Julius Evola

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Julius Evola in the early 1940s

Julius Evola (full name Giulio Cesare Andrea Evola ; born May 19, 1898 in Rome , † June 11, 1974 ibid) was an Italian cultural philosopher and cultural pessimist , esotericist and metaphysical racial theorist .

After the First World War, Evola was an artist in the field of Futurism , then a Dadaist . In the early 1920s he broke with painting and poetry and devoted himself to extensive studies of occultism , mysticism , hermetics , Hinduism and Buddhism , which he published throughout his life. In the time of fascist Italy , with whose system he sympathized (and at the same time criticized the Fasci from its aristocratic-traditional perspective), he became increasingly interested in politics and meanwhile polemicized against the Catholic Church and Christianity itself. By 1934 he developed his adaptation of traditionalism , which became the main content of his work and which researchers rated as idiosyncratic- fascist. Although Evola overall remained a relatively marginal figure until the end of the Mussolini regime, he was a pro-fascist spiritual racist and anti-Semite who wanted to influence the regimes in Italy and Germany. From 1931 on, Evola maintained relationships with exponents of the Conservative Revolution and the SS in the German Reich, and with the Iron Guard in Romania .

From the 1950s onwards, Evola continued to publish radical, time-critical works that focused on the “problem of modernity” (materialism instead of spirituality, democracy instead of “spiritual” aristocracy, liberalism instead of hierarchy). In contrast to Mussolini's Italy, young and “idealistic” neo-fascists like those of the Ordine Nuovo or the Avanguardia Nazionale now accepted his ideas and turned them into reality with violent actions. Evola was the source of ideas on the one hand for the right-wing extremist Italian underground, on the other hand, beginning in the 1980s, for the metapolitical pan-European New Right .

Life and ideas

Until 1945

Evola received a strict Catholic upbringing. A little later, however, he turned away from Catholicism and the ideals of pagan antiquity . In his “harshly anti-Jewish and anti-Christian” book Imperialismo pagano ( Eng . Pagan imperialism ), which was published in 1928 and is dedicated to this complex of topics , he advocates a hierarchically structured leader state , a sacred empire based on the (imagined) model of the ancient Roman empire . The underlying premise "The superiority is not based on the power, but the power on the superiority" refers to transcendental, transcendental abilities that legitimize the rule of the leader of such an empire, a priest-king. The aim of this rule is to lead people on the way to initiation, to “liberation” from the “earthly valley of tears ”, to make the transcendental , the transcendental, tangible, in short: to shape the divine human being.

In his philosophy, Evola represents a polar or dual view of things: he contrasts the male-solar-transcendent, sacralized Kshatriya principle, which is turned towards the spiritual , with the female-lunar, turned away from the spiritual. He describes the social systems that followed the Roman Empire in Europe and that, as time went on, increasingly leaned towards materialism, as lunar-decadent and therefore involutive, that is, as marked by cultural decline and thus doomed, because there is no, from Evola's point of view, "The sacred of antiquity". For this reason Evola rejects all modernity and its concepts such as people and especially nation as a concept of the French Revolution , "the origin of all democratic evils". Evola sees himself as a traditionalist in the sense of René Guénon , to whose works, such as La crise du monde moderne (1927; German Die Krisis der Neuzeit ), Evola makes frequent references. Like Guénon, Evola believes that the human race lives in the age of Kali-Yuga , the dark age of Hindu mythology. Just as violently as the purely materialistic social currents, Evola attacks the spiritism popular in the 1920s along with other "occult" side effects and the psychoanalytic methodology of Sigmund Freud or CG Jung in the sense of opening up to the subconscious . These would oppose the true transcendence of man to an even greater extent and should therefore be rejected.

The main work of Evola is considered to be the book Rivolta contro il Mondo Moderno (German Raising Against the Modern World or Revolt Against the Modern World ), published in 1934 and strongly influenced by mythical thinking - an equivalent to Oswald Spengler's Der Untergang des Abendlandes . From his point of view, he describes the disadvantages of current political and social structures, in particular of democratic societies, communism , National Socialism and Italian fascism . Evola never allowed herself to be completely captured by politics and took his own positions regardless of Mussolini's changing preferences . Despite initial sympathy and after a short lecture interlude with the SS, he later rejected Germany's National Socialism as a wrong path: it was too modernist for him; he hated the biological orientation. He saw his own traditionalist principles as lost in the time of National Socialism . Nonetheless, he admired Heinrich Himmler's ideas about establishing an SS order. But the SS finally distrusted the "reactionary Roman". With Alfred Rosenberg , Evola had radically anti-Semitic and anti-Christian ideas in common, Evola in favor of a new Roman empire - Rosenberg in favor of Nordic Germanism.

