7; 9), that Falk has a profound need for alcohol (10) ( UB 8), and that he is atheistic (UB 10; 11).1 5 Falk also has a book-lender friend, whose name is Longinus and who is "fond of flowery phrases." [Longinuspflegte immer in sehr gewahlter und wohlgesetzter Rede zu sprechen.] This holds significance for the work overall in introducing the philosophical sublime, first theorized by Longinus in the first century A D .1 6 W e learn that Falk keeps Ibsen, Brand, Buchner, Bourget, and the proletariat "stowed away in the background of his consciousness" (UB 11-13; 12). Then, it is significant that we come across the notion that “the sense of shame they always felt at catching 1 5 Przybyszewski mirrors aspects of his personal self in both Falk and Mikita as they represent the various stages of his intellectual and creative development. These characteristics lay the foundation for the Polish aesthetic of myth- formation (mitotworczosc) that will come to surround the controversial author's life. 1 6 In Przybyszewski there is a conflation of the Burkean and Kantian traditions of the sublime. This means that Przybyszewski combines the (Burkean) personal horror felt emotionally toward an overwhelming force as well as the (Kantian) philosophical elation of experiencing oneself as an understanding subject in awe of an overwhelming force. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 327 each other in a throb of emotion - no, they called it aesthetics..." because this is the first hint of the life-creation aesthetic [gewdhnlich scham, weil sie sich a u f Sentimentalitat - nein, Aesthetik nannten sie es\ (UB 12; 13). Here, Przybyszewski equates Decadent aesthetics with emotion (and an arising sham e).1 7 Falk then ponders his need to ruin his girlfriend Janina's life; he is quite conscious of his intent to "ruin" and justifies it as "plagu[ing] her with things Brand says," "hypnotizing] her," and "unfold[ing]" the girl (UB 13; 13). He is conscious and in control of his actions and choices as he "assumes a rationalistic pose, telling her that love is something to be suppressed, the primitive sentiment of primitive people, a disease, a rash on the spiritual life of the new man" (UB 14; 14). He thereby introduces the new aesthetic and assumes a role as an "Antichrist" figure, here meaning that he is openly antichristian and unabatedly amoral in his challenges to others to dismiss equally any considerations of moral behavior. W e see that Falk imagines an aesthetic that is bound to love and to the notion of experimentation as if one was a 1 7 Przybyszewski is a central figure in the elaboration of the Lebenskunst, or Russian zhiznetvorchestvo, aesthetic as it is presented in the collection of essays edited by Irina Papemo and Joan Delaney Grossman, Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia o f Russian Modernism. Grossman examines Przybyszewski's philosophy of love in connection to the unfortunate Briusov-Petrovskaia liaison in her article "Valery Briusov and Nina Petrovskaia: Clashing Models of Life and Art" (122-150). In fact the Briusov-Petrovskaia case closely parallels the dynamic that Przybyszewski has set forth in Homo sapiens between Falk and "his" women. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 328 doctor diagnosing a new disease. He refers to Kant: "The old wolf of Konigsberg knew. He had penetrated the secret of love. Love, he said, is a pathological manifestation, a disease. Yes, Kant was a connoisseur in the matter of love."1 8 Falk then lays out his new aesthetic in his reflection on his sorrows: It was the great, wonderful art, the art of new worlds, worlds transcending phenomena, transcending knowledge, transcending tangible forms, worlds so ingraspably fine that all distances vanish and melt, worlds comprehended in one look, one movement, one flash of a second [...] And new symbols, new words, new colors, new sounds [...] sorrows. (UB 16; 15-16)1 9 This aesthetic arises from German Romanticism for Falk admits to having nursed him self back from his sorrows on Henrich Heine's Florentinische Nachte (UB 17; 16). Falk further delineates his aesthetic: "Everything in me turns into literature, into the artistic" (UB 21; 19).20 He crosses the boundary between life and art and relies on love and suffering as vehicles by which to move back and forth. He develops an attraction to Mikita's fiancee, Ysa, and sees her continuously through "a mystic cloud of smoke" (22), 1 8 The last line does not appear in the German edition. 1 9 This aesthetic is elaborated on in several essays by Przybyszewski; in "Confiteor" and "O nowej sztuce" ("On new art"), both published in the Polish journal Zycie in 1899, the sentiments expressed become more pronounced. 2 0 This line is excluded from the German. There is an ellipsis in its place after Falk states that an inability to express joy or pain leads to aesthetic expression. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 329 [Falk bemerkte Etwas, wie einern ratselhaften Schleier, durch den dies seltsame Ldcheln durchschimmerte] and sees her light pouring into him {UB 25; 28). [Es war ihm, als strdme ihm unaufhorlich eine Hitze in die Augen] {UB 32-33). This overly mystical fascination brings up questions of the occult, of mysticism, and of religious exaltation and ecstasy that will be developed further throughout the novel (and referred to later in the present chapter). In contradistinction to the "glow in her eyes," Falk sees his fellow patrons of the Green Nightingale [Griine Nachtigall] nightclub as "all guided by the same flat, tasteless, coarse German egoism" [mit jenem eigentiimlichen, dicken, deutschen Bieregoismus] {UB 35; 29).2 1 W hile in conversation with the patrons, Falk expresses his aesthetic as the "unseen mystery of the soul which is on the other side of the empty knowledge we so far possess" instead of the "passion of spring" that gives rise to life forces {UB 37; 31).22 "To me art is the profoundest instinct of life, the sacred road to the future life, to eternity [...] art is the will that out of non-existence conjures up new worlds, new people [...] art big with ideas"; this statement alludes to Przybyszewski’s own essays 2 1 Compare this with Nietzsche's criticism of the German character and mentality throughout his later works, notably in The Antichrist, The Twilight o f the Gods, The Case o f Wagner, and Ecce Homo. 2 2 The "empty knowledge" sentiment echoes Nietzsche's first sentence of On the Genealogy o f Morality and the "passions of spring" foreshadow Henri Bergson's elan vital. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 330 on new art and the debate between adherents of classicist and modernist art programmes. This statement clearly lays out his life-creation aesthetic and hope for the future. After he refers to the "bottomless abyss" of life (a notion that will resound throughout the remainder of the novel), he rebukes the notions of form, meter, and rhythm in art as "manifestation [s] of atavism, an empty, fossilized classical formula" (32) [eine atavistische 'J'X Bedeutung [...] eine Leere, abgestorbene Formel] (UB 38-39). This sentiment is in full agreement with Nietzsche’s and Solov'ev's views on hypostasized concepts. Falk equates the “war of sexes” with the “profound mystery [unheimliches M ysterium] [...] creating and destroying life” (UB 40; 33), thereby touching on the possibility of a notion of androgyne as that which contains the mystery.24 Falk refers to his source in Felicienne Rops of “that depth, that vertigo-producing 2 3 The "abyss" resonates with the image of the "maelstrom" as well as the spiral (and "eternal return"). These images that run throughout the course of the novel are linked to "terror" in nature (the Burkean sublime power of nature) and to instances of identification with "God" (a Kantian sublime in the sense of the subject's "power" of recognition). These images come across often as an abyss, a maelstrom, or a vortex; these are traditionally Romantic images that suggest a parallel between the divine and the forces of nature. 4 Joan Delaney Grossman in "Valery Briusov and Nina Petrovskaia: Clashing Models of Life in Art" (Creating Life: The Aesthetic Utopia o f Russian Modernism) refers to Przybyszewski's work Androgyne and his attempt to posit a goal of "final androgynous harmony" and transcendence; his studies in biology and psychology at the Humboldt Universitat in Berlin in the early 1890s allow for him to create a hybrid notion with a strong mystical element (129-130). For a detailed development of the notion of androgyny see Olga Matich's "Androgyny and the Russian Religious Renaissance" (165-75). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 331 abysmal gulf [das Furchtbare, das G rausige][...] stimulating and urging us on to action, and yet in itself seemingly so irresponsible and insignificant."2 5 Irony and contradiction in nature abound in this early part of the book; and the ethics of this life-force appears to be questionable. Falk proposes a "brain that has untied the sacred knot of all understanding" [das ist das Gehim, in dem der Verknotungspunkt frei wurde - ja, der heilige Verknotungspunkt aller Sinne], a brain that is free from all preconceptions (UB 40; 34); he thereby suggests an admixture of phenomenology and mysticism. W hen Falk is apart from M ikita and Ysa, he feels sorrow and the "gloom" of his youth. There are two Nietzschean allusions in this section. Falk fears being separated from Ysa and sees the mist "curtaining her eyes" (UB 44; 36-37) - the curtain suggesting the logic of the veil that Nietzsche points to in Schleiermacher, the "veil-maker" [Schleier-M acher] of hermeneutics); he alludes to her "veiled" interpretative abilities. Ysa, sensing Falk as "the most beautiful event in her life, though only accidental," feels the pull of Nietzschean am orfati. After pulling away from this encounter with Ysa, Falk recalls the terror of "being obliged to memorize a long passage from Ovid” (UB 47; 38) and the terror brought 2 5 Coincidentally, Felicienne Rops' painting "La dame au cochon" was a source for the Decadent Czech poet Stanislav Kostka Neumann's Satanist poem of the same name in the collection Satan's Glory Among Us. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 332 on by the ten commandments that warn against "covet[ing one's] neighbor’s wife" (UB 50; 41); however, he quickly proceeds to distract this terror by visiting his girlfriend Janina, to whom he lies about his actions and intentions. The aesthetic that he establishes, then, appears to arise from a schizophrenic source.26 He pledges an eternal commitment to Janina while feeling a contradictory respect and disgust for his friend M ikita and a passion for his fiancee. This initial part of the first volume establishes the philosophical questions that impel the protagonist to rumination and action. Allusions to Kant and Nietzsche (and Hegel to a lesser degree) reappear throughout the novel. However, having established the "education" and intellectual development of his protagonist, Przybyszewski begins to confront more thoroughly the tropic elements that I have analyzed in the previous chapters. Homo sapiens continues, then, as a sustained discussion of social conventions, the aesthetic and ethic of life-creation, and philosophical problems involving the sublime, the nature of God, 2 6 Gabriela Matuszek and Roman Taborski in the forewords to their editions of collections of essays by Przybyszewski refer to him, respectively, as a forerunner of Freud in linking sexuality to neurosis and destructiveness. They evidently link the creative sex drive to the destructive death drive. In a similar gesture scholars have also indicated Nietzsche - in his explication of instincts that are turned inward and of repression - as a precursor to Freud (GM III, 93). Matuszek also links Przybyszewski to Freud in the similarity of Przybyszewski's notion in "Satan's Synagogue" that barbarians took cover under the guise of Christianity to that in Freud's Moses and Monotheism (Matuszek, Synagoga szatana 37). