New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche To Stalinism [Paperback]

Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 30, 2000

The Nazis' use and misuse of Nietzsche is well known. The Superman, the 'will to power,' Nietzsche's equation of bourgeois democracy and decadence, and his denigration of reason were staples of Nazi propaganda. Communists also used and misused Nietzsche, but that fact is largely unknown because Soviet propagandists invoked reason and labeled Nietzsche the 'philosopher of fascism,' even while covertly appropriating his ideas. In this pioneering book, Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal excavates the trail of long-obscured Nietzschean ideas that took root in late Imperial Russia, intertwining with other elements in the culture to become a vital ingredient of Bolshevism and Stalinism. Nietzsche made a difference. He furnished intellectual ammunition for a prolonged conflict about culture, society, and politics that began around the turn of the century. His first Russian admirers were poets, philosophers, and political activists. They responded to the changes transforming their society by espousing new values and seeking a new faith by which to live and work. This response resulted in new aesthetic and political amalgams, such as Symbolism, Futurism, Nietzschean Christianity, and Nietzschean Marxism. The ensuing debates between and among their partisans reverberated throughout the wider culture and therefore also into Bolshevism, becoming the subject of an uninterrupted polemic between Bolsheviks and non-Bolsheviks, and among Bolsheviks, that continued into the 1930s. In Stalin's time, unacknowledged Nietzschean ideas were used to mobilize the masses for the great tasks of the ¹rst Five-Year Plan and the Cultural Revolution, which was intended to eradicate "bourgeois" values and attitudes from Soviet life and to construct a distinctly Socialist culture. Nietzsche's belief that people need illusions to shield them from reality underlay Socialist Realism, the official Soviet aesthetic from 1934 on. In the aftermath of de-Stalinization, the government cast Nietzsche as the personification of 'bourgeois' nihilism and 'bourgeois' individualism. Soviet intellectuals wishing to reappropriate their lost cultural heritage discovered the Nietzsche-influenced intellectuals of late Imperial Russia and reopened discussion on the issues they had posed. More than an exercise in historical rediscovery, New Myth, New World offers a new interpretation of modern Russian history. By uncovering the buried influence of Nietzschean ideas on Soviet culture and politics, Rosenthal opens new avenues for understanding Soviet ideology and its influence on the twentieth century.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Rosenthal's mastery of the often intricate details of Russian and Soviet political thought is truly impressive and contributes dramatically to the credibility of her thesis. Her work will force scholars to reevaluate not only Nietzsche's influence on twentieth-century thought but also the origins of Soviet culture. Anyone who wants to understand the evolution of Marxist-Leninist thought, in all of its manifestations, would do well to read New Myth, New World. --Russel Lemmons, History: Reviews of New Books

New Myth, New World is an original and provocative reinterpretation of Nietzsche's central impact on Soviet culture. Rosenthal has read widely and deeply in primary sources running from philosophy, religion, and poetics to political ideology, architecture, and street theater. In addition, she seems to know all the relevant scholarship, not just in English and Russian but also in German and French and other languages as well. This is a model of wide-ranging, well-informed historical research. --John Burt Foster, George Mason University

New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche To Stalinism by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal is a thoughtful and scholarly reinterpretation of Nietzsche s lasting influence upon Soviet culture. --Wisconsin Bookwatch

About the Author

Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal is Professor of History at Fordham University. She is the editor of three prior books that have paved the way for this study - Nietzsche in Russia (1986), Nietzsche and Soviet Culture: Ally and Adversary (1994), and The Occult in Russian and Soviet Culture (1997). She is also the co-author of A Revolution of the Spirit: Crisis of Value in Russia, 1890-1924 (1990).

Product Details

• Paperback: 464 pages
• Publisher: Pennsylvania State Univ Pr; New edition edition (October 30, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0271025336
• ISBN-13: 978-0271025339
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,760,146 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A well researched and written novel, September 27, 2004

By 

Michael J. Szymczyk (Vienna, Austria (from Chicago, IL)) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche To Stalinism (Paperback)

New Myth, New World takes you on a journey deep from Rüssia's past to the present when the regime has fallen (even exploring the current relevance of "excrement" as a metaphore in Soviet literature). What I liked about this book was the well researched exposition of this work, as well as the meticulous prose that did not stray from being objective. The author is well-read, and consistently stays on track, and even when you think there has been a mistake (for example, quoting a 20th century figure for an idea Schopenhauer articulated a century before in his criticism of Hegel and his fellow mumblers), you'll find a few pages later that you yourself were wrong in thinking the author to be mistaken. A la fin, this is a good example of scholary work, which should be studied and learned from.

Other recommendations: Cultural Exchange (A book dealing with the Cold War and the exchange of information that helped lead to the downfall of the Soviet Union)

Nietzsche in Turin (A short work dealing with Níetzsche's last days, but strays enough from the subject to make it much more enjoyable than the crumbling insanity which was befalling good old Fritz at the time.)

Toilet: The Novel, by Michael Szymczyk (A Tribute to the Literary Works of Franz Kafka)

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An interpretation of Nietzsche's lasting influence, March 10, 2003

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche to Stalinism (Hardcover)

New Myth, New World: From Nietzsche To Stalinism by Bernice Glatzer Rosenthal is a thoughtful and scholarly reinterpretation of Nietzsche's lasting influence upon Soviet culture. Drawing on diverse primary sources in religion, philosophy, political ideology, architecture, street theater, and more, New Myth, New World is a learned and informative series of discourses combining to illustrate and demonstrate the lasting power of ideas in helping to shape the character, culture, and politics of the Russian nation and its governments. New Myth, New World is a welcome, significant, scholarly, and very strongly recommended contribution to Soviet Studies, Russian Cultural History, and Philosophy Studies academic reference collections as well as International Studies student supplemental reading lists.