Evola claimed that his concept of race went beyond the anthropological interpretation of National Socialism. In contrast to the purely biologistic view of Houston Stewart Chamberlain , for example , who accused Evola of mental infantilism, Evola interpreted “race” in a “transcendental” sense as culture, elite and aristocracy and called for a “racism of the spirit” and of the soul especially in his book Mito del sangue , published in 1938 ). Evola was one of the anti-Semitic spokesmen in fascist Italy at the end of the 1930s , who accused “ Judaism ” of forming a force diametrically opposed to “true” transcendence and spirituality. In 1937 Evola delivered an introductory essay in the new edition of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion published by the anti-Semite Giovanni Preziosi .

In his 1936 publication Tre aspetti del problema ebraico ( Eng . Three Aspects of the Jewish Question ), he rejected a “vague racial” definition of the “Aryan” term. Instead, he defined “Aryanism” as a “positive and universal” idea that is directed against “Semitic civilizations” and especially the Jews in the “divine”, in “religious worship and sentiment” and in their “worldview”. That this "spiritual anti-Judaism" expressed itself in this world as real hatred of Jews and that Evola interpreted Judaism as a race and not as a religion is particularly evident in his attacks against Albert Einstein , Sigmund Freud, Gustav Mahler , Tristan Tzara and other exponents of modern culture and Science clearly, which was also used by the Nazis as evidence for their "Judaization".

In particular with his work Sintesi di dottrina della razza , published in 1941, which Mussolini was impressed by, and which he himself translated into German shortly afterwards under the title Grundrisse der Faschist Rassenlehre , Evola placed himself at the forefront of Italian racial theorists . After the collapse of the fascist regime in Italy, he fled to Germany in 1943, where he cooperated with the German Ahnenerbe Research Association , which was subordinate to the SS. In 1945 he was injured from a Soviet bombing raid on Vienna that paralyzed him from the waist down for the rest of his life.

After 1945

In April 1951 Evola was arrested for “glorifying fascism” and for “forming a fascist conspiracy”, but was acquitted in a sensational trial. In the following years Evola became the pioneer of the radical wing of the neo-fascist Movimento Sociale Italiano around Giorgio Almirante and Pino Rauti , from which the later terrorist organization Ordine Nuovo was to emerge. Evola openly acknowledged the influence he had exerted on Ordine Nuovo .

In the course of the ideological disputes in the wake of the 1968 movement , Giorgio Almirante referred to Evola as “ Marcuse from the right”. In the 1980s, Evola's work was considered an ideological basis among right-wing Italian terrorists from the Armed Revolutionary Cells who lived in exile in London.

Current reception

Today Evola is next to Savitri Devi , Miguel Serrano and Jan Udo Holey the most important author for those circles who want to combine esotericism and neo-Nazism . His mythologizations, exaggerated into the impersonal - from today's right-wing extremist perspective - are of a "relieving innocence".

Evola is considered an important cultural philosopher in parts of the New Right . With its demand for a “right to inequality”, this refers to Evola's more aggressively formulated ideological component of the “racial idea as anti-universalism”. His works, such as Revolt Against the Modern World , are often received in new right-wing circles and reissued, for example, by the former Junge Freiheit editor Stefan Ulbrich. On his 100th birthday, two extensive articles appeared in the right-wing conservative journal Criticón , which were supposed to help rehabilitate Evola. In the same year, the German-European Study Society praised him as a “great traditionalist” and emphasized the “timeless character of his worldview” that his relation to fascism was historical and temporal. In Russia, the neo-Eurasist Alexander Geljewitsch Dugin refers to Evola. In the United States, Evola's writings are promoted primarily by Steve Bannon and other representatives of the Alt-Right .

Furthermore, Evola's works find positive resonance in anti-bourgeois-elitist, anti-modern currents within the black scene or in their music subcultures of the Dark Wave and Neofolk as well as the NSBM scene.

Umberto Eco , who described him in a lecture on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Europe from National Socialism as an “operetta occultist” and “fascist guru”, is an example of Evola's predominant scientific assessment .