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. individual sovereignty, and representation. The discussion of conventions covers: morality; the use of grammar to posit a distinct knowing subject; "woman" as a social force; and the notions of conscience and the soul. These discussions run throughout the novel and are detailed to varying degrees. Life-creation is discussed in varying ways as well; the rhetoric of life-creation is an aspect as is the ethics of life-creation; the treatment of women and the uses of "lying" are yet other aspects of life-creation practices in Przybyszewski's aesthetic thinking. Representation and The Violence of Icons The "Byzantine image of the mother of God [...] she stood motionless and looked with mounting terror [...] the face of the Virgin was distorted with a caustic smile, then with anguish, and finally congealed into an austere, menacing expression" (Unterwegs 79; 192). The logic of the turn and trans-form-ation is present here in the unstable representation and shifting perspectives of Marit, the viewer. She fears to light the candle and to see the image of the Virgin. The representations of the image reveal her subjective responses; in M erezhkovskii's work, on the other hand, the shifting representations were revealing of the collective. They were used by Merezhkovskii to pinpoint the collective's religious Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 334 leanings toward paganism or toward Christianity. Here, the response is subjective and the relation is strictly personal: the agent M arit subjects herself to the torment "imposed" by the icon on her conscience. This shift represents for M arit a disturbing "stupid desire for childish happiness beyond the grave" as she feels "some one’s voice laughed in her soul" [Die lacherliche Brunst nach Gltick, die schamlose Brunst nach Gluck, hohnte es in ihren Ohren] {U 88; 197). She feels tortured within by an alter-soul, her conscience playing cruelly on her sense of propriety. "What was happening? The expression of holiness and unearthy goodness had vanished from the Byzantine M adonna’s face. A scoffing smile met M arit’s gaze [...] 'What a ridiculous picture!' [...] 'Yes, the whole world had abandoned her - and he, too'" (U 91; 199). The focus on the representation of the Virgin reveals the initial visual meaning, then Marit's emotional impressions, and finally that her physiology is picking up the various meanings and reacting to them in a psychologically unstable way (pointing to Przybyszewski's concern with psychic degeneration as a response to neglect of the "naked soul" within). Appeals to religious icons originate in the commoners' (that is, non-sovereign-individuals') need for approval. In connection with this need for approval from an icon is the need for endorsement by a population that, in Falk's terminology, stands Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 335 opposed to aristocratic and noble sentiment. In conversation Falk admits that he respects aristrocratic art impulses and fears those of the commoners: "We must not let loose the plebeian instincts which will turn against all that is beautiful and noble" [Ich will nicht die Plebejerinstinkte gegen alles Hohergeartete entfesselt wissen\ (U 106; 210). Falk's position is to sympathize with the revolutionary ideal and democratic offshoots only for economic reasons; he is, therefore, acting in a self-ironic manner as he claims to fear the cultural and intellectual equality that may result. His thinking runs along the lines of Nietzsche’s; he balances a sense of self-deprecation with scathing criticism and doubt to balance out his argumentation. Nietzsche also claims to appreciate and privilege the noble-aristocratic impulse over the plebeian-herd instinct. In this manner Przybyszewski links the religious impulse underlying iconic expression and the political impulse of the commoner-herd to "revolutionary," politically-endorsed and politically-informed, or prescriptive, art. Both are allegedly simplistically iconic in steering un-knowing individuals to movements of the establishment, whether it is the Church or social anarchism that is in question. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 3 6 The Making of a Sovereign Individual Questions of individual sovereignty in Homo sapiens surface in relation to a perceived universal will, or fate (am orfati), and in relation to ethical choices that are presented to an individual who must discern his responsibility and commitment to reinvent conventions. The individual in Homo sapiens constantly comes up with questions that have to do with a "sudden sense of guilt [...] conscience, charged with sin [...] being endowed with a soul and reason [...] good and evil" [dies urplotzliche Schuldbewufitsein! [. . .] schuldbeladenes Gewissen [. . .] m it Geist und Vernunft begabt, aufdafi es zwischen Gut und Bose unterscheide und vermoge der quinta essentia, ndmlich der Willenskraft, die Handlungen berechne und sie leite] (UB 101; 80). As a "creature of the genus Homo sapiens," the character feels Nature’s stupid ways: "she reveals her wonders equally to the ocean and to mud puddles."2 7 There is, therefore, no privilege in being a human being as far as Nature is concerned; man stands apart from all else with the I's, the many perspectives and "eyes," reason, and sense of irrationality. There is a continual strife to rid oneself of "a remnant of stupid conscience, of the atavistic conception of self- restraint, of private property, of the right of priority" (UB 135; 106). 2 7 The German edition simply ends the statement with an ellipsis: "so ist nun einmal die Natur..." (UB 105; 83). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 337 Przybyszewski expresses here a Rousseauean concept of the barbaric individual and, implicitly, the need for a genealogical imperative - to shed the "baggage" of conventions. Przybyszewski offers the answers to the problems of guilt and conscience, which have been imposed on man from outside, as if they were provided by the inner will: "His own paroxysms were attacks of fever, the labor that gives birth to a strong will [...] The will of the instincts unrestrained by the limitations of knowledge or atavistic sentiments, the will in which the instincts and the mind combine in a united whole" (UB 181; 140). Along with this will, Przybyszewski has Falk consider him self "a man of the Transition," [ein Uebergangsmensch], who had to "conquer his brain," [er das Gehirn iiberwinden mufite], and eliminate "all those ethical survivals, all those remnants of atavism," [das Stuckposthum er Vergangenheit, die atavistischen Ueberbleibsel] (UB 181; 141). However, Falk is left to entertain self-doubt about "that idiotic ratiocinating and subtilizing. All that senseless stuff about a new will and the like" [dieses dumme, idiotische Raisonnieren. Dies blodsinnige von neuem Willen und dergleichen Dinge] (UB 181). He wonders if he is forcing him self to be a superman because he is truly a criminal; he acknowledges in his reflection that he would rather "lie to himself." The German edition has the following: "Am Ende wollte er sich doch wohl nur Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 3 8 ein Bischen betauben" (UB 181; 141). Przybyszewski allows Falk to utilize "conscience" for the sake of conquering "conscience"; it is a manipulation that is in question here. Perhaps, the need is for this challenge to be offered from outside, as a gift or temptation. Then, Falk appears to feel resolved about his superman-like mission once he considers: "All this will be yours as soon as the new will ascends the throne in you, the new will, the will of the instincts hallowed by the brain" (UB 182; 141). His consideration alludes to the temptation posed to Christ. For some reason the challenge is more palatable and guilt-resistant when given within this rhetoric. Falk considers being like Napoleon, but decides that Napoleon came from the "will of an apoplectic fanatic" but this thought does make him happy because he can identify with "the same lack of restraint, the same egoism and criminality" (UB 182; 141). He tries to define him self along the lines of a model of a sovereign being and entertains self-doubt and self-irony before he can rest. Przybyszewski adds the comparison of women to this mode of thinking. Falk considers free women as those who have only their will as law. W hereas other women are "bought and sold as [sheep] on the marital market," these free women oppose the "esteem [...] moral standards [...] established morality" in favor of following love, which is an impulse, a beautiful act arising from its nature as an instrument of sex not dependent on the brain Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 339 ( Unterwegs 32; 161). Przybyszewski offers by way of his protagonists' consternation a development toward a hoped-for freedom by escaping standards and conventions. The only difficulty posed within the essayistic prose is the tension between "good" and "evil" emerging in the conflict. Falk in essence "constructs" his image of self in opposition to conscience in order to become free, but conscience nevertheless remains as his fundamental, albeit negative, premise of ethics. Furthermore, the soul is imputed by Falk to be unfathomable by logic or convention (U 69; 184). Falk is pained to see M arit "living in debasing enslavement to laws and formulas created for the sole purpose of crushing and suppressing the bloodthirsty impulses of the vulgar rabble" [in so elend niedriger Sklaverei hinlebe] (U 73; 187). He admits of the Nietzschean genealogical reason for the existence of laws. Yet, he is equally troubled by conventions. However, he pretends to be, or to be in the process of becoming, his own master. M arit is pained by "something in her that endeavored to talk, to give warning" (U 82; 194). For Falk it is a will that is felt within; for M arit it is something like conscience, something "a priori," an "in-itself," a notion of subjecthood, something that arises within her as she anticipates learning what she perceives to be coming from Falk: "the awful secret [...] [from] the most hidden depths of Falk's soul" [Ein grausiges Geheimnis werde sie nun horen: Falks Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 340 Seele] (U 82; 194). Yet, this "pain" and "secret" (as metaphysical signifiers) are later simplified in Przybyszewski's fictional discourse on grammar and the resultant breakup of the deed (that we covered in detail in the chapter on Nietzsche). One of the foci of ethics is the role of grammar and logic in erecting a subject. Falk refers to N ietzsche’s distinction between process and the identification of a doer and his action: "I can perfectly well understand the anarchist propaganda of the deed - as a fierce protest against what we are accustomed to call justice" (U 111; 213). He claims to understand, but not to justify, the conditions, causes, and, therefore, the propaganda of the deed; he cuts to the logic and experience to recognize the ideology of political murder without adding ethical distortion. On the one hand, we have this political debate and, on the other hand, the previous metaphysical pondering; both are reduced to fictions based on a primal linguistic impulse to "error" - the "subject." Connected to this "error" is the notion of auto-suggestion as possibly providing the impetus for passion and, thereby, replacing passion as a driving initial force (U 125; 220). Ultimately, however, Falk falls prey to the decadence aroused in his yearnings for megalomania and his awareness of an inevitable impending doom. The distortion of megalomania and the overpowering of nature's will lead to an aggravated condition within Falk - wherein the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 341 sovereign individual ideal is reduced to a parodical vision; the Nietzschean "Antichrist" sovereign individual appears tormented, sick, and on the verge of breakdown. The following instances are the steps leading to breakdown. Falk entertains notions about megalomaniacs when thinking about Napoleon and Caesar and decides that "vast confidence in one’s self educates humanity, creates strong individuals" (U 146; 232). Falk lays out his notion of sovereignty and life-creation in one discourse: I am nature, therefore I create life and destroy it. I pass over a thousand corpses because I must, and I create life because I must. I am not only this one I. I am also you and he, God, the world, nature - and something more whereby I know what you are, eternal stupidity, eternal mockery. I am not a man. I am a superman [...] a cruel man devoid of conscience, but great and good. I am nature. I have no conscience, because nature herself has no conscience [...] For I am I. I am a criminal, diabolic nature. And on this account I am to torture myself? Ridiculous! Does the lightning know why it destroys? Can it choose its course through the air? No. It can only know that it struck in this or that spot, that it destroyed this or that object. [...] Falk walked [...] like a mysterious, formidable pow er - like a demon sent down upon earth, a demon with a whole hell of torments for scattering fresh creative destruction [ein Satan, a u f die Erde geschickt m it einer Holle von Qualen, neue schaffende Zerstorung iiber sie auszusaen...]