Friedrich Nietzche on the Way of Recurrence to Oneself
Natalya Shelkovaia
1 Instead of a Preface1
In a very difficult period of my life, short thoughts and aphorisms about the nature of a person and the world began to come to my mind. At first, I wrote them down on sheets of paper, then I got a big notebook, which eventually grew into a big book. While composing this “Diary of Thoughts” at some point the name “The Way of Recurrence to Oneself” occurred to me. Later, when I read works by the mystics, I noticed that “recurrence to oneself” was the goal of a mystical spiritual action. And more recently, carefully reading Friedrich Nietzsche’s works and working on them, I noticed again that for Nietzsche “re- currence to oneself” has been the aim of spiritual practice: “Lonely one, you go the way to yourself!”2 Only “recurring” to oneself can one be considered, accord- ing to Nietzsche, a super-human, a new person. Although, based on the idea of eternal recurrence, rooted in antiquity and reanimated by Nietzsche, the new person is only a regenerated, primordial one. And what is interesting: those works about Nietzsche, which seemed the most appealing and close to me in spirit, were, rather, not studies of his work, not “works about Nietzsche,” but “co-thinking, co-feeling with Nietzsche.” This implies similarity between their authors’ “vital world” (Lebenswelt) and that of Nietzsche. I saw this in Lev Shestov’s article, “The Good in the Teaching of Count Tolstoy and Friedrich Nietzsche,”3 in Andrei Bely’s article “Friedrich Nietzsche,”4 in the article by Vladimir N. Mironov “The Philosophy of History
1 This article was published in an abridged form in the journal Philosophical sciences, no. 10 (2015). The full text is published here for the first time. Unless otherwise noted, all italicized words in quotations are mine. 2 Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. A Book for All and None (Cambridge up, 2006), 47. 3 Lev Shestov, The Good in the Teaching of Count Tolstoy and of F. Nietzsche in Questions of Philosophy (“Dobro v uchenii gr. Tolstogo i F. Nietzsche”), Voprosy filosofii, no. 7 (1990): 59–128. 4 Andrei Bely, “Friedrich Nietzsche,” in Friedrich Nietzsche and Russian Religious Philosophy: Translations, Research, Essay of the “Silver Age” Philosophers in 2 vols. (Friedrich Nietzsche i
© koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���1 | doi:10.1163/9789004432543_041
2 Christ and Christianity, Nietzsche and Nietzscheanism
One of the most ancient problems which appeared, perhaps, with the emer- gence of language has been the interpretation of what was said, and later written. The age-old hermeneutic circle—understanding-interpretation- understanding—bit and bites itself, like a snake its tail, and is often very pain- ful. And the more extraordinary the speaking and writing personality is, the more complex the understanding and interpretation of what has been said and written. As for Jesus Christ and the Spiritual Teachers of humankind and Nietzsche and other geniuses, to understand and interpret what Christ said (He himself wrote nothing!) and what Nietzsche wrote can only be one who is “on the same vertical level” with them, at their “height”—one who is also a Spiritual Teacher or a genius himself. Those who are below their spiritual level inevitably distort their teachings. Sensing these distortions, Nietzsche, at the beginning of his work Beyond Good and Evil, draws the attention of readers to
russkaia religioznaia filosofiia: Perevody, issledovaniia, esse filosofov “Serebrianogo veka”), 1 (Al- kiona, 1996), 59–86. 5 Vladimir N. Mironov, The Philosophy of History of Friedrich Nietzsche in Questions of Phi- losophy (“Filosofiia istorii Friedricha Nietzsche,” Voprosy filosofii), no. 11 (2005): 163–75. 6 Igor I. Evlampiev, “This Worldly” Religiosity of F. Dostoyevsky and F. Nietzsche (On the Ques- tion of the Religious Content of Nonclassical Philosophy) in Questions of Philosophy (“‘Posiustoronniaia’ religioznost’ F. Dostoevskogo i F. Nietzsche” (K voprosu o religioznom soderzhanii neklassicheskoi filosofii,” Voprosy filosofii), no. 7 (2013): 121–32. 7 Karen A. Swassjan, “Friedrich Nietzsche: Martyr of the Knowledge” (“Friedrich Nietzsche: muchenik poznaniia”), F. Nietzsche Works: in 2 vols., 1 (Mysl, 1990), 5–46.