Works (selection)

Evola's most important works of the interwar period Imperialismo pagano (picture) and Rivolta contro il mondo moderno appeared early in German translation. He viewed Germany as his second, "spiritual home".

Evola has left a very extensive work. It consists of more than 25 books, 300 lengthy essays and over 1000 newspaper and magazine articles. Only a small part of it has been translated into German; some essays were originally written in German. The first Evola bibliography in Germany comes from Karlheinz Weißmann and is attached to the work People Amidst Ruins below . A more detailed bibliography was published by the Kshatriya study group in Vienna in 1998 on the occasion of Evola's 100th birthday; it is supplemented annually in their newsletter.

  • Imperialismo pagano. 1928
  • La tradizione ermetica. 1931
    • The Hermetic Tradition. About the alchemical transformation of metals and humans into gold. Deciphering a hidden language of symbols. Ansata-Verlag, Interlaken 1989, ISBN 3-7157-0123-4
  • Il Mistero del Graal e la Tradizione Ghibellina dell'Impero. 1934
    • German edition: The Mystery of the Grail. OW Barth, Planegg 1955; AAGW, Sinzheim 1995
  • Rivolta contro il mondo moderno. 1934/1951
    • German edition: Survey against the modern world. Deutsche Verlags-Anstalt, Stuttgart 1935; New translation: Revolt against the modern world. Ansata-Verlag, Interlaken 1982, ISBN 3-7157-0056-4
  • The Aryan doctrine of battle and victory. A. Schroll & Co., Vienna 1941 (originally published in German)
  • Sintesi di dottrina della razza. 1941
    • German edition: Outlines of the fascist racial theory. Runge, Berlin [1943]
  • Gli uomini e le rovine. 1953
  • Introduzione alla magia come scienza dell'Io. 1955
    • German edition: Magic as a science of the self. Theory and Practice of Higher Consciousness
    • Volume 1: Practical Foundation of Initiation. Ansata-Verlag, Bern 1985, ISBN 3-7157-0072-6 ; Ludwig, Munich 1998, ISBN 3-502-20224-9
    • Volume 2: Steps to Initiation. Ludwig, Munich 1997, ISBN 3-502-20208-7
  • Metafisica del sesso. 1958
    • German edition: Metaphysics of Sex. Klett, Stuttgart 1962; Revised new edition: The great pleasure. Fischer-Media, Bern 1998, ISBN 3-85681-406-X
  • The "Operaio" nel pensiero di Ernst Jünger. 1959
    • German edition: The “worker” in Ernst Jünger's thinking. Le Rune, Milan 2003
  • Cavalcare la tigre. 1961
    • German edition: Cavalcare la tigre = Riding the tiger. Arun, Engerda 1997, ISBN 3-927940-27-5
  • About the initiative. Collection of articles. AAGW, Sinzheim 1998, ISBN 3-937592-09-1
  • Tradition and domination. Articles from 1932 to 1952. San Casciano Verlag, Aschau i. Ch. 2003, ISBN 3-928906-06-2