. (U 163-64; 241-42) Falk acknowledges in Volume III to Janina feeling "as though an evil fate were pursuing me" {Im Malstrom 14; 263). W ith Ysa he acknowledges "my Fate seemed to be speaking in your voice, my Fate, awful, cruel" {IM 35; 280). Then, in reference to Lombroso, he claims to Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 342 "believe there's a superfluous bit in every human being, and if it could be removed, then we should be sicut deus, as the most glorious of the gods, 9ft Satan, promised" (IM 36; 281). Shortly afterward, he entertains the notion that he can spread his great qualities out among the world through procreation and breaches the subject of infidelity as a need to spread his authenticity around through access to a great number of women. Falk contemplates further: Hear me, because I bring you deliverance from the claws of Satan-Nature, a new redemption. Hearken, hearken unto my new gospel. In the beginning was Nature, wily, evil, diabolic. She is great, you have been told, awful, indifferent, cold, proud, neither good nor evil, neither gold nor dross. A lie, highly esteemed public, a foolish lie. Nature is wicked, fiendish, lying, crafty. (IM 39-40; 284) Falk feels guilt for his acts. He, then, claims to "live to rid the world of falsehood" and compares himself, again as a megalomaniac, to Tolstoy and Bjom son (IM 42; 285-86). Trying to soothe himself, Falk considers Linnaeus' definition of man: "Homo sapiens [...] is a self-existent automatic apparatus provided with a registering and controlling clock-mechanism in the form of a brain" (IM44; 287-88). Falk continues to define the brain as that which serves to "register" and "affirm the occurrence of something in the soul" (IM 44; 288). Conscience is "a curious beast trained by accursed Nature in the 2 8 The latter phrase is excluded from the German - with an ellipsis in its place. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 343 course of ages to impose torture upon man for the crimes committed by Nature herself" (IM 45; 288). Finally, when Falk's acquaintances uncover his motives, Falk appears to confess his ways and flaws; yet, he firmly to his earlier convictions concerning nature and the instincts within him. Falk reasons with the anarchist Czerski about his actions: If you want to punish lying, Mr. Czerski, don't punish it in my person, but in the person of Nature, which functioned through me. It is not until after I have destroyed that I recognize the event. I am no more to be held responsible for my action than the microbe that eats your lungs. (The latter two sentences are replaced by an ellipsis in the German edition [IM 47; 290].) Then, he criticizes the other components of man: "A soul is like a rubbish heap where one may come upon something unexpected" (IM 47; 2 9 1).2 9 It "m anufacture^] virtues [...] ideas [...] ethical stilts"; "Homo, not yet become sapiens, is subject to sudden inspiration [...] culture" (7M48; 291). Przybyszewski directly links his novel here to Nietzsche's Genealogy in the sense of the "unknowing knowers of culture." The anarchist Czerski introduces interesting concepts to the debate on ethics: "If I do something in the full consciousness and belief that it is right, then theft ceases to be theft and crime" (IM 70; 307). As long as "the subjective test of crime is an unclean conscience," Czerski can gauge 2 9 This line is excluded from the German. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 344 the value and sincerity of his actions. Furthermore, similar to Nietzsche's criticism of the grammatical breakdown of a deed into an agent and its action, Czerski states "I have the great right that every creature has to exist, but I exist only by my actions. So my existence is what I do" {IM 70; 308). As an anarchist, Czerski does not judge him self apart from the deed. However, he is guided by the metaphysical notion of sacrifice to humanity. Falk, on the other hand, claims not to comprehend the abstract notion, but to know only individuals. Czerski's reply is that Stim er and Nietzsche created only "a pack of lies [...] you had to eliminate everything great - love, pity, self-sacrifice, humanity, God - all because it stands in the way of your digestion. You forever took out your Ego. A mere antidote to a guilty conscience" {IM 93; 323). Here, Przybyszewski underscores the impossibility of rising above the "conscience" and demonstrates that Falk does suffer from a persecutional mania, which ties him close as a character to the Nietzsche of the latter works {IM 105; 331). Again, parodically Przybyszewski implicates his source of these ideas and ideals - so that, perhaps, the sovereign individual ideal is just another one in a "pack of lies." The final moment of the novel consists of Falk considering his actions in a pessimistic manner: "since I am I, hence God, because God is every one for whom everything exists, and everything exists only through me, therefore I committed a crime against God, and I Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 345 am guilty of sacrilege" {IM 169; 368). He is apparently feeling guilty but phrases it in an expression that sounds like the mysticism and solipsistic metaphysical thought that he began propagating. Isolated and severed from his wife Ysa, Falk recognizes that his lie is uncovered and he "looks into an abyss suddenly gaping at his feet" {IM 207; 395). The irony of the resolution is in the degeneration and degradation of an individual that aspires to individual sovereignty and fails everyone. Rhetorically, this can be understood as yet another ironic "turn" in a construction of the Decadent hero, who meets an undesired end precisely by following means directed toward that end. The Sublime of Nature and the Spirality of Experience There are many moments in which the sublime is invoked either as an image or a trope that invokes bewilderment.30 The nature of knowing and glimpsing beyond the known is clearly of the order of the sublime. Falk reveals his attraction to Ysa with the thought: "I have the peculiar feeling that I have known you for thousands of years" {UB 64; 51). Falk 3 0 Magdalena Popiel in Oblicza wznioslosci: Estetyka powiesci Mlodopolskiej {Countenances o f the Sublime: Aesthetics o f the Young Poland Novel) examines the sublime as a cmcial and focal element of the Polish modernist novel. She analyzes the philosophical sublime within the literary categories of pathos, tragedy, grotesque, and irony in the novels De profundis (1895) and Krzyk (Scream, 1917) by Przybyszewski as well as novels by other modernist authors. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 346 feels Ysa "so infinitely near him"; he expresses a paradox of finitude and infinity in one gesture whereby he tries to synthesize a sense of the phenomenal with the noumenal (UB 97; 76). The merging of finitude and infinity place the knowing subject on the verge of frenzy. Likewise, there is a mystical sense of "two hidden I's" in Falk and Ysa. This particular gesture borders on the grammatical sublime and the notion of multiple "eyes," or perspectives. M ikita has the ability to "see how sound turns into colour [...] the gross eye, it seems, can hear everything" (UB 103- 104; 81). This particular gesture is reminiscent of Nietzsche's discussion of eyes and perspectives in the Genealogy. Likewise, Falk continues by considering "my other I, which I do not know, but which has come and gripped me suddenly [...] But those other I's in both of us know each other well, love each other infinitely and inseparably" (UB 104-105; 82). W hether it is the threat of perspectivism or of being on the verge of emotional rapture, the limits of knowing are met. Following this threat is one of the dismissal of ratiocination and the privileging of nature as a greater force in subjective experience. Various images of impending natural doom follow. The rhetoric of the sublime is given a Nietzschean touch here to express passion and irrationalism. Falk senses a "demon" in his self that enjoys others’ downfalls and scandalous behaviors (UB 124; 97-98). It Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 347 likewise reflects his own fate and ruin of others such as Ysa (UB 127; 100). There is an overpowering sense of being "caught up in a whirlpool and sucked down" and "thrown over a precipice" (UB 135; 106). This sublime act is conjoined with reason to no avail; "but what comes from unseen depths cannot be subdued by ratiocination" (UB 136; 107). His love for Ysa is an "unintelligible mystery" and his suffering is a link to the universe via woman (UB 138-39; 108-09). He continues feeling the weight of suffering in Romantic sublime terms: "The depth in his soul was abysmal" [die Abgriinde in ihm waren so tief\ (UB 148; 116). "Woman is a breeding animal, but man loves" (UB 157; 122). He expresses the raw, perverse nature of woman in relation to man's reason. There is a persisting sense of the sublime here as he tries to create a sense of synthesis but feels the inevitable division. Falk again expresses "because she is I, I whom you have never yet seen..." (UB 163; 126) He is again "engulfed in a bottomless maelstrom of desire" [Und dann kam der Strudel, der Wirbel... Das G ehim fing an, sich um selbst zu drehen, und kreiste schneller in den abgriindigen Trichter des Geschlechtes hinab] (UB 163; 127). Falk expresses his contempt for Mikita: "the vortex was dragging them both down. One of them would be drawn into happiness, but only one" (UB 166; 129). He appeals to an aesthetic of privilege for Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 348 him self and an ethics of exclusion for M ikita based on his decision that M ikita is not strong enough to endure. There is yet again a metaphysical something that is unnameable: "to silence a something in him that wanted to speak" (UB 168; 130); this is the rhetoric of a subject fractioned or severed from an integral self that refers to some noumenal quality. "But in the end, the final, the powerful, irresistible necessity conquers always" [er verkenne gar nicht, dafi jedes dieser Gefiihle ein gewisses Quantum MuJ3 reprasentiert, aber schliefilich siege doch immer das letzte, das machtige, unabendware Mufi/] (UB 169; 131). Now the noumenal Kantian-sounding quality takes on a Nietzschean sense of a will to power. Falk has an "other unseen self which [was in him] understood much better" (Unterwegs 48; 172). This particular sentence, not in the German edition, adds clarity to Falk's "improbable" attraction to Marit; he explains his attraction as a metonymical process of a psychological remembrance of a youthful experience that is based on a current sense memory of the white roses that M arit wears. This rumination adds a contrasting quality of rationalization to the self-inquiry. In addition there are continuous images of Falk with M arit that convey stormy weather: "voiceless emptiness of the dark, stormy night" (U 77; 190); Falk's "Mephistophelian laugh [...] his eyes pierced to the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 349 very bottom of her soul [...] She looked at him in terror, ready to sink through the ground" [Er starrte sie an, dann verzog sich sein Gesicht zur teuflische Fratze; er bifi sie m it seinen Vampyraugen, erfrafi form lich an ihrer Seele] {U 82; 194). There is an admixture of the Kantian sublime, the beauty of the immensity of the unfathomable, and the Burkean sublime, the horror of the physically menacing. With M arit it appears that the physically terrible has the upper hand; her soul is full of discomfort as she feels self-conscious and guilty. M arit feels the demonic possession of Falk: "she felt two bottomless eyes like two black stars upon herself [...] The firey words fell upon her soul like drops of molten lead" (U 123; 219). She "hurled herself blindly into the abyss of sinful delight [...] all alone [. ..] the tempest cut them off from the rest of humanity [...] gigantic firey ball" (U 159-62; 239-40). Przybyszewski creates a strong sense of the sexual agony and confusion suffered by Marit. After this scene M arit learns of Falk's previous marriage and child by another woman and throws herself into a vortex in the river: "the world is coming to an end, the whole world is coming to an end. A flood! A flood!" ( U 177; 252). The sublime is used to also express the absolute manner in which subjectivist views function; they are equally valid. The physiological impossibility of Marit's being is expressed here with the finality and the vortex of her own subjectivity. In the following part, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 350 Volume III, Falk equally feels him self in a vortex: "wheel has been set in motion and nothing will keep it form turning" (IM 26; 272-73). The Romantic image of the vortex and the spiral suggest a fateful ending to Falk as well as he fears his wife learning of his infidelities. He had foreshadowed this moment when speaking about the vortex "beckoning and luring people onto it" (UB 150; 117). Falk provides a discourse on Nature: "Nature is destructive [...] in pursuit of her object of destruction she utilizes various means, [...] forces of nature, lightning, tempest, waterspouts, landspouts [...] bacilli, those remarkable inventions of the devil" (IM 43; 287). Then, he describes man as the worst perpetrator of torture. Falk attributes his ruin for being caught in a maelstrom "a seething whirlpool [...] I am irretrievably lost" (IM 90; 320-21). These images of nature, which form a rhetoric of the maelstrom and the whirlpool, conflict with and threaten the independent Nietzschean sovereign individual ideal so that Przybyszewski's discourse raises degrees of doubt as to Nietzsche's ideal. Nietzsche may have physiological considerations in his philosophy, but Przbyszewski removes these considerations so that they involve the exterior environment as it imposes on the interior environment of conscience, reason, and passion. Closely tied to the sublime in Przybyszewski's work are identifications with God. Falk sees him self as a Christ figure; he suffers Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 351 for others as their "benefactor and redeemer" ( UB 139; 109). Although there is little of the sublime in this particular gesture, it does hold interest when paired with the more mystical sentiments such as: "That mystical It... is the one concrete proof of love" (IM 56; 297); Grodzki, although suicidal, expresses: "I will soon become a God. God is the perfect expression of non-existence, the foam that non-existence has spewed out of itself. I am more than God. In me is the perfect expression of existence" (IM 136; 344); before Ysa, Falk claims: I comprehend God, who is I and you. I understand the great holy Mine-You. Do you know what You are, my vague You? You are Jahve, Om, Tabu. M y You is the soul never corrupted by the brain, my You is the holiday soul, which seldom descends upon me [...] M y You is my love, my faith, my guilty love. To find my god means to learn his ways, to understand his purposes in order no longer to do anything petty, paltry, ugly, mean. (IM 163-64; 364) It is apparent that Falk is insincere here. His "turn" on this negative theology is to negate and deplete it of any mystical meaning. His actions serve further to contradict any importance he assigns to his words. Life-Creation as an Overcoming of Oneself and Others Life-creation constitutes an aesthetic approach to ethics that generally is based on philosophy and is aimed against the conventions of religion. In Homo sapiens there are many instances where Przybyszewski Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 352 intimates at what constitutes life-creation. He in fact betrays many of its negative qualities: self-destruction and the destruction of others; the objectification of oneself and others through aesthetic means; the privileging of memory over experience; the categorization of M an as creator (or God) and W oman as creation (and as an eternal source of creation, holding attributes such as being of a satanic nature and of the eternal feminine); and the consideration of life as art (meaning life as an object for art and as an art object and, therefore, an aesthetic objectification of experience that is nonetheless an objectification). As early as Chapter 5 of Volume I, Falk wants Ysa to become a memory to him and eventually a literary theme; he cannot cope with not having her and, therefore, resolves the issue aesthetically (UB 54; 44). He alludes to Henrich Heine in the quotation: "It would be good if I could conquer myself, but better still if I don't" to establish the mood of pessimism and melancholy at the heart of life-creation [Konnt'ich mich bezwingen, wars schon; konnt ich es nicht, wars noch schdner] (UB 56; 45). It fits in well with the synthesis of the urges of creation and destruction. In his notions of life-creation W oman serves as "faithless, vain, the very servants] of Satan" [die Weiber sind boshaft, verlogen, kokett, die reinen Dienerinnen des Teufels] and, therefore, a handy partner for an antichristian way of life (UB 60; 47). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 353 Mikita, Falk's painter friend expresses the manner in which he creates art: "the soul opening and a satanic monster crawling from its depths [Das, wie sich einem die Seele offnet und das verfluchte Fremde herauskriecht]. Paint that abomination" (UB 67; 52). M ikita's emotion manifests in an overbearing possessiveness to control Ysa and thereby to feel that his love can transcend time (UB 69; 54). The female characters appear to exist only on a phenomenal realm whereas the men have the shaping souls and minds. Love is raised to a metaphysical ideal and it appears ludicrous. Falk talks about Plato and everything as if it were a recollection of a prior existence; he fashions his self as a meditation, miracle, or riddle (UB 84; 66). This love that Falk has takes on sublime characteristics and shares the rhetoric that marks the sublime of both Kant and Burke: "she was part of his soul [...] whirling [...] movements, felt them as the ebb and flow of his own soul" (UB 76; 60); he has "known [her] for aeons" (UB 85; 67); "now riddle of my soul was solved [...] to peer into the abyss [...] you are my soul, my holy of holies, because you are that in me by virtue of which I am I and not someone else" (UB 87; 69); "something in my soul was talking in a voice without sound, a sort of disembodied voice [...] bottomless abyss" (UB 90; 71). This love opens up to the question of Destiny and Fate as "imperious necessity" that enter Falk's life (UB 92; Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 354 72). Przybyszewski translated the "Offenbarung des Schicksals” of his German edition into "objawienie przeznaczenia i koniecznosci" of the Polish edition, thereby introducing a sense of greater "significance" and "finality," which Seltzer consequently translates as "imperious necessity" (Na rozstajw, Lwow, 1901: 106) Life-creation also crosses over into the physiology of the artist. "I tremble, ergo I love" is the reasoning that Falk relates to as he excuses his lust as vibrations that affect his nerves (UB 100; 78). There is a sadistic element to life-creation as it relates to love and women; M ikita echoes N ietzsche’s comment (about taking a whip when going to see a woman) in his misogynistic sentiment: "A woman must be subjugated, with the fist, the whip; love must be wrested by force, must be conquered" (UB 118; 93). Falk also includes a consideration of psychology and physiology in the area of life-creation for the two are inseparable and questionable equally when certain phenomena arise. Falk considers that the brain, nerves, blood vessels, the whole circulatory network are affected by hypnosis or auto-suggestion and that this may be the true cause of his passions. If so, then Falk has a system delineated for "creating life" aesthetically. Through considering auto-suggestion, or self-deception, Falk comes upon the discovery that "you, Mr. Falk, are both the accuser and the accused" (Unterwegs 128-29; 222). This means that he can Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 355 "ascertain it genealogically" and that he can return to a process of creation before the Nietzschean grammatical breakup (of the deed into a distinct agent performing a distinct action apart from the process implicit in the notion of the deed) distorts it. This process is not altogether remote from a mystical process and, as such, it functions as an alternative to rationalist and materialist reasoning. As Falk contemplates, he proposes to him self not only the existence of a fourth dimension, "but of a thousandth dimension as well" (U 133; 225). At this point in his reasoning Falk senses that he is at a "bottomless pit" and is a "tool of something, of some will that he did not know" (U 136-37; 226). An "unknown X" compels him; Falk is on to something as he discovers a Nietzschean will to power or am orfati [Er miisse es tun; es sei seine fixe Idee] (U 138; 227). The product of such a being engulfed in life-creation comes from the "irresistible urge of volcanic eruptions, who writes not a single word that is not a live, pulsing organism wrenched from his heart - and them." The German edition continues: "mit Blut gefiillt, zum Ganzen strdmend, heifi, tief und unheimlich, wie das Leben selbst" (U 142-43; 229). "I am I [...] man [...] secret, mysterious and extraordinary part of nature [...] created them [pictures] under the influence of an unconquerable inner urge [.. .] image of my individuality" (U 145-46; 231). The predication of I on self enforces the need to redo grammar and to reestablish the subject in the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 356 act of life-creation. There is equally the notion that "where life is, there also must be destruction, annihilation [...] I am nature, therefore I create life and destroy it" (242) (U 163; 242). The artist grants him self the choice to do as he likes. He identifies with Nature, which overcomes conventions such as conscience with her fury of natural devastation as she unleashes destructive forces (7M43; 287). Volume III deals with Falk’s sense of creation taking a drastic step toward destruction as his physical being suffers collapse and his emotional being feels the drain of a despairing fate. Falk expresses his ironic need to love and hate simultaneously. "I hate those whom I must love" [Ich mufi hassen, wenn ich liebe] (IM 11; 260). He expresses a phenomenology that is based on the psychology of betrayal. He degenerates into a being whose "life is one long chain of lies and deceit" (IM 69; 306). The question may arise whether Przybyszewski advocates the ethical and aesthetic behavior of Falk, his protagonist, or whether he merely enjoys him sustaining the philosophies of a Decadent and wonders where he will wind up. The answer may be located in Przybyszewski's own life; there are many writings by and about Przybyszewski of similar events and attitudes in his life. This contributes to the notion that Przybyszewski was actively pursuing life-creation as he was advocating it Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 357 in fiction. He also laid the basis for a myth-creation (legendotwdrczosc) about himself. Falk claims: "I must lie, lie perpetually, because I cannot bear the sight of the torture caused by the disillusionment I bring" (IM 91; 321). Falk lies to those who love him because they take joy in these lies; he functions as an impostor and an Antichrist out of a self-made necessity. The final sentiment concerning life-creation comes when Falk considers Pilate in his final contemplation on lying. "Everything was lies. Perhaps a fact, a real fact might prove to be the truth. But what is a fact? asked Pilate and washed his hands of it. No - Pilate asked, what is truth? and after that washed his hands" (IM 171; 370). W hen Falk finally loses Ysa because she leams his lie and betrayal, he considers that she has "died" within the world of his lie [Sie ist weg. Kommt nie wieder. Also ist sie gestorben] (IM 213; 399). Life-creation is, therefore, reduced to a lie. Przybyszewski portrays these elements quite ironically in his fiction. By examining the quotations, the reader gets a sense that Przybyszewski is "turning" against his own essayistic "truths" and maxims that seem to issue a command for life-creation. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 358 This manner of lying is reminiscent of Oscar W ilde's proposition in "The Decay of Lying" (1889).3 1 In this essay written in the format of a Platonic dialogue between two characters Cyril and Vivian, W ilde presents the Lebenskunst aesthetic of "true lying." He distinguishes "true lying" from simple lying as a viable aesthetic practice and characterizes it in the following statements. W hat Art really reveals to us is Nature’s lack of design, her curious crudities, her extraordinary monotony, her absolutely unfinished condition [...] Art is our spirited protest, our gallant attempt to teach Nature her proper place. [...] Egotism, itself, which is so necessary to a proper sense of human dignity, is entirely the result of indoor life. Out of doors one becomes abstract and impersonal. [...] Nothing is more evident than that Nature hates Mind. [...] The temper of the true liar, with his frank, fearless statements, his superb irresponsibility, his healthy, natural disdain of proof of any kind! [...] what I am pleading for is Lying in Art. [...] One of the chief causes that can be assigned for the curiously commonplace 311 refer to the page numbering found in The Artist as Critic: Critical Writings of Oscar Wilde edited by Richard Ellmann (290-320). "The Decay of Lying" was originally published in Nineteenth Century (25: January 1889: 35-56) with the subtitle "A Dialogue" and was subsequently revised with the subtitle "An Observation" in Intentions (1891). 3 2 However, unlike Solov'ev's appeal to a wider audience in his use of the "conversational drawing-room" format of the Platonic dialogue, Wilde chooses this form to discourage understanding and to dissuade the masses. He states: "It [the essay] is meant to bewilder the masses by its fantastic form" and "the public so soon vulgarize any artistic idea that one gives them that I was determined to put my new views on art, and particularly on the relations of art and history, in a form that they could not understand, but that would be understood by the few who, like yourself, have a quick artistic instinct" (386-87). The first statement is from a letter to Violet Fane and the second from a letter to W. H. Pollock, both dated January 1889. See The Complete Letters o f Oscar Wilde edited by Merlin Holland and Rupert Hart Davis. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 359 character of most of the literature of our age is undoubtedly the decay of Lying as an art, a science, and a social pleasure. (291-93) In the last statement W ilde reveals the tensions between varying tendencies in art; here, specifically, he reproaches the need for "fact" and "accuracy" in manifestations of art and literature, that is, he offers a reproof against empiricism and positivism. Lying and poetry are arts - arts, as Plato saw, not unconnected with each other - and they require the most careful study, the most distinguished devotion [...] As one knows the poet by his fine music, so one can recognize the liar by his rich rhythmic utterance, and in neither case will the casual inspiration of the moment suffice. (294) He then claims that poetry, although fashionable, should be discouraged, whereas he laments that "the fashion of lying has almost fallen into disrepute" (294). W ilde then recounts the failings of literature of the nineteenth century due to the pursuit of "truth" and "accuracy." "Nature is always behind the age. And as for Life, she is the solvent that breaks up Art, the enemy that lays waste her house" (300). The next step in the conversation is the suggestion of methods "by which we could revive this lost art of Lying" (307). Cyril questions Vivian: "But you don’t mean to say that you seriously believe that Life imitates Art, that Life in fact is the mirror, and Art the reality?" Vivian gives reason for believing so and gives instances of Fact reproducing Fiction (307). In this bold gesture Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 6 0 W ilde entertains the notion of life taking on an impostor status in relation to art; the radicality of this move is picked up by Solov'ev and Merezhkovskii when they express through their protagonists the possibility of Antichrist overtaking Christ as more "authentic" than even the original itself. Vivian continues: "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life [...] Life holds the mirror up to Art, and either reproduces some strange type imagined by painter or sculptor, or realizes in fact what has been dreamed in fiction" (311). The dialogues then becomes more "genealogical" in nature as Vivian retraces Art throughout history and Life’s impact on it. "The only form of lying that is absolutely beyond reproach is Lying for its own sake, and the highest development of this is [. ..] Lying in Art" (318). The autonomous notion of Lying for its own sake echoes Kant's dictates of the inner moral law; W ilde equally warns against lying heteronomously, or for ulterior motives or purposes. The "doctrines of the new aesthetics" are: "Art never expresses anything but itself" (319); "All bad art comes from returning to Life and Nature, and elevating them into ideals"; and "Life imitates Art far more than Art imitates Life... external Nature also imitates Art" (320). W ilde here intends a perspectivist understanding, that is, that art allows things in nature to be experienced in a particular manner that would otherwise go unnoticed. W ilde seems to say that art trains the senses and can, thereby, Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 361 be said to govern them. "Lying, the telling of beautiful, untrue things, is the proper aim of Art." Przybyszewski's Falk clearly abides by such principles, but, not having raised these ideas to "principles," he is internally tortured. One possible conclusion to reach is that Falk, as a W ildean liar, expresses the Eastern European variant of the Decadent. Whereas W ilde's protagonists can express the satiatedness of W estern European Decadence, the Eastern Europeans express the thirst and yearning. This would support scholars' contentions that Decadence differs according to the existential modes of life in the two opposing parts of Europe. The general assessment is that moral degeneracy is lauded in the W est whereas in the East Decadents try to dissociate themselves from charges of degeneracy; Merezhkovskii's turn in 1911 against his earlier work supports this overly broad view. Robert Pynsent, speaking of Czech Decadence, claims that it "arose out of hunger, rather than surfeit" (169). He also brings in the larger social question and the depression and oppression resulting from parochialism -i-j and social oppression. 33 See Robert Pynsent's monograph on Julius Zeyer: The Path to Decadence. Pynsent provides an extensive overview of Czech Decadence, but equally grounds it within European Decadence and refers also to German and Polish writers and artists who were influential on each other. Pynsent refers to Oscar Wilde in his chapter on "The Decadent self" (101-146) in Questions o f Identity: Czech and Slovak Ideas o f Nationality and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 6 2 Conventional Thinking Forced Awry The most evident focus of the trilogy and of Przybyszewski's aesthetic pursuits is convention and the destruction of conventions via an aggressive approach. Falk expresses his skepticism, like Nietzsche, concerning the psychologists and sentimentalists who endeavor to explain moral and aesthetic phenomena. "You have a mass of psychological laws and principles. W on’t you please explain?" (UB 53; 43) He ridicules the notion of "law" and "principle." Falk also takes a stab at the importance of logic and grammar in deciding occurrences: "It is rare indeed that any assigned cause has not subsequently been disproved" [Man kann doch kaum jem als eine Ursachen angeben, ohne dafi sie nichtfalsch ware] (UB 74; 59). Equally, Falk and his friend litis try out examples of their theories in a genealogizing manner as they seek to get to the foundation of their assumptions. In comparing France to Polish Prussia, Falk mentions the "prejudices [...] antediluvian conventions which cling to people here" in distinction to the liberal way of life in Paris (Unterwegs 31; 160). He Personality. Although addressing Czech and Slovak Decadence, Pynsent's research is applicable to all of European Decadence. In sections, such as those titled "The self-centredness of art and artist" and "Multiple personality and autostylization," Pynsent traces the progression of the self to its culmination in decadent culture from concepts posited by Descartes, Kant, Stimer, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Walter Pater, the French diarist Henri-Frederic Amiel, and Freud. Although hardly exhaustive in analysis, Pynsent's scholarship can be characterized as rich in allusions and serves as an excellent introduction and an annotated bibliography of the subject. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. further claims that "each human being is a law unto himself." Falk, however, resorts to reason in a punning manner as he tries to seduce Marit; he states "that hidden purpose must be somewhere within the limits of logical reasoning" or "sexual attraction" as he flaunts an expression from Kant. The narrator, then, mentions how Falk's "conscience would gnaw at him" (U 38; 166). In response Falk lashes out at M arit who is educated in the "fetters of moral and religious rules" (U 42; 168). He considers variously that conscience, along with Nietzsche and the superman, is ridiculous and then focuses on the "stupid mob-made laws of morality"; he acts through the "force of his feelings" with "no laws to bind his will" (U 41; 167-68). He asserts that he has his own "logic" as opposed to "conscious ratiocination." His immediate goal is to set M arit free from prejudices and to make her his own slave and then for them to be free from conscience and prejudices. In this passage he considers Kant and Nietzsche and tries to ground him self with a firm decision based on his own judgm ent stemming from these philosophies. In a different passage he considers "happiness - a paltry English invention" as he vents his Nietzschean feelings against the utilitarians and sentimentalists. W ithin the same chapter he lays out his discourse to Marit: Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 364 You say you love me. But a stupid formula about impure desires - so the Church calls the most beautiful and profound of instincts - yes, a stupid formula is enough to suppress your strongest and noblest impulses, to silence the voice of your heart, to quench the fire that consumes you... Love which a formula, a law, the fear of your absurd hell can silence? Ha, ha, ha! (U 13-14', 188) He uncovers in the Church a physiological decay: "the church reeking with the foul odor of sweat and horrid undigested food" (U 77; 190). This passage is lifted from Nietzsche, who refers to the senses and to the physiological disturbances caused by the Church.34 It is evident from these passages that Przybyszewski resorts to expressing the need for social conventions as an antagonistic force that is opposed to Falk the protagonist. Falk overcomes his friends and lovers and conquers easily; yet, he suffers from the conventions that confine these people and, eventually, him self - as we have seen in the above section on individual sovereignty. Przybyszewski also underscores that "economy" and "politics" are features embodied in convention. Falk locates in the morality of the Church an economy: "you do everything for pay, to be rewarded in heaven with interest" (U 78; 191). The notion of "God punishing [Marit]," is 3 4 Compare this statement to Nietzsche's from the Genealogy. When referring to the ascetic priest and his penchant for using "guilt," "sin," and "conscience," Nietzsche points out the "physiological revenge" and the "mental disturbance" caused by the priests and the Church in an attempt, a "disastrous trick of religious interpretation," to give life "meaning" (Essay III, 111). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 365 equivalent to the Nietzschean notion of debt as punishment to be paid off. Falk hints at the possibility of a love being stronger than the formulas; this love can take the form of passion and despair and become an element of life-creation. Falk also seeks to battle with the "hypocrisy" of nationalist and patriotic thinking; he proposes dropping slogans and not taking recourse in Goethe or Schiller as nationalist ideologists do (the names of Goethe and Schiller are absent in the German edition) (U 97; 205). Falk’s feeling is that he tires of Party truths; he stands for individuals alone when challenged by Czerski the anarchist to take on a cause for humanity and to fulfill moral obligation by marrying his mistress (IM 18-24; 266-71). Falk's greatest moment in debunking conventions is to declare to Czerski that "your humanity is simply the self-preservative instinct of the organism craving for respite and calm. The difference between me and you is this: You are happy in your great lie" (IM 96; 325). This discourse on the "humanity" of Falk being a "lie" comes toward the end of the novel when Falk has been dragged through the "maelstrom" of his desires and disappointments. He considers ambition to be an "extraordinarily complex sensation [...] the resultant of a whole series of simple sensations"; he, therefore, reduces drives and ideals into singular units of energy that are void of idealistic meaning (IM 97-98; 326). Falk also considers the senses, motives, and the example of Napoleon in his Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 366 discourse on ambition. Here we see the significance of Nietzsche's equation, of physics and grammar, in the Genealogy; the quantum of energy underlies the grammatical splitting of a deed into subject and act. Overall, we can understand Przybyszewski's text as similar to Solov'ev's and Nietzsche's in its criticism of conventions and philosophical systems and as similar to M erezhkovskii's in terms of the attempt at a synthesis of the sovereign individual ideal and ethics and the need to create a new social attitude. In their references to a life-creation aesthetic these philosophical authors allude to elements of sublime interest; Nietzsche creates a particular gesture in the figure of the Antichrist as does Solov'ev in his theurgical stance and reference to the Divine Sophia. M erezkovskii attempts synthesis in the changing persona of his historical Antichrist. Przybyszewski, however, distinct from the others, depicts a social aesthetic stance that is "satanist" in relation to tradition and traditional ethics. These figures offer challenges to conventional thinking and to systems of thought that are marked by hypostatization and fundamentalist leaning. For this particular study I have viewed Przybyszewski through the lens of a critical reading in order to assess certain rhetorical features that comprise the "Antichrist" gesture of the 1890s. Although an advocate of the "naked soul," Przybyszewski "turned" this ideal into a statement of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 367 irony and contradiction in the character of Eric Falk. It would appear from a straightforward reading that Przybyszewski condemns his protagonist due to his flaws and ending in defeat. However, as an estimation of the "Antichrist" trope of the broader culture of 1890s Central Europe, Homo sapiens seems to encapsulate a critique of culture (partly assisted by references to elements of a Nietzschean and Solov'evian nature) and offer a presentation of a story that does not necessarily occasion a successful ending nor that needs to impugn the character. The resulting ambiguity refers back to the tropic resourcefulness rather than to a moralistic summation of character and hubris. As we have seen, common to Merezhkovskii's and Przybyszewski's works is a particular interest in the downfall of the protagonist by way of his inextricably bound aesthetic and ethical choices. Their protagonists embark on a battle against the Church, armed with philosophy, inspired with a particular sense of anarchism and social equality, and justified with a moral and ethical code that is aesthetically appealing but destructive. In Homo sapiens Przybyszewski gives an account of a protagonist whose sense of aesthetics is challenged by questions of authenticity and imposture; he continuously acts in a self- effacing and self-destructive manner. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 368 W hat distinguishes Przybyszewski's prose from M erezhkovskii's is an aesthetics and ethics that are steeped in a Nietzschean psychology that points to Freud; there is a stress on the unconscious elements in man and a call for the superman. The question that arises concerning Przybyszewski and his appeal to the cultural Antichrist is, How far does literary and cultural Satanism spring into the philosophical literature to export a complex ethics and political practice? The novel Homo sapiens depicts a Nietzschean hero mired in the vain pursuit of pleasure based on the departure from a Rationalist ethos. Kantian philosophy of ethics and love offers a starting point for the vulgarization and popularization of the German tradition and the main character, Eric Falk, serves as an Antichrist figure by offering philosophical perspectives and his ethical example as an imposter and pretender to the throne, simultaneously sacrificial as the Christ and triumphant as Satan, a secular king. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 6 9 Conclusion: Nietzsche and the "Demon" Texts of the Fin de Siecle The focus of the present dissertation can be characterized as the analysis of several cultural texts - Nietzsche being the Decadents' focal point, Merezhkovskii and Solov'ev the Russian satellites, and Przybyszewski the Polish-German variant - involving an understanding of the "demon" (as a formidable opponent of Christ, an "anti-" of the cultural establishment, or conversely as an impostor who comes in the name of Christ or the establishment) and the need to recreate the basis for a sovereign individual ideal and for autonomy in ethics. As has been demonstrated, the meanings and functions of the Antichrist, Satan, and the impostor are not fixed from one writer to another. The period examined covers the 1890s and the proliferation of this thought in the anticipation of an event, the arrival of the Antichrist - in support of a "new" consciously functioning subject - at the turn of the century. This study is about the "turns" that are choreographed rhetorically in the thinking of the Decadents and typified in the presentation of the "demon." Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 370 These gestures embody a performance of the turn and implicate the textual strategy as a "turn" to newness and away from the obsolete. This turn, as Nietzsche demonstrates, must be performed without valuation; although he ironically devalues morality, he manages throughout his text to posit simultaneously a negation and destruction of morality by way of asserting and positing. Nietzsche insists that for every new shrine that is destroyed, a new one is erected, thereby self-consciously suggesting that his contribution, albeit negative, is yet another "shrine" (GM 70). Although Nietzsche posits his ideas by contradiction, he counters a thought by positing its "destruction" - his reasoning favors that which affirms. Through references to the body and the climate of a region he proposes a physiological will and, although he disdains morality and its uses for life, he implies the need for a new ethics worthy of a sovereign individual. This, then, appears to be the purpose behind his fin-de-siecle Antichrist as well as the Satan and other manifestations of the demonic in the texts analyzed. The questions that I have addressed concern the role of the Antichrist in Nietzsche's philosophy and the subsequent role of the Antichrist and Nietzscheanism in fin-de-siecle culture. The Antichrist replaces the master narrative of philosophy with the master trope. The master trope may even be considered a meta-trope in that as a singular Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 371 gesture it contains the message and insistence of Decadence alerting itself to decadence. Anti-Decadent Decadence is what Nietzsche calls it; it is a self-conscious Decadence arising as an enlightened counterpart to the Decadence of deterioration. The appearance and rise of the philosophical Antichrist in the genealogy, a rise occasioned by an excavation (as the phoenix from the ashes), a victory apparent in destruction, are part of a mythological paradigm of renewal through fire. The genealogy is presented as such a fire, shedding, and arousal of distrust and disbelief in history. It provokes the rise of the cultural Antichrist through Nietzsche's "performance" of this work. The style, mannerism, use of tropes and turns of phrase elicit the Antichrist. In this manner it is a complete literary guide to the culture of the Antichrist that Nietzsche inaugurates. His genealogy covers the degradation of morality, religion, psychology, and philosophy and effects a leveling; in turn it establishes individual sovereignty as the sole virtue or free state of being. This dissertation has addressed the larger question of sovereignty and its threats so that theoretical and philosophical views have been considered from the angles offered by the writers. I have analyzed specific Decadent writers because of their social critiques, their inclinations to adopt Nietzschean motifs and styles, and their religious and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 7 2 occult sentiment. Nietzsche treats historical fallacies concerning the construction of morals over time and asserts the impossibility of morality as a way of life in his critique of the ascetic ideal. These strategies, although dealing with the demonic figure differently, treat the quest for individual sovereignty as an urgent matter at the fin de siecle. Dmitrii M erezhkovskii brings to the fore of the argument an attempt at the reconciliation of polar opposites so that sovereignty may be glimpsed as that which includes contradictions. Merezhkovskii, along with his wife, the poet Zinaida Gippius, represents the branching off of Decadence and Symbolism into its Neo-Christian religious current. Merezhkovskii's achievement as a writer of historical novels and as the founder of the Religious-Philosophical Meetings in Saint Petersburg adds to the importance of his stature within the Russian context. Valerii Briusov, the aesthete Decadent theorist and historical novelist of occult themes, presents the possibility of a future focus on the development of demonic literature and Antichrist culture in relation to Nietzschean ideas in Russia after the turn of the century.1 Vladimir Solov'ev treats imposture and the 1 Also a dominant figure of the early Symbolists, Briusov is significant in that his achievement bears most forcefully on the phenomenon of Lebenskunst. Briusov scoffed at the notion of a theurgical art and published his exemplary life-creation text, Fiery Angel (Ognennyi angel’ ) in 1908. Fiery Angel - a sixteenth-century romance manuscript that Briusov supposedly discovers, translates, and offers in publication - is said to reflect the turbulent aesthetic lives of those around Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 373 path to authenticity via a theoretical philosophy that relies on a phenomenological approach. In the Polish context I have focused on Stanislaw Przybyszewski, prim arily a Decadent essayist and novelist in the 1890s and dramatist in the 1900s. Stanislaw Przybyszewski creates an aesthete who professes to be a Satanist in relation to the churchgoers defies all moral codes and conventions; although Eric Falk experiences the personal and societal downfall of those around him, he persists in his satanic anti-moral and anti-convention stance. W aclaw Berent, a translator of Nietzsche and historical social novelist from the 1890s to 1917, and Marian Zdziechowski, the leading philosophical proponent of Roman Catholic Modernism, played important roles in the social and religious connections of M odernism and Catholicism in Poland. Their methods, stemming largely from a naturalist point of view and a cultural- theoretical nature, although on the periphery of the Decadent context, would prove insightful in a study that examines the wider parameters of Briusov (Andrei Belyi and Nina Petrovskaia) and to foretell the outcome of their actions. It, therefore, provides the essential behavior-governing text of life- creation as a phenomenon. The historical aspects of the novel merely enshroud the personal conflicts and aspirations between the two main characters; yet, more importantly, the novel offers an allegorical reading of an aesthetics that is brought to life and apparently historicized for its romantic effects and reliance on the pre-Enlightenment stance and belief in theocentrism. Briusov’s handling of a historically pre-utilitarian and pre-empiricist moment in history, perhaps, betrays his need to eradicate the utilitarian and positivist concerns from art and aesthetics altogether. This would contradict his personal stance as a writer engaged in aesthetics solely for "art-for-art’s" sake. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Antichrist culture, most notably the Catholic religious proponents in Zdziechowski's case. In the Czech context Stanislav Kostka Neumann and Jin Karasek ze Lvovic, as poets of Decadent Satanism in the 1890s, who later developed into Communist supporter and mystical essayist, respectively, warrant individual attention. Their literary output is largely in the genre of poetry and falls outside of the development of Decadent aesthetic concepts in prose, although their essayistic output increased after the turn o f the century. Otokar Brezina, the poet and essayist o f metahistorical and mystical ideas and Karel Dostal-Lutinov, the main proponent of the Catholic Modernist movement in Moravia, also demand extensive attention in their own right. The present study serves as a theoretical and practical groundwork on which to base further readings of the rhetorical strategies at play in the philosophical and literary output of these writers. My readings of the literary and philosophical works point to the continuous and complex reworking and questioning of the philosophical problems addressed by the following themes: individual sovereignty as typically defined within the parameters of freedom and necessity; the literary and aesthetic representation of phenomena; a subjectivist ethical code; the confrontation with the Judeo-Christian tradition of morality; and the possibility of a historiography with a revelatory vision. The Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 375 philosophically and historically anxious literature, in which the figure of the Antichrist or the demon plays a pivotal role (or where the role of the imposter or satanic individual approximates a similar challenge put forth to conventions), demonstrates how the writers appropriated Nietzschean ideas and how they shaped them to fit within a specific Slavic context. It is in this particular literature that the writers seek to re-establish truth and reevaluate morals, search for the potential individual sovereign ideal throughout history, and record a contemporaneous politics and ethics that stand opposed to the Church and its traditions. The writers’ theoretical concerns manifest in these prose works as a culmination of ethical, hermeneutic, and aesthetic interest and they implicitly offer an explanation 2 Among the failed "religions" of Decadence and Symbolism there are the various underlying themes of religion, philosophy, debauchery, the Antichrist, salvation, free will, eternity, and sovereignty. Contributions to the development of such themes have been made by Kant, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, Solov'ev, Briusov, Merezhkovskii, Przybyszewski, and a number of other writers linked to Romanticism and Neo-Romanticism. However, the metaphysics and methods of interpretation that are involved in the construction of sovereignty and the Antichrist form a specific hermeneutical context of Decadence, wherein a particularly focused literary debate takes place in the 1890s. The primary and guiding philosophical issue of this Decadent debate is individual sovereignty. The question whether nature or some intentional force (neither of good nor evil origin) provides a resistance or a counterbalance to the valuations of good or evil as they are assigned to the actions of a particular sovereign individual is subsumed under the more direct question, What is sovereignty? Solov'ev undertakes a discussion of this as it pertains to Nietzsche’s thoughts in A Justification o f the Good (Part I), "Idea of superman" (Part II), in Theoretical Philosophy, and Three Conversations. Peter P. Zouboff in Godmanhood as the Main Idea o f the Philosophy o f Vladimir Solovyev deals in depth with the problem of individual salvation of Solov'ev on Godmanhood (72). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 376 of the Lebenskunst phenomenon. These decadent Lebenskunst imperatives call for different things among each writer. Merezhkovskii looks to create a new religion, which allows for synthesis and for the possibility of a superman, and he thereby proposes that the Antichrist approach the cultural establishment. For Przybyszewski the psychology of the "naked soul," which resembles the force of the Antichrist, requires attention. For others the paradigm of the Antichrist allows for the articulation of an anticipation of catastrophe, such as in Solov'ev and Zdziechowski. The novels and philosophical statements that have been highlighted in the previous chapters are testaments of this Antichrist and of decadent Lebenskunst practices. The Antichrist functions as a node, a point at which all the gestures of philosophy and all the tropes are to meet and essentially originate or end. Sovereignty is accorded in these texts via emotionally charges literary attitudes and expressive and performative language. The role of tone and emotionalism in these fictional and philosophical discourses is evident in the sarcasm, irony, oxymoron, and the turns of phrase and turns of thought that elicit awe, confusion, inspiration, and feelings of sublimity. This type of language constitutes a critique of sovereignty in that these aspects of language are language shaping itself - speaking of itself, privileging itself over content, so that sovereignty is a mannerism, gesture, attitude, or a stance of consciousness. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 377 I have offered a close reading of Nietzsche's On the Genealogy o f M orality for the particular reason that Nietzsche's work is seminal and reflects the turbulence of the late nineteenth-century thought concerning the nature of morality, ethics, and the knowing subject. A consideration of the anti-positivist and anti-Christian sentiment of the fin-de-siecle Antichrist without Nietzsche would lose the rhetorical dimensionality so aptly conveyed in the Genealogy. Philosophically, the Genealogy offers an understanding of the development of morality, as well as implicit suggestions for a new historiography and for the implementation of the individual sovereign ideal, and a practice of perspectivism. The question of the sovereign individual, according to Nietzsche - and according, therefore, to those who appropriate Nietzschean philosophy - starts with the errors of religion and the erroneous charting out of history. I have linked the notion of sovereignty with that of moral autonomy and freedom of will (self-legislating and self-determining will) in order to examine more closely N ietzsche’s appropriation of sovereignty and response to K ant’s account of ethics and the individual. Nietzsche’s appropriation takes the form of a running polemic and overturning of rationalist universal concepts.3 I believe that it is for this reason that many Decadent 3 However, a closer analysis shows that Nietzsche’s ideas are closer in vein and logic to the basic concepts that Kant introduces and develops than outwardly Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 378 appears. In place of reason and an absolute good, Nietzsche bases his critique of morality on a fundamental, even resembling a metaphysical, will to power. The overall guiding purpose of this study is to examine and to ascertain the degree to which Nietzsche influences Decadent and early Symbolist Slavic literary culture in his portrayal of a supraethical individual. Within the historical and religious fictional works of the Decadent writers there is an underlying struggle and dialogue of philosophical voices reminiscent of Kant and Nietzsche, in particular as two alternating polarities. With Kant representing the grounding and foundation for the dialogue and Nietzsche the overcoming of tradition, the Decadents accept Nietzsche’s Zarathustra, the "twilight of the gods," and the coming of the Antichrist as important notions of negation: as a "turn," trope, symbol, irony, or paradox for the sake of founding and implementing the aesthetic of Lebenskunst that will allow for a breakthrough in their philosophy and art. These writers add elements of "negation" - such as the figure of Satan and the theme of death - to Nietzsche, who already serves as a source of rhetoric and style, in order to acquire the full breadth of the objects of their criticism and reevaluation and to create from this abundance of negation and destruction a resultant affirmation that foreshadows discoveries of the unconscious and the irrational in the twentieth century. They augment the performative rhetoric and the command of the Genealogy to take the act of the declaration of the Antichrist to its potential. They engulf on literary explorations and examinations of philosophical topics such as representation, the sublime, ethics as a creative process, manifestation and practice of art, and aesthetics as an ethics of life-creation. The ultimate purpose for such an exploration is to seek out and lay the foundation for individual sovereignty. These philosophical topics have been highlighted as they appear in the literary works mentioned here. The literary works that build on this tradition, overturned by Nietzsche and newly established as a Decadent overturning of the decadence symptomatic and resultant of habitual faulty thinking and policymaking as laid out by the representatives Kant, Christ, and constant crises in philosophy, are works that further Nietzsche's project in depicting the destruction and the lies of tradition and in proposing new paths in basing individual sovereignty on something other than Kant, Christ, or the shifting crises of thought. These Decadent writers appeal to the Antichrist in order to alert thinkers on the path of dangers that lie behind and before them. The litterateurs do not coalesce as a group and do not appeal to a larger social group indicative of a movement of Antichristian-ism, Satanism, or philosophical Anarchism. They do, however, share traits and ideas that survive and evolve before they are dismantled by or subsumed into Expressionism and even Totalitarianism. It is a diverse group that is delimited by a commonality of interest in the cultural Antichrist. This Antichrist takes shape for these thinkers in literature primarily (whether literally or figuratively), in philosophy secondarily (understood in logic), and in aesthetics (as a stylistic Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 7 9 writers tackle a plan of reconstructing history and reformulating religion. They believe that individual man cannot be sovereign in his own right when following the imprints left by the institutions of religion, history, and science. Nietzsche is very clear in his attempts to alter the common understanding, or misunderstanding, of historically derived truths. These truths, whether they are referred to as concepts, meta-concepts, narratives or meta-narratives, gain validity over an expanse of time and space and are, therefore, merely two-dimensional and lack the viability needed for a "physiological" philosophy. As Nietzsche is a central figure in the thought of 1890s Eastern Europe, both as a litterateur and philosopher, his import is subtly greater in its poetic and rhetorical influence, as the writers influenced by him adhere to a similar praxis of a physiologically-based ethical philosophy.4 It is in device and representation of metaphysical concepts tied to the sublime and to the questioning of the Rationalist subject initiated by Kant) as a culminating step of addressing the “new” ethics. The early treatises and manifestos of the Decadent Symbolists testify to the artists' beliefs and these writings, as acts, form a base upon which to view the artists' aesthetic and ethical positions and the development of aesthetics and ethics thenceforth. 4 Nietzsche stands as the nexus of interpretation of history for Decadent writers, whether it is his interpretation of history or an interpretation given of his history, or his autobiography as auto-creation. Within this focus on Nietzsche the most important aspects of his philosophical influence will be the (1) questionability of answers garnered on interpretation, (basically the certainty of any reality) and what Werner Hamacher refers to as the "will to interpretation" and (2) the call for individual sovereignty, which can also be understood as the call to interpret oneself (including one's surroundings) anew. See Werner Hamacher's essay "The Promise of Interpretation: Remarks on the Hermeneutic Imperative in Kant and Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 380 the all-consuming rhetorical practice that the writers discussed here indulge in and merge their aesthetic practice so as to create movements of individualism and subjectivism that characterize the fin-de-siecle practice of Lebenskunst. The reading of Nietzsche’s genealogical critique of Christianity offers a demonstration of the "turn" of thought performed and presented as a poetic and hermeneutic imperative.5 Furthermore, N ietzsche’s Genealogy is significant to the literary-cultural age of Decadence in its critique of moral standards and conventions through a philological-historical interrogation of the ascetic ideal and the proposition of the sovereign individual ideal in its place. Nietzsche's influence in Eastern Europe also involves his manner of self-identification and self stylization. Nietzsche's connection to Slavic Decadence is enforced somewhat through his identification with a Polish heritage. Although his claim is disputed as that of a ranting lunatic distancing him self from the culture he detests, he maintains a leaning toward the Slavic lands in his Nietzsche" in his collected essays Premises: Essays on Philosophy and Literature from Kant to Celan (81-142). In conveying his ideas on hermeneutics Hamacher himself performatively presents a hermeneutic challenge to the reader in an opaque reading that scans the progression of the "interpretative" challenges issued by Kant, Schleiermacher, and Nietzsche. 5 Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, Beyond Good and Evil and The Antichirst, are also of insight in the elucidation of several of my ideas in the present context. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 381 final book Ecce Homo in a gesture of adherence to the Slavs.6 Concerning Decadence, Nietzsche maintains in countless places in his texts that he is the ultimate Decadent and simultaneously an anti-Decadent. In his identification as an anti-Decadent Decadent, Nietzsche claims that he is both a product of his culture and the overcoming of the culture. Although there are many scholarly texts that do address degrees of influence and justify the importance of Nietzsche on the Slavs, there is very little scholarship that shows a theoretical depth and attempts to offer an interpretation that pinpoints a viable dialogue between Nietzsche's texts and the Slavs' texts. Nietzsche is highly influential in his criticism, aesthetics, and the formation of his type of philosophizing as the "destruction" of philosophy. The intention of the present study is to offer an interpretation of theoretical value and to pinpoint how the Slavic aesthetic practice of life-creation evolves from Nietzsche's thought. Rather than merely offering an influence on Decadent authors confined to the content and substance of the critique, Nietzsche's text 6 Andrzej Walicki in "Nietzsche in Poland (Before 1918)" remarks in a footnote (fn 10, 78) concerning Przybyszewski's failure to refer to Nietzsche's "Polish ancestry" in his essay on Nietzsche and Chopin "Zur Psychologie des Individuums. 1: Chopin und N ie tz sc h e "It deserves to be mentioned that Przybyszewski did not use this occasion for stressing Nietzsche's Polish ancestry. He did not quote Nietzsche's words: 'I myself am still sufficient of a Pole to exchange the rest of music for Chopin'" (qtd. in Walicki 62). Walicki refers to the Hollingdale translation of Ecce Homo (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1979). Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 8 2 serves as a formal paradigm in that a certain logic and performative mode of thinking is enacted.7 I link the Genealogy to the Slavic works on the premise that the study of genus (form and type) informs the Decadent proclivity toward privileging form over content and thereby reexamining the fluidity of the nature of the self (as changing or adaptable form) in relation to imposed conventions or historical formation (acquired substance), which has led to a reification of subjectivity under positivist- 7 This mode can also be tracked in the reflections in Nietzschean-stylized sociohistorical critiques. The Slavic Decadent writers, in appropriating Nietzsche’s ideas, rethought and remodeled them to fit the particular Slavic concerns of the years between roughly 1890 and 1920. Przybyszewski’s "Zur Psychologie des Individuums. /. Chopin und Nietzsche" (1892) and Die Synagoge des Satan. Ihre Entstehung, Einrichtung und jetztige Bedeutung. Ein Versuch (1897), the Russian Yasilii Rozanov's The Dark Face: The Metaphysics o f Christianity (Temnyi lik: Metaflzika khristianstva, 1909), People o f the Moonlight: The Metaphysics o f Christianity (Liudi lunnogo sveta: Metafizika khristianstva, 1911), and The Apocalypse o f Our Time (Apokalipsis nashego vremeni, 1918-19), and the Czech Stanislav Kostka Neumann's Satan's Glory Among Us (Satanova slava mezi nami, 1897) figure as works of Nietzschean import in Slavic Decadent-Symbolist critiques of society. They testify not only to the influence of Nietzsche in the Slavic lands in conveying the need to re evaluate values and providing a critical paradigm in his essays with such a purpose in mind, but in the use of a specific performative rhetoric and in the imperative of sovereignty that resurfaces forcefully in these later anti-Christian pro-satanic works. The satanic and demonic elements in these works do not reflect a concern with satanism per se as they do with recapturing an essence of individuality and sovereignty that has been obscured by the doctrine of Christianity; the use of Satan figures as a trope around which a certain performative critique is enacted rather than as a device of literal and substantial import. The reason why Satan and the demon fit conveniently into such rhetoric is that "Satan" serves as a symbol, or literal embodiment, of the physiological instincts. The same may be said for the privileging of free, unrestricted or taboo sexual practices in the works of Przybyszewski and Jin Karasek ze Lvovic, whose collections of poetry, Sodoma (1894-95) and Sexus Necans (1894-97), will be the subject of a future study also concerning Antichrist culture. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 383 empirical modes of thinking. The second premise is that in order to reexamine, in the sense of throwing-off the yoke of the institutions that bind the self, the Decadents need to shock and to displace cultural bonds imposed by religion and state-approved art. The "evil" underlying the foundation of the Church figures as a handy target. Satan, as a manifestation of Ubermensch, is invoked along with the focus on the reevaluation of sex and vice as aspects of an underlying human will trapped in a phenomenal world of representation and of faltering perceptions based on mere representations. The Slavic writers strive to rescue and revive this will, or as they sometimes refer to it - the unconscious. The study of neurophysiology plays a major role in reference to this unconscious (Przybyszewski's "naked soul"), which is largely mystical in foundation, or macrocosmological as the Polish critic Gabriela M atuszek puts it in her introduction to a collection of Przybyszewski's essays (Synagoga szatana 5-40). Although early Symbolism, which follows and parallels Decadence, with its aesthetic apocalyptic symbolism and imagery, ultimately leads to a junction of failure and disillusionment, it provides a pathway for the Symbolists (among them Briusov, Przybyszewski, and Stanislav Kostka Neumann) to further exploration along the lines of merging life, art, society, and even spirituality. Hillary Fink in her study Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 8 4 of the influence of Henri Bergson on Russian culture, Bergson and Russian Modernism: 1900-1930, states that in a dispute and intellectual rivalry between Semon Frank and Henri Bergson the "one true goal of all knowledge is that of the divine" and that Frank "makes man the metaphysical center of his system, writing that perhaps universal tasks will be uncovered through the experience of life" (40). This undoubtedly rings true for the writers discussed here. In her work Fink relates a further statement that the religious impulse in Frank’s work is one of theurgy, which would refer to the concretizing and shaping of word into deed in a mystical sense, a divine impulse become word springs into action. Nietzsche's focus on the grammar of separating agent from process and act, and thereby creating a doer, produces a negative criticism of what he feels to be linguistics' downfall for humankind, its imposition of a severance between process, act, and agency that creates a doer. Nietzsche would not be altogether against the notion of theurgy being that he understands grammar as disturbing the primordial impulse that links agent, process, and act. Nietzsche's bid is for philosophy to return to "life" and the Symbolists' bid is for a spiritualization of experience but their critiques are similar. For Nietzsche physiology is a constant or a persistent force, an endless process, and for the Symbolists spiritualization of everyday life is a similar force, constant and endless, behind the scenes of a signifier, a Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 385 word or symbol, similar to Freud's unconscious, which plays behind the scenes of everyday pathological life. This is equally true for the other artists involved in Lebenskunst for life-creation is a concrete project that signifies a realization of the abstract. Its focus is the realm of practicality and practical philosophy, or ethics; stylizing and augmenting this "life" with aesthetic concerns, one reaches into metaphysical areas sealed off from practicality and forces a link. This is often experienced as a spiritual, or divine, confrontation. Later projects that these artists endeavored on were equally practical and metaphysical aspirations, whether having to do with individual or collective psychology or with the M arxist aims of enlightening a society with consciousness informed by market and class forces. Valerii Briusov's Fiery Angel, Andrei Belyi's Petersburg, Dmitrii Merezhkovskii's Christ and Antichrist trilogy fit into this category. Solov'ev's Godmanhood doctrine serves as a precursor to these in the Russian context. Przybyszewski's later works and a number of Czech essays and poems address this process. Briusov, in particular, takes up an aesthetic of distance as he insists on a pure "art-for- art’s" sake aesthetic and distances him self from the projects of the Symbolists devoted to theurgy and then in his later writings develops toward totalitarianism and against a liberal hermeneutics. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3 8 6 The Antichrist, Satan, and demon gestures are paradigmatic and symptomatic of the ethical life and the aesthetic views of the Decadent Modernists, who undergo a shift in the encounter of "art-for-art's sake" with the demands of life and a Symbolist call for allowing life to bear on art. In my study of the literary and philosophical manifestations of the Antichrist and genealogical thought, I have included discussions that touch on the sublime and negative theology. These I find to be a logical extension as well as extended from the same logic that allows for a Nietzschean Antichrist, for the "destruction" of the Judeo-Christian tradition and for the creation of sovereignty in fin-de-siecle culture. Antichrist, understood within the broader philosophical project, is a central element within the formulation of the Decadent Lebenskunst, in that it contains the performative and imperative of the Nietzschean command of genealogy: the overturning and revaluating of morals, conventions, the institutions of the Judeo-Christian tradition, and a society bred on the slave-master mentality. The Antichrist implicitly calls for the sovereign individual, someone freed from the slave mentality and constraints of institutions, yet firmly bent and dependent on them for the rebellious act of self-sacrifice. This simultaneously noble and arrogant act of auto-creation and self-stylization, largely aesthetic and to some degree social, is a phenomenon that is invariably alluded to under the notions of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Antichrist, Nietzscheanism, mysticism, and Przybyszewskiana. 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