literature

German speaking
  • Richard Reschika: The promise of ecstasy. A philosophical journey through the erotic work of Georges Bataille and Julius Evola , Projekt Verlag, Bochum / Freiburg 2011. ISBN 978-3-89733-233-1
  • Patricia Chiantera-Stutte: The avant-garde becomes a tradition: Julius Evola. In: From the avant-garde to traditionalism: The radical futurists in Italian fascism from 1919 to 1931 . Campus Verlag 2002, ISBN 3-593-37006-9 , pp. 190-227
  • Armin Pfahl-Traughber : A classic of the anti-modern . In: Blick nach rechts No. 10/1998
  • Kilian Bartikowski: Evola, Julius , in: Handbuch des Antisemitismus , Volume 2/1, 2009, p. 219 f.
English speaking
  • Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke : Julius Evola and the Kali Yuga . In: Black Sun. Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity . New York University Press 2002, ISBN 0-8147-3155-4 , pp. 52-72
  • Mark J. Sedgwick: Against the Modern World: Traditionalism and the Secret Intellectual History of the Twentieth Century. Oxford University Press 2004, ISBN 0-19-515297-2 , pp. 95–118 (Fascism), pp. 179–188 (Terror in Italy)
  • Roger Griffin : Between metapolitics and apoliteia: the New Right's strategy for conserving the fascist vision in the 'interregnum' . In: Modern & Contemporary France. No. 8/1, 2000, pp. 35-53
  • Roger Griffin: Revolts against the Modern World: The Blend of Literary and Historical Fantasy in the Italian New Right. In: Literature and History. No. 11, 1985, pp. 101–123 ( Online ( Memento from July 20, 2011 in the Internet Archive ))
  • Roger Griffin: Revolting against the modern world. and Julius Evola revisited. In: Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning Under Mussolini and Hitler. Palgrave 2007, ISBN 1-4039-8783-1 , pp. 15-18, 39-42
  • Roger Griffin (Ed.): Fascism . Oxford Reader 1995, ISBN 0-19-289249-5 (Depiction of fascism using primary texts; from / to Evola: Fascism: Myth and Reality and The True Europe's Revolt against the Modern World )
  • Richard H. Drake: The Children of the Sun. In: The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy. Indiana University Press 1989, ISBN 0-253-35019-0 , pp. 114-134.
  • Richard H. Drake: Julius Evola and the Ideological Origins of the Radical Right in Contemporary Italy. In: Peter H. Merkl (Ed.): Political Violence and Terror: Motifs and Motivations. University of California Press 1986, ISBN 0-520-05605-1 , pp. 61-89
  • Richard H. Drake: Julius Evola, Radical Fascism and the Lateran Accords. In: The Catholic Historical Review. No. 74, 1988, pp. 403-419.
  • A. James Gregor: Doctrinal Interlude: The Initiatic Racism of Julius Evola . In: Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought. Princeton University Press 2005, ISBN 0-691-12009-9 , pp. 191-222
  • A. James Gregor: Julius Evola, Fascism, and Neofascism. In: The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science. Cambridge University Press 2006, ISBN 0-521-85920-4 , pp. 83-110
  • Aaron Gillette: Julius Evola and spiritual Nordicism, 1941-1943. In: Racial Theories in Fascist Italy. Routledge 2002, ISBN 0-415-25292-X , pp. 154-175
  • Hugh B. Urban: The Yoga of Power: Sex Magic, Tantra, and Fascism in Twentieth-Century Europe. In: Magia Sexualis: Sex, Magic, and Liberation in Modern Western Esotericism. University of California Press 2006, ISBN 0-520-24776-0 , pp. 140-161
  • Jeffrey Schnapp: Bad Dada (Evola). In: Leah Dickerman, Matthew S. Witkovsky (Eds.): The Dada Seminars. Washington 2005, ISBN 1-933045-14-0 , pp. 30-55
  • Steven Wasserstrom: The Lives of Baron Evola . In: Fascism and its Ghosts. Alphabet City 4/5, Toronto 1995, pp. 84-90
  • Franco Ferraresi: Julius Evola: Tradition, Reaction and the Radical Right. In: Archives européennes de sociologie. No. 28, 1997, pp. 107-151
  • Thomas Sheehan: Diventare dio: Julius Evola and the Metaphysics of Fascism . In: Stanford Italian Review. No. 6, 1986, pp. 279-292; also in: Thomas Harrison (Ed.): Nietzsche in Italy. Saratoga 1988, ISBN 0-915838-99-0
  • Thomas Sheehan: Myth and Violence: The Fascism of Julius Evola and Alain de Benoist . In: Social Research. No. 48, 1981, pp. 45-73
Italian

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Roger Griffin: Modernism and Fascism. P. 65
    The classification of Evola as a fascist is relatively controversial and is based on the underlying definition of fascism and the distinction between historical reality and the history of ideas. The best-known opponent of this classification is the American professor of political science A. James Gregor. Other scientists (Laqueur, Sedgwick, Chiantera-Stutte), however, refer to Evola's radical worldview as "ultra-fascism".
  2. ^ Leonard Weinberg: Evola, Julius (1898–1974). In: Cyprian P. Blamires (Ed.): World Fascism. A Historical Encyclopedia. Volume 1: A – K, ABC-CLIO, Santa Barbara 2006, ISBN 1-57607-940-6 , p. 216.
  3. ^ Anna Cento Bull: Italian neofascism. Berghahn Books 2007, p. 11.
  4. ^ Roger Griffin, Matthew Feldman: Fascism: Post-war fascisms. Taylor & Francis 2004, p. 236.
  5. ^ Walter Laqueur: The New Terrorism. Oxford University Press 2000, p. 123.
  6. ↑ Ernst Nolte : Theories about fascism. Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne and Berlin 1967, p. 41.
  7. ↑ In Evola's work, Kshatriya are “spiritual warriors” who manage to “ride the tiger” (Cavalcare la Tigre) - that is, to resist and overcome modernity.
  8. ↑ Claus Dettelbacher: In the mulberry grove. The doctrine of the 4 world ages: introduction to the traces of cyclical time. Reception, interfaces, philosophy of history. With constant consideration for Julius Evola . BoD, Norderstedt, 2008, ISBN 978-3-8370-6253-3 (extended diploma thesis at the University of Vienna).
  9. ↑ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke : The Occult Roots of National Socialism . 1982, ISBN 3-937715-48-7 , pp. 165 and Black Sun. Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity . 2002, ISBN 0-8147-3155-4 , p. 65 ff.
  10. ↑ Fritz Bauer Institute (Ed.): "Elimination of Jewish Influence ..." Anti-Semitic Research, Elites and Careers in National Socialism. Campus-Verlag, Frankfurt and New York 1999, ISBN 3-593-36098-5 , p. 70.
  11. ^ Joshua D. Zimmerman, Jews in Italy under Fascist and Nazi Rule, 1922-1945. P. 157.
  12. ^ Richard Drake: "Not an anti-Semite in the formal sense of the term, Evola did loathe Jews." The Children of the Sun in: The Revolutionary Mystique and Terrorism in Contemporary Italy .
  13. ^ The poisonous Protocols , Umberto Eco in the Guardian , August 17, 2002.
  14. ↑ Hans-Jürgen Lutzhöft: The Nordic idea in Germany. 1920-1940. Klett, Stuttgart 1972, ISBN 3-12-905470-7 , p. 272.
  15. ↑ Julius Evola: “Ordine Nuovo completely took over my ideas.” Interview in Elizabeth Antébi: Ave Lucifer. Calmann-Lévy, Paris 1970; quoted in Evola's reception in Italy , centrostudilaruna.it.
  16. ^ Export article Evola ( Memento of December 4, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) by Alfred Schobert, Jungle World , September 13, 2000.
  17. ^ Julius Evola - An Architect of Terror , Searchlight Magazine 12/98; german in trend online newspaper , 12/98.
  18. ↑ "Evola's racial doctrine is symbolically overloaded in a way that, in contrast to Hitler's biological racism, makes it seem innocent and naive." Friedrich Paul Heller , Anton Maegerle : Thule. From folk mythologies to the symbolic language of today's right-wing extremists. Butterfly-Verlag, 3rd revised edition, Stuttgart 2007, ISBN 3-89657-092-7 , p. 62.
  19. ^ Franziska Hundseder : Wotan's disciples. P. 145.
  20. ↑ "With this book that is available again today, [Evola] is a support for a new right, tired of civilization, disgusted by vodka and cola, who want 'back to the future' and an elitist order", ibid
  21. ↑ Thomas Pfeiffer : The New Right in Germany ( Memento from September 28, 2007 in the Internet Archive ) Publication of the Ministry of the Interior of North Rhine-Westphalia , pp. 47–49.
  22. ^ Anna Momigliano: The Alt-Right's Intellectual Darling Hated Christianity . In: The Atlantic (online edition), February 21, 2017.
  23. ^ Jan Raabe , Andreas Speit : Elitist Gestus and Integral Traditionalism: Cavalcare la Tigre . In: Andreas Speit (Ed.): Aesthetic mobilization. Dark Wave, Neofolk and Industrial in the field of tension of right-wing ideologies . Unrast Verlag, Münster 2002, ISBN 3-89771-804-9 , pp. 85-89.
  24. ↑ Johannes Lohmann, Hans Wanders: Evolas Jünger and Odins Krieger - Extremely right-wing ideologies in the dark wave and black metal scene . In: Christian Dornbusch, Jan Raabe (ed.): RechtsRock - inventory and counter-strategies . Unrast Verlag, Hamburg / Münster 2002, ISBN 3-89771-808-1 , p. 287-311 .
  25. ↑ Urfaschismus , lecture at Columbia University on the 50th anniversary of the liberation of Europe from National Socialism, April 24, 1995, published in ZEIT , No. 28/1995.
  26. ^ Stanley Payne : History of Fascism. Propylaen Verlag, Berlin 2001, ISBN 3-549-07148-5 , p. 616.
personal data
SURNAME Evola, Julius
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Evola, Baron Giulio Cesare Andrea (real name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian cultural philosopher
DATE OF BIRTH May 19, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Rome
DATE OF DEATH June 11, 1974
Place of death